Iris VS Mischevious Cat

We have a couple of Siamese cats that live with us. Iris (my mother in law who lives with us) really likes them to come in and sleep on her lap. However, one of the cats has other ideas. The cats name is Abby.

Abby is quite an interesting cat. She likes high places. When ever she goes into an area she always looks for the highest place she can get to. She is very very curious. In fact she is the reason someone once said, "curiosity killed the cat". She also has a fetish for drinking straws.

Because of those two things we now have contention between Iris and cat. First Iris likes to work on quilts. She has many of them stacked all around her room. She has some shelves in a corner next to her bed with quilts stacked on the top shelf. They are so high there is like six inches between the quilt and the ceiling. Abby has found this spot. She has taken to sleeping up there much of the time when she is in the house. Iris sleeps a lot herself and so never sees her go up there. But there have been a number of times Abby has announced herself by launching herself from the ceiling high perch and landing either next to or on top of Iris. This sends Iris into a tizzy. Many a night we will her her door open and the cat thrown out and the door closed with mighty force.

But the real tussle comes with straws. Iris likes having straws in her water glasses that she insists must be next to her chair and bed at all times. After all if she gets thirsty or her mouth gets dry she must have the water there to take care of the problem. Taking two steps into the bathroom would be to much effort and therefore is not an option. But I stray from the tale.

So Iris has straws in the water and Abby loves straws. She will go and sit and stare at Iris and Iris will stare at her because she knows that Abby wants the straw. But Iris can not win a stare contest. She falls asleep far to easy and often. As soon as she does Abby jumps forward grabs the straw and runs off. She drags the straw around the house chewing on it. She will sometimes just chew on it while it is in the glass and then Iris will wake up and start yelling at her. She will continue to chew on it and play with it in spite of the yelling. It takes Iris a while to get up and or reach over to shew her away. Once she finally does Abby will run away but will be back within a few minutes to do it again.

So we kind of encourage Abby to go in the room as it keeps Iris "entertained" and busy thinking about something, rather than feeling sorry for herself or worrying about dead leaves not falling from the trees! We bad! or not?