My older cat, she who parked herself on the front steps in a snowstorm and stayed there all night to get my attention when she first adopted us, is lying on top of my computer back-pack and watching the snow fall. She’ll stay out if there’s a reason to (and evidently getting my attention was reason enough, since she did have a nice warm barn to retreat to at the time), but warmth and indoor-ness are Good For Cats, and she is not one to deny herself the good things.
Her daughter, on the other hand, is like any teenager. She’s restless, she’s got more energy than she knows what to do with, and she doesn’t believe it when Mom says “look, kid, it’s cold out there. See those snowflakes blowing sideways? There’s a fair bit of wind, and I’m telling you, it cuts right through the fur.” So at intervals, little Miss Tornado insists that she must go Outside. Now. She is convinced that each snowflake might possibly conceal a mouse, and must investigate personally. So I open the door for her, she darts out, and I wait.
It hasn’t taken more than five minutes yet for her to realize that hey, it’s not just cold out there, it’s cold out there. Freeze the fur off your tail cold. Make your whiskers shiver cold. Make you want to levitate all four paws off the ground at once and keep them there cold. (It really is; the windchill’s about 10 below zero.) At which point, if I open the door a crack, she darts in as quickly as she went out and jumps into my lap, purring enthusiastically and grooming whatever part of me she can reach. “Oooh, you’re nice and warm, I think I’ll let the snow-mice play by themselves, why did you let me go out in that?”
She’s in my lap right now. And judging by the rest of the day, she’ll stay here about 10 minutes, wander around the house for half an hour, and then be back. I’m not sure if she thinks it will have warmed up, or if she simply forgets how cold it was. But she will be scratching at the door again, mewing frantically, demanding to chase the snow-mice. If the definition of insanity is repeating the same action under the same conditions and expecting a different result, then Tornado is completely insane.
ROFLMAO, Of course she is!! She’s a teenage cat!
Hello,
I am SO glad to see that you are feeling well enough to blog! I have been thinking of you often and hope you heal quickly and feel much better soon! I miss you very much and think of you often, and am keeping my fingers crossed that this is the end of the monster for you.
Love,
Kerry
Ahh, yes, another battle in the war between Feline Perversity and Feline Comfort.
Feline Perversity says, “I must be on the other side of that door”.
Feline Comfort says, “It’s warm in here!”
As a cat ages, she subsumes the active nature of Feline Perversity into the Zen of Feline Comfort.