Last night one of our neighbors knocked on our door and introduced himself as Ryan. Ryans cat hadnt been home in 3 days, and he was wondering if we could look in our yard because he thought hed heard something that sounded like his cat. Kalpita and I joined him in our yard with flashlights. A few minutes into the search, we heard the sound! Actually, we heard a couple of different sounds that could have been coming from a stranded or injured cat. Soon enough, we were going between our yards following the sounds, trying to locate their sources. As youd expect, he had no doubt that the sounds were coming from his cat. Quite expectedly, Pita committed to not forming an opinion, but refused to be pessimistic; she continued brainstorming, and investigating. And predictably, I quietly believed neither of the sounds were coming from a cat, and started working on identifying plausible theories. A few minutes into the search, Pita located one of the sounds: chimes hanging on a tree branch in an adjoining yard. Side note: Why would you hang chimes in your back yard?! I will slap you if you tell me its charming. No, its not. Its creepy as hell. Anyhow, Ryan was disappointed about the discovery of the chimes. But there was still the other sound. Hope. We kept searching, each with our natural agendas. Approximately thirty minutes later, I located the second sound. It was the creaking from a tall evergreen tree in his yard that was bending in the wind. He reflexively protested a little from the disappointment, but agreed when I showed him. With no leads left, Pita and I tried to cheer him up a bit, promised to go on a search with him the following day, shook hands, and returned home (to a very perturbed and disappointed Weimaraner, I might add). Mango, our serial-killer orange cat, walked up to us to inspect us, and I jokingly asked her, Mango, did you do something to that cat? Where have you buried the body? She pleaded the fifth as usual. A few minutes later, Ryan texted me an article about cats and raccoons (wed talked about raccoons, coyotes, and a whole lot more during our search). We texted back and forth for a few minutes. He then thanked us again, and told us he was going to head out in a few hours once the wind died down. I commented to Pita, Poor guy. That cats not coming back. She agreed. We started watching a TV show. An hour or so later, I received the most unexpected text from Ryan, He just came to my door!!!!! The cat had returned! This episode has left me with so many things to think about. But suffice it for now to say, Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 20:47:18 +0000