The Amazing Wink

Yes, I know, I am captain of Team Bad-Blogger. It is a weird thing to say, but this job and life is pretty monotonous a lot of the time. Pretty much the only thing that changes is the people that show up to volunteer and occasionally the dogs. So, we get a lot of same-poop-different-day talk that just seems like it would be boring to read over and over and over again. I admire Clair's dedication to her blog, at least the weather changes and the birds sing where I'm living. I just got caught up on her blog and decided I should get about the business of writing one myself.
At the moment, I am feeling a little bit sad because I have some very good friends that are moving to Hawaii next Wednesday and they are in those final stages of packing and good-bye-ing and I am really going to miss them. On the up side, it gives me a reason to go to Hawaii.
I have been pet sitting like you wouldn't believe lately - I haven't slept in my own bed since September 17th. I am sitting for a co-worker's pets at the moment and it turns out she has a magical-genius foster cat. His name is Feldman, but we call him Wink. They have two other cats who tolerate (at best) Wink, so when I am not home and at night, Wink stays by himself in his own room, but during the day he can come out and socialize with the dogs and me. The other two cats, Ashes and Cinders, aren't really big fans of mine; they usually sleep on the bed but since I have been here they have been steering clear. So last night, somewhere in the middle of the night, one of the cats decided that I am the best ever and is all cuddly and purring and rubbing all over my head and face. I like cats, I don't like when they pull this stuff in the middle of the night - I am not a nice person when you wake me before I am planning to get up. So I kept gently pushing the cat off my head or rolling over, but there was a level of dedication and persistence that one would admire were it not sleeping time. I was very surprised by the behavior and I didn't really want to pick the cat up for fear that it would remember that it doesn't like me and decide to use any of the very sharp tools at its disposal to remind me of its dislike. But at a certain point, enough is enough and I reach out from the covers to grab the offending feline and gently plop it back on the floor, only to realize that the individual that has been pestering me is much too small to be Ashes or Cinders and should in fact be locked in another room at the moment. Bear in mind here that Wink knows how to open the door to his room, so there is a bungee cord on the door handle that (theoretically) keeps it from opening when he launches himself at the door. I figured he had taken enough shots at the door that he jostled the bungee loose or it broke or something like that, but I was way too groggy and tired to get up and investigate. I dozed for a few more hours until the sun came up, keeping an ear out for any unfriendly cat encounters, of which there were none. When I got up this morning, I wandered into the hall fully expecting to find the door open, the bungee hanging from its anchor point and all the cat food eaten by the Dakota (dog). So you can imagine my shock and amazement to find the bungee still in place and the door open about three inches. What Wink the Genius figured out last night is that if he reaches under the door and pulls the towel (for drafts) on the floor outside his room under the door (which he does regularly) and wads it up at the base of the door, it will create enough pressure on the door that when he jumps on the handle, it won't latch again and then he can use the towel to wedge the door open far enough for him to escape. I am guessing at the series of events here, but what I found this morning was a wadded up towel holding the still bungeed door open from Wink's escape. Pretty impressive little cat. I moved the towel away from the door to prevent a recurrence.