Sunny Finds the World Shelf

Monday March 24th, 2025

Tags: cats

Sunny's a lot tougher, braver and smarter than I am. If she had thumbs, she'd definitely assume her rightful role as ruler of the apartment. My ape-like thumbs,¹ tall stature and dextrous tool use just barely gives me the advantage in dictating the terms of our relationship.

One way she outsmarted me is this: our living room air conditioner doesn't quite take up the full width of the window. It has these accordion flaps that are meant to fill in the gaps, but securing them to the window frame would require a drill to create screw holes, which we don't have. So we just kind of stretched them out and left them there. It was "good enough", bugs weren't getting in so we figured it was no big deal.

Well, Sunny figured out how to squeeze the accordion flap out of the way and slip out of our second story window onto a structure below the window. I'm not sure what to call it, it's not an awning or canopy; it's a solid, flat platform attached to the building that contains a light for our stoop and offers some basic weather protection while you're digging out your keys. I think of it as a sort of big shelf.

"The fuck are you looking at?"

Street view

It scared us to death, because it's a bit of a drop from the window to the shelf and we were unsure if she'd be able to climb back in. I had visions of either (1) Sunny trying to jump down and getting hurt, (2) Sunny jumping down and running away, or (3) needing to call the fire department to bring a ladder to rescue her.²

Izzy was the one who was home at the time, so she called to Sunny through the window and offered her treats and catnip. She was able to climb back in no problem.

Since she made it back in, and didn't show any inclination to jump down (cats have very good vestibular systems) we wondered if it might be okay to let her get on the shelf and experience a little bit of the outdoors in a safe and controlled way. Since then, she's gone onto the shelf a few times, never stays out for very long, and always comes back in on her own. It was scary at first, but I think she'll be okay. I wish we could afford to live in a house with a fenced-in yard where she can roam a little and get to enjoy the outdoors, but until then, maybe this is the next best thing.³ Having a high perch on which to observe the world is naturally going to appeal to a cat, and I don't think she's in any danger.

I was going to hold off on posting until tomorrow or the next day so I can write about a second and possibly third thing, but I realized I can just post this now, and post again tomorrow. The publication fee for a blog post is zero dollars! 🦝

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