Calico

For the last several days I have noticed a calico cat hanging around. I don't
know where she came from. Her somewhat disheveled fur indicated that she was a
stray, possibly wild. What I could not figure out was, if she was a stray, why
she stayed put. Every time I left the house, she was imperiously perched
on the railroad tie wall which prevents the neighbor's yard from becoming part
of mine.

Last night, when I arrived, it was quiet and no one was around. I saw her on
her usual perch, looking at me with that suspicious disinterest only a cat can
muster. I decided to find out what she was all about. I approached her slowly,
talking low and with hand outstretched for her to sniff in the universal sign of
"I won't hurt you." She sniffed it, and actually placed a gentle paw on my
hand while she did so. When she was finished, I attempted to scratch her ears.
She immediately laid her ears back and spat at me, suddenly turning from nice
kitty to pissed off alley cat.

"She has kittens under their porch," my son called to me from where
he was standing on the back deck, observing the whole proceedings. Sure enough,
I could see a little tunnel leading under the concrete stoop of the house next
door- the perfect den. This explained why she stayed stolidly on that wall. It
also interpreted the message of the friendly paw and angry spitting. She was
hungry and, at first, hoped I had brought some food- she dare not stray to far
from her family leaving them unprotected. When she discovered I had none, she
warned we away as an unwanted interloper.

With my new understanding, I went in the house and found some canned cat
food. We don't have a cat but we do have a couple of spoiled brat ferrets who
turned their noses up at what I had bought on sale as a treat for them. I put
the foul smelling stuff in a bowl, took it outside, and, observing proper cat
decorum, I placed it on the wall far enough from her to be non-threatening but
close enough for her to smell and understand what it was. As I stepped back, she
caught a whiff and approached the bowl, giving me a look that said "Ah, you
understood." She then dug in with gusto which showed she must have been
starving yet she did not compromise her feline dignity.

I was coming off a terrible day, the kind where you just want to go home,
pull down the blinds, and pretend you are living in a cabin in the far reaches
of the Northwest Territories. I am sure she was feeling no better having to
raise and fend for a family on her own, stuck there between obligation and
starvation. But there, in that quintessential moment as I watched her devouring
that 20 cent can of cat food, there were no bills or job pressures or trials of
raising a teenager into a man. As she filled her stomach with the nutrients she
and her family needed so badly and savored every bite, there were no dogs or
possums or cold rainy nights when she shivered in the cold. There was just
the two of us interacting in the most primal of ways, stealing a moment of
mutual peace out of the chaos of the Universe.