Trying to comfort a cat.

This one resthome resident who worked in PR had to go away for a few weeks, and his cat that he got recently is staying back at the resthome.

Everyone is taking care of her and stopping by to check on food and water for her and to take some time to sit there and pet her, but she's still pretty lonely, and when you go to open the door she's sitting there meowing, even though before all of this she was the most standoffish cat ever, and it was rare that she'd even pay attention to you, let alone come and get some petting from you.

So, one day I ran around and got some empty cardboard boxes from the trash holding rooms on each floor, and then I went and set them up all over the room for her.

And, every time I was on shift, I made sure to go in the room and rearrange the boxes for her, to give her some stimulation.  Once, I even realized that I could push two chairs together and set the box upside down over on top of them to create a stable platform that she could get up onto, and I put it over by the window so she could sit on it and look out, since the window ledge there is too narrow for her to sit on and really probably even to walk on top of.  And, since I wasn't sure if she knew how to use the window, the next time I went in to the room, I picked her up and set her on top of there, and then when something was happening on the street below, I stopped petting her and began looking out the window at the activity there until she joined me, to try to teach her that interesting things were happening out there and that she should look at them.

I told all of this to my one assisted living client with disabilities and her (lesbian) sister, and they both were like, "Awwwww, we're training you to be a cat person."

I also said that I felt I had to teach her what a window was since I wasn't too sure that the cat understood how to use it, and my assisted living client thought that that was a good idea, since "sometimes cats can be dumb like that," an observation that she made and then laughed about, though not in a mean way, just instead because it's more like the truth about some animals.

I wonder if there's a kind way to say that an animal isn't too smart, though.