Midnight - Hand to Mouth

Midnight has always wanted an opposable thumb. He has been watching me carefully for the past 3 years and has noticed the miracles that I can perform with that remarkable appendage. And he wants one; badly. This sequence of him eating lunch on the patio yesterday illustrates my point.

Here he has just gotten his midday bowl of tuna and is reaching in for one of the first delicious paw-fulls. Notice the intense concentration as he attempts to successfully fish one out. The scraps of tuna lying about in the foreground are testament to the inexact results of his efforts.

Having successfully gotten some tuna in his paw, he is now going to maneuver the food to his mouth. You can just see the tip of his tongue, which will be an important part of this process.

Curling is not just a sport to Midnight. It is the critical, final movement necessary to getting the food into his mouth. Again, notice the assist from his tongue.

And here he is, at the finish line so to speak. I call this his “Politician’s Pose.” He has his foot in his mouth. Wait; that's not quite fair to the cat!

Midnight - The Community Cat

We have grown accustomed to feeding the community cat, "Midnight", aka "Meow", and have reported here on his wanderings before. Along with Sue and I, our neighbors have been pretty good at letting Midnight come and go wherever, and whenever, it pleases him. He just doesn't get to live indoors. C'est la vie. In return though, he has a sense of independence which is unknown to all of the other "house cats" in the neighborhood; you know the type; the ones with the cute little "cat" doors on the back porch. They don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. They have it made, and they know it, too.

Midnight, on the other hand, has no escape door, no refuge; save for the few wits he does seem to possess; and yet he has managed to survive the winter relatively unscathed. He has left our garage now, with its heating pad and blanket, opting instead for our neighbor Linda's wicker front porch sofa. And now, he has stumped us all by taking his afternoon "cat naps" in her earth filled pot, which sits next to the sofa. We can only surmise that after watching the birds nesting, his paternal instincts have kicked in, and he is patiently "nesting" on his own, just as they do. They sit for a few days, and when they get up, little birds fly out, so why not kittens? It sounds stupid, I know. But, absent any other explanation I'm going with this one for now. I'll let you know what happens, or not, as soon as it does, or doesn't.