Jar of Goodness 3.30.25: Brenda

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for Brenda.

Or, as we sometimes call her, Brenda Hoover. Or Brenda Hoover Kirby Eureka Dyson. (Because she’s always ready to eat.)

I mentioned her earlier, but she’s overdue for a formal introduction. I’m including several pictures of Brenda taken since September 2024.

We more or less adopted her sometime last September. She was one of the “neighborhood” cats—you know—the ones that appear, first on the outer margins of our yard, then gradually encroach nearer our house despite our few TNR cats that mostly repel new cats from forming a tribe in our yard.

It was about a year ago, in February 2024, that she first appeared; we guess she had lived with people who lived along the creepy alley on our block. On the other side of our privacy fence, we heard the woman who lives in the house just north of us hollering at a child: “That cat is pregnant! She gonna have kittens!”

It had to have been Brenda, but no, Brenda wasn’t pregnant; she was just overweight, and she has a nervous overgrooming condition that makes her lick and chew the fur off her belly. Brenda is ear-tipped, for goodness sake; she's been spayed.

Sue started calling her “Brenda” early on; she makes up these little names for the neighborhood kitties spontaneously. They are already named before I even notice them. Brenda started sneaking around one end of our fence, sitting or standing there, watching to see when our regular TNR cats were done eating, then moving in to, well, hoover up whatever food was remaining.

But Berry, the empress of our TNR cats, made her feel pretty unwelcome. So Brenda figured out that she would be okay if she kept to the southwest corner of our house. And Sue figured out that she could put a separate bowl out, on that side of the house, just for Brenda.

(This is Berry, a miniature black panther; would you want to cross her? I didn't think so.)

We had always figured that Berry, the empress, who is the oldest of our TNR cats, would be first in line to come live with us inside the house (she already spends most nights, and all severe weather, inside our downstairs sunporch). But Brenda moved quickly. We’re not sure how old Brenda is, but we think she’s old enough—or at least, had a hard enough life—that it pained us to think of her trying to live outside during the winter.

We basically held the front door open for her, and she came right in.

In addition to her weight and nervous overgrooming habit (which I chalk up to PTSD, anxiety, or whatever gives cats nervous behaviors), she seems to have spine, hip, or leg problems. I’m not sure she sees really well, either. Her eyes often seem dilated more than necessary. Also, I wasn’t sure her hearing was very good, but I now realize she hears just fine, since she hears a cat food bag opening, or the sound of spoons clinking on dishes, from two rooms away.

It was sometime in September when we started letting her in. At first, she spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping. Outdoors, she had slept on the ground under our forsythia and lilac bushes. That can’t have been very comfortable, or restful.

Since she came to live indoors, she has auditioned nearly every surface a cat could nap on. The blue ottoman. The living room sofa. “Chairey,” the green overstuffed chair in the corner. The floor. Any bed low enough for her to jump up onto. Then she discovered the third floor, and the daybed up there. And the chair in my office. And the cushion-covered trunk in my office window. Now that it’s gotten warmer, she discovered the back sunporch and its chairs, the table, the sofa out there. She’s even learned that for a few hours in midmorning, the sunshine beams right onto the floor in the doorway to the outer sunporch. Perfect for a nice morning bask! This place must be like a wonderful, wonderful dream to her. So many new rooms full of comfortable places where she can relax!

It’s really gratifying to see a cat, who’s had such a rough time in life, explore what must seem like heaven, by comparison.

This isn’t to say it’s been smooth sailing. First, Lois and Brenda haven’t exactly been friends. Lois, for no reason whatsoever, went on the defensive and acts like the underdog. She runs from Brenda; Brenda only hisses at her, but Lois scampers away like a frightened bunny. Fortunately, Lois has been learning that Brenda, though much heavier and equipped with a deep, loud hiss-megaphone, is not likely to pursue her more than a few inches at a time. Lois can easily run circles around Brenda.

The other strange thing about Brenda’s integration into our household was the litter box. For the first few months, Brenda never used the litter box, I suppose because it smelled of Lois. But Brenda never had an accident in our house. Instead, she held it until she could get our attention, lead us down the steps to the front door, and be let out only for potty purposes. (She used the mulch in our front flower beds.) She never ventured far from our front door, and she learned to scratch on our aluminum screen door if we didn’t let her back inside after about fifteen minutes.

Just in time for the winter’s first bad weather in November, she started using the litter box. And she really hasn’t been outside since then. She hasn’t even asked.

For her first few months, she got to eat however much food she wanted. She ate all the food in her bowl, plus anything Lois didn’t immediately finish, and she gained weight. That was probably a mistake on our part. In late January, we switched her to “indoor cat” food (higher fiber, lower calorie), and we've been gradually decreasing the total amount of food she gets per day. It’s easy to limit her food, since Lois can get her own food on a high surface that Brenda cannot jump up to. (Yet.)

Brenda has a fun, though crochety personality. Yes, food and napping are foremost, and so is safety. She hates being picked up (I think it’s from fear, and not pain) (someone really mistreated her). When picked up, she mutters “Noooo . . . !” and grabs anything she can to prevent being lifted. When she’s relaxed, she slowly, slyly wiggles her tail tip. When she’s in her full nap “zone,” she snores and she presses her face against nearby pillows. When disturbed from a nap, she lifts up her head and stares at the noisemaker with groggy annoyance.

When she tucks in to her food bowl, she makes a chewing noise like “nyuh, nyuh, nyuh.”

She comes off as a big ol’ grouch, but when she gets a choice, she always chooses to be near us.

Now that she and Lois are starting to understand each other better, Brenda has been inviting her to “play.” First, the good old cat game of “gatekeeper,” where one cat simply blocks the other’s exit from a room. Lois, for instance, might be on the outer sunporch, and Brenda plops down right in the doorway between it and the rest of the house. Staring directly at the “trapped” Lois: “Try to get by me!” Cats apparently find this game great fun.

Another invitation to play is when Brenda just plops down anywhere near Lois, exposing her belly, with her head on the ground. It’s like she’s saying, “come and rub my belly. I’m just resting.” As if. Lois doesn’t take her up on the invitation, but she stares and, on some level, realizes that their relationship is no longer revolves around animosity.

Lois, for her part, has fun creeping around Brenda on the margins of the room, sneaking behind the sofa, zigzagging behind chairs and floor lamps, making a bridge out of a guitar case—getting past Brenda, who can’t help but track Lois as she sneaks by. Lois also likes to approach Brenda quietly as she sleeps, then sniff at her tail or foot or back—whatever is nearest—then back away quickly if Brenda awakens.

This is all to say, they are getting along. Brenda is fitting in nicely, growing more comfortable, sleeping on beds and sofas with us, running to me when I pick up her comb, and yes, doing a little Brenda dance next to her bowl when I’m opening her food bag.

So, welcome, Brenda, you’re an official member of the Opulent Opossum Elm Street community!

Jar of Goodness 1.19.25: Sunshine Warmth, Real and Fake

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for sunshine, real and “fake.”

A long time ago, when we lived in Montana (where the winters were longer, colder, and snowier than here) we figured out how to rig plain, clip-on incandescent shop lights, with a 75-watt bulb, over our kitty beds.

Turns out that cats love, love, love the dry warmth. They just soak it in.

We’ve had about two whole weeks of remarkably cold weather. We still have snow and ice on the ground from the “snowpocalypse” of January 4 and 5. It was impossible to get the inch of ice off our sidewalks when it fell, and wherever it’s shaded, there is still ice and snow on the ground. The lower layer was sleet that got frozen together, then topped with white, reflective snow. We’ve had a few afternoons sporadically when it got above freezing, but not enough to really melt it. If anything I think it’s been sublimating. Cold, grim weather.

Here and there, we’ve also had some cold days when it was quite windy, and our house loses heat quickly on those days. Stucco, brick, and plaster. And the windows leak. The farther you are from the middle of the house or from a heat register, the colder you are.

We wear sweaters and wrap ourselves in blankets. My office, on the third floor, is cold storage for my carcass. I’m too cheap to heat it full-time, and there’s only one heat register up there, anyway. Heat goes up, so it’s bad enough that it gets as warm as it does. And when I go up there, it’s not so bad at first, but when the sun starts going down, I realize I’m shivering, rubbing my nose, wiggling my toes to keep them warm, and when I stand up, my knees ache as if they’ve been frozen.

And the cats try to stay warm, too. They curl into balls and just look . . . tight. Lois is lucky to have a long, fluffy tail that functions as a fuzzy muffler.

Brenda has a layer of blubber, and I guess that helps her. (Funny, my layers of blubber don’t seem to keep me warm.)

But . . . fake sunshine to the rescue!

It’s fun to watch the cats seek the fake-sunshine beds. And it’s gratifying to watch them uncurl after about half an hour, once the warmth has soaked into them. They lay on their sides and let their feet hang out. It’s like a little trip to Phoenix.

I have a shop light rigged up in my office, but although it keeps my head warm, it doesn’t help my toes much. I occasionally get up, walk over to the front dormer, and stand in the sunshine on afternoons when it’s bright.

This time of year, it can really make a difference.

I hope you’re staying warm!

For the record, in addition to Lois, Brenda, and the picture of Mackie's feet, I'm including some old photos of cats that have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. All loved their sunshine, real and fake. From top to bottom: Nikki, Genji, Lois, Brenda, Patches (the original Opulent Opossum kitty), Mackie (feet and tail), and Earl.

Jar of Goodness 3.27.22: Lois

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for Lois.

Yeah, our little moo. I’ve shared her background with you already, and told you about how we sometimes drive her around in the car for her “enrichment.”

Well, early this morning, she curled up next to me, purred herself to sleep, then started lightly snoring. Awwwww. Since she rarely sleeps with us or wants to be held or cuddled, it was especially sweet. Awwwwww. Thank you, Lowie.

Belated Birthday to the Op Op

Oh. My. God. Can you believe the Opulent Opossum is nine years old already? My first two posts were on March 3, 2009, and here it is May of 2018. And look how far we’ve come! Obviously, since my blogging is diminished so much, there must not be much more to say. About anything!

I’ve covered it all!

. . . Not! I’m starting the tenth year of blogging, and the only problem now is, how do I find time to write about all the ideas in my head?

I’ve been busy doing things instead of writing and reflecting—and I suppose that’s a very good thing. Naturally, all the usual stuff continues. The house, the yard, the kitties. The elephant ears and the storm windows. You deserve an update!

Well, yes, there was the springtime landscape work.





AND we adopted a new kitty at the end of March! He’s from the Wild Thing people. He was trapped along with a clan of other cats in on a road in the south part of town called Hiview. They neutered him and ear-tipped him, thinking he’d be released with the rest of the feral/semi-ferals . . . but as he recovered, they realized he wasn’t like the others. He was nice. He liked people. He wanted attention. Somewhere in the process, the veterinarian who did his neutering surgery also fixed his cleft palate. (Didja know kitties can have cleft palates? Sure enough!)



The surgery didn’t quite “take.” It kept getting infected; stitches came out. Well, they tried—but he basically went back to the default condition. Here's a picture taken of him after his surgery. Try to imagine if this had healed:



The foster family called him “Macaroni,” I guess because he’s orange. We, of course, call him all sorts of variations of the name: Mac. Mr. Mac. Mackie. Mr. Mackie (“mmmm-kay?”) Mackadoodle. Mackie Doodle Dandy. Mack the Knife. Macaroon. . . . You get the idea!

One reason I was interested in adopting him was that Lois needed a friend with her on the first floor (elderly and deaf Patches lives on the second floor with us, and she really doesn’t deserve an immature little “friend” to surprise her as she walks blearily around the house). Another reason we wanted to adopt him was indeed his peculiarity: His cleft palate, combined with his grown-up status, meant that he wouldn’t be as readily “adoptable” as other kitties, especially during kitten season. And more—I remembered Miss Rhue, who used to rent the first floor from Grandma. She had had a cleft palate, and I liked the idea of her somewhere, somehow, maybe smiling down on a sweet kitty with the same congenital weirdness.

So . . . in addition to the extra care and attention called for in the process of adopting a new kitty into the household, I’ve been busy with some other doings, too. This year I’m the secretary of the Old Munichburg Association and have volunteered to be the “vendors coordinator” of this year’s Oktoberfest celebration (September 29 is coming up really fast!)

Also, I’ve been involved with a brilliant new arts organization here in Central Missouri, the Southside Philharmonic Orchestra. I was even persuaded to be the president of the board! I’m pretty sure that means that the SPO is a priority for me, so I’ve been trying to behave appropriately.

Meanwhile, Sue’s mom had some pretty gnarly surgery in early March, so we were in northern Ohio for a week.



The surgery was a success, but the recovery was lengthy (and continues). In fact, Sue returned to Ohio in mid-April in order to help her sister, who was simultaneously dealing with medical issues with her father-in-law (who recently passed away). Sue’s still in Ohio!



I’ve been batchin’ it. Goin’ through all the church nonsense, dealing with a health problem with Patches (yes, she has that old-cat kidney disease, it’s official), moving all the big potted plants outside, putting the elephant ears into the ground, helping put on an SPO concert, and a lot more stuff I won’t bore you with but which ate up entire weekends.

Amid all this, I took Mackie to the veterinarian that had seen him previously—who attempted to repair his cleft palate, etc. Even though she was not our usual veterinarian, I thought it was only fair for her to see him again for booster shots and whatever. And she surprised me by saying that Mackie is FIV+. What? What-the-what?? What does this mean?

Looking back, I realize I had only inquired whether or not he was feline leukemia positive, and didn’t ask about feline immunodeficiency status. Fortunately, FIV isn’t as communicable as feline leukemia, but still . . . Lois had been living with him almost a long as he’d been with us. They got along within only a few days of his arrival.

And the Wild Thing liaison had been under the impression that he wasn’t “strongly” FIV+; and if it was only a “weak” positive, it probably meant he’d only been exposed to the virus and didn’t carry it. But I did have him tested with my own vet, and sure enough—it’s a “strong” positive. He has the virus; they say his life will almost certainly be shortened to 3–5 years and end with an infection some sort, or, more likely, with cancer.

Anyway, at first, it seemed like it was no big deal. It seemed really unlikely he could transmit the virus to Lois. FIV is a lot like HIV—the virus is relatively fragile outside the body, and it pretty much needs to be injected into a recipient. Since Mackie was neutered and Lois spayed, he wasn’t going to try to inseminate Lois. We changed the water regularly, so it was very, very unlikely he’d pass it on through sharing a food or water bowl. He’d have to seriously bite her in order to give her the virus.



But within a week of learning this fact about Mack, I started noticing that he is . . . nippy. I think he just does it because he’s worked up, and he’s craving attention. But he does occasionally “strike” at my ankles as I walk around, as he weaves among my feet. And I knew that he and Lois played rather hard together—chasing, playing “gatekeeper,” and so on. Had he bitten her? Could he?

As far as I know, he hasn’t bitten her hard enough to break the skin. She’s fast! And she’s amply covered with fluff. But as he has gotten more comfortable with me, he has gotten more comfortable biting at my ankles and calves. Hard enough for me to actually say, “Ouch!”

So, as of May 21, Lois has moved up to the second floor. Sixty days after her last possible exposure to the virus, I can get her tested to see if she’s acquired it. So now Mackie’s alone on the first floor, and Patches lives in one of the second-floor bedrooms (I’m currently trying to get her and Lois to make some kind of peace). Three litter boxes to clean!



Lois’s move to the second floor meant that I had to take measures to Lois-proof our general living area. Hide/secure all the electrical cords; relocate anything she’s likely to destroy (feathers, vases); clean up and throw away the antique vase she did break . . . repair the speaker wire she did manage to sever, even though the wire was hidden under the stereo cabinet, I thought . . .

And this, my dear friends, has been my spring. Have I not been posting regularly? Well, this is why: A constant mayhem, one thing after another. And there you go.

Lois Update

Lois the kitten is becoming Lois the cat. She’s about two months shy of her first birthday, and she’s finally showing signs that napping is something she enjoys as opposed to something that comes upon her suddenly and arrests her playing.

Also, as she’s grown older, she’s gotten fluffier and fluffier. We had no idea that she would be a long-haired cat. But there you go. Long-haired, silky, and fluffy. With a long, amazingly luxurious tail. What a surprise!



Here’s another item: Lois likes to go sight-seeing with us in the car. Ever since we rescued her from her “wilderness” ordeal last summer, she’s been okay with being in the car. We’ve taken her to the vet’s only once (to meet our vet and do the follow-up for the vaccinations she got at the shelter), and we leave her carrier open in the room with her all the time, so she doesn’t necessarily equate her carrier and the car with being poked with needles.



So, on random weekend afternoons, we’ve been taking her out for drives. We call it her “enrichment activities.” One Saturday afternoon, we drove her clear to Brazito and back! We stopped at the Burger King drive-thru and got a cheeseburger (plain, with nothing but the cheese on it), and shared some of it with her. Guess what—she liked it. (Duh. Cats have a thing for cheeseburgers, right?)



I believe that’s what behavioral specialists call “positive reinforcement.”

I’ve taken her to Columbia a few times to “visit Grandma and Grandpa” when I have something to drop off or pick up at my parents’. I close the bedroom doors so I won’t have to spend time trying to get her out from under a bed. (Though maybe my parents would like her to do a little dust-mopping while she’s visiting; she’s a really great dust mop!) And she loves their screened-in porch, with its excellent wide railing, which is perfect for watching the birds and squirrels that visit their backyard.

One afternoon, we drove with her to the Mari-Osa Access, east of town off Highway 50/63. We parked in the lot, with a nice view of the Osage River, and stayed in the car with the windows down just a little bit. We had a little picnic, with cheese, crackers, and fresh and dried fruits. It was so exciting when a grizzled old dog from the nearby trailer park trotted near our car as he performed what was undoubtedly his routine inspection of the perimeter of the lot.

Yesterday, we drove up Route 179 to the Marion Access to the Missouri River. Lois and I enjoyed the sunshine in the car while Sue walked down the boat ramp and took photos of the river. On this curvy road, Lois got experience in keeping upright as the car veered back and forth, up and down.



Today, we drove to Tebbetts and back. On the way out, we headed east on Mokane Road, just to give her experience with bumpy gravel roads. Hey, no problem! And there was a small herd of black angus munching on corn crop residue just off the little road we took north to 94. I stopped for a few moments to let Lois see them, and they started to approach the car (just an electric fence between them and us). They probably thought we’d throw them a bale of hay or something. And boy, this was exciting for Lois, too!

When we drive with her, we leave her cat carrier open in the back seat. She goes in and out; it’s her safe space. When she gets tired of looking out the windows, she rolls around in her carrier.



So, maybe someday Lois will travel with us in the car somewhere. Like, on a weekend trip. I think that’d be pretty neat. We should probably also get her used to a leash and harness. Meanwhile, these excursions are getting her used to the car, and not terrified of going for rides. And they’re giving her the excitement she craves! Weeee!!! . . . And we have fun, too.



(Photos, except for the "cheezeburger" pic, are by Sue. She sits in the back seat and keeps an eye on Lois, while I focus on driving.)

Extraordinary Luck

This kind of luck rarely happens. I hardly know how to begin in writing about it.

Remember the kittens? Oh, it was hard saying goodbye to them. But we really didn’t want to adopt another cat now. Patches, our one remaining indoor kitty, is getting rather old and is deaf. We didn’t want to upset her with any upstart interlopers. Also, we were thinking that when she’s gone, we’d have some time where we could take off on trips and not have to impose upon a cat sitter.

So anyway, things were going well—as well as we could expect, considering that we had to say goodbye to the kittens. On the same day (Tuesday, July 11), Sue trapped our mamma kitty (Thumby) in the trap Jennifer of Wild Thing–Feral Feline Fix had provided for us, and when Jennifer came to pick up the mamma, I scooped up the four kittens (who were all napping) and put them into Jennifer’s carrier. And then Jennifer took them all away. Thumby, to be spayed, wormed, vaccinated, and to return, and the kittens to be fixed, vaccinated, etc., and then released for adoption. . . . Jennifer was confident that our friendly, attractive kittens would have no trouble finding homes.

So after work on Thursday the 13th, Jennifer brought back Thumby to our backyard. She was safe and glad to be home, but giving us a lot of ugly, recriminating stares. And not letting us get near her. She looked around and called for her kittens, but of course they were long gone.

The good news is that the very first day the kittens were available for adoption, Friday the 14th, every single one of them got adopted! Yay! That quickly! But on the weekend, I got calls and messages from Jennifer—and I didn’t check messages until Sunday night. Turns out there was an “issue” with one of the females.

At first, it wasn’t clear which of the three females it was (three! it turns out “Arjuna” was also a girl!)—but on Monday we found out that it was the calico, “Lois.” The “issue” was this: The woman who’d adopted her had declined to use a carrier, leash, or other restraint, feeling confident about carrying Lois out of the Jefferson City Animal Shelter and into her car in her arms.



. . . Can you see where this is going? Everyone who’s ever carried a cat and had it wriggle free out of your arms, raise your hand!

Google “Jefferson City Animal Shelter” and look at the satellite view to see the area we’re talking about. Right across the street from the shelter is the Jefferson City greenway trail, and beyond that, Wears Creek, which is lined by impenetrable woods. Jungley Missouri lowland woods.



Poison-ivy-choked woods.



And that’s where Lois ran, when she broke out of her new owner’s arms.



So two days had elapsed by the time I learned about what happened. (I need to be better about checking all my devices and messages, huh.) Sue and I did go out Sunday night, after ten, to walk along the greenway path near the shelter and call into the woods for her.

Jennifer had put out at least one trap, hoping to lure in a hungry, lost kitten with food, but all she got, she said, were possums and raccoons.

And we went back the next morning, and then that night, and then again, and again . . .



One evening, I met a man along the trail who said he’d just seen a black cat and a young orange calico fighting on the trail, behind Butzer’s, which is well to the east. He had broken up the fight . . . he showed me the place where the young calico had escaped back into the woods. There were even a few fluffs of orange hair left on the sidewalk from the altercation.



Gosh! Was she trying to return home? Stranger things have happened. She could get very close to home just by following Wears Creek. And sometimes cats do miraculous things along those lines . . . so we started focusing more on the area east of the shelter. But one look at the big, long, water-filled culverts under Southwest Boulevard, by the Ford dealership, was disheartening.

And the weather was horrible that week—high nineties, heat index over a hundred. Sure, she had water in the creek, but as the days went on, I had a harder and harder time imagining she could have made it. It was so hot! And she was so small.



Like other people experiencing grief and loss, I went through a “bargaining” stage, where I thought: If she would come out of the woods right now, I’d take her directly home, and we’d just adopt her. She’d never have to leave her home again. I promise.

I was quickly losing hope, and my emotional stamina was failing.

There was only so much trilling and dinging on her old food dish, so much hopeful, positive, encouraging “Here, kitty, kitty!” and “Come on, Lois!” “Come on, little girl!” that I could sing out into the thick, sultry woods—as if she was there to hear me and respond. Who am I kidding? Soaking wet from sweat, I’d come home and just cry.



And sleeping was impossible; I’d wake up, and the vision of Lois would swim before me, her demise a waking nightmare.

But Jennifer was hopeful: Lois associates people with food, she reasoned, so if she gets hungry enough, she very likely will leave the woods and start approaching people. Using a photo we’d taken of Lois, Jennifer got signs made up and laminated: LOST KITTEN. She put them up along the greenway; she put them up in the neighborhood south of the woods south of the shelter; she talked to people at businesses that back up along the greenway.



I was trying to just accept that she was gone. It got so I was going through the motions: I have to be able to tell myself I did everything I could. And I was trying to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault little Lois had come to a bad ending—I had done everything just right, as far as I could tell, and her getting loose was beyond my control. I started focusing on how I could keep such a thing from happening in the future. (For starters, the Animal Shelter needs to insist that people adopting cats use some sort of restraint, a harness/leash or a carrier, or even just a single-use cardboard pet box . . . !)

I was trying to move on.

Then on Monday, July 24 (ten days after she’d run away into the woods), around 5 p.m., I heard the phone ringing and recognized (by now) Jennifer’s number. I picked it up, and she said, “I think we’ve just had a Lois sighting!”

Breathless, incredulous, I listened to her say that people in a business west of the shelter had noticed a “new” calico kitten around their building; they’re on the Wild Thing program, so apparently Lois had been getting food from them—but disappearing into the woods behind their offices, which is only a short distance, and a steep, weedy slope from the back side of Target. The city's Target store is actually just behind the Animal Shelter. You wouldn't think it is, but sure enough.



They’d seen her less than an hour ago. I told Jennifer I was heading out right now.

First, I looked at the office park, but it didn’t seem too promising—I didn’t want to trespass behind those businesses, although I thought I might have heard a “meow” in response to my calling. (By this point, I was ready to believe I was hallucinating.) A little frustrated, I drove clear around to Target, wended through its parking lot, and parked along the deserted southeast wall. I had with me the food dish and a can of stinky canned cat food.



I looked down the shrubby, impenetrable, but rather short slope toward the area she’d just been, and I called and dinged on the food bowl. Almost immediately I heard meowing in response. It took a while before I could see her, but then she appeared: Lois! A few weeks older and skinnier, but Lois indeed!

She was wary. Come on, little girl (I was trying to remember the voice I’d used when I spoke to them when they were in our backyard). I kept talking, using all the weird, unique little voices and trills I used. I think she remembered. Still . . . she didn’t come forward. She was only about six or eight feet below the top of the hill, but I sure couldn’t reach her. Time for the food.



I didn’t have a spoon, so I dipped my fingers into the can of food and flipped some at her.

Well, that got a response! She was indeed hungry!

I tried to make a trail of cat food up the hill between us. And I pushed some food onto the dish I’d brought, making what I hoped was a lot of appetizing clattering in the process. While Lois was snarfing up the good stuff on the slope below, Jennifer drove up. When she got out of her vehicle, I pointed and mouthed: “It’s her!!!” Jennifer walked closer and peered down the slope: “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe this!”

She had just set a trap behind the business below, but she drove back around to put it at the top of the hill.

There were a lot of weeds, brush, and garbage, and I was in my slipperiest flip-flops. Lois wasn’t coming up, so tried to descend to the side of her, hopefully to go past her and then back up behind her, to kind of drive her closer to the top of the slope, where I’d left the can and dish of food.

This didn’t work; she skittered farther down when she saw me coming. But when I walked back up the hill, she simply followed me. I moved the food to where I’d been, then stepped back, and she scampered up the rest of the hill to the bowl—level ground—and I simply walked up to her, grabbed her and the food bowl, and (holding onto her very securely) took us all into my car. I didn’t let go of her until I had us all inside, the door shut, the car on, and window rolled up.

She freaked out for just a moment—bounced from the front seat up onto the dashboard—but I grabbed her and set her down on the floor in front of her smelly canned cat food, and she started eating and purring. And that was that. From then on, she didn’t stop purring for about the next twenty-four hours!

I waited for Jennifer to return. When she did, Lois was sitting in the back of the car, enjoying the A/C, and apparently waiting for us to go home. We didn’t talk long; mainly talked about how amazed we are, and about adoption stuff.

Even before Jennifer had picked up the kittens, we had told her that if there was any problem or delay in getting any of them adopted, we’d be glad to just take her/him/them back. At that time, we had nightmare visions of one of them possibly languishing for days in a cage at a shelter—we didn’t dream anything like this could have happened.

So that offer, plus the more metaphysical “bargaining” I did while we were calling for her, pretty much closed the deal. And so we have adopted Lois.

Because Patches is the queen of our house, and is rather elderly and quite deaf, we’ve decided not to try to incorporate Lois into her world. We’ll make good use of our first floor being a separate apartment, and Lois will live on the first floor while Patches has the rest of the house. (When we adopted Patches, she lived on the first floor the same way, since Nikki was our elderly, frail queen cat at the time. What goes around comes around.)

Sue was almost as ecstatic as Lois when she came home. I stood beside the doorway, holding Lois, as she came up the stairs to her office: “Sue, did you get my messages?” “No, my battery ran out.” “Well . . . I have something to share with you . . . Surprise!”

Sue’s expression was priceless. She was astonished, also, because she’d had a dream that morning that Lois had returned—a dream that literally came true.

And Lois—considering she must have been exhausted after ten days in the wilderness—didn’t really sleep until the next afternoon. Sue slept in our guest bedroom on the first floor that night to keep an eye on her. And every ten minutes, Sue said, Lois renewed her purring and nuzzling and kneading.

Here are some photos of Lo-Lo since she’s returned.









Her first night at home, we let her go outside in the backyard so she could visit with her mamma. What a reunion! Lois wanted to nurse, and Thumby let her try. I doubt she was lactating anymore, having been spayed, but it’s the sentiment that counts. The picture says it all.



We sat outside with the kitties well into the evening. For the next hours, Lois trotted after her mamma like a little lamb. Sensing Thumby getting rather annoyed at times, we gave her breaks by periodically picking up and petting Lois. Even unrelated Rufus, the neutered male of our backyard clan, seemed interested in the returned kitten.

When we went back inside, we brought Lois with us. And oddly enough, she has not shown any interest in going back outside. On Friday morning, she went outside, tried to nurse from her mom, and her mom hissed at her (well, it’s time for weaning). And Lois came back in and doesn’t seem interested in going back out. Which is fine with us.



We have plenty of cat stuff—extra litter boxes, cat furniture, toys, etc.—so she’s like a little princess in her own apartment. Since Sue’s office is on that floor, she gets a lot of people-time.





As I write this, just a few days after her return, Lois is already gaining back her weight. She’s calmed down a lot; she has a pleasant demeanor. She has excellent litter box habits.

But her personality has changed since the day I put her and her siblings into the carrier two weeks ago. Then, she was a precocious, aloof, smarty-pants junior cat’s cat. We meant “food,” and she wasn’t afraid of us . . . but she wasn’t very attuned to us. But since her ordeal and return home, she seems to have decided that we are the best people in the world. We’re rock stars!

We’re family.

. . . Amazing how luck can so suddenly appear!