I'm lonesome.

I think husband and I both are lonesome for our cats.

I think about them a lot as does he. We remember the times when they made us laugh and smile. Times when we thought they needed us, which weren't many. We've had many, many cats over the years.

Tonight I was thinking about and remembering our first Siamese, Tara. We hadn't been married too long when we brought her home to the suite where we resided.

She was a loner. She ruled. Especially us. One night, after we had moved into our first house, we were having a ladies meeting and entertaining the women of the church. All was going well. Of course in this house, we had made sure a "cat hole" was made for our convenience in the basement window where she could come and go at her leisure. Anyway, getting back to the ladies meeting, all were gathered in the rather large living room. A small hallway which also included the door to the basement, separated the kitchen from the living room. I happened to be in the kitchen with a good friend when I saw Tara come through the basement door into the kitchen. She sounded funny, like something was stuck in her mouth.

It was stuck alright. The mouse was still alive....tail hanging on one side, head on the other. She walked proudly.......strutted actually, ready to present her offering at my feet.

I could have screeched. I really had that desire. And I needed desperately to do a lot of running. I forced myself to make wild and hysterically soundless movements to my friend, who had been raised on a farm by the way, and didn't find a little mouse to be of any concern whatsoever. I, however, had visions of the dearest of all cats, turning to the right when she came up from the basement.........into the room filled with some not-so-understanding females, dropping it in the midst of them on the 1974 red shag rug while women, old and young exited my home in record time. I still thank God for that mercy..............since I was in the kitchen, she turned left......wheeeeeeewwwww.

But as Tara dropped the not-very-dead-but-still-running-mouse on the kitchen floor, my friend must have seen my white, gasping-for-air face and my jumping-high-on-a-chair-legs. She opened the basement door wide, ran after the little scurrying creature on it's way to the basement and freedom, conked it on the head (at least I heard something go whaaaaaahhhhpppp........), picked it up by it's skinny tail and tossed it in the garbage outside.

I regained my frail composure and I continued on with the the tea and crumpets.

Stiff upper lip and all that you know.

Nothing was said to the gathering.

The cat hole was condemned a few days following the incident.

I think the story got out a few years later. I'll bet some of them were wondering who actually put the mouse out of it's misery. Were they thinking it was me, the one who had made their special open-faced buns with her very own mousy hands?????

You know how stories get around.

Tomorrow, perhaps I'll tell you another "tail" about Tara.

We'll call it "the friend that became a part of the family"....... Stay tuned.