Just One More Thing

Normally, you put addendums at the end of something, but I’m going to front-load mine.  Short and sweet: the hubby found Timmy this morning with the other cat in the basement.  Near as we can figure, Timmy decided to take a time-out and burrowed under the mounds of packing paper down there to chill.  Odd that he didn’t come out when called and odder still that he continued to stay mum even though I musta scoured that damn basement a hundred times over.  But, perhaps, he was fed up, needed a break.  Or just being a cat.

As I mentioned in my FB feed, I would be embarrassed if this were not also understandable.  Strange neighborhood, stories of bobcats and coyotes, cat disappears…come on, tell me you wouldn’t have worried.

More to the point, though, I wonder if my gloom-and-doom isn’t also reflective of my mindset right now.

Whatever.  Time to move on; take a deep breath; build the grill, set out another hummingbird feeder, get the poles for the hopper feeder I want to put up in the backyard.  Pound out another couple outline chapters for the new book.  Maybe swim outside if the weather clears up, or go to the public indoor place if it doesn’t.

Come here, you stupid cat; come give your human a hug.

***

Before last night, I’d planned to blog about . . . well, not much, really.  Just a short entry to wave hello, say I’m still here and alive and trying to adjust, like popping my head out of a foxhole to take a peek.  The volume of boxes has diminished; the house is slowly inching toward a semblance of a place you can actually live and work.  I still lose things about five seconds after I put them away because nothing is very familiar yet and the house’s layout is so different.

I was going to blog a bit about having found an outdoor pool, which is a plus.  Haven’t swum outdoors in about 14 years.  Still like it, though I might have to invest in a triathlon wetsuit soon because while this place stays open until October, the days are getting shorter already and there’s only so fast I can swim.

I was going to talk about meeting some folks, all of them very welcoming.

I was even going to write about writing a bit again: making time this past week to start pounding out a new outline for a story that finally feels like a good fit.  Aiming for the end of next week to be done with the sucker and then start writing in earnest.  To that, though, I owe a couple of other writers’ good advice about not worrying if the thing is brilliant or even good but to start writing something again to get back into the groove.

So, what I’d planned was a general update . . . until around 10:30 last night when I was putting Winnie to bed and realized that Timmy was nowhere to be found.

It took the husband about a half hour to come around to the idea that the cat was really gone-gone.  He kept saying that Timmy had to be around the house somewhere because we’ve been so careful about keeping the cats indoors.  Just about every person who’s been to the house to do one thing or another has mentioned that, by the way, you are going to keep your cats inside, right?  Because of being on the edge of land preserve and state park and the coyotes and bobcats and all?  So, as much as I had wanted to let the cats roam, I haven’t.  I’ve listened.  I’ve figured, okay, more play time indoors, and the boys love each other anyway.  That doesn’t mean the boys haven’t asked to go out.  Winnie gives me that pathetic but I’m such a good boy, how can you be so cruel look.  Timmy, in particular, is always alert to any opportunity.

I guess he found one.

So it’s been kind of a crummy night and I’m sure I’m going to have a couple crummy days.

I once had another cat, TJ, who slipped away when we first moved to Wisconsin.  After two days, I was sure that cat was a goner, but then he reappeared one morning about a week later.  Way back when I was a shrink resident, a cat disappeared for four months only to resurface two houses down after Hurricane Gloria–and that boy went on to live to the ripe old age of 21.

This time, we’ll just wait and see.  But I won’t lie: I feel very gloomy-doomy right now.  Just feels like . . . one more thing.  It isn’t that this is all about me; I can’t keep from thinking of all the really bad things that might have happened.  Timmy’s small, and he’s a gimp.  On the plus side, he is also very friendly, so I’m hoping that he’s wandered to a neighbor’s place and someplace warm and fed.  Haven’t checked the Humane Society hours yet, but I’ll sure be calling soon as they open.  Timmy’s chipped, but that doesn’t mean the Humane Society will automatically check.  I might go the flier route; I might not.  I just don’t know.

<sigh>

Years back, an outdoor semi-feral cat a couple writer-friends had been regularly feeding for quite some time just up and vanished.  My friends were frantic; I remember how they searched everywhere and worried about whether the cat–whose name I still recall–had gotten herself stuck somewhere or locked in a garage, a shed . . . or worse.  She never resurfaced, as far as I know.

This just is so supremely upsetting.  Damn well doesn’t help with this whole thing.  But, really, this is about my little cat.