Clever Cat

My oldest cat Midnight has developed arthritis and has decided to stay in the living room. We have an interesting set-up here with a bowl of dry cat food on either side of the room, each a different flavor, one on an end table and one on a couple boxes of knitting stash. There's also two bowls of water now, on either side. Midnight also has canned cat food delivered to one spot twice a day.

There is a heated cat bed in one corner on top of a painted chest of drawers near the window. I bought the bed when my cat Jenny was ill with chronic renal failure. I brought it out again thinking that the warmth might help Midnight feel better, especially in winter. Her youngest sister Molly also likes the cat bed. She doesn't have a very thick coat, probably because of her Cornish Rex and Siamese ancestry. She tries to steal into it during the day.

Today when I came into the living room Midnight started bouncing around like she does when she wants to play. I picked up the ostrich feather that was lying on the sofa and started waving it around. After batting at it a couple times, she bounced onto the ottoman away from me. Hmm. I thought a moment and went to get the bag of balls that I bought on sale a while ago. I started to toss the nerf balls to her. Molly was in the heated cat bed and climbed out to see what I was doing and Emily showed up too. To distract them I tossed a ball the other way past them. The next thing I knew Midnight crossed the window shelves to the other side of the room and hopped into the heated cat bed. She sat there looking quite pleased with herself. Quite a clever ploy she thought up.