Sunday Cat and The Artful Dodger

The bottom dropped out of the sky and it rained hard and steady all day yesterday. The next county over had flash flooding. We didn't get out at all, except to feed the Sunday cat, our Sunday visitor and from-time-to-time sojourner. She has taken up with again with us for a piece. She limps now, and the once-pretty tabby face begins to show signs of wear, as a degraded woman whose eyes have dark circles under them, and shows hints of new distrust. We hope that she is not again in the family way. Last time, she presented us with four kittens, four wild little things. They stayed long enough for one to grow semi-tame and one to grow less cautious. The third was a timid creature, too shy and fearful to be fully tamed. The fourth, a pretty, furry little tabby mix whose long fur tempted one's petting hands to reach out hopefully, was a sly, resentful fellow. He never forgot a grudge, and therefore, could not be tamed. We called him fuzzy bottom, but I shall rename him, after the fact, to The Artful Dodger. The fat booger would not come forth to be touched and resented our intrusion into his mealtime; yet, he did not go hungry, for he was a wizard at pilfering food from the others. One day the mother decided, I suppose, that the tamish ones were getting a mite too comfortable; so, she picked up without notice and took off during the night, kittens in tow. One ice-cold morning, The Artful Dodger came back, changed, shivering, terrified. He was off his equilibrium. Hunger will do that to a fellow. He informed us in desperate kitten-screams that he was ravenous. We complied with food, he ate, and thenceforth we never saw him again.

Sunday Cat

One Sunday when we were having our Sunday dinner, a sleek little tabby cat wandered up to our house. She came to beg a crust, which our nieces gave her, no doubt. "Not another stray," we groaned. "Now she's ours for life." But on Monday, she was gone. As weeks went on, we noticed with amusement, she appeared like clockwork on Sundays ~ even when we had no family to dinner. We speculated, thinking that maybe someone locked her out of their house every church day. So to us, "Sunday Cat" she became. We never thought of her as ours. She came for a visit. Once she appeared on a Monday! We checked our calendar and laughed, puzzled. One Sunday, she brought her mate. He stayed (and stayed). "Freeloader." We know his variety. But not Sunday Cat. Come Monday, she was gone.

Then Sunday Cat disappeared. "What has become of our little Sunday Cat?" we wondered. Sunday Cat had gone, we decided. She was not ours to mourn. Her people must have moved. Then one day, our mystery was solved. We opened the door to find Sunday. And, tagging along behind ~ Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday... Two short of a week, it seems, and all skittish and wild. But they stayed. We feed them. Sunday Cat retains a measure of independence. She keeps her kittens on task. They must catch a cricket or a newt, and she will bring them a mouse. We give them cat food, but they seem ravenous. They are never full. But they are not predictable. Sometimes the whole kit and caboodle disappears for a day or a week.

The kitten sitting prettily in the fall leaves (above) is one of the newcomers. She (he?) is the prettiest, but the wildest. The closest we came to catching her was to grab her once by the tail. That didn't set too well with her wild nature, and we have yet to catch her again.