My cat is a creature of habit. When I wake up, she jumps onto the bed (if she’s not already on the bed) and wails for her treats, which I dutifully give to her. Then, when I go down to make my coffee, she follows me and demands her food.

This morning was different. When I woke there was no cat. I rattled the container for her treats. That usually brings her out, but not this time. She’s not a young cat and as I searched the house, I feared that maybe she had passed away during the night. However, the house was devoid of cat corpses. I looked everywhere…nothing, until I noticed that on the lower level of my house a door was open. That’s where her cat litter is. I’d opened the door and closed the screen door to get some of the smell out. My house cleaner was coming that day and I didn’t want to subject her to the smell of the cat litter.

What I think had happened was that, for some reason, the cleaner had opened the screen and forgotten to close it. The cat had probably gone out through there. She’s a house cat and until very recently had shown no interest in going out. However, just lately she has taken to going out onto the deck outside my bedroom. Maybe this had given a taste of the outdoors, and she now wanted to explore further.

This calmed me down a lot. I’ve had outdoor cats before (one of which would disappear for days at a time) and discovered that eventually the come home, usually when they’re hungry! I figured that unless a bald eagle or a coyote (we have both in my neighborhood) got her she’d be fine.

Sure enough a few hours later I happened to open the front door and there she was sitting nonchalantly outside as if nothing unusual had happened. Typical cat behavior!

So, all’s well that ends well.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Rokinon/Samyang AF 75mm f1.8 FE