At 04:15AM I was awakened by a terrible racket. I have vertical blinds with a bamboo Roman shade as my window treatment in the bedroom. The shade is mainly for decoration and to keep the summer sun out. The blinds are the workhorse. At night I just have the vertical blinds drawn for privacy and the shade is up. I also had the window locked open about 4 inches for ventilation. The sill is 6 inches deep, wide enough for Maya to lay on the sill and stick her head in the gap looking out and sniffing the air. In the summer that is what she usually does when I go to bed. In the winter she sleeps in the bed with me.

This morning, all the blinds were flying around as was Maya. She was running back and forth along the four foot length of window, leaping up the window itself and the ends of the window. She had went totally nuts. I got up expecting to see what I saw. There was a cat sitting outside the window sitting there watching Maya's antics. She took off when I looked out and Maya calmed down. I sorted out all the blinds and went back to bed.

What happened next broke me up. I was laying there about five minutes going back to sleep and Maya jumped up on the bed and gave me her soft calm as can be "can I go outside meow." Not that Maya would ever try to pull one over on me.

Copyright © John Biltz
July 17, 2002