What We Don't Know ...

(The perils right outside of our door)

Every day we face the unknown. We never know what lies ahead in our day. We head off to work, we run our errands and send our children off to school. We walk out the door and we trust that we will come home unscathed ...

It is the same with our cat who has a wanderlust in him that we can't contain. We try everything in our power to keep him inside or tether him in the backyard with us when we are outside. But he is a cagey fellow. Anytime he can make a break for it, he runs first and thinks later. If he doesn't want to be caught, there is nothing we can do but wait for him to come home. And he always does. With every fur and whisker in place, our happy, sociable and bird-loving cat returns home within a few hours (as if to say, "See ... I come back. Just let me go wander. I'll be okay!!").

Yesterday morning was one of those mornings where he dashed outside first and realized it was wet and lightly raining second. But he was not to be deterred. He found himself a puddle on the street to drink from (he loves water that doesn't come from his water dish for some reason ... as if to hunt down and find a new water source is a form of stalking to him??). Anyway, as we were watching him drink from the puddle the crows also spotted this alien black mammal that didn't have wings like they did. And they stalked him. They cawed and were terribly bothered by his presence. They flew by and swooped near him as if to scare him off. But our cat just ignored that and savored his new watering hole.

Then ... the next sighting was him stalking his next prey. One of the boys spotted this and said, "Look!! Andre is chasing a rat!!" I looked out the window not expecting to see a thing (rats run, don't they?). But what I saw was this huge waddling rodent that was almost the size of our cat! All I could think was, "If he can't move quickly, nature's second line of defense are teeth and claws." I could see our friendly, fun-loving, animal-loving kitty coming home ripped to shreds as he innocently thought, "Mmmmm ... breakfast!!"

I ran out to try to dissuade our cat from hunting down this huge critter, to no avail. I had to leave the two of them in between 2 neighbors garages. The muskrat (as we found out later) was hiding underneath a shovel, with our cat looking on. I wasn't going to put myself in the middle of that. So, I had to walk away and trust our cat would come out of the situation intact.

True to form, our cat returned within the hour. Not a hair or whisker out of place. As if to say, "See! I always come home ... you don't have to worry about me."

It made me wonder, as he faced his crow trouble and then hunted down and cornered a muskrat ... what does he really face every time he sneaks out on us? And do we really want to know?

Life is full of unknown perils. We just never know what we will encounter when we leave the safety of our homes. We just have to trust ... and as our cat would say, "You always come home ... don't worry ..."