welcome to camp telophase

One of Sora's nemeses is the white shag rug in my office. He won't set foot on it willingly unless it's for very good reason, such as a bunch of catnip placed on it just out of his reach, and he remains unhappy about having to do so. (He won't set foot on bathmats, either. I don't know what he's got against fluffy flooring.)

Today--I'm working from home as I got crap for sleep and will keel over at some point and nap to stave off a migraine--I'm standing in my office looking for my grey sweatshirt to pull on as it's cold in the house, and Sora jumps onto the table next to me. I pick him up and give him a quick snuggle, then acting on impulse place him down on the floor, directly in the center of the white shag rug.

This deactivates the cat. At least for a short time. Sora remained frozen, looking around for escape, only to be confronted with an endless sea of white shag surrounding him. (Note that the rug is 4' x 6' so that at the worst, Sora is separated from laminate flooring by only 3 feet, and his shortest route to the floor is about 18".)

Sora begins backing up slowly, holding his right paw off the floor as if the rug were lava, and reverses off the rug, into Nefer, who is not impressed with this and croaks at him (Nefer has quite a repertoire of squeaks and croaks), but his terror of the rug is stronger than his terror of Nefer so he continues backing into her until all four paws are off the rug. At which point Sora cowers, shoots me a look of HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS I TRUSTED YOU and slinks out of the room.

He has only just now come back into my office, and is skulking about the edge of the rug fearfully in case it leaps up and devours him.

(Next time, I'll get this on video!)

ETA: If you read the blow-by-blow in the comments over on LJ, you can see Sora overcoming his fear due to catnip. And here is is, voluntarily sitting on the rug!
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-- A gentle pat on the back.

Nefer walking up behind him.
telophase imitating Carl Kasell imitating a vuvuzela.

Sora and Nefer chased a cockroach earlier. It got away by the time I got a shoe to smash it, and Sora is now freaked the fuck out. He's slinking around, eyes wide, staring at nothing, and jumping at the least little sound or movement. Well, moreso than usual. I figured that at least some of you would sympathize. :)

(The temperature hit the 90s and all of a sudden we started seeing roaches - only 4 so far, but that's 4 too many. I did some poking around and found that diatomaceous earth, like I want for the garden, does the same thing to roaches that it does to other bugs, AND that catnip is a proven roach repellant. XD We just need to simmer some of the Chronic Catnip in water to make a tea, then get a squeezy bottle and hit around the house. I think we can handle that.)

The corner of a washrag poking out from beneath a cabinet door.

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