cat vigilance

because our adopted cat fraidy is only allowed in the kitchen of the house, we constantly have to shoo her out of the bedroom or the livingroom or my office. this leads to a hallucinatory effect called phantom cat where a pair of boots or a pocketbook or even some socks – out of the corner of an eye – register as a sneaky cat sneaking where she’s not allowed to go.
it doesn’t help that fraidy enjoys the game of being caught and then running like mad back to the kitchen where she jumps into her basket and pretends she’s asleep.
so, here i am coming out of the shower recently and what do my blurry eyes see but a cat insouciantly lounging on the table in our bedroom: