It's a couple months late, but I'm finally getting around to putting down my memories of this.
The first time I met Pixel, she was still recovering from surgery, and wasn't yet full grown, and her personality was somewhat different from when I most recently spent time with her. When Lynne and I walked through the door she came up almost fearlessly to greet Lynne, and when I put down my bags and sat down to take off my shoes, she came up to me to sniff me out and purred. That's very rare for Pixel, who doesn't seem to purr except in extreme circumstances. Lynne suspects she might have just been purring because she was in pain from the surgery (I'm not sure why they call it getting 'fixed' — she wasn't broken to begin with). During my first stay, she happily allowed me to pet her and wasn't at all bothered by my presence.
Fast forward several months to my previous visit. Pixel seems to have forgotten me (understandable, perhaps, since she only met me for a few days some months prior), and is very jittery, possibly because of the recent visit by loud construction people trying to fix the roof with foul-smelling tar. As Lynne and I come in, Pixel comes forward somewhat to greet Lynne, but stays back a good distance eyeing me warily. For the rest of the day, Pixel keeps her distance, zipping by me as quickly as possible whenever she has to pass me in a hallway.
As with many cats, it was food that made the difference. I was sitting on the couch eating yoghurt out of a small plastic container, and Pixel cautiously approached me. I offered her the remnants when I was done, and she left the container perfectly clean (the length and flexibility of cat tongues never ceases to amuse me). This repeated itself a little bit later with another container of yoghurt, and after that, she was much more relaxed around me. So relaxed, in fact, that she took to trying to sleep on top of me (possibly just because I was in her favorite spot on the bed). That didn't work out so well; I sometimes need to roll over. She would jump off, and jump back up a bit later to find a spot I wasn't occupying.
A larger bed will be important someday. I slept poorly one night trying to find a position to turn to that didn't involve me rolling on or kicking a sleeping cat. I eventually spent most of the night with one leg dangling off the bed.
My allergies fortunately were well controlled. I was on Zyrtec the entire time, and had just had a few allergy treatments prior. Those have been suspended while I argue with my insurance provider, but I hope to pick them up again soon. That's a rant for another day, though.
