A walk in the Park

Our family recently acquired a cat. By acquired, I mean the kids found a cat on the back porch, fed it, played with it and now it's ours. We have since then taken her to the vet to get her shots and get her fixed. This is important because Elliott's aunt Jane has about 35 cats in her backyard and about a third of them are, how shall I put it...not quite right.

Anyway, I don't know where this cat came from but the kids named her Milo and I think she used to be a house cat. Everytime the door opens even a little bit, she comes bolting in like we'd locked her out and she finally got back in where she belongs. Of course she doesn't belong in the house. No animal belongs in the house, except for the occasional fish or turtle, until I eventually convince the kids that nature belongs outside....with nature.

Milo is a pretty smart cat. She figured out somehow where Elliott and I sleep and the exact window that our bed is under and sometimes, at 4 in the morning, she will sit on the window sill and meow until I go outside to replenish her food and water only to find that she has everything she needs. Except a place to sleep in our house.

Today, while I was fixing lunch for the kids, she started whining at the door. She usually does that at some point during the day, but this time, she wouldn't let up. It was like one constant meow. I started to think that maybe she was hurt or something so I walked over to the door and by this time she was hanging on to the bottom of the window that's in the door and looking in the window, I guess, to see if I was paying any attention to her. I opened the door and she just looked up at me. She didn't even try to bolt into the house. That's when I noticed what was on the door mat. A frail little gray and yellow bird. Dead, of course. I couldn't believe it. She wanted me to see what she had done and she was obviously very proud of herself. Elliott had warned me that he saw her stalking birds around the bird bath. I wasn't sure what to do because she acted like she wanted me to do something with it. I knew I couldn't be mad because that's what cats do...in nature. I bent down and with as much fake enthusiasm as I could muster, I patted her on the head and said, "Good girl, Milo. I'm so proud of you. Now take it somewhere else." With that, she picked the bird up in her teeth and took it to the other side of the porch where she promptly started to eat it. I checked back after a couple of minutes and there were only a few feathers left and she was apparently chasing the whole thing down with some dry cat food.

The whole experience was morbidly sweet. She's starting to grow on me. I think we'll keep her.