Kitten logic

Felusia is usually a high-energy bundle of playfulness, chasing around the house. But not today. She has been sitting by the patio doors, staring outside. What's up? I take time to observe her. She is intently watching the garden. It's windy; pl.meteopost.com gives windspeed right now as gusting at up to 16 metres a second. The trees - usually still - are moving, their tops swaying to and fro. The lawn is shimmering, in waves. Most interestly, a leaf cartwheels across the lawn, and then another brown one scuttles across the patio like a turbo-boosted mouse. And that noise out there - not predictable machine-made sounds like that of the washing machine or a passenger jet coming in to land overhead, but a low, strong, sustained rushing moan that rises and falls.

Watching the wind and its works

To the cat mind, everything that moves is potentially an animal, and animals are prey. Stationary things, such as plants or furniture, are inedible. Suddenly the entire outdoors - all that stands on the other side of the windows - has become animated. Those leaves need to be investigated and chased! 

Felusia will remain indoors for her kittenhood and will finally be allowed out in the spring. She will have had her vaccinations, noted in her 'National certificate of cat' (as her książeczka zdrowia kota is helpfully translated on its cover).

In the meanwhile, Felusia observes and learns. She is curious, and I can see her mind putting two and two together. The sink in the food room is used to clean the humans' flattened food-bowls and those metal things they use to eat with, that compensate for their lack of sharp claws. There is a room up the stairs with a huge sink which humans use to immerse their entire body in, after removing their coats! And under their shoes they have body parts that look like their hands, only more elongated with shorter fingers! The wetness in this sink tends to smell of chemicals and unnatural things. The human house is full of puzzles that the cat mind has to put into place. 

Felusia could not be more different to her predecessor Papusia. Felusia is vastly more intelligent - intelligence based on curiosity and observation. She is more sociable, and will generally choose to be in a room with a human than one without. The feline soul is visible to the human sensitivity.

This time five years ago:
Automatic writing - England, 1912

This time eight years ago:
Poland's progress up Transparency International's ranking

This time 13 years ago:
A day in Poznań