Pickle & Shadow have made their peace. Suki & Pickle are still working it
out, although I suspect that Shadow will end up being beta cat, and Suki
will have to settle for gamma. Perhaps it will be better when she is spayed
(it will certainly be better for my ears and my sleep, my goodness she makes
a  racket!).

In fact, Shadow's 'advertising' is so loud that we've had to lock her in the
bathroom at night if we want any sleep at all. It doens't stop her doing it,
but with the bathroom door closed, and the bedroom door closed, the volume
is lessened enough to sleep through.

Of course, this means that my bedroom door is shut, and thats a Bad Thing
according to Suki & Pickle, as they both use the end of my bed to launch
themselves at my window sill, before bouncing back out of hte room and
continuing with the Stampeding Herd of Elephants Across the Serengeti down
the hall. It was either in, or out, last night.

Suki *eventually* chose 'out' after a solid hour's worth of playing Door.
(you know how Door goes, if they're in, they're demand to be out, if they're
out, they demand to be in. Rinse & repeat). Pickle surprised me by very
kindly stayed in, settling at the bottom of my bed and made sub-sonic Pickle
Purrs. He only rarely does this, and I feel very priveledged when he does.
Shadow eventually stopped trying to sell her wares, and all was quiet at
Chez Chapman.

At 3am, I was awoken by hissing and growling. I said "Shut up, Shadow" and
turned over. The hissing & growling stoped temporarily, and then resumed.
Once again I repeated "Oh, get over yourself, Shadow" and tried to get back
to sleep. It continued.

It took a long while to realise that a) Shadow was in the bathroom, b) this
didn't sound like Shadow's hissing and spitting and c) this sounded alot
closer.

Groggily, I sat up and peered into the gloom.

Pickle was mightily objecting to the fourth cat in the house, the one he
didn't previously know about, the one that had so far refused to recognise
him as Alpha Cat and wasn't backing down.

You know how I used to think Pickle was smart, perhaps a little *too* smart?
I was wrong.

"Oh for goodness sake, Pickle, you're supposed to be the smart one."

"Mi?" said Pickle, very quietly.

"Why me?" I thought to myself (not for the first time)

"Rowwrrrrr Hisssss Rowwwweee"

"F*!$&^g cats!" I repeated, as I got out of bed.

"Look. See," I said to Pickle, as I opened the mirrored wardrobe door "Its
your reflection. There is no fourth cat here."

"Mi?" repeated Pickle, as he strutted into the wardrobe, ready to kick
Fourth Cat's fundamentals.

I waited for Pickle to come back out, encounter Fourth Cat yet again, puff
up his tail, hiss, growl, and go back into the wardrobe. "You do know its
you, right?"

"Mi?" Pickle replied.

"Yes, you."

It took him 10 or so minutes to figure out that Fourth Cat wasn't presenting
any threat to his Alpha-ness and decided that perhaps a good game of Door
would be better.

Dutifully, Opened the door fo rhim and he went straight to the Bathrrom
door. he had a good hisspitrowr there and I figured he must have been having
a stern word with Shadow about making him paranoid about new cats.

She, having been woken from her sleep, resumed her quest of attracted a
suitor. The "ROooowwwoooooOOOOORRRWWWooooooooRRRRR" of Shadow continued for
another hour or so before she too wentbback to sleep.

I put my pillow over my head and cursed dark curses at all three of the
little buggers till I eventually fell asleep myself.

Tell me again, why do I have cats?

Yowie