For I have brought to the village a new cardboard scratchy pad and have doused it with catnip.
When high on catnip, Phoebe becomes - if this is possible - even more affectionate. The cheek-swiping orgies that follow a good catnip dosing are legendary. She gets so into the cheek swips, that the teeth start to come into play and I really start to feel like my personal boundries are being broken - so after a while she gets some quiet time in the bedroom.
In fact she needs "quiet time" frequently, even without catnip. She works herself up into such a frenzy sometimes, either from hunting ("YES YES YES THE FEATHER TOY YES YES YES RAWR"), joy ("sunshine! nap! food! birdies to watch! I must run around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and ..."), or pleasure ("Scratch me here. Yeah, that's the ticket, oh baby, scratch me there, bow chicka bow wow oh yeah"). And she totally understands this quiet time. If I pick her up and take her to the bed and put her down in a nest of blankets, she immediately hunkers down and looks guilty. She'll stay there until I come back and get her - or rather, usually she does. If she's *REALLY* wound up, she'll try sneaking out, but she's not very smart - or very sneaky - as I can hear her jump down (KA-THUDDDD!) and hear her snurfle the kitchen floor. If I put her back there a second time, she stays for good. It usually only takes about 10 minutes for her to unwind and de-demonize. When I put her there she'll be poofed out, red-eyed, fang-y devil cat. When I go back to get her, she's sleek and purry and cute and curly wurly snurfle my belly please kitty. Jekyll and Hyde.
I worried at first that using the bed this way might confuse her, or make her scared of the bed for night time, but nope - she voluntarily goes there to nap during the day, and she *LOVES* sleeping on the humans at night in bed.
Because of the new catnip board, I'm allowing more devil-kitty time than normal, and it looks like she's comingdown on her own this time. I've only been swiped at once in the past ten minutes as i walk past the scratch board, where she is Robin-Hood-ing and attacking any traveling cat toy that might happen to brave Catwood Forest without guards.....
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