I think she’s feeling at home now.
Jan 122010
Dec 302009
By now Duchess has gotten used to Devant’s presence, at least enough that she no longer needs to hide under our bed all day. She comes out when he’s around, and even crept over to have a sniff at him once. But she’s still skittish, because she’s a timid creature—it took her weeks to get used to Alpha Geek and the boys.
Devant lives with cats himself, and is rather hurt by her reticence. “I’m going to make friends with your cat,” he declared this evening, and set about trying to win Duchess over.
Unfortunately though he lives with cats, and likes them, he doesn’t appear to understand them. He doesn’t know how to relate to a timid cat in a way that reassures her. He approaches her as he would one of the cats with whom he’s familiar, animals who know him and will come willingly for petting.
Naturally this approach freaks Duchess out. She’s gotten to where she’ll come out and be with us, and even play, while Devant is around, but she feels very uncomfortable at having him advance on her. Whenever he attempts it, she flees to the basement.
He seems to have abandoned the effort for the evening. Duchess has curled up right beside me, where it’s safe.
Dec 232009
The kids are out of school, Alpha Geek has one more day to work. We couldn’t quite manage to work up some snow, but it is getting very… brisk at night.
Alpha Geek’s uncle, Devant, has come south for the winter. His normal habitat is Ottawa, but he’s making a migration to (relatively) warmer climes for the next couple of weeks. This year he’s staying with us during his visit. I’ve spent the last week or so fretting, because the only place we’ve got room to set up another bed is our unfinished basement. It gets awfully chilly down there at night and I worried Devant would get too cold.
“He’s from Canada,” Alpha Geek assured me. “He’s probably going to think we keep the house way too warm anyway. He’ll be fine.”
Devant got in last night; this morning I found he had moved up from the basement and was asleep on the couch. I told them the basement got cold at night.
Nonetheless, he seems happy enough to be here. He hasn’t seen the boys in years, and wanted to stay with us so he’d have more chance to do so this visit. He’s been telling them his stories, which is what grandkids and nephews are for.
Duchess is less than thrilled about this strange person in her home. When she’s nervous about strangers she retreats to the basement. This stranger is in the basement. He has invaded her little sanctuary and she doesn’t know what to do with herself.
Normally we keep the bedroom door shut so she can’t get in, but today I’ve been leaving it open so she can hide under our bed. That gives her a safe place to retreat when the strange new person is moving around. Before I did that, she was getting so stressed out her tail was fluffing up with anxiety.
Devant accompanied me to the grocery store this afternoon, so we could get him some things he likes to eat. He mentioned that we might get some chocolate chip cookies.
“Director can make those,” I responded, grabbing a bag of semi-sweet morsels. “He’s been wanting to for a week or so anyway.”
The Director loves to make cookies. When he was little I showed him how to make cookies just so he could feel like there was something he could do, during a period when he was having trouble in school and feeling kind of discouraged. Now he loves to make them because of the positive associations he has with cookie-baking.
He also commiserated with his uncle about my unreasonable attitude towards food in my car. Poor Devant got a bag of chips at the store as we were checking out—but I wouldn’t let him eat them in the car.
“Yeah, she won’t let anybody eat in her car,” sympathized the Director.
What can I say, I’m peculiar about my car.