"Good morning, Pippi." She stifles a yawn. "Please don't step on the stove."

Pippi curls up into a loaf and watches her (and the bacon) intently. 

"How do cats like their bacon?" she wonders. "Well, let's try fairly soft and cut up into bits, and see how that works for you." She takes some pieces out of the pan a little early and cuts them into approximate squares, and in between frying the rest and making herself some toast she finds a moment to make sure Pippi's bacon squares are cool enough to serve.

Pippi makes no comment on how she likes her bacon, of course, and once the bacon is ready and served she will hop down from the table to her bowl and eat the cooled bacon squares, tail twitching in enjoyment. followed by a very very long drink of water from her water bowl. Once she's done eating and drinking (and cleaning the fat off her whiskers), she looks around to see what April is up to so she can properly show her appreciation for the treat. 

Standing at the counter eating breakfast because she was too lazy to sit down!

Well if she's standing then it will be very easy for Pippi to thread between her legs (when she's not in the middle of taking a bite) and rub up against them, purring happily. 

"The bacon was a hit, is that what I'm hearing?"

The only answer April gets is more purring and more ankle rubs. 

"I'll take that as a yes."

After a few minutes of showing her appreciation, Pippi wanders off to go take a short nap on the couch. 

Saturday rolls around, and April once again fills Pippi's bowl with kibble right after breakfast and heads out to meet up with Daisy.

Pippi pads to the door to say goodbye and then watches her leave out the window. 

She's out for the next several hours, then comes back huffing and puffing and explaining her creative vision around an armload of lumber.

"...better to overbuild than underbuild, right—shit, I have to get the door." Lumber rattles.

"We really should've thought of that ten seconds ago when we picked up this load."

"Hindsight is 20/20." Rattle rattle. "Aha!" The door swings ajar, and April shoulders it open, and she and Daisy shuffle in around it.

Pippi is napping on the couch. She perks up her head, stretches, and then hops up on the back of the couch to perch and see what the humans have brought her this time. 

"Hey Pippi."

Currently it seems like the humans have brought her a big pile of wood.

They head out to the car again, and the pile of wood gets bigger.

Pippi watches the growing wood pile with interest!

She cleans herself when the humans are not present, but when they are she stops and watches them carry even more things into the house. 

"Right, okay, let's make this happen."

This time they remember to lay down the rubber mat first. Then they start assembling a suspiciously pirate-ship-shaped frame on the floor, centered on the existing mast. The coffee table gets shoved up against the couch out of the way (with care and attention to make sure they don't trap any paws or tails in the process), but April lays out a coffee-table-shaped patchwork of cut-up cereal boxes on the floor in its place, and the frame seems to be getting built around it.

Pippi is clearly curious about what they're doing, watching from her perch, but as of yet is making no moves to distract them from their work, simply lounging comfortably atop the couch as they build. 

Piece by piece, one carefully identified pre-cut piece of wood screwed onto the next, the ship comes together. It's definitely not an incredibly accurate pirate ship. The central mast with the crow's nest remains separate from the outer frame of the hull. Two more masts go up, one in front and one in back, but they're devoid of sails and rigging and they look a little silly that way, just an upright two-by-four waiting to be decorated further. There's a big hole in the side for it to overhang the coffee table.

All together, though, it sure is starting to look a lot like a pirate ship.

Daisy staples old bedsheets to some of the plywood sections, to make it a slightly better flooring material (making sure none of the staples end up on top where a paw could snag on them). Then she attaches those sections to the inside of the frame, on a level slightly lower than the top of the coffee table, and although the ship's hull is currently an empty wooden skeleton, an astute observer might be able to imagine perching on those flat bits and peering out those portholes from within the cozy concealment of the hold. And in fact, the very next thing they do is start fitting the outer skin of the hull into place, turning the portholes from redundant apertures in a structure made of nothing but apertures to genuine windows in genuine walls. (The portholes are also carefully sized for cat.)

"We are ridiculous," Daisy concludes, standing back and observing their creation.

"I wanted to get the upper deck on there today but I think I might need a break first."

"Yeah, same. I'll go put the kettle on?"

Thumbs up.

It sounds like it's time for Pippi to explore her new structure! She jumps down off the couch, walks through the hole where the coffee table currently isn't, and hops up onto the carefully padded lower deck to poke her head out of one of the portholes. The portholes do seem to be very well sized for cat.