Circus Cat?

The other day before Robert and I left for work, we were just finishing up our lattes in the kitchen when we heard a strange noise in the sunroom; a sort of claws-against-wood scrabbling sound. I glanced at Robert and said “what are they up to now”? The boys often run wild in the morning and I expected to see them playing soccer with a scrunch ball or chasing a toy mouse together, however, when I peered in the sunroom I saw Archie (apparently a Flying Wallenda in a previous life) standing on top of the doorframe! He had jumped onto the cat perch which is attached to the bottom of a window just to the left of the door, then from there up to the top of the door. The other two cats were sitting on the floor looking up at him with a combination of awe and disbelief. Casper is a very powerful cat, and could easily make the jump but he is a little portly these days due to a steady diet of high calorie kitten crunchies since Archie came to live with us. Ben is slender and has fantastic balance and I’m sure he could make the jump, but he is the very definition of a “scaredy-cat”. So Archie, all of nine months old and still stiff-legged and ungainly, flew through the air and landed safely on top of the door…I was stunned. I had seen internet pictures before of cats informally perched atop doorframes and my sister-in-law’s cat Fifi used to door-sit in her youth, but never ever has a cat of mine done this. I immediately grabbed Robert’s iphone and started snapping pictures. Archie walked unsteadily back and forth a few times and even tried to gauge a jump over to a small valance on top of the window to the right of the door(which would have come crashing to the floor). After judging the distance too far, he eventually lay down and dangled one arm nonchalantly over the side of the door. Then when he decided he had enough of this current adventure, he casually jumped down unaware of the excitement he had caused us.

I thought this might have been a turning point for Archie, a transition from kittenhood into teenhood and we would see a new, highly-coordinated, stealth cat emerge. But those hopes were dashed the very next day when I found him on the basement window ledge tangled in the venetian blinds; head, paws and bum all woven through various slats, not exactly the picture of feline elegance. Oh well, maybe he just needs a little more time…