It's beginning to look a lot like...home
My new home has a fireplace. It's a gas fireplace, not a wood-burning fireplace, so in my mind it's not a 100% "real" fireplace. Still...fire. And some warmth. This particular model has blower vents so that the air heated by the gas flame can be blown back into the room; but for whatever reason - probably contractors cutting corners - the fan doesn't actually work. So most of that pretty, pretty heat goes outdoors, out the vent at the back of the fireplace-thingie. (The outdoors is cold in December - but I'm not going to pay to heat it.) The pilot light is visible, but only if you're standing right in front of the fireplace looking down at the "tops" of the logs. The logs look incredibly realistic. There are even glowing embers that look like the remains of burned newspaper - often used by my Dad to get a fire going. So yeah, it's a "not 100% real" fireplace. But it's damned good quality.
The cats love the warmth. They don't care about the pretty lights of the fire - which I love. They just like the warmth. Especially Ursa, whom I suspect of having cold-weather joint pain. (Though with a cat, how can you tell? He still moves around fine; he just shows a greater affinity for warmth than the other two cats.) I turn the fire on for about 30 minutes every evening and sit and read; and Ursa runs right over and sprawls out in front of the fire, just on the edge of the rug. He disdains the cat bed that I put on the edge of the hearth specifically for his basking and curling-up pleasure. He prefers to soak up maximum heat by lying belly toward the fire, head and tail stretched out straight, eyes closed as he blisses merrily away. Monkey and Fog think he's insane. Fog prefers to skulk on top of the cat tower, watching everything and sizing up bits of carpet lint as potential predators which must be taken down to preserve the safety of the home. Monkey prefers to sit right by me, if not on me. Apparently, in her tiny walnut brain, proximity to the giver-of-food is a sign of increased favor. It definitely puts her closer to any potential dispensations of treats.
They divide their time between their chosen prime basking spots and Animal Kingdom (the home game). My second day here, I hung a birdfeeder off the back fence and filled it with sunflower seeds. One large bird - I have no idea what kind, and of course my camera was hiding - did come down and investigate. It hasn't been back, which makes me think that sunflower seeds are not its preferred provender. However, the most frequent guests have been the local squirrel population. The cats are utterly fascinated. Fog goes into stealth mode; Monkey crouches down and watches with occasional twitches of the tailtip; and Ursa looks and listens so hard I'm surprised that the muscles at the base of his ears don't go into spasm.
It's been nearly two weeks, and I've got them fairly well convinced that the windows on the east and south sides of the house offer the best viewing entertainment. Since I have no neighbors to the east or south, only a) a large patch of green, the fence, and a mini-greenbelt; and b) my back fence and the junk house; the three of them are not likely to gather in the western windows at the same time. All the better to avoid the neighbors' notice. (I don't want to be "no-no"'ed again. If that happened, I think I might resort to chalking rude things on Miss Officious' walkways or pulling faces in her house's general direction.)
