Merry Christmas or..... whatever

The view from my desk chair this morning. Sun just beginning to break through the fog. Damp outside, but above freezing, which is good. Had a little freezing rain yesterday morning, which I had to scrape from my windshields in order to visit the grocery for a little comfort food. Did not want to see it continue and have another big ice storm like last winter!

Whatever you celebrate today, or if you are in the Bah Humbug! category (like me), have a wonderful day, filled with kindness and love and peace.

Progress!

Hallelujah! Tonight the new white mouse made it to favored status in the food dish, along with a couple of plastic milk jug rings and the beloved blankie.

This is real progress. Prior to now, she's been fairly indifferent to this mouse. But tonight after a friend left I dug it out of the pile and tossed it for her. She immediately acted as if she loved it.

Didn't  play with it, just mouthed a couple of times, picked it up in her mouth and headed for the kitchen (where I found it shortly thereafter) then came back and settled into her chair for a nap.

This is a big deal in her world, and consequently in mine. Perhaps there will be peace now.

The blankie, incidentally, made it to the dish before my friend left and we laughed watching her drag this blanket by a very strange gait, keeping her feet from stepping on it as she dragged it behind her. I've seen this before, but the first time for my buddy.

Maybe she'll stop staring at me now.

Dead mousie

Remember this bedraggled little white mouse toy? Well, it's been the source of a lot of frustration, begging and general trauma for Kat over the last two days.

And for me as a side effect.

It all started yesterday morning. I was meditating, heard Kat and the rattle of this toy as she batted it into the room and near where I was seated. Once my time was up, I noticed an unfamiliar dark object nearby, where Kat had been playing with the mouse. Picked it up and it was the 'innards' of the toy. A vaguely mouse-shaped plastic shape with a rattle inside it.

So I thought, OK, maybe now she'll use the identical replacement I bought for her last week, that's mostly been ignored.

Not a chance.

As the day went on yesterday the begging and pleading got worse and worse. I looked everywhere for the fuzzy remnants of the mouse, thinking I'd sew it back together. But I still haven't found it. And she's still been  begging and pleading and crying pitifully all day again today. She's clearly begging me to do something, also keeps pawing at the space under the fridge where I often have to dig toys out for her. But I keep looking, and there's nothing there. I can't imagine anything else that she'd be wanting me to fix.

I've tried to offer the new one, but she sniffs and walks away. Tonight, I tried her tactics. Dipped it in her water dish and blotted it mostly dry. She sniffed with some interest, but eventually walked away. I rubbed it on the carpet inside her carrier, where she sleeps a lot, rubbed it in her food dish and left it there. Trying to make it smell familiar, like her instead of whatever it smells like when new. Have I succeeded? Only time will tell. She gave up and took a nap.

Life in the middle of the night

1:30am. Tired of not sleeping, staying in bed because 'it's night and time to sleep so I need to stay here even if I'm not sleeping'. Screw that!

So -- got up, closed the windows that are open a crack to keep the place cool enough to sleep (it's 25F outside). Turned on the heat and, finally, the light. Kat comes into bedroom stretching and murmuring sounds that can only mean 'what's going on?' in a sleepy way only a cat can manage quite so well.

She's confused as hell, and giving me a good laugh in the process. What else is there to do in the middle of the night? Coffee is brewing. The computer is on and bringing news (nothing good, but news anyway).

I could go and binge-watch the new season of The Crown on Netflix that was released yesterday, but that would require getting out my 'old' bluetooth headphones and re-synching them with the TV, so I don't disturb neighbors, and I'm just not into that at the moment. The 'new' ones I bought a couple of months ago, that are so much more comfortable to wear, never worked properly, but to their credit Woot! refunded my $$ with no quarrels and told me to not bother returning them.

I could read, and probably will. I have a book on my Kindle that is going to disappear tomorrow, I think it is, and I'm only barely halfway through  it.

I can watch the cat pondering the issue of whether or not it's time for her breakfast, regardless of what time it is, since I'm up. The little sounds are increasing in volume and frequency, so I think she's decided that breakfast needs to be in the offing. Such a spoiled little brat, but a sweet one.