Not a regular Feline Friday photo gallery, since I’m still in a bed in the University of California San Francisco adult cancer hospital until late today or tomorrow.

But a few photos and a short tale about Bessie.

Bessie is calico #2. She joined our household a little over a year after Ms. Kali. Unlike our other three cats, she apparently didn’t spend much if any time living outdoors in a cat colony. She appears to have been someone’s cat that was dumped off at the top of Aiea Heights, but quickly spotted and pulled out by one of the colony caretakers who saw her potential for adoption.

We were the ones who adopted her. In hindsight, the problem is that she was never socialized into the mysterious ways of cat behavior learned in the colony by our other cats. So she has been picked on by the others, primarily Kinikini and Kali.

During the times of day they are out and about the house, Bessie has to tread very carefully because at any moment she might be chased under a chair or back into her spot on the top of storage shelves in our pantry/storeroom. But when Kali and Kinikini are putting in their required 18 hours of sleep each day, Bessie emerges and can enjoy being the temporary queen of the living room.

But there are limits. She rarely ventures into the hallway leading to our bedroom, and since her earliest days, does not voluntarily enter our bedroom. Kinikini and Kali both made it clear that the bedroom, and especially our bed, was their nonnegotiable territory. Claws flashed and fur flew, and Bessie learned the lesson.

Interestingly, things get turned around when we leave the house, and the cats, in the hands of our cat sitter. Kinikini hides and is rarely seen. Kali is standoffish at best. But Ms. Bessie is as social as can be, and quickly takes over the social spaces opened up when Kini and Kali retreat into the shadows.

Both Meda and I were shocked this week to receive a photo of Bessie sitting on our bed. Not simply exploring the bedroom, but sitting on our bed!

So there are bright spots to our absence and the resulting shakeup of feline social relations.

Bessie enjoying our bed!