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Caturday Pootie Diary: A quick trip outside [1]
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Date: 2022-08-06
The door slid smoothly on its track and then the screen door followed.
Before I could step out, Freddie casually walked outside. “What are you doing?” I laughed.
“We’re going outside,” he said, meandering under the patio table.
“You are an indoor cat!” I told his back.
“But currently outside,” he said over his shoulder.
I shrugged and decided he could explore while I took care of my plants.
Watering can full, I quickly took care of the chore, tutting over the holes in the boysenberry leaves. Some kind of pest? Do I need to buy a pesticide? I had no idea, being an almost total gardening novice. I decided not to worry about it. I could google it later.
I suddenly remembered the furry killing machine I had unleashed from the safety of the indoors and turned around, looking for him. I didn’t want him to kill anything.
He was very carefully sniffing the bush next to the backdoor, having not ventured very far out. “Is there anything in there?” I called.
“Maybe,” he said, not stopping his examination.
I set the watering can back in its spot and walked over to him. “It’s time to go back inside,” I said.
“No. Not yet,” he said, trotting past me too fast for me to grab him.
I spun, following his progress into the yard. “Well you are just full of audacity today, aren’t you?”
He made his way to the back wall, carefully skirting the grass. He didn’t like to walk on grass.
Because he’s an indoor cat.
“Don’t kill any lizards!” I warned
“I like lizards,” he told the ivy growing on the wall. The lizards loved it.
I speed walked to him, worried about the innocent Western Fence Lizards. I really didn’t want anything to happen to them. They reduce lyme disease!
Freddie suddenly got excited and lifted up onto his back paws.
I saw what he was looking at.
It was a lizard, running for the ivy.
I sped up just as Freddie leapt —
— and missed the lizard by quite a lot. It escaped safely into the leaves, and Freddie dropped back to all fours.
I stood above him, feeling a little sorry for him as he stared forlornly into the ivy, the leaves shaking above him.
“I forgot,” I told him.
“Forgot what?”
I smiled gently at him. “I forgot you have no idea how to hunt anything bigger than a cricket.”
I decided to give him a little time, and sat in one of the patio chairs to watch while he looked around.
Birds sat on top of the fence, watching Freddie carefully and occasionally yelling at him. He seemed to have not noticed them at all, intent on looking at things on the ground.
He made his way along the perimeter of the yard, avoiding all the grass. Eventually he made it back to where I was sitting, and stopped to sit under the table.
I tilted my head to see him. “Have fun?” I asked.
“Yeah. The lizard got away.”
“But you got to chase it,” I told him, looking on the positive side.
“Yeah.”
“Ready to go back in?”
“Yeah.”
I opened the screen and he walked in ahead of me. I followed and closed the screen behind me. “The bell peppers are much happier,” I updated him. “But I think something is eating my boysenberry vine.”
“Lizards?” he asked.
I thought about it. “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s probably some kind of bug.”
“I’ll catch the lizard for you next time,” he assured me.
“You’ll have to learn how to hunt first.”
He ignored me, curling up in his favorite bed and already half asleep.
Happy Caturday, Peeps! Freddie spent a decade with absolutely no desire to go outside — I would have to coax him out! — and now he saunters out every time the door opens like it’s expected. Silly boy.
[END]
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