Tinkerballs

With the loss of Rhiannon and Rowan, Tinkerbell is the only cat in the house. She was a rescue from outside (my roommate basically just abducted her from the yard amidst her protests) and she's never really adjusted all that well to living with us. She likes him, kind of. She doesn't like me much at all. If you read the blog frequently, you know I've touched on that point before.

What Tink does like, however, is toys. The cats have always had various little toy balls that mostly went ignored. When Tink moved in, she gathered up these balls and took them underneath my roommate's bed. He tells me they've usually been in sorted lines. It's her adorable little stash of toys. She never really played with them much, but she did like her collection of them.

Recently, she's been playing with them more. On any given day, she has one of the balls out. She'll roll them around and bat at them. She'll even talk to them. Most of the time she stays in his room, but once in a while, the ball would come out into the living room.

This morning when I woke up, I noticed one of the balls had made it all the way into my room. I told my roommate about it. Later he discovered that his shoes held several of the other balls. We have no idea why she's choosing to share them with us, or even if that is her intention.

I find it really sweet and, really, quite refreshing. Since we have shared a home, it's always had the noises, activities, and idiosyncrasies of cats. Things have gotten so quiet on that front and it's made our lives quiet. My roommate wrote a few days ago about how his life feels so different now and I really get that. The cats were part of our environment. In a way, seeing that little ball in my room brought me more happiness than anything has in quite a few months.