Andy’s cat lives here.  Twister is a typical cat – aloof, bitchy, adorable at times.  She is also a mouser.  I have never had a cat here in the boonies, so this is a new experience for me.  She has a place in the front garden that I call her “dining room.”  So far no headless mice or birdless feathers have been deposited at my front door, as I hear cats are wont to do.  That will cause a problem for me if she does that.

We try to keep her indoors at night  because we fear she will get snatched by a raccoon – owl – mountain lion – whatever.  It’s not safe out there, as Ed’s skunk will even attest (she’s too fast for Ed, anyway he just wants to play and doesn’t understand why she hisses and shows her talons…)

The other night I was coming in from choral rehearsal; it was raining the California winter rain – not hard rain, not mist, something vaguely in between.  I noticed her green eyes shining at me from her dining room, but didn’t see the mouse.  I went to pick her up and she picked up the mouse and walked a few feet trying to escape me so she could enjoy her dinner in peace.  However, I wanted her inside so I picked her up.

I could live to be a hundred and never have dreamed that on a rainy night in California I would be picking up a cat who would tenaciously hold a dead mouse in its mouth while I tried to bring it inside to a warm and dry home.  She finally dropped it but she was NOT happy with me – the hissing and reowring and flailing talons made me realize I had broken some kind of code of nature – don’t deny the predator its dead prey. 

She got over it, but for at least an hour she glared at me as only cats can: brutally icy.  That memory is only eclipsed by the vision of me holding the cat away from my body as she fought me with the dead mouse in her face.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  Oh that’s right, I was thinking “I’ll take her inside so she’ll stay warm and dry and not become prey herself.”  Silly me.