With back-to-back visitors since the end of March, Maura has made a huge change in personality. He has been a skittish cat, dashing off every time someone comes to the door. But over the last couple of months he has been learning to trust our friends.
He will sit in a room with me and a friend, as long as that friend ignores him.
With Jo visiting for some weeks, he had no choice but to figure out how to live with this situation. And he did so with amazing grace. He slept on Jo’s legs!
While he still loves me best and isn’t looking for attention, he seems willing to accept that other people are okay. Roman gently patted him a couple of weeks back. Ashley gave him a cuddle last night.
I think the seed of all this was a few months ago when Rob was staying for the weekend. He and I were having coffee at the table in the morning. Maura was curled up in the beanbag he loves. But when Tod came into the room, freshly out of bed, Maura did the hugest double-take. “Wait, what?! That guy sitting with coffee isn’t the one I know?” He skittered off in his embarrassment, but later returned and since then has been more and more brave.
UPDATE:
In the evening after the guests returned to Tokyo, Maura spent several hours sitting on top of a bandana that Jo wore while helping me at 555. Does he miss her? Is he trying to erase her scent with his? Cats are mysterious, but I think he likes her.
