Menominee

Menominee, my cat and traveling companion on this adventure, is doing well. She has relaxed into the driving phases of our adventure, and now sleeps while I drive. She lives for the payoff at the end of the day, at the camp site, which she considers her domain, her territory to explore, her hunting ground. She has now caught a total of four small, furry, mouse-like critters, and is convinced she's a might hunter (and who am I to disagree?). We are thinking about trying a catch-and-release policy with her mice.

Jumping
Menominee soon noticed where I stored her food — in the cupboard along the ceiling over the couch — and began planning ways to reach it. The most direct means is for her to jump into the cupboard when the door is open, so I simply blocked it whenever it was open. But she also figured out that all the cupboards over the couch are connected, so she could jump into any open door and work her way over to her food.

One evening I accidentally left one of the cupboard doors open and sat on the couch watching a DVD on my laptop. Because the lights were off, I didn't notice her leap from the dining table four feet into the open cupboard, but I found out soon enough when, unable to secure a foothold in the cupboard, my ten-pound cat fell three feet onto my stomach. I told her I didn't appreciate that, but she offered no apologies, instead nursing a bruised ego because her magnificent plan had failed.

A few days later she made use of a five-inch diameter hole in the face of the same cupboard — where a loudspeaker had once been. She jumped from the kitchen sink up two feet, left two feet, and forward two feet (for a total jump of four feet) and somehow landed with her front half in that small hole, leaving her hind quarters dangling in mid-air, up near the ceiling. It was a sight to behold! With her front paws she got traction among the cabinet contents and hauled her rear half in. What a cat... Some cat!

The Bird Call Incident
To pass the time while driving the prairies, I tried (usually in vain) to find a radio station, then put on a CD. One day I put on a CD of bird calls, intended as instruction for bird watchers. To hear the CD clearly (from the speakers back in the RV) I had to turn the volume up pretty high, and began listening to the various songs of the cardinal. Soon Menominee was on the driver's seat back, touching my shoulder with her paw to get my attention, and then meowing in my ear. This is unusual behavior, some kind of communication, so I took her seriously and examined the situation. Loud bird calls. Maybe hurting her ears. Maybe she thinks they're coming from really, really big, scary birds? Huge birds right here, in the RV? Whatever. I put the bird-call CD away and Menominee calmed down.