In the jungle, the mighty jungle, CJ slept last night...

So CJ is an indoor cat. She never makes a run for an open door. Frankly, she never shows all that much interest in the outdoors at all. But last night she was a free range kitty.

From about 6:00 pm to 6:00 am this morning as far as we can figure she was "camping out". You see, when I got home last night I remember playing with her for a bit in the living room. Then when Su and Danny came home, we wandered outside to go explore our neighbors prize pumpkin with the little guy. (I'm pretty sure we closed the screen door at this time.) Then after a few minutes we went in the house, had dinner, read stories and down for "night night"  went Danny. Su and I are not sure when we shut the big door, but neither of us wondered a bit about CJ's whereabouts. There are lots of places she can be at any time so we were not concerned.

But this morning after around 15 minutes of peace and quiet and newspaper Su wondered aloud where she was. It was unlike her to NOT be begging us to play. That's when we started looking in earnest. Danny woke up in the meanwhile and when I came in his room calling "CJ, where are you", Danny started yellling "CJ? CJ?". He even started getting upset (maybe he noticed we were a little worried by now?)

So anyway, I went outside and started calling her name and then we heard it. "Meow, meow". But I still couldn't see her. Not until she crawled out of a little space near the basement window.

"CJ!" We all cheered.

She seemed none the worse for the wear, and we were very grateful that it was a dry and fairly warm night. Our window was open all night too so I think we would have heard her meowing if she were complaining. I think she might have been enjoying this adventure.

I wonder what she was thinking during her time out there? I'm just so glad she didn't get lost or get into any fights with other animals.

And, well, I have to tell you that our angst was also magnified because, even though I haven't yet blogged about it, last month our big boy cat Harley got sick. A bladder problem that turned out to be kidney stones that turned into a difficult decision to spend thousands on surgery (this after having already paid a lot on his emergency care), or putting him "to sleep".

Yes we can second guess our decision a million times, but it was very hard justifying more than $4000 on care that had no guarentee of suceess. We did not want Harley to suffer, but I wish there was a better choice than extemely expensive surgery or euthenasia. So in the end Su and I were with him when they gave him the injections that relaxed him and then stopped his heart. It was terrible.

So for the past month it's been just CJ. You can tell she looked for him, particularly at first. And that sneaky dash out the door last night? Pure Harley. Let's not do that again okay CJ? Whew! Let's hope in the future that CJ stays healthy and happy and IN THE HOUSE. -Monica

P.S. Su named him Harley because he had a very distinctive low humming purr that sounded, well, like a Harley. They were a good team. Bye bye big boy. It's just not the same here without you.