Vanished

It's amazing how the disappearance of a pet can suddenly change your mood. Such was the case yesterday...

All was well until G came home and said, "Where's Stell?"

Stella Luna her cat was no where to be found. I vaguely remembered seeing her the night before. Both kids swore she was in the house when they went to school in the morning. Stell is strictly an indoor cat. She usually spends the day sleeping on the back of a couch...or on the bed...or on a table.

She is G's cat. We joke that she is probably going to lose the use of her legs because G carries her around like an accessory when she is home. They spend a lot of time together. Stell is a people person. She hops in our bed at 2:30 am every morning and licks my husbands face. She has also been known to groom the dog. She usually greets G when she gets home or at least gives her an acknowledgement from the couch she is lounging on.

Have you ever seen a cat groom a dog?

Anyway, she was missing. How can a full grown cat with plenty of kitty hang just vanish into thin air? But she had. It was as if aliens had abducted her. She was gone.We called for her and searched the entire house... and not a peep.

Could she have wandered outside? She is not one to want to dart outdoors. Could she possibly have slipped outside though when one of us went out? I didn't think that was possible but that was the only explanation we had left as she was not inside the house.

I walked the yard calling for her. Could she get lost?

Dinner was a sullen affair. I tried to reassure my daughter that Stell was chipped. If someone found her and took her to the pound, she was chipped with our info... But what if someone kept her? What if a coyote or owl ate her? What if she got hit by a car?

Our outdoor cat Socks rules the back porch. Was Stell afraid to come back because of Socks? We put some food out on the front porch and left the light on for her. Finally, at 10 pm, my husband walked the yard one more time then got in the car and made a quick drive around the county roads to make sure she wasn't splatted on the road somewhere. Surely, he said, if Stell ventured outside she'd be tired of her adventure by now and want a warm bed to sleep in. He reassured me she could find her way back home by following her own scent trail (really?).

Still no Stell. No face lick at 2:30 am. I didn't sleep well at all.

This morning I half expected/wished the prodigal cat to be lounging on the chair on the front porch wanting back in. But no cat. The food was untouched. My heart was sinking. Perhaps I should go tell the neighbors today that our cat was missing. G was sad but still hopeful when she went to bed last night. I dreaded having to console her if Stell was gone forever.

I was standing in the kitchen pouring myself a cup of coffee when I heard it...mew...mew. Very faint but definitely a cat. I opened the back porch door and called for her. No cat. I ran to the front porch and called. Still no cat. No, I was not going crazy. I'm sure I heard a cat.

I stood stock still in the kitchen and listened some more. Mew...mew mew mew. It was the beacon cat cry. Stell had to be stuck somewhere in our house. My husband used to have a cat that was infamous for getting herself in situations inside the house - like falling down an open vent and ending up inside the ceiling - and his cat would send out that beacon cry until we found her. I followed the mews to the basement... then to my husband's hunting closet. I had opened the door to this closet twice yesterday but not really searched inside it. I had remembered the closet door being open, however yesterday when we were searching, I had found that the door had shut because something inside the closet had fallen and shut the door. I didn't think too much of it though because the closet is absolutely jam packed with stuff and it didn't surprise me that something had fallen onto the door. I had figured if Stell was inside, she would come out when I opened the door. Well, apparently she was nice and cozy the first two times I opened that door and didn't care that she was locked inside a closet. Looks like she spent the night there and then decided this morning that maybe she needed help getting out and started mewing.

Stupid cat. I hugged her and fed her a bowl of wet cat food. Then she went and laid on my kitchen table... and all is well again.