10-31-02 @ 12:17 pm EST

Cats. So naive, and yet so much fun to confuse.

You know how when you play peekaboo with a young baby, when you hide your face, it really believes you're gone? Well, it's much the same with Cosmas. When he notices something different about you, he thinks it's something new and final, like you've really changed into something else.

We first began to suspect this when Ma sat on the couch one morning wrapped up in her blanket so it looked as if she wore a hood. Coz came meandering through the room, spotted her, and froze. He then slowly approached, and stood up on hind legs to peer into her face as if to ask who she was and what she was doing in his house. He must have finally recognized her, for he stepped down and continued on his way.

It was only worse when Ma had a towel wrapped around her head following a shampoo. She came walking out of the bathroom and Coz stared at her in disbelief. She whipped her head forward so the towel unravelled itself, and he bolted from the room in terror--thinking that her head had just come apart! Poor stupid kitty!

Well, today is Halloween. Doesn't even feel like it. Ma's going to the casino because...*sigh*...she always has coupons and discounts and such and she acts as if she REALLY MUST use them all up, always, so that's why she claims she goes. Apparently if you wear a costume there today, she said, you get $5. (Big whoop.) So she went looking for a mask or some such. Firstly she brought out two Looney Tunes hats, one a Daffy Duck, one a Bugs Bunny, and put on the Daffy one. Cosmas, of course, was mystified by the sudden change in her appearance--why did she now have a duck growing out of her head? She then decided to go looking upstairs for something better.

I went to my room with Coz in tow as I didn't want him to go creeping upstairs while Ma looked around. I knew I had an old black cat mask in my room, and decided to clean it off--it's velvet, with holographic eyes--to see if she wanted to borrow it. Coz jumped up into my window to look outside while I did so, and I finally heard Ma calling for me to bring him to her.

I knew she must be wearing a mask. I finished cleaning off my cat mask and slipped it on. Coz, in the window, stared at me...and his tail and back slowly flooooooofed up. He couldn't have looked more terrified if the doorbell had suddenly rung! "If you're thinking of scaring him," I called to Ma with a laugh, "then I think I just beat you to it." I picked him up--his tail was as big around and as poofy as a brush--and carried him to the bathroom, where Ma was.

Ma was in there, also wearing a black cat mask that she had found. She saw me in mine, and started laughing. Poor Coz didn't know what to do. Where had all these gigantic cats come from!! I set him down and he scurried from the room, all apoof. We had such a good laugh at his expense, poor cat.

We both went into the living room. Coz tentatively showed his face, and Ma put on the Bugs Bunny cap and flapped the ears at him; little reaction. She then put the Daffy one back on and chased him into the kitchen. Something about Daffy must be terrifying to young cats! We relented after that, but poor Coz spent the rest of the morning in utter confusion. He really, truly couldn't understand how Ma and I had kept changing our faces like that!

So I guess it just goes to prove that cats are indeed stupid little creatures. And I have AGAIN put off finishing Part 95...so after I check and backup this entry...away I go. Tar...