Reflections - Cat-Escaping Craziness

Gilbert, Ande, and Rills in the Window

Spence opened the front door wide and hefted his steaming canning kettle. Wearing a muscle shirt for the tomato-canning heat rather than the mid September temperature, he lugged the five gallon porcelain kettle to the porch.

Six-month-old Gilbert dashed for the doorway.

Yikes! A coyote, fox, or raccoon could devour our adorable kitten. Adrenaline pumping, I ran after Gilbert, stretched my arms to snatch him, and tripped on the threshold.

Gilbert scooted out of reach.

My shoulder banged onto the porch floor, my forearm scraped against the cement, and my bad knee took the brunt of the fall.

Spence set the kettle on the cement and pivoted to me. “Are you okay?”

“Get Gilbert!” Sharp sizzles pricked my arm. Vice grips squeezed my shoulder and knee, but I hadn’t broken anything. “I’m fine.”

Spence pulled Gilbert from under the porch desk and set him inside. Then Spence helped me stand.

I wobbled to the bathroom and smeared ointment on the scrape. Shuffling to the great room, I plopped into the log chair and let my bones settle.

Spence handed me a cold pack for the throbbing knee. “You know,” he said in his serious voice, “falling is how old ladies die. BE CAREFUL.”

I didn’t die, but a massive brown, purple, green, and red bruise covered my forearm which, for a week, raised questions and eyebrows at the swimming pool. “The things we do for our pets,” muttered one sympathetic swimmer.

So when Spence took all three cats to the deck in March, Friday the thirteenth to be exact, I stared through the sliding glass door in disbelief. My stomach cramped. What if one of them ran away? The cat could catch a dread disease or get smashed by a pickup. Outdoor cats have shorter lives than indoor cats.

My inner voice interrupted the fretting. Don’t be a wuss.

Curiosity could lure them away.

Your old cats learned to stay on the porch and deck.

But the boy cats are eleven months old, not sixteen years.

Spence is watching them.

Spence sat on a wooden bar stool at the house’s southwest corner where the porch and deck intersect.

The cats crouched to get below the wind that tousled their fur. Six, pointy ears waggled at the sounds of clanging chimes. Three noses wiggled at Olympic speed to catch the outside fragrances.

The cramp in my stomach relaxed, and I switched on my laptop.

Before it booted up, Spence yelled. “Janet! Watch these two.” He hustled down the ramp.

I jumped up, slid the glass door open, and reached for Ande.

He darted away.

I giant-stepped after and grabbed his middle—without tripping. After putting Ande inside, I pulled Gilbert from under a wicker chair.

Spence returned with Rills. “He squeezed through the stiles. I caught him in the front yard.”

Throughout the spring, Spence took the cats to the porch and deck. Ande sat on the deck, gazed at carpenter bees, then rolled on his back. Gilbert explored cobwebs under the workbench. Rills pawed at his image on the glass door. And all three scampered down the ramp. Squeezing between the stiles or leaping off the railing, they escaped.

Again and again and again.

Spence retrieved them each time. The boy cats had a longer learning curve than our old cats. The boys also had more energy.

I admired Spence’s patience. The cats would have sat in time out for months if I’d been their outdoor monitor.

When summer came, Spence spent more time in the garden. Instead of prowling the deck, the cats sat on window sills and sniffed the outdoors through screens. From the guest bedroom, they had a view of the north garden where Spence and I worked on the large blueberry cage to protect plump green berries, tinged with pink, from hungry robins and raccoons.

Blueberries

Because the hand lawnmower is waiting its turn for repairs at Skippy’s shop, Spence had cut the grass near the cage with the brush hog he attached to his tractor. When he turned the tractor, the brush hog swung into the cage. The PVC pipe frame and chicken wire crumpled.

Wielding a sickle, I cut the grass inside and around the cage. Spence repaired the frame, and replaced the crushed wire. The wind helped us lift the cover cloth over the frame.

Spence left to fetch PVC connectors.

I secured the billowing cloth to PVC pipes with cable ties.

A catbird sang a melody combining the konk-la-ree of a red-winged blackbird and the cheer-up, cheerily of a robin. Tiger swallowtails flitted through the nearby asparagus patch.

Spence’s panicked voice cut through the bucolic scene. “The front door’s open. The cats are loose. Help!” He disappeared around the deck.

I dropped the cable ties and ran. 

Spence came to the bottom of the side yard. “Gilbert’s hiding under the ramp. Watch him!” Spence hustled up the slope. “I’ll get the others. They stayed on the deck.”

Cooing in a comforting kitty voice, “Handsome Gilbert,” I walked under the deck and stooped to creep under the ramp. “Come here, Gil.” I crouched shorter until the overhead slant prevented further movement.

Five feet out of reach, Gilbert nestled on a mat of dried plant stems.

Spence’s feet thudded overhead.

Gilbert flinched and darted out the side.

“Grab him! He’s escaping at your end.” I backed out in time to see Spence—like a bald eagle swooping with claws open—pounce on Gilbert. 

Back in the great room, the cats circled napping spots. Spence and I stared at each other. 

Moving Rills, Spence sat on the sofa. “The wind blew the door wide open.”

“It must not have latched when the last person went out.”

He pulled at the end of his mustache. “You can blame me, and I can blame you.”

I wouldn’t have left the door open and endangered the likely-to-escape cats. Folks had reported two black bears roaming the neighborhood for goodness sake. Though we hadn’t seen the bears, we’d found piles of their fresh poop in our field and woods. But I might not have remembered to close the door. “We can blame Gilbert. He could’ve stuck a cat toy in the doorway.”

The next day, I checked that the latch caught when I closed the door. Twice.

The cats perched in the guest bedroom window.

At the blueberry cage, I secured the new chicken wire with cable ties.

Spence built a cage door so I didn’t have to step over three feet of chicken wire—remember the tripping and falling part? He used a new bungee cord to hold the door in place. Looping one hook to the door jam, he stretched the red elastic and touched the other jam with the second hook.

The bungee snap-boing-ed into the cage.

Spence chuckled, retrieved the bungee, and stretched it again.

Like an escaping cat, the bungee flew three more times.

Because I needed to learn to attach the cord for picking berries, I took the cord from Spence, hooked it to one side of the doorway, and stretched the cord. BANG!

The metal hook smashed against the base of my thumb and wrist.

A sharp, unrelenting pang—number ten on the rheumatologists’ one to ten scale—throbbed through my hand and forearm.

Clutching the offending hand with the other, I trudged to the house. “I’m going to get a cold pack,” I grumbled through gritted teeth and dripping tears.

“We can use a super twist tie,” Spence called to my back.

My feet crunched the gravel path then stomped up the porch steps.

The porch door stood wide open.

“The damn door is open,” I bellowed and slammed the door behind me. After fetching the cold pack and holding it against my wrist, I stepped back outside. No cats.

Spence hustled up the steps.

Cats Outside Composite

“They’re not on the porch or deck.” I flipped the cold pack from the plastic to the cloth side.

“Are they inside?”

We checked the first floor. No cats.

Spence sighed. “I did it this time. I came back last. You sit.” He left.

I swallowed a sob—for the hand not the cats—and plopped into the log chair. If they ran away, they ran away.

What about the diseases they’ll catch?

They have nine lives.

They’ll make a coyote snack.

Plenty of neighbors have indoor-outdoor cats. Those cats look healthy.

They might kill birds.

My conscience had me there, but my hand throbbed at a nine and a half level. Let the boy cats explore all they wanted. I wouldn’t chase them anymore.

The door opened, and Spence dropped Ande. Later, Spence would explain that Ande had wandered onto West Creek Road. When Ande spotted Spence, the cat dashed through the garden and leaped onto the ramp railing. Before he could jump to the side yard, Spence grabbed Ande and brought him inside.

Ande padded to the fountain and slurped.

Gilbert scampered up the ramp and hid under the coffee table supporting a huge pot of pink petunias.

Spence followed the runaway from the front yard and through the open gate.

We’d left the gate open too? Sheesh.

Spence grabbed Gilbert’s middle, carried him to the porch, and opened the door long enough to slide him inside.

Gilbert climbed onto the arm of the log chair and rubbed his head against my shoulder. Ande curled at my feet.

Spence walked down the ramp and yelled. “Here Rills. Where’s my Rillzie?”

Rills hid in the ferns at the bottom of the ramp. When Spence approached, Rills took off for the road.

Spence closed the gate and strode after the cat.

Rills zigzaged through the summer-green red bushes, around daylilies, and back to the ramp. He sat by the closed gate and waited for his buddy Spence.

Spence dropped Rills onto the sofa, got a can of carbonated water, and grinned. “We’ve got three cat explorers.”

For how long, I wondered.

This past Wednesday, when Spence left to shop at Giant Eagle, the cats acted more like supervisors than explorers. Ande swayed his head following each swipe of the broom. Gilbert jumped onto whatever piece of furniture I dusted. And Rills stuck his head into the plastic grocery bag where I’d dumped sweepings. Food comes in rustling bags. He knows.

By the time I’d finished the first floor cleaning, the exhausted cats napped together on the sofa. Taking the broom, I pulled the front door tight behind me and batted at cobwebs hanging from the porch ceiling. Bird poop dotted the railing. I popped inside for a wet rag.

When Spence returned lugging groceries, I had cleaned the porch and swept all but the ramp. Finishing that, I helped him unpack.

The cats swarmed the kitchen table, sniffed each grocery bag, and made a general nuisance of themselves.

“You know,” Spence said putting a can of black olives into the cupboard, “you left the front door open.”

“What?”

“Only a crack, but the cats could’ve gotten out.”

Sheesh. When I’d gone back for the rag, the door must not have latched.

“Next time I’ll twist the doorknob before I pull.”

If I remember.

Gilbert climbed onto my shoulders and perched like a parrot.

Rills rubbed against my legs.

Ande brought me a paper ball and paced—watching to see which way I’d toss it.

With my pain level down to a two and the recent purplish-brown bruise fading, the threat of losing our precious cats took its rightful priority. Of course, I’ll chase after them when they escape.

Despite cat-escaping craziness, the blueberries are safe from the birds, and the birds are safe from cats—at least for now.

Inside the North Garden Blueberry Cage