Update on Miss Mimi

Miss Mimi is leaving kitten hood behind and becoming a cat ‘teenager’. She’s learning to use her wiles and kittenish charms to get her way. I’m not positive that she knows her name, but I suspect she knows it when it suits her. We are learning and adjusting to each other’s routines. I’m becoming familiar with cat behavior which is both amusing and destructive if one isn’t aware that curiosity is a cat’s middle name.

My first awareness came when I discovered the cord used to charge my cell phone had been chewed in two as well as the wires of the house phone. The cost of replacement and repair was a signal to cat proof wires by wrapping them with Radio Shack tape designed for that purpose. Mimi is still teething but chewing is giving way to other pastimes.

Her curiosity knows no bounds. I often catch her eyeing something she has noticed for the first time. She likes to pounce, stalk and wrestle. She is teaching herself how to catch mice and fight off enemies. Her favorite play is jumping in and out of her cardboard boxes or paper bag, and protecting the toys she has placed in them, then jumping out to claim victory over some imagined prey. In the morning after she eats, she gets hyper and likes to race from room to room checking on all the secret nooks and crannies she has found. She lurks around corners for imagined prey and constantly faces danger in the protection of her toys.

Mimi purrs while she sleeps. She likes to be on my lap especially in the morning while I sip coffee and watch the morning TV news. She snuggles into a crook in my arm and purrs away and sleeps until the news is over. If she’s not on my lap while I’m sitting with my feet on the ottoman, she leans against my legs and relaxes into a purring sleep.

She is constantly aware of where I am and follows me from room to room. If I’m in my bedroom working on the computer, she curls up on the bed and sleeps or grooms her long fur. If the light bothers her while sleeping, she moves to the closet and stretches out in the shadow of my granny dresses.

Mimi has several favorite sleeping places if my lap is not available. The higher the look out spot, the happier she is. The window ledge by far is the one chosen most often, but she also likes the glass table near the TV where I keep all manner of things at my finger tips like the ‘whodunnit’ I’m reading, pencils, cell phone, reading glasses, Kleenex and a small bottle of sanitizer. A chair with a stack of pillows is always a favorite. The other day I found her sleeping in the bathroom sink!