The Woman is up to something

I can't quite put my paw on it, but something big -- possibly radical -- is afoot. The Woman is certainly behind it, and it also seems to involve the Big Rodent.

Each day when the Man and the Woman leave the house (the time when peace and quiet, as well as law and order, reign mercifully over the cosmos), they place the Rodent in his detention area -- a fenced-off section of the mess hall. This is entirely appropriate, and a rare demonstration of rational behavior regarding this unpredictable, slobber-prone, pee-from-the-hip beast. His containment means one less front to fortify, one less random element to account for.

(His nightly parole is a time of wailing and flopping and dribbling and general chaos, to be sure, but my tolerance during this ritual is bolstered by the concurrent offering of pellets.)

Of late, the Woman has augmented the fencing arrangement of the hound's stockade, such that it now includes both the mess hall and the adjacent arterial passageway. That, in of itself, is irrelevant.

However, this new deployment effectively deprives me of access to the sleeping chamber, the bed therein, and thus my whole base of operations. The key areas--feeding station, central living quarters, and main airlock--are all still open to me, so I can make due. I have established an auxiliary command center on the purple couch, which has the advantage of good visibility, but is not as defensible as I would prefer. Plus, Fabio's lazy carcass is always in the way.

What troubles me are the political implications. It's possible the Woman is maneuvering the Rodent in order to establish a No-Shmool Zone that bisects the house (the original fenceline of the stockade had already sealed off access to my emergency bunker, so this represents a SECOND annexation of my territory).

This is not a good sign. I fear the two of them may be trying to work me into a corner, but I will not go easily. When and if the Anschluss comes, I shall be ready.