Once upon a time, around last summer, about July I'd say, 23rd, I was making dinner and waiting for The Hub to get home. The kids were away and I had a nice salmon ready to be grilled. I stepped out to the front porch to enjoy a little summer breeze. And of all the NERVE. This CAT was positively LOUNGING on my front wall along the steps. Like she owned the place.Interestingly, I didn't have my usual urge to SCAT her away. I had been getting pretty sick of cleaning up cat poop around the yard. And I had never even OWNED a cat. But this little guy was LOLLING like a LION. I was smitten.
The picture above was taken with my old camera phone so I could send it to the Dot. You can see this cat was licking its chops after getting the merest smidgen of raw salmon.
When The Hub got home, I told him about the cat (not the salmon) and he accused me of bringing it home. I assured him I FOUND it right on the WALL. "Hmmm," he said as he fed it a piece of his salmon.
It's name was Hugo because that's the name that popped into my head, which is generally how things get named around here. We've had her in the family for about a year now.
She's fattened up quite nicely. And when she's not sleeping she's either eating or doing tricks. Like this one. When we open the door a teeny crack, she will daintily put her paw in there and wait for us to open it the rest of the way. This is the back door.
She had a little more trouble with the front door since it opens the other way and she is left-pawed. Here she is yawning. She's not mad:
One day we were out front gardening, Hugo was lounging on the steps, and a young lady walked by. "You adopted Samantha!" she said. She then proceeded to thank us for giving her a home, then tell us Hugo's story. Apparently her original name was Samantha. She was born 16 years earlier and lived in OUR HOUSE when it wasn't Wellington yet. When it was the original bungalow, built in 1920. This young lady grew up in Old Wellington and brought Samantha home as a kitten. When her family moved a couple miles away, to the west side of Benicia, Samantha found her way back to Wellington. 
Who knows where poor Hugo lived during those few years when Old Wellington was torn down, New Wellington was built and the builders moved in for the first year, with their own cat. But I bet Hugo was happy to see that the new owners (US!) didn't have a cat already.
"Here you go. I'm your cat now." That's what she was saying when she was lolling there, last July 23. She was right. She always is.
Who knows where poor Hugo lived during those few years when Old Wellington was torn down, New Wellington was built and the builders moved in for the first year, with their own cat. But I bet Hugo was happy to see that the new owners (US!) didn't have a cat already.
"Here you go. I'm your cat now." That's what she was saying when she was lolling there, last July 23. She was right. She always is.
0 comments:
Post a Comment