The Visitor (No, This Is NOT My Cat!)

On Tuesday afternoon, when my husband and I got home from our woods adventures, we found a cat hanging out beneath the front hedge in our yard. It was a pretty little tuxedo cat, maybe six months to a year. Not a kitten, not quite full cat.

You know: that long, skinny phase between the two, when they are just a whip of muscle, and full of boundless energy. I remember when Dexter was that age. We joked that he was two feet long and two inches wide; his nickname was The Furry Snake, and he could get into seven kinds of trouble before breakfast.

The tuxie cat looked well cared for, like it belonged to Somebody, though it didn't have a collar or tags. We were worried about it. The road in front of our house is busier than you might expect for a rural area, and we've pulled more than our share of unfortunate creatures' mortal remains off it. So yes, we were concerned.

But the cat had an air about it of already HAVING a home, so we did not try to do anything about it. We agreed, on Tuesday afternoon, that if it was still hanging around on Wednesday morning, we'd call PAWS, a local companion animal rescue. However, even by later on Tuesday, the cat was gone.

And on this day, back it came! I had just finished cleaning up the front flower beds for the season, and we were sitting in our sunny yard enjoying the day, successfully ignoring all of those leaves that need raking. Yes, the leaves turn color and it's marvelous; stupendous; amazing! And then - oh no! - all those leaves come DOWN! And everything turns bare and brown.

We had just changed the clock the night before, and the day felt strange, like a day without rules. So we had supper for breakfast - a full chicken dinner, with mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy, around 9 am - and then we did whatever we pleased the rest of the day. (Hey, a day without time is a day without rules. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

So it was a strange day. You get the picture. I would tell you it was around 2 or 3 pm when the cat came back, but it was hard to say when it really was. Does anybody REALLY know what time it is?

We were sitting there in our chairs, the sun in our faces, when we felt rather than saw a movement nearby. And looked up to see: a BUNNY! Now, it's been some time since we've seen rabbits in the yard. At one point, it was a total bun-fest; a bun-o-rama, in fact. Lately, not so much.

The rabbit was sitting by the hedge and looking all around, when suddenly it took off, bounding right past the chair my husband was sitting in. If he'd have reached out his foot, he could probably have touched it! But that was one fast rabbit, and just like that, it was gone: Zip-BUN!

And then we saw why, for up through the yard walked the tuxedo kitty, meowing its fool head off (yes, it had LOTS and LOTS to say), and looking for all the world like this was ITS yard. It had four pretty little white boots, and they were very, very clean; no, they were beyond clean; immaculate.

It strolled around, checked things out, went under the hedge, took a drink from one of the many water stations in our yard. We said hello to the kitty and it wound itself around my husband's legs. Animals just love my husband; bunnies and cats, especially. You might have thought it was his cat if you'd seen them together. But no, this is NOT our cat!

And THIS time, the kitty was sporting a little collar, with a phone number written on it. My husband asked if I thought we should call the number, but I told him I figured the people whose cat it was knew that it was out and about. The cat was in no distress; as it did the other day, surely it would find its way home.

We moved to the deck in the back once the sun shifted, and shortly I heard a little "meow," and there was the tuxie cat again. It walked up the stairs nice as you please; then leapt onto the deck railing and walked all around. It eyed up the roof, as though it wanted to go up there too. At that point, I got a pen, looked closely at the collar, and wrote Somebody's phone number down.

I figured shortly I'd be calling that number: "Hey, your cat's on our roof. Thought you might want to know. Come on over and get it down." But nothing like that happened, and eventually, the kitty disappeared. (I kept the number, though, just in case.)

We presume the little tuxedo cat went back home, where it belongs. And we suspect we may see it again on another sunny afternoon. Adventure safely, little Tuxie, leave the bunnies alone, and be mindful of the road. Perhaps we shall meet again. . . .

I wanted to include a song about cats to go with this picture, and this one is a favorite (although we are nowhere near Nashville): The Lovin' Spoonful, with Nashville Cats.