Bloomington

Gizmo continues to amaze me. Just when I think he’s having a bad week, and then I worry it may be his last week, I raelize he’s just fucking with me. He knows what’s going on. And he wants to make damn sure I know he knows.

I’ve been traveling a lot in the last few weeks, and when I finally got home, Gizmo wouldn’t let me out of his sight. That wasn’t new. But he started keeping me awake at night. Or rather, once I’d woken up in the middle of the night to turn over, he wouldn’t let me get back to sleep. He kept reaching his paw out (while sleeping on the pillow next to me) and touching my head, my eyeball, my mouth, my chin, whatever, with his paw. Over and over again. Head, eyeball mouth, and then pulling my chin, literally trying to move my head.I thought he wanted my pillow, so I moved. (Cuz I’d rather sleep on the other side than be kept awake by my cat, not because I think he deserves my pillow!)

When we first got Gizmo, he used to do that, but slightly differently. I would be sitting next to him and he would reach out and put his paw on my leg and just leave it there. I got the impression he was trying to say, “Mine,” just like my then-two-year-old nieces would do with something they wanted, finger poised on the toy. I belonged to Gizmo, apparently. We all know that’s come true.

But the pawing this time was different; it was repetitive and purposeful. But I didn’t know what it was about until after I was home a few days and realized I had been petting Gizmo constantly at night before bed. He sits in my lap on the couch while we watch TV and I was petting him for like two hours straight. Then we went to bed. And when I woke up in the middle of the night, he was petting ME. He was worried I would leave again, I guess. Or he wanted to make sure I knew he was there, which was the same reason I was petting him. And it’s stopped now that I’ve been home for a week. So I guess we’re all OK.

Then I wake up this morning, and he follows his morning routine just like I do.

• Me = my pill, water, pee, get Gizmo’s pill, give pill, give treat, start coffee, clean litter box, refill cat food, do dishes, get newspaper, pour coffee, walk into spare room to read/compute.
• Gizmo = wake up, sit on edge of bed, wait for pill, take pill, eat treat, wait on bed, curl up on bed, wake up, walk out bedroom door, stand in dining room, meow loudly, walk to entrance of spare room, wait, meow more, follow me into spare room, jump on sofa, be petted, curl up to sleep.

For the past few mornings, however, Gizmo’s routine has changed slightly. Instead of walking to the entrance of the spare room, he walks right next to the heat register in the floor of the living room, behind a bookcase that is like a column separating the liv/din rooms, and meows from there. It’s weird for two reasons: He’s never paid attention to the heat registers before. Yesterday the heat was blowing and he ignored it, but he usually doesn’t like stuff blowing on him. I chalked it up to being an unexpectedly cold morning and maybe Gizmo was finally showing signs of his age (wanting to cuddle up to the heat).

But this morning, he was in the same spot, no heat, and meowing. When I came around the corner, he was facing the bookcase, which basically meant he was facing the wall. Then I realized, there is a gap between the bookcase and the wall and he was looking between them, with a direct line of sight into the kitchen, where I walk out every morning, with coffee cup in hand, ready to go into the spare room. He knew my routine well enough and adjusted his so that he could better see me coming. (Really, I think he wanted to ensure his wait time, and time his meows if I were not walking fast enough.)

So Gizmo’s learned two new tricks this week. He’s a good cat. :)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 7:53 am and is filed under Giiiiiizmooooo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.