8:11am October 7, 2014

Fey has three main sleeping spots now.

1.  The heated cat bed

PROs:

• Always heats to 15 degrees above her body heat
• Padded and cushioned
• Comfortable for old, arthritic bones, especially as the weather gets cooler
• More thoroughly relaxing than any of the other sleeping spots
• Cozy to curl up in, you can feel the walls of the bed around you
• Privacy hood on one end
• Can rest your chin on the edges

CONs:

• Can be seen very easily
• Can therefore be interacted with very easily when one does not want any interaction
• Have to feel people’s eyeballs on you
• People think you’re cute, which makes you want to shred their face
• Not quite as warm as having the air from the oxygen concentrator blasted in your face

2.  In front of the oxygen concentrator

PROs:

• There’s always a constant level of heat blasting out at you, and if you want more than 15 degrees above body temperature, this is the place
• You can stretch out further on the floor

CONs:

• You can still be seen very readily
• Lying on the floor makes your bones stiff and achy
• The heat is coming from in front of you, not under you, so you don’t get its full relaxing effect
• You’re so stiff when you stand up from this that sometimes you have to stagger sideways a bit to get your balance
• The heat may be warm blowing at you, but the floor is cold
• The heat isn’t controlled to your body heat, and this can make it too much at times, too little at others.

3.  Behind the oxygen concentrator, on a pile of clothes

PROs:

• Nobody can see you unless they’re poking around looking for something behind the bed.  But you can see them.  (Being seen vs. not being seen is critical for the cat game of hauissh.  The best position is one where you can see everyone and nobody can see you.  In real life, of course, there’s no game by that name.  But it’s still sound self-protective strategy and cats all over the world use it.)
• There’s a nice cushy layer of clothes to lie on, so it’s about as padded as the bed.
• If you want to be left alone, people are unlikely to find you here by mistake, and often they’ll also forget to look here even if they go looking for you
• You can stretch out as far as you like

CONS:

• There’s not a lot of warm air coming back here.  There’s a little, maybe, from the oxygen concentrator, but nothing like the other side of the concentrator.  So all the warmth has to come from your own body heat and the clothes.
• Harder to get into and out of
• You’re still kind of stiff getting up, because while you’re padded, you’re still not warm.  And it seems to take a combination of warmth and padding, to make your bones less stiff.  One or the other won’t do.

So that’s a short description of why I think she rotates between those three sleeping spots.  I’ve seen her get up, stretch, and meander her way over to another one, only to curl up and sleep again right away.  And she can repeat this for hours.

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