Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I'd been out of the house for a few days, visiting anniemal and then going to a photo shoot for The Homespun Ceilidh Band, so I expected Perrine to be a) annoyed that I'd been gone so long, b) glad to see me again and afraid to let me out of her sight, and c) thrilled to finally have the brand of cat food she likes (which I had run out of) instead of the various kinds she Eventually Grudgingly Tolerates Once Convinced The Good Stuff Is Truly Gone. I'd worried about Perrine a bit, as I'd left fewer windows open than usual in case of thunderstorms while I was away, and I was worried about how hot the house would get.

I arrived home after the photo shoot. Perrine did not greet me at the door. She waited for me to open the door and gave -- very distinctly and unmistakeably -- the "Help, I'm trapped and in grave distress and/or I'm deathly ill" meow. The plaintive, weak kitten meow. She made that sound several times before she slipped up and made a slightly different one ("where are you" or "please come here"; it was a little vague), but then she went back to the "I've been trapped for two days under a bookcase with a broken leg" meow.

She was standing in the dining room looking into the front hallway.

As soon as I set foot into the hallway, she RAN to the kitchen...

...Where she still had half a bowl of one kind of food, a quarter of a bowl of another, and sufficient water.

I gave in. I gave her some of The Good Stuff as soon as I'd gotten everything out of the car. I'm weak. She acted very hungry eating it. (She probably was hungry; she'd probably been eating as little as possible of the food that was there, hoping I'd come home bearing The Good Stuff. She'll eat other food, but it takes her a while to get around to it.

But I'm still both impressed and annoyed at how she got me with that "I'm trapped" meow until I saw where she was

Later, as I was falling asleep, we played with the laser pointer for a little while. When my wrist got tired (yeah, I was that tired), I turned it off and Perrine started looking for where the little red dot had gone, and in the process she found one of her fluffy toy mice, which she started playing with more vigorously than she had been stalking the pointer. That got me wondering: how much does she play with her toys when I'm not around? Does she sleep/hunt/mope when I'm gone and only play when I'm near, or does she amuse herself with play when she's alone? Someday I'll have to set up the video camera and find out.