Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer, 106-43 BCE. (Thanks to xpioti, who took it from AWAD.)

There is a particular pattern of movement that is specific to active pursuit of a mouse. It is not duplicated when Perrine is stalking the mouse, investigating a noise, playing with a toy, watching birds, or pouncing on my toes under the blanket. She only moves in that exact way when the mouse is both in sight an within reach ... and usually within reach because she's already caught it once and has released it to play with.

I know what that pattern of movement feels like when the bed shakes because Perrine has just brought a mouse to my bed to play with. Asleep, I know that pattern of movement. It's one of the few stimuli that reliably wake me up (the impending hairball noise is another). As I said, it's quite distinct from the ways she moves at other times.

I am suddenly, and rather prematurely, very much awake. This morning's mouse -- about half grown, I think, from the size of it -- has gotten away into a place neither Perrine nor I can reach. I almost caught it myself twice, between Perrine's arrival in the bedroom with her live toy in her teeth and the time it beat both of us to the too-narrow place. Perrine did catch it twice more in that time, but let it go again both times, of course. *sigh* I needed the sleep, dammit.

At least I caught the one she brought in while I was sleeping a few days ago. Why couldn't she be one of the cats that uses the bathtub for playing with her prey, instead of the bed? (I know, I know, it's probably because I don't sleep in the bathtub.) Let's see how long it takes before I manage to convince myself I can ignore the knowledge that the mousie is uncaught in the bedrrom so I can get back to sleep.