I call it the cat cave. Or should it be the cat canyon?
A little background may be in order here. George, our lovely geriatric cat, decided that he really prefers sleeping in an enclosed space during the day. It started out by him “asking” to get under the covers early in the morning. He would root around and paw at the covers until I lifted them up and he could snuggle under. But, being a cat, it wasn’t enough to be under the covers. For some reason he won’t tolerate having the covers touch him. So, when I am in bed alone with him, I put a pillow across from me and drape the covers over me and the pillow, essentially making a “cave.”
I guess he has been doing that for about three or four years. Some mornings he doesn’t want to get up when I do, so I started replacing me with another pillow and leaving him to the bed for as long as he likes. On some days, that turns out to be the whole day, with breaks from napping for a quick bite to eat, potty breaks, and drinks of water.
During the winter, when the wood stove is constantly burning, he has a commercially made kitty tent that sits in a rocker that he inhabits. It really concentrates the heat of the stove and couples that with his own kitty furnace output for one very cozy spot. But as the seasons change, and the stove sessions become more infrequent, he moves back to the bed.
Knowing that Albert, my husband, isn’t crazy about having the cat sleep in the bed throughout the day (there are those occasional stray bits of kitty litter that end up between the sheets), I started making a cave out of two pillows on top of the bed that are covered with the ubiquitous fleece blanket. This seems to be an agreeable compromise and all three of us are happy…George, because he gets his cave and his way, Albert because he gets the cat out of the bed and gets his way, and me, because both my bed mates are happy.
About a week ago I got up and George was already downstairs doing his morning business. I made the bed, but didn’t make the cave. There was plenty of sunshine pouring through the windows elsewhere in the house and I figured he could make do with that. There are plenty of other cozy spots to take a nap. He has a kitty cliff hanger device in my office window that I figured (apparently wrongly) would do just fine.
About an hour later, George disappeared and then reappeared, meowing very loudly (he has a funny meow, but more on that in another missive). He wouldn’t stop and when I walked toward him, he started for the stairs. He stayed about three steps ahead of me, meowing, and led me up the stairs and to the bed. Up he jumped, where he stood in the exact spot where his cave should be. He continued meowing as I placed the pillows. He lay down between them, and dare I say it, smiled as I pulled the blanket over his head. Needless to say, I haven’t missed making his cave once since then, and he now goes through the same procedure, waiting as I neaten the covers, and then standing or sitting where his cave should be until I finish constructing it.
Now even a cat can get too warm, and the sun shines into our bedroom rather strongly in the late afternoon. So for the past couple of weeks, his cat cave becomes a cat canyon in the afternoon. At some point (I haven’t seen it happen) he moves from under the covers to lie between the pillows in the lovely cozy valley they create. That’s how I find him in the afternoon, all warm and snuggly in his fleecy canyon with the sun baking his old bones.
I’ve lived with this cat for 18-plus years, and he can still surprise me with his intelligence, persistence, and charm. Those who claim that animals don’t think, who go so far as to say they have no soul, are sad and lonely folks. All they really need is a day with a cat like George to change their wrong thinking. His companionship and constancy, and ability to grow and change, have been a blessing without measure.
