Stitchpop

I think my cat is having a midlife crisis.

An indoor dweller all her life, suddenly she has decided she Must Go Outside. She stands at the back door and yowls. She scratches insistently at the corner of the door. She comes running when I call the dog to let him out. And then she gets all huffy with me when I push her back with my foot so the dog can pass.

She won't believe me when I tell her there's nothing out there for her.

We've taken to opening our bedroom window so she can lounge against the screen and catch a breeze.

And she's been acting even needier than usual. Instead of sleeping at the edge of our bed, she's been cuddling up between us. Sometimes I'll wake up to find her perched on my hip. The other night, I believe she was actually spooning with Gary.

Okay, but yesterday was the weirdest. I keep my current knitting projects in those satchel-shaped business bags, you know the ones I mean? They look like flat rectangles, and could probably double as laptop cases. (I do this so that when I bring my knitting to work every day it appears as though I'm carting paperwork around with me. Ahem.)

I had one of these bags sitting beside me on the couch with a string of yarn trailing out of it and onto my needles. Kismet jumped up on my lap and sniffed my knitting. I patted her and then tried to talk her into leaving me alone. With her nose on my yarn, she followed the loose string all the way from my knitting down to the point where it disappeared into the bag. And then my cat disappeared into the bag.

This wouldn't be that weird, except that the cat is a whole lot bigger than the yarn satchel. So she had to curl herself up into a furry little donut, dig her way in to the very bottom of the bag, turn around a few times, and then plop down and promptly doze right off.

I poked Gary, who was on the couch next to me, and pointed. "What the?" I said.

We considered.

A cat in a state prior to its being let out of the bag?

Cat-chel?

Cat and carry?

Nap sack?