The Latest Cat Update

I want to update you on the cats, and on the new job. Tonight, I pick cats.

The cat integration project really is going so well*, but at the same time, I'm a little sick of it, you know? All the cat juggling. Last night after I shut Belmont in the office, I sat down for a minute before I let Carlos out of the bedroom, just to enjoy a moment when no one was meowing at me. (I have to shut him in if I'm going to spend any time with her, unless I feel like listening to his complaints the whole time. Most of the time when I shut him in the bedroom, he just lays on the bed or in the window and hangs out until the door opens again. He isn't suffering, is my point.)
*When Tonto had been here this long, I still couldn't leave them alone together. Never did, in fact, did I? But still.

So yes, I have been shutting Belmont in the office at night, just to avoid any drama (there hasn't been much, really, but I need my sleep, yo, I'm tired enough as it is). I first let her out (when Carlos wasn't shut away, I mean) and left them for a few hours on Saturday, and again on Sunday, and there was little enough drama (they mostly ignore each other) that I did decide she could stay out during the day when I'm at work.

So I let her out in the morning, and she meows at me a bit and then heads directly into the closet, which she has chosen as her home away from home. This is a closet in the kitchen that I use as a combination coat closet and general storage: recycling, packs of Coke, odds and ends of kitchen implements, bags, tools, things that I should sort through and get rid of, mostly, that kind of thing. She climbs back into the corner and seems to sleep most of the day; obviously I can't say for sure how much she's in there when I'm not home, but she goes right in, and comes out when I come home. I noticed yesterday that she ate some of her food, which I had put down in the morning but she ignored to go into the closet, so she did come out for that long, anyway.

I don't get the sense that she's scared, just that she feels safe there. Carlos has approached her, cautiously, in the office when he hears her use the litter box for example, but otherwise he only cares about her if I'm giving her attention (of which he does not approve, naturally). Usually she comes out at night and is happy to have me pet her and pet her and pet her.

One really unnecessary complication to the whole situation: this week, there has been a cat outside who is, I suspect, in heat. There has been a lot of yowling out there (one might even say caterwauling, one might), which none of the three of us in here really needs.

And speaking of yowling, someone wants to be let out of the bedroom, which given that someone else hasn't even come out of the closet, I might as well go do. Excuse me.