The Cat Came Back

There is a sleek, pretty, stripy-sided cat in our neighborhood that cannot seem to keep his four fuzzy feet out of the street! He reminds me of Little Man (whose real name was Gypsy), the cat we had growing up in West Hartford. He’s much younger than the Little Man I remember, and much thinner, too – but just about the same color and markings as I recall them. Actually, I’m not even sure he is a “he” – but for the purposes of this blog... Anyway – I come home at night (usually on the nights I work until 6PM) and turn right at the stop sign onto to our street, drive about 100 yards, and there he is. He is either sitting happily in the middle of the road swishing his long tail across the double-yellow lines taking in the sights from this new and seemingly favorite perspective, or merrily padding his feline way from one side of the street to the other, unknowing or uncaring of any vehicles bearing down upon him at 25 MPH or better. Last night, he sat with his fuzzy butt on the yellow lines watching my Ford Taurus become larger and larger as I got closer to him. By the time I was close enough to see his sparkly amber eyes clearly through the windshield, I’d come to a complete stop and the cat was still there, calmly looking at me. I thought, “This cat is playing games with me!” I think he was testing to see which one would give in first: the cat or the car. The car lost. I finally beeped the horn at him and he leapt gracefully to his feet, looked at me disdainfully, and floated (yes, floated) to the left side of the road, where he turned around, plopped his butt down on the grass, and watched silently as my car eased by headed for home. I think that cat is either extremely stupid, or way too smart for his own good. I hope I don’t see him dead on the side of the road. That would break my heart. TTFN JMS