Friday cat blogging: Maya in the new place

We are having a somewhat gloomy day at Acts of Hope, weather-wise and otherwise. The resident human, being the queen of delayed reactions, has finally been feeling the impact of the last couple of months with the Great Tree Disaster, the precipitous move, the unceasing onslaught of work, the gazillions of boxes to unpack (remember they were packed in haste -albeit by the moving company- so the chaos factor was high and the labeling accuracy low), six nearly simultaneous deadlines (four of which the aforementioned human did not meet and still has hanging over her increasingly grey head), and several other stressors. There is also the advent of shorter days. Seasonal Affective Disorder, anyone? (Try this. I'm serious.)

The resident feline, on the other hand, is cheery, with the occasional trace of post-traumatic reaction when someone moves furniture or shuffle boxes around. Her Grace does have her favorite napping spots, though, set up by her Canon to the Extraordinary.

When we first moved, she headed for the Canon's pillow every day and sometimes every night. Here she is either opening her eyes from a nap because of the sound of the camera or still freaked out by the move. Behind her is the headboard to the Canon's grandparents' bed, which the tree disaster broke into bits. But it's easy to lean the rescued headboard against the wall and make a plain ol' cheap bed look fancy. We have saved the pieces of the old bed and maybe some day we can have it fixed. We're not holding our breath.


Now Her Grace has migrated and has found other soft spots. She has a perch in the bedroom and another in the living room. Here's the bedroom one. The piece of furniture is the landlady's and instead of having it in a corner, we have it in front of the window. The windows here are much higher up than the windows in the old place. With this particular perch Miss Maya can be up against the window as she likes to be, thanks to these nice open shelves. At first she napped on the bare shelf, quite happily, but now there is an old mattress pad, nice and soft, for her leisure. It's not pretty but it's comfy.


Here's the living room one. The Canon is going to have to move the cushions, one of which belongs elsewhere, but she has held off in the interests of feline episcopal stability, and for about a month this has been the main episcopal seat in the house. Note the sage napping pose.


This is an all-purpose cathedra (bishop's seat). It is good for napping and also for watching kitty tv, of which there is plenty: birds, squirrels, rain, and now a few falling leaves.

It is also good for keeping a lookout for the Canon when she returns home.

Next to the Feline Bishop Extraordinaire is a makeshift curtain of Indian print with elephants on it. We think the Canon to the Extraordinary has had this piece of material since college, but we're not sure. For now, it works to give the living room some privacy.

We took down the landlady's curtains for a variety of aesthetic reasons. The windows are, as they say, butt-ugly, and we are going to get new window treatments, we just haven't yet. (One more thing on the list.) But the old window treatments had to go.

This window is not much of one since it is where the air conditioner lives (the old place had central air conditioning and big picture windows) but it does provide a great place for +Maya Pavlova to jump onto, and sometimes when she is up there, once she has finished looking out at the leaves and the bugs and the birds,

she poses.


She wants you to see both profiles. Aren't they handsome? Is this not the most regal feline bishop you have ever seen, even on top of an air conditioner in a butt-ugly window? Not for nothing is Maya Pavlova the Right Reverend AND Right Honorable.

Here you can see she can still look a little freaked out. Bishops are human, er, feline too, you know. Remember your bishops are breathing feeling animals.


Mostly though, she's okay.

Click on the photos to enlarge them. Especially this last one.