Dexter's Room

Dexter has his own room in our house. Its floor is lined with two layers of blankets and it is full of his stuff. There is a table by the window where he can look out over our yard. There are numerous places to sleep and climb and play. It's where he spends the night, where he takes his meals, where he has a private restroom all his own.

But a couple of times a year, the room needs a good once-over. And so I take everything out and shake it all out. I wash and dry the blankets, I dust, I vacuum the floor. And in the end, I put things away just the way they were before, only slightly better, because everything's clean and good smelling and tidy.

Dexter hates the process of room cleaning, though. He gets quite despondent over it. Cats don't like change of any kind, and I think the whole process worries him: Are we getting rid of his stuff? Are we getting rid of him?

I posted a picture of Dexter last summer, in July, when he was miserable over a room cleaning. His poor little face looked much the same on this day. So I did everything I could to hasten the process along, to minimize his discomfort. From the tearing apart to the putting it all back together was about 2 and a half to 3 hours. That might be a new world's record.

I took this photo just as I finished my work. Dexter was sitting on his table waiting for a treat. (Good boy, Dexter! What a patient cat!) I don't think you can see the look on his face very well from this distance so I've included a close-up shot, just before he got his treat, in the extras.

After I'd tidied everything up, I moved on to other things. My husband walked up to me and handed me something, giggling. I looked: it was a single white whisker, which he'd found in the middle of the totally clean cat room. The whisker must have been freshly shed: a tip, perhaps, for the maid! :-)

Here is a song that I was reminded of, as I did my cleaning work on this day:  Donna Summer, She Works Hard for the Money. Except that she'll have to settle for whiskers instead of dollar bills in THIS house! :-)