Here’s a photo of Michi, my confident little cat. She appeared one day eight months ago, tiny, scrawny and hungry, crying loudly for food. I opened the door so she could come and go, put down a saucer of milk, then made a jaunt down the cobblestones to buy some cat food. Wonder if they have kitten food. Yes! When I returned home I peeked into my bedroom and saw her silhouette in the sunlight, big ears, little head. She was snuggled in all comfy, paws tucked under, tail curled round neatly on my bed pillows, gazing out the window. Since then, we have become good friends.

She was an outdoor cat during her first month of life, I believe, and she is transitioning more and more into a 50/50 cat. There are nights when she doesn’t return and other nights when she comes blaring forth out of the garden to come inside when she hears me locking up for bedtime.

Sometimes when she is napping she murmur/mews under her breath when I walk into the room. It seems like a sweet little acknowledgement that I’m passing by. I greet her in a whisper in case she doesn’t want to be disturbed and she kind of whispers back.

When I walk out the gate to go somewhere, she follows to the end of the block, never going farther. And when I return she comes running from my patio to the end of the block to greet me. But once she greets me, she turns away and checks out the neighbor’s yard with an air of nonchalance that seems to say, yeah, I’m happy to see you but let’s be cool about it, okay?

She continues to surprise me with her feisty personality. I’ve been a dog owner all my life so I haven’t known much about cats and I will admit I’ve thought in the past that they were pretty, but fairly boring animals — undemonstrative and non-communicative. But I’ve changed my mind. Michi came running in from the rain all frantic, shaking off the droplets of water. She raced around, found me and stood in the middle of the kitchen floor while I made some tea, looking up at me, adamantly telling me all about the rain and what she experienced outside, even repeating certain points, giving emphasis to specific thoughts in her dialogue.  I wondered how to respond. She was earnestly telling me all about it, so I resorted to simply agreeing wholeheartedly and sounding supportive, even trying to mimic her inflection as I responded. Actually, I felt kind of embarrassed and self-conscious that I didn’t truly understand her and had to pretend that I did. Give me a little time, Mich, and before too long I think I’ll know exactly what you’re saying.

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