The Case of the Neighborhood Cat

Did everyone have a nice leap day 2012? Isn't it weird that we have an extra day every four years, which also always happens to be election year? A lady that I work with was born on a leap day and "turned 12" this leap day. She's the first person I've ever personally known to be a leap day baby. Pretty cool.

I didn't do anything very exciting on leap day, unless you count going to work, which I don't. Thanks to the early outbreak of pollen, my eyes are watering like crazy and I've blown my nose no less than 154 times in the past 24 hours. I'm a real joy to be around. Church services were cancelled on lep night because of potential bad weather. The last time Wednesday services were cancelled was April 27, 2011; let's hope we don't have another night like that!

On Tuesday night, Erika came over to watch a couple of episodes of the Pioneer Woman's cooking show. Her new cookbook comes out in less than two weeks - are you excited, Alison - and I am really anxious to see all the new recipes inside and of course give it a try.

In continuing with this week's impromptu theme of "The Case of..." we will today discuss the case of the neighborhood cat....

I am not a cat person by any stretch of the imagination. The only time I have ever lived with a cat, with the exception of some stray as a child, was when I was in college and my roommate Melissa had a chunk of a cat named Mittens. Oh Mittens. I used to keep my door closed so he wouldn't go in my room and every time I forgot to close my door, there Mittens would be, lying on my bed. What is it with cats loving to torture people who aren't fond of cats?

So, recently some new tenants have moved in to the rental house across the street. I'm not even going to begin to speculate on how they are related or married or whatever because who knows? That house gets all sorts of strange combination of folks. This particular group, however, keeps a sofa on the front porch as if they are living in a fraternity house and once they grilled out on the front porch and when the fire was blazing I thought the house was on fire.

Anyway, this new group of neighbors has a cat; well, they have a dog too but the dog stays inside. The dog is actually a puppy of some boxer mix I think and very cute. The cat, well, I don't think it ever is inside because it is always outside... at my house. This cat is actually pretty as far as cats go. It's primarily white and has some dark spots and maybe brown sports too. Is that called a tabby? I have no idea.

Almost every time I come home from my daily venture to work or church or wherever, this cat is lounging on my front porch as if it lived there. Sometimes in the morning it will be under my car hanging out by a tire and I will have to shoo it off because I don't want to run over it; and so it will run back across the street to it's real home. It makes me laugh because this cat seriously acts like it lives at my house as much time as it spends there. Maybe it spends equal amount of time at other houses but it sure does hang out at my house quite a bit.

That, dear reader, is the case of the neighborhood cat. I tried to take a picture of it when I came home the other day and it was chilling on the porch but it got up when the flash on my phone went off. If I catch this sneaky little creature on camera, I will be sure and share it with you all.