[backhoe]

My smarter half was a thousand miles away night-nursing for the grandson who has recently left us when our cat of twenty-four (24) years died in my arms, having enjoyed as much as she could stand. After all of that good time followed by the accelerating suffering she gave it up and I buried her in our grape arbor where the vinca flourished. And shortly thereafter there appeared under my truck a ghost white young cat waiting for me to pick him up so he could follow us around from room to room, to see us off and see us back, and give us a talkative report.

Isn't it strange and wonderful how animals find us when we need them?

We got Taffy when Miss Emily's Shelly died- she had had her 13 years, through triumphs in her profession ( symphony musician ) and fame, and misfortune... and I have never seen another person grieve so much, and so deeply over anyone.

Not baby, or child, or husband or brother or father... never have I seen so much despair in a person- but she finally picked herself up, went to the shelter, and found that little white wolf.

And strangely enough, Taffy had been picked up a block from here, and I think we had seen her running around right before Shelly died.

And now, Miss Emily no longer lies awake grieving for Taffy- because the Canine Circular Saw has kept her up all night, peeing and dumping and chew, chew, chewing...

And throwing an old sneaker around...

That's life, renewing itself- happy tails to you and yours, Phil,

[Alia]

There is definitely a world we humans are so often limited in grasping and understanding.

Less than a year before my male cat passed, the cat next door brought me two orphan kittens, one at a time. My kids, of course, pled for their adoption. As my male cat began to weaken, the adopted Hemmingway cat (currently curled up right next to my keyboard) would wrap himself around my elder male cat, to keep him warm and to comfort him.

Oh heck, let me tell you one even weirder thing...

As we were moving across the nation, CA to here, and we'd rented a one-way RV out of the state in order to get our elderly pets out of the state (no airline would take them), we were in Arkansas.

Beautiful, beautiful campsite/rv park. The foliage and greenery were breathtaking. It was very early morning, and I was taking my coffee outside to cherish my surroundings.

When a cat stepped out of the woods and was meowing at me, trying to get my attention. It was trying to tell me something. I nodded my head, murmured something to the cat. The cat acknowledged my response and turned tail and walked back into the woods.

I think "that was unique" and go and sit down to enjoy my coffe, once again.

I looked off into the distance, and there I was, about a 1/4 mile away, a cat striding across a lea. I thought, wow, that cat has the same stride as my elder male cat. And so I was set upon ruminating upon cat history and cat migrations and ancestry.

The cat was striding towards me, in my direction. I continued my ruminations.

I'm looking up at the trees, when, voila!, there was my male cat right in front of me! I chastised him for escaping (as we'd be hitting the road in an hour) and opened the door to the RV and he marched right in.

He'd somehow popped out the screen in the bedding area over the cab, and had taken a stroll during the night.

And that cat that had come out of the wood to tell me something? Ah, yeah. I understood NOW what he'd be trying to tell me.