Places / Unaware of the zelij tilework, a cat rests against the sidewall of a mosque in Fez. I used to have a cat that had a problem with patterns. His name was "Baby". He was a large orange tabby we found under the potting shed in the back yard. He lived out there, and stole dogfood from our dog's dish. He was only six weeks old or so when we discovered him. We had to force him to trust us. Anyway, Baby had a great fear of patterns. He always thought that the Turkish rug was nipping at his toes, and would walk across it as gingerly and quickly as possible, then sometimes scamper as if the rug actually had nipped him in the butt. Sometimes he would sit at the edge of the rug, staring, mesmerized by the pattern and unable to move. He used to be frightened of stuffed animals too, and I am sorry to say that we took advantage of that by singing the theme from "JAWS" and advancing little toys toward him. This would cause him to hiss, scratch at the toy and freak out. He would always look the stuffed animals in their button eyes, and he believed they were real. When the toys came too close, he would try to scratch their eyes out. I'm pretty sure that the theme from "JAWS" became like a Pavlovian cue for him to become frightened. We loved Baby very much and called him "our troubled child." I hope he really wasn't frightened, but was just playing a game with his silly humans. I would dress him up in doll's clothes and tell him how pretty he was. If I ever put anything around his waist, though, he would think he had been paralyzed and would crawl around on his front legs, dragging his back legs behind him. This paralysis never made him unhappy. He seemed to think, "Well, now I'm paralyzed...oh well..." We would watch him for a few minutes then rescue him from paralysis by removing the clothing. After he realized that had regained total mobility he would be very hungry, and demand a treat, which, of course we gave him.