Persephone is a really sweet, gentle cat, but she is a little lacking
in the brains department.  We enjoy watching her solve problems
because we get to see her cognitive processes in action.  

Persephone recently discovered that our "new" bed (which we've had for
about a year) has a header board that is wide enough for her to walk
along, providing a handy elevated link between the two filing
cabinets. So now, every evening, Persephone runs along the headboard
of the bed and plays "tiddles" with our fingers as she goes.  It's
really cute and she's very gentle, so there are no bites or scratches.
She seems to enjoy it and keeps up a running commentary of mmmrrrps
and brrrrreows as she goes.

The only problem for her is that there isn't room for her to turn
around, so once she is committed to going in one direction, she has to
continue in that direction, no matter what interesting things are
happening behind her.  She has not yet figured out that if she jumped
onto the bed she could turn around, so until recently she has been
going all the way to the end of the headboard, jumping on to the
ground, running around the bed and jumping back onto the header board
from the other end (by which time, whatever is interesting is long
gone).  We have tried to show her that she can turn around on the bed,
but it obviously does not compute.

We thought she was doomed to forever run in circles, until she
figured out - a couple of days ago, that she can go *backwards*.  Yes,
our little baby can now walk backwards.  It is hysterical to watch
because she inadvertently does a reasonable imitation of Michael
Jackon moonwalking.  One foot put very carefully behind the other foot
and, of the four feet, only one is ever moved at a time.  Of course,
being a chatty girl, there is a special "I'm going backwards" noise
that accompanies this (kinda like a truck beeping as it backs up).  

Her friendliness and clowning around are the best sanity tonic I know!

Tish