Look Into My Eyes

Lady Willow

"I love cats. I love their grace and their elegance. I love their independence and their arrogance, and the way they lie and look at you, summing you up, surely to your detriment, with that unnerving, unwinking, appraising stare." ~ Joyce Stranger

Sometimes I sit down in the den and Willow strolls (Ragdolls don't walk, they stroll) over to the chair, sits down and stares up into my eyes. Rarely she will let out a little "meow" just to get my attention, if I am being insolent by ignoring her presence. More often she will rub her side on my foot; ragdolls as a breed seem to love bare feet. Then she simply stares with that sly little grin on her face as if to tell me she has a secret and wants me to guess what it is.

This face is so full of expression and intelligence. I study her as she watches the other cats move through the room; and can almost see those cog wheels turning in her head, planning an ambush or a left-cross or a full body slam; the hair on her back twitching and her tail slowly swishing so as not to give away her true intentions. Now that summer is almost here, she has taken to hiding on a shelf in the laundry room, behind a pair of boxes. From this vantage point she can hear any cat coming through the cat door to the litter box under the shelf. She knows this is Maggie's box, her food bowls, her water fountain, Maggie's room. Willow waits until Maggie is in the covered litter box, then she leans her head over from the shelf until she is eye to eye with her. Maggie freaks out, dashes through the cat door, through the house and under her dad's bed. Willow? She sits quietly with this same innocent expression. Personally, I think she is laughing to herself and saying "gotcha!"

Willow, it is time to visit the other cats on board Friday's Ark and those at the Carnival of the Cats, this week hosted by Mind of Mog. You will have to curtail your pouncing ambushes while there; it isn't nice to be scaring all the nice kitties.

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