Kinikini hides from our cat sitters. He’s done this since he was adopted five years ago.

Nothing personal. It’s just his cat colony upbringing coming to the fore. Something unknown? Disappear into the shadows and watch. He hid throughout the five weeks we were gone this time, but would come out of hiding as soon as our cat sitter left the house. My strategically placed cat cams would capture video as he emerged from the shadows to strut around the house checking out his domain.

He appeared surprisingly unscathed by our longer-than-usual absence.

But…he immediately reasserted his dominance on our bed. He shares it with Kiko, but saves the spot leaning up on me for himself. I don’t think Kali has been back on the bed since our return, and Bessie had the first two hours on the first night, but she hasn’t been back. Kinikini wasn’t mean about it, but she got the message, I guess.

One problem is that Kinikini really wants to knead on me. And, after five weeks, his front claws are very, very sharp. If I’m not fully covered up, I have to disrupt his reverie to avoid injury. I’ve told him that his claws need trimming, but somehow once I’m out of the bedroom, my good intentions are forgotten.

Then on Thursday night, Kini settled down in my lap as we were watching television. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for him, I’m sure, but it was another step in reasserting his domestic rights as the Big Boy of the household.

And then there’s Kiko. She’s the one we rescued from the grounds of the Kahala Hotel. I took a cat carrier out onto the lawn next to the Plumeria restaurant early one morning as she ran across the lawn toward me. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I then just picked her up, deposited her in the carrier, and closed the door. She didn’t fuss at all. And, since then, she had accorded me special status.

She doesn’t hide from others like Kinikini does. She stays close to people, but typically just out of petting range.

The exception is that she loves to spend time in my lap as I’m sitting at the dining table with my laptop open in front of me. Often I’m not even aware of her arrival, but I find myself petting a cat draped across my lap filling the space between me and the table. She is in bliss until the stimulation is just too much and then she tries to give me a quick love bite or two. Luckily, she’s dialed back these bites, and rarely breaks the skin any more.

Since our return, she’s been a persistent lap cat! More than usual, which is saying a lot.

And this isn’t generalized lap behavior. She doesn’t slip into Meda’s lap. That’s usually Kali’s domain. Kiko is bonded to me.

Back to the bigger question. It doesn’t seem to me that cats have a sense of the duration of passing time. Their brains don’t seem to process and accumulate the passing days when we’re gone. Their greeting behavior on our return seems the same whether we’ve been away a week or five weeks. I wonder if there have been any studies of time and cats…