Meowing...Penguins?

Sasha is the sweetest cat, but she is not always the brightest bulb on the tree. Her meowing is incessant, and sometimes she meows at inanimate objects. Particularly closed doors. I think she used to do this on occasion, but there seemed to be a dramatic increase after Latino entered her life. We have a spare bedroom where Latino keeps some of his things. We keep the cats out to try to have one allergen free space. Sasha always wants to go in there with him and she likes to sit right outside the door when he enters that room. She likes to make sure that he knows she is there.

Then Sasha developed a habit of howling outside the door at random times Latino was nowhere near that room. Latino refers to it as "meowing at the door". After witnessing this a couple times, I hypothesized that she thought he was in the room even when he was not. Sure enough, when he called her name from the living room, she ran as fast as she could to the sound of his voice. I don't know why she assumes he is in that room when he is not. I have read that cats over a certain age can get dementia, so of course Latino says that she is afflicted by that. I think she is just really not that observant.

We saw some penguins at the zoo recently. We watched them for a few minutes, enjoying their antics. Then Latino pointed out a door along the far wall. Standing right outside was a penguin facing toward the door. Latino said, "That penguin is meowing at the door!"

How sweet! He was thinking of our cats when he was watching other animals at the zoo. He must really love them!

What IS That Smell?

A few years ago I had a cold for over a week, and along with it I lost my sense of smell. When I finally started regaining the use of my nose, I unlocked the door to my condo and was almost knocked over by an awful stench. It took a few minutes of investigative work to finally locate the source: a partially liquefied potato. Even after removing what was left of the potato from the premises, its smell lingered for a time and its memory burned into my mind. If you have smelled partially liquefied potatoes, I am sure you understand.

This experience has led me to be a bit paranoid when I have had subsequent colds. I can imagine an army of bacteria waging a similar attack on what used to be my produce, while I am none the wiser. So after my most recent cold and several days of sub par smelling abilities, I was cautious when I was able to start smelling again. I began walking around the kitchen and smelling everything, convinced that there was a strange odor somewhere. When Latino walked in, I asked if he smelled anything. He denied it at first, but I persisted that there was a bad smell in our place. "Something smells here. What is it?!" Sasha chose that exact moment to walk into the kitchen and meow. Without missing a beat or saying a word, Latino pointed at Sasha.

Well played, Latino. I should have known better than to ask.

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