The Kitten of Alcatraz
A patient darkness, filled with cold biting rain, has filled this mornings skies. It looks and feels more like midnight then it does early morning. Yesterday, the Portland weather personalities were prognosticating that significant amounts of snow would blanket our area but their forecasting rubric was a bit off and we didn’t see anything white upon the ground when we awoke. But the weather was ugly. It was a mix of icy rain and heavy wind gusts. To make matters worse, I completely lunched locking the front door at night and in the morning, when I pattered from the bed to the coffee making machine in the kitchen, I was shocked to see that the front door had been blown ajar sometime during the night. A quick head count revealed that one of the cats had seized the opportunity that the open door provided to do a little exploring. Crap.

Our cats are not outdoor cats, we keep them locked inside the safety our own personal al(cat)raz – safe from the wheels of cars, the tendencies of children and the hunger of dogs. However, our cats were born in a barn. Hence, I believe, they gravitate to the curiosities of the wilderness whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Of all the days for a kitten escape…yesterday was not a good one. We spent a good half-hour combing the Alfred Street neighborhood looking for our little runaway to no avail. The truth was she could have been anywhere. But the weather was so bad outside that we thought she wouldn’t have wanted to go very far. During our search the trash men came through our block and emptied all the vessels of their purchase. Lightened of their loads all the cans at the top of the hill quickly blew over and began rolling down the street towards our house. Everything was just too weird outside.

We retreated to the house, locked the other cat away in the downstairs and then opened up the garage and the rest of the house hoping that the delinquent cat would get fed up with the nasty weather and return to the warmth of its proper home. Sure enough, ten minutes later, a soggy and vocal cat ended its truancy when it came in through the garage. Crisis averted. It did however take the remainder of the day for me to get over the heavy guilt of allowing for this to happen.

In other news: I’ve had the ‘Greasy, Grimy, Gopher Guts’ song stuck in my head all morning. It is slowely. driving. me. INSANE.