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Charles on a hot steel stove
Tuesday, December 26 2017
Gretchen was working today and so was I, and since I was working from home, it fell to me to babysit Neville. He didn't make it easy, escaping from his prison during or immediately after Gretchen's departure. I brought in some pieces of scrap particleboard to build up the walls in the low places. But then he escaped a second time; I happened to catch him as he stood atop the living room coffee table, having used a pillow as a step to get up there. This sent me off to get yet more particleboard and plywood.
At least Neville has been good about taking care of bodily functions when I take him outside on a leash (the only way he is supposed to be walked these days). Today it grew steadily colder as an arctic airmass entered the area, and it was important for Neville to take care of his business quickly. This evening he went into the dog house, the place where I normally store pine needles (though I neglected to harvest any this fall). I wondered what he was doing in there and then figured it out from the smell. He'd taken a massive shit! That might seem like a bad thing, but it's not. Neville has been bad about going out into the rain to attend to his personal needs, but if the roofed space of the doghouse makes for a safe place for him to shit in the rain, that's a higher use of that space than simply storing pine needles. I fully endorse this application!
Today Neville wasn't my only problem; Ramona was also being very needy (probably because of how little exercise she's been getting). She wouldn't tolerate being in the recuperation fort with Neville without me there (and even if she were fine with it, I would've been worried about she and Neville playing aggressively, which is forbidden by the recuperation protocol). I ended up having to spend much of my day in the fort with my trusty laptop (Hyrax). Luckily, it was a slow work day. I can do any sort of work from that laptop, but (what with the lack of screen real estate and no place to use a mouse) it's harder. Eventually I got lost in a vortex of YouTube videos showcasing various lifehacks. These didn't have any narration and worked entirely by visual demonstration, all set to a peppy modern instrumental soundtrack (the music was inoffensive and unrecognizable and not all that cheesy). Interestingly, most of these videos appeared to have been produced in Russia.
Charles and Clarence have been the two cats most excited to hang out in the recuperation fort. Today Charles was exploring around the front of the woodstove and then jumped onto a chair nearby. I saw he was about to jump up on top of the stove, and there was nothing I could do to stop him (it was rather hot at the time). He went for it, and when he landed, he kept walking, as if thinking his next step would be a cool one. He then let out a hiss, made U-turn, and jumped back to the chair. Total time on the stove: about one second. He didn't seem uncomfortable afterwards, suggesting the heat hadn't had enough time to damage the pads of his feet.
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