Those of you who read this blog may recall a recent post of mine, in which I praised my cat, Sugar, for having recently discovered her image in my full-length bedroom mirror, and for starting to wrestle with the intellectual challenge that presents her.

I have also said, probably not on this blog, that as much as I love intelligent cats, they tend to present greater discipline and behavior problems.

Sugar's new attainment, sadly, is not the exception to this rule. She continues to move to the mirror, at night when esrblog and I are attempting to sleep, where she calls out piercingly until one of us yells or gets up and chases her away from the mirror. Lately, she's begun to do this more often. She woke esrblog several times Friday night, and at least four times last night. She woke me three times. Closing the bedroom door did no good--she kept calling through it, and attempting to reach under the door with her paws.

Despite his fatigue and irritation, esrblog is kind of touched and moved by Sugar's behavior. He thinks her tones are inquiring, and that what's she's doing is attempting to invite the unknown (!) cat to play. I think her tones are challenging; she's trying to figure out whether the unknown cat is a dangerous intruder on her turf. But either way, we're losing sleep as a result.

I, however, usually can manage to go back to sleep. esrblog often can't, and his energy and mood are suffering for it.

So I fear we must cut Sugar's experiments short. Today, I bought some white posterboard and covered the lower third of the mirror (the part Sugar can see into). Hopefully, she'll decide that the mystery cat is gone, and she can resume her quiet life.

And the crowning irony is that, starting tomorrow night, we will be hosting my sister-in-law's new kitten, Sofie, for a week! I hope that this doesn't result in more lost sleep and nighttime shenanigans, though I'm not especially optimistic.