No Cat in the Window

I'm a creature of habit. Get up at the same time every day. Leave for work at the same time. Get home around the same time. Eat dinner. Watch TV. Go to "bed" (which, for me, still means sleeping on Mom's living room couch). Get up again at the same time the next morning.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Part of my morning and evening routines involved putting out food for Petunia, the cat who lived on our back porch until she was run over by a car this past weekend.

Now I get up, put down food for the cats and look out the back window into the yard.

No cat's face staring back through the window. No paws knocking on the window, asking for attention. No movement in the yard at all.

There's still movement in the house, though. Mimi, Bumpy and Cocoa all still circle me like little furry sharks, all wanting to be petted and fed.

Not Moose, though. He stays in his current hidey-hole, in front of the living room heat vent, and doesn't show any interest.

For the past few nights, I've brought the food to him, putting out some Friskies Shreds (lots of liquid in those tins) on a small plastic lid. He'd come out, nibble on the food for a few minutes (mostly licking up the gravy) and then head on back in front of the vent. And when I went to bed, he'd come up and lie on my chest for a while until I needed to roll over and set him gently down on the floor.

Last night, though, he didn't come up to me. He stayed in his hidey hole near the vent. And this morning, I couldn't coax him to eat even a bite of the plate of food I put down for him.

I fear his time is coming soon.