Okay, so I shared the new “castle” I got for Pinky in Monday’s post. But the castle has been moving slowly around my living room since I snapped those shots.
The first location, between the sofa and the fireplace and near the window had a few problems. First, it was very tempting, when the gauzy blinds were down, for Pinky to want to reach out to them and snag her claws in the fabric. She also liked to step over onto the mantle and walk among my Thomas Kinkade village pieces. I didn’t care for that at all. Plus, being next to the sofa gave Poppet more ways to torture the kitty. (Click any photo to enlarge.)
The second location, I quickly discovered, also had a couple of problems. This time it was the chair that was so close that it gave Poppet easy access to the center of the castle. She doesn’t move onto the castle itself, but she can poke her nose where it doesn’t belong. Plus, though it can’t be seen in the photo below, it was too close to the island between my living room and kitchen. Within about a minute of this shot, Pinky just hopped right over from the castle onto the counter. Uh, no. That won’t do. Besides the cleanliness issue (love my pets but don’t want them where I prepare food), the raised counter is also where I set my knitting to be safe from Pinky. Sigh.
At last, the final location (no kitty in this photo). I’ve got a little distance and a small end table between the castle and the chair, the lamp is hopefully in a good location where neither pet can knock it over, and Pinky can’t hop from the castle onto mantle or counter or anything else. Nor can she try to take flight to catch the ceiling fan when it rotates which I have discovered she really wants to do (I got hot moving furniture; thus the discovery).
The oil painting on the wall, by the way, is the original artwork for one of my general market romances (circa 1995). I absolutely love what the artist created, and I’m glad the castle and lamp aren’t going to force me to find a new location for it..
And to close this post, we are finally having a bit of spring like weather in SW Idaho, some sunshine between a string of rainstorms that have blown in from the Pacific for waaaaaaaay too many days. So Poppet went outside to enjoy it. I had to shoot a photo of her through my living room window. Can’t you see the pure pleasure on her face? Pinky even came over to the sofa to check it out. Pinky, I should mention, is an indoor cat. Just not safe for kitties with all the cars. So far she has never attempted to dart outside when the door is open. Hope it stays that way.
