adoptee

There is a black cat that occasionally visits our balcony. We fed it some canned salmon back in November, when it wasn't tear-your-face-off cold yet, and I was a little worried about it surviving through the winter here. It gave me hope to see little paw-prints every now and again on the snow back there, or on the car windshield. I assume it's taken refuge in our garage.

It's still alive and seems to be well, as it paid us a visit today. I felt obligated to give it SOMEthing. It just seems like if you can survive even a week in this eyelid-stinging winter without ever stepping indoors, you deserve a goddamn medal, or at the very least, some leftover tuna casserole. Plus, it's the cutest and most heartbreaking thing ever to see fog exit the mouth of a frozen little meowing kitty. It engulfed the food straight away and sat there on the balcony, staring at us and crying. I figured it may have been awhile since it ate anything, as dumpster-diving for scraps can be difficult when trash freezes the millisecond you put it outside. So we opened a can of sardines (in mustard sauce) and stuck it outside for the second course.

And that is when I learned a few things. For one, freezing, homeless cats LOVE mustard sauce. She meticulously licked up every drop of it before even starting on the fish. Also, 'it' is a girl. I have no proof, but have a hunch, and I'm going with it. Thirdly, her name is Rhiannon. I didn't so much learn this one as guess it, but it was confirmed when I put on Stevie Nicks and she looked up at me after the name was sung. I think that clarifies the issue.

But I don't think it was food she was after, or a human's acknowledgement of her obvious god-given name. No, because this normally very skittish feline, who usually freaks out and runs when we just peek out the door-sized window to catch a glimpse of her, sat bravely right in front of the door, separated from me only by a pane of glass and a couple of feet, and peered into our kitchen, vocally requesting some unknown cat wish. At first she cried continuously, and then she chilled out a little and only said something when I looked up at her from my herb-chopping.

She'd eaten her fill, we'd left water out there for her, and she certainly had never watched either of us prior to tonight - we were always the creepsters spying on her while she munched on our cat-snack offerings. She even stayed put when I sat right up against the window and asked her what she wanted. I narrowed it down to one of the following possibilities:

a) She was emphatically thanking us. Over and over and over again.

b) Those sounds were cat-talk for, "I'm freezing my fucking ass off out here. I don't trust you enough to enter your home but can I at least sit out here and bitch to you for a while?"

c) She has a mad crush on me.

d) She loves the mellow voice and twangy guitar of Iron & Wine.

e) She suspected that I was making a cat stew, and the thought of swimming in hot soup sounded luxurious and dreamy when compared to sitting frozen on someone's back porch, watching her hot breath leave her body as steam.

Aaaand, it had to have been c), because I left the kitchen, and she's gone now. Either that, or she strongly disapproves of Radiohead. But that just wouldn't make any sense.