I give up...

There is just no hope for me with this orange/white stray cat. I just flat-out plain-and-simple give up.

I went to the back door to call Gatsby to come inside for the night, and there's the orange cat, sitting on the porch and looking up at me. Just sitting there, looking as pitiful as a cat can look, not meowing, not moving, just looking at me.  I turned off the porch light, closed the door, and stood there for a minute.

Then I went up the stairs and told my husband that I just had to give that cat a bowl of Meow Mix. "He's just sitting there. Even after all the air-horn blasts, and the food bowls in the catch/release cage, after a week of ignoring him and not feeding him, that cat is still coming up on our porch."

"Will feeding the orange cat make you feel better?" my husband wanted to know.  I nodded my head.  "So go and feed him," my husband said.

Back down the stairs I went..... I put some Meow Mix into a bowl.... turned the porch light on and looked out the door. No orange cat. Just Gatsby, waiting to come inside.  I let Gatsby in, then went out to the porch and called out my usual "kitty, kitty, kitty" to the orange cat. No response. No meow. No rustling in the leaves. Not a blessed sound.  I came back inside, walked through the kitchen and through the foyer and put the front porch light on, opened the door and called out "kitty, kitty, kitty." No response there either.

I brought the cat food back into the house..... I will try again before we go to bed.  No more blasts of the air-horn for that orange cat. No more chasing that cat away from our porch.  Maybe sometimes you just have to listen to the cat-whispers of the universe and see what happens.

In my mind, I can hear my dad's voice telling me "If God is a cat, you've got it made."

I can also hear my own voice saying "If God is an orange cat, you almost blew it."