The ghost in our kitchen
Our kitchen appears to be haunted. Cipher, the world's most amazing cat, screw you if you don't agree (TM) is suddenly afraid of the corner of the room where her food is.

The first appearance of the ghost came three weeks ago. She was fine at breakfast. Come dinner, however, she wouldn't get anywhere near her food. She backed away like we were trying to feed her live cobra for a snack. If I picked her up and tried to put her down near the food she squirmed like an eel. Her food is right near the fridge, and we traced the source to some highly spiced leftover Chinese food that she apparently didn't like the scent of. (Memo to self: cat does not like Mongolian beef.) We cleaned out the fridge, opened the window, and she was fine.

Until Wednesday, that is.

Wednesday night, same problem. A dubious look towards the food area. A refusal to go near it. If we moved her food out a few feet, she dove in with her usual lack of table manners. But the ghost of the food corner had returned and nothing would induce her to confront it. And it's been like that ever since. I've cleaned out the fridge, but there wasn't anything there particularly fragrant. I've cleaned the area around the food space. And still she's skittish. I'm thinking next time I'll clean with Holy Water, maybe that'll do the trick.

So we're moving her food dish out when we feed her, but it's hardly convenient to have it in the middle of the room. We've debated moving to another area of the kitchen entirely but it's currently in the only spot that doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. Any other spot and we're likely to be spending a lot of time mopping up spilled water. But we can't have the poor thing afraid to eat. Although I suppose she'll confront the ghost when she's hungry enough, it's just kinda sad to see her looking at that area like Jacob Marley is standing there.