Going to the dark side...

Rufus slept during the evening.  A little snooze to give him energy through the night.  The ruckus started around 2:00.

We have an orange cat toy that was Izzy's favorite - it is a ball that is captive in a round container.  When Iz would play with it (knocking the ball around the track), the activity would last for a minute at most and Joan would always say, "That sound makes me smile."  Knowing Joan was happy made me smile.

We tried to get Rufus to play with that toy the first day, but he wasn't sure about it.  Yesterday, he played with it a couple times, but being a strong boy, he hit it hard enough that it slid under one of the seats.  Joan put some non-skid under it to keep it in place.

It worked.  It stayed perfectly in place while Rufus whacked the heck out of it.  For about 15 minutes.  At 2:00 in the morning.  As in: AM.  This morning in our lack of sleep stupor, Joan said, "That sound still makes me smile."

"Me, too; for about the first few minutes."

Alas, that was the beginning of the night's activities.  Rufus is not a big cat, but he is solid.  When jumping down from something, it sounds a bit like a soft cotton ball dropping to the floor... and being smashed by a bowling ball.  As near as I can tell, he jumped from the dash to the floor... ran to the bed, climbed over me to get Joan to pet him... made sure she was awake so she could keep the petting going... then, would jump to the floor again, sounding like the aforementioned bowling ball.

This routine went on for what seemed like hours, but I'm sure it was only hours.

Then, it was time for a potty break.  In the relative quiet of the night, he arranged every pellet in the litter box for the fung shui that pleased him.  I mentioned that he is not a big cat.  I would put him well into medium cat size.  He eats like there will never be another meal.  He shits the size of a Great Dane.  TMI?  Yeah, I would have thought so, too... since I do the "front end" and Joan does the "back end."  After his first solid bowel movement, Joan said, "You need to see this!"  She was wrong - I most certainly did not need to see that.  It was huge.  Startlingly so.  To get back to last night, I heard "the plop" that sounded much like one of the Three Stooges being hit in the face with a large fish.  Even more TMI?

After evacuating his bowels, he gets frisky.  Worse than the ball whacking and the bowling ball impersonation?  Yes.  We have a hamper-bag that fits neatly under Joan's side of the bed - it is out of the way, but handy.  Joan is planning on doing laundry today, so she had moved that bag to one of the front seats.  That left a solid open area under that side of the bed, enclosed on three sides.  I am not sure if he was playing hand ball or doing a Jackie Chan jumping around impersonation.

Joan clapped at him (that scares him... and me) and hollered, "No!"  He stopped.  He was very quick in learning you don't piss off the Momma.  Well, it apparently took her way more time to get pissed off than it took me.  I was still pissed about the loud ball whacking.

Fortunately, it was beginning to be daylight, so there wasn't going to be any getting back to sleep.  I got up to feed him and get our morning starters ready.  He thanked me... going for volume and duration.  It is hard to stay mad at that quirky face.

After he ate, he went to the dash of the coach to settle in for his morning nap... no doubt he was worn out after all the middle-of-the-night activities.  We have a windshield cover that has a front flap you can open so you can see out the windshield.  I pulled that down yesterday so he could see out, and he seemed to enjoy the view.  We also have inside sun shields that we put up in that area, but Joan had moved the passenger side over so Rufus could see out.  We closed up the outside flap when it got dark last night.  This morning, the inside sun shield was still over on the driver's side, so it left a light area on the passenger side of the dash and a dark area on the driver's side of the dash.

When Rufus went up to the dash to get some rest, he first went to the driver's side.  Joan said, "Look, he went to the dark side."  Through the laughter, I said, "No shit!"

We really need to keep him awake all evening so he will sleep through the night.  Looking at him lying peacefully, sleeping on the dash this morning (on the light side, because it is more comfortable), I just want to... go up and honk the horn!  One of us thinks that would be vindictive.  Vindictive... justice... it's a fine line.

;-)