lost kitten

[dragonlady7]

For the last two or three nights, a cat meowling at random intervals has awoken us both several times. There are a number of neighborhood cats, all pets with collars that are let out at will, so we thought nothing of it: Cookie or that ginger cat were probably getting into it.
But this morning, I thought, you know, that isn't a cat protecting territory. And for three nights?

So I wrapped a bathrobe around me and went blearily out to investigate. Sure enough, crouched behind the compost heap was a tiny black thing with huge eyes that saw me and bolted.

Couldn't be more than four months old. (Ginger was four months when we got him and he was pretty long-limbed.)

I looked for it again but couldn't find it. Went and told Z, who was showering. "Hm," he said, informatively.

Heard it start crying again. Went out. Couldn't find it. Went inside and put clothes on rather than running through neighbors' yards in my bathrobe. I might mention that I do not know my neighbors, and have never even spoken to any besides the immediate ones. So to them, I am some stranger running around. Put on jeans and a t-shirt and some flip-flops. Locate the kitten on the far side of the neighbors' house. It sees me at a distance of twenty feet, and bolts, crawling under a fence.

Come back. Regroup. Get a towel. Hear him crying again, go over... he's two houses down. No car in the driveway. Probably nobody home. How threatening would you find a strange woman carrying a towel duck-walking through your yard saying, "Puss, puss... kitty...."

Kitten sees me, bolts around corner of garage. I am hesitant to trespass so far onto a stranger's property. (This house has a neglected yard and the lady is, reputedly, kinda crazy; but I wouldn't even know her on sight.)

I come home, get a bowl of milk, go wander around some more. I did get a better look at him. He is that age of kittenhood where the head is still too large for the body, the tail is a tiny fuzzy stub, and his curled body could be held in two cupped hands. I don't think he's three months old. But damn can he run.
Z comes and helps me. We lose him. He is crying somewhere we can't determine. Our neighborhood is a warren of various sized fences and blind corners. We don't know any of the back-fence neighbors.
In a few moments we hear him again. He is over beside the immediate neighbors' fence, on the far side. I go get the bowl of milk and come back. Z couldn't see him even though I could, so he has lost him. He went behind the garage and is now around the back corner of this woman's house. So I go one way, Z goes the other, and I have the thing basically cornered up against a wall, but Z really can't see him, so when he comes loping up next to me, the kitten finally squeezes between a drainpipe and the wall and escapes.

Z has to catch his bus to work. I wedge the saucer of milk up against the wall and leave. I have to go get ready for work too.

I guess if he's been around waking us up for three nights, he must be pretty hungry by now. I am sort of surprised that nobody else in the whole neighborhood has noticed him. Our immediate neighbors were home the whole time we were running around with our saucer and towel, and probably didn't even look out their windows.
Yesterday while I was zonked out in the afternoon I half-dreamed I heard a woman screaming and a man shouting a few houses away, but by the time I was all the way awake, there wasn't any more noise. I may have just overheard a violent murder and not acted. So a lost kitten? I guess it's not that surprising, except that with the mild weather everyone's been sleeping with the windows open and you'd think they'd all be woken up and pissed off by the noise.

I haven't heard him crying since I put the milk down, but maybe we just scared him enough that he's squeezed through a fence to the next block over.


Um, at least my wrists are feeling better?