Having very little knowledge about the developmental stages of cats, I’m just going to put this out there in the hopes that someone might be able to explain what’s happening: Whiskers is being, in polite language, difficult lately.
She’s two and a half now; still young, but not a youngster either. She will snuggle next to you one moment and then scratch you the next (poor Keira got a dreadful fright the other night, was upset enough there were tears. Tears!)
I don’t need to look very far to find a possible cause. Just the other day she and Riley got into an intense standoff – he was poking her, she was raising her paw, there was a bit of to-and-fro. If she was human, and they were in the playground or on the street, I’m sure some smack talk would have been involved. Riley then got bored and turned away. That was when she got her revenge, in a ninja-style flanking attack.
When she’s not doing all this she’s sleeping. Or sitting on my work.
Yes, she’s on the table, this liberty may be where her superiority complex originated.
From cats to chess – it’s an alliterative segue.
Keira participated in an inter-school chess tournament earlier this week. If you follow me on Twitter you may recall I was left slightly perturbed by the experience. I’ve counted the list of players – and ten percent were female.
Ten percent.
It left me with the question: why?
Is that number a true reflection of the split between genders who play regularly? Or just a reflection on those children who are interested in entering these kinds of events? Am I making too big a deal out of it?
And was I right to feel a shiver of revolt when an official whispered to me, “I think there should be separate medals for girls who participate because girls find chess harder to play than boys”?
Because, really, WTF?
She was the youngest one there. I sat in the back corner and watched the rounds go on, in between crash tackling Riley in order to keep him away from the Arnotts biscuits tray which were explicitly for adult consumption only, and was so proud.
That’s my girl.
