Close Encounters of the Feline Kind

As some of you know, and as some of you may care, I have been having some interesting cat encounters as of late. And now that I think about it, it was really unreasonable to expect those days to be over......





So the story goes that we had family and friends on our boat on the lake. It was time to find a place to anchor and have lunch. Dear husband was under the impression that he could decide where to hitch up for lunch. Seeing that we had a boat full of people, I let this slide even though he was going very much away from my usual coveted lunch spot. So here we are zipping along in the middle of the lake, when I see.....

Of course this is not the real picture of the real cat we saw in the middle of the lake. I am still cameraless. And picture dear kitty from behind- one little wet black head and two little wet black ears. Farther away. My sister (we are both stricken with cat-love but are both on spouse imposed cat-max) spots him too. Dear husband had a stroke of sanity and pulled up next to him and I grabbed a beach towel and scooped him up. Kitty was big. I would say part Siamese and definitely not feral. Thank god for big favors. Now we had to deal with the age old question: What to do with a scared, wet cat on a boat with 8 people in the 100 degree heat?

Dear kitty was amazingly calm. Dear husband and dear BIL were silently panicked. Who was going to end up breaking the cat laws of domestic bliss? We decide to head for the marina to find the Lost Kitty Stand. Actually we find two park rangers and tell them about dear kitty. They tell us they find all kinds of critters in the lake, mostly snakes that crawl on boats which then are trailered to the lake. The critters jump off in the water, unbeknownst to the boat owners. The park service does have a wayward animal station and they would take care of dear kitty and see if anyone comes looking for him. Dear husband and dear brother-in-law heave a sigh of relief. One dear ranger said his kids had just convinced him to get them a cat. So if no one claimed him, he would take him home himself.

So we took stock-

cat inflicted scratches- 0

wet beach towel with cat hair- 1

lost cat found and safe- 1

our own desperate housecats who do not appreciate how good they have it- 3

So now I will be forever searching the lake water for wayward cat ears......................... we should rename the boat Destiny Cat.