I haven't seen our cat Vivaldi for at least a week or so now. It's probably beginning to get near two weeks… I can't be sure.
Cats are odd in this way. I'm convinced that they're like teenagers and this is what I have to look forward to if I ever end up having kids (and then the world is forever lost! LOST I TELL YOU!)
Seriously, they're very similar animals.
Take for instance the way Vivaldi deals with us. He's been our (Dad's but Dad pays little or no attention to him) cat for a few years now. We've let him be an outdoor animal for some time and he'd run out the bathroom window after eating in the morning, fresh after a long night out on the neighbourhood. He'd do some stuff, sleep either at home or at our place… who knows, really, and then pop back in for dinner, meow for attention at which point we'd feed him and he'd escape through the window shortly afterwards to begin his life again.
With outdoor cats, life begins whenever dinner ends.
But in recent weeks, it's been working differently. He only comes in with me… as in, if he sees me walking down the road, he comes up to me, walks by my side, and then follows me in. When I feed him, he promptly rejects my food. Whether it be fish, beef, turkey, lamb, chicken… whatever… he looks at it and goes back to the dry food, the cereal he'd normally eat for breakfast.
Look at that in comparison with a teenager. I can remember being one… it was only a few years ago (really). We come home, ignore you and your food attempts, eat what we want, and then escape into all hours of the night at which point we'll come home maybe even through a window and then look for a midnight snack.
We're so similar. Really.
And so more recently, Vivaldi's been following me home but not walking in with me. He's been standing at the door and then leaving.
It's weird.
And then there are those times when I try to pick him up… and he just doesn't like it. He does as his purring indicates it, but he mrooowws as if it's going to kill him.
So for the past week or so I haven't seen him. And I've been looking for him. Jingling my keys as I walk down the street home, the normal way of attracting his attention… and nothing. I don't see him and I don't hear him.
I suspect one of the neighbours has him. He's a smart and sweet cat and this wouldn't be the first time neighbours were feeding him and keeping him in without our knowledge.
So I tried a different approach. Seeing one of the black cats and Gigi were talking (or rather hissing), I decided to try to get on their good terms and ask them.
Unfortunately, they weren't too obliging…
It turns out that neither of the black cats or Gigi seemed too interested in helping me find Vivaldi.
Bugger. :(