Cats are mysterious. I like it when they get a stubborn idea in their head and it confounds me.
When our two cats were adolescents, wertperch and grundoon visited. I have an old house, from 1929, and it has quirks. We had put the cheap little metal hair catchers in the sink, because the old drain mechanisms were broken and the plumbing has some challenges.
While wertperch and grundoon were here, I kept finding the hair catchers out of the drains. I returned them to the drains, but after a while I wondered what, indeed, my guests had against hair catchers. Were these somehow offensive to them?
Then I found one half-way down a hallway and realized that it was not wertperch and grundoon, but the cats. Ah!
Another time I was sitting at the computer and I heard splashing, from the nearby bathroom. It started and stopped. I sneaked to peer in: black cat Boa was digging in the toilet. She had an air of determination, as if she would figure out this plumbing thing. She worked on that for a time period. I'm not sure what she learned.
Both cats know if we're packing. Boa circles and protests when I get the suitcases out, while Princess Mittens gets upset because Boa is.
If I am upset, the cats will "guard" me. Boa will sit on the corner of my bed facing the door and Princess will sit in that cat-ham position, all feet tucked under, in the doorway facing out. I notice, realize that I am feeling guarded about something and that the cats are being protective.
When I had influenza viral pneumonia, my chest hurt. The cats worried. Boa would sit on my chest and purr, and that was one of the few things that made it hurt less. It took two months to heal enough to return to work.
Currently the cats have something going with a doll. Not just any doll. I have china dolls. Grundoon and I and cousins played elaborate games with them when we were little. We made furniture and clothes and collected things for the houses. I wrote tiny school papers. I have strong packrat genes, so I still have all of it, even the cracker jacks books. Those were treasured.
The dollhouse is a set of shelves at the top of the stairs. When the Introverted Thinker set it up, she only used half the furniture that I had stuffed in to it, and she put the rest away. It is open and open to the cats. One of the dolls belonged to my grandmother and we have clothes made when she was little. But the doll that holds the cats' interest is named Kitty and was the one that I identified with the most.
The cats are carrying Kitty around the house. This morning she was down a floor and on the stairs leading to outside. The cats are allowed out in the early morning, when I crack the back door. There is a landing with the back door halfway down the basement stairs. A half-basement, I suppose.
I retrieved Kitty and returned her to the dollhouse. I haven't caught the cats carrying her around, but my son commented on them moving her a few days ago. I've retrieved her twice so far.
I'm not sure what this is about. The cats are mysterious. I hope they don't carry the doll outside to lose her but as always, I am interested in what they are doing. Why that doll? And why now? I wonder if the doll has something to do with me or with my daughter, but I do not know.