The Bearded One

Last Saturday night my parents got here from Texas. When I heard my Dad coming up the steps I shut Talore in the bedroom so she wouldn’t get out while we unloaded. After we were all inside I opened the door to the bedroom to see that Talore was a bit spooked. I’m guessing that shutting her in the bedroom made her suspicious of who could be here, then when she saw my Dad (who’s beard is similar to the maintenance guy who tested the smoke detector and installed the carbon monoxide detector) her fears were confirmed, because clearly the bearded one is not to be trusted.

Her tail was puffed up to about three times it’s usual diameter, but as far as I could see that was the only part that puffed up to look bigger. On the other hand, my Mom’s first comment was about how big she is so perhaps I just didn’t notice. It took a decent portion of the evening for Talore to finally warm up to my dad (carrying her close to Dad was not productive). Eventually with Dad lying on the floor with his arm out she walked close enough for him to rub her head. She also wasn’t at all bothered by who it was in the middle of the night when she apparently walked over him.

It’s entertaining to have company over and see Talore reacting to all the usual things except with someone else triggering them. The main one is that when the shower stops she runs over and sits down outside the door. I knew she always met me there when I get out of the bathroom in the morning but I could never tell if she sat there the entire time. She also follows Mom around in the kitchen just like she does to me.

We went to Grand Junction to visit my cousin and her family for a couple days, and I didn’t think Talore needed to be carted along, so we left her with extra food and water and a pair of clean litter boxes. I was somewhat worried about her the entire trip (having never left her for nearly that long before), but when we got back Talore was just glad to see us and well rested (she kept waking me up all night). She hadn’t even finished off the food I left for her, though she did track litter all through the kitchen. To try to avoid a repeat of last night we’ve been trying to keep her from napping today. I think we pretty much kept her awake, but she did start watching us suspiciously when she got away and went to lie down.

While we were in Grand Junction we went over to Fruita to see the statue of Mike the headless chicken: