THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael and I are both members on the Nextdoor app. If you are not familiar with this app, it’s like Facebook for neighborhoods. I tend to ignore most of the postings because often they’re someone complaining about a person walking in their neighborhood. Earlier this month, one woman posted a “Be On the Look Out!” post about seeing a woman wearing a ‘beanie’ taking a picture of a house. Michael and I were sitting on the couch when we read that one. We looked at each other and I said “That could have been me.” Really…it might have been me she was talking about. There’s just too many ‘be suspicious of everyone’ posts for my liking. Sometimes the app comes in handy when you’re getting rid of crap or when you want to know what animals have been spotted in the area recently because some guy posts a monthly animal sightings list.

This week, we noticed a post from a woman asking the neighborhood “Is this your cat?” with a picture of a white cat that could have very well have been Albus. She said that the cat in the picture looks just like her cat, Zero (I’m real jealous I didn’t think of that name for Albus), but that it wasn’t her cat. She said that she knows there are two identical white cats because on one evening, she had both of them in her house at the same time. The woman was okay with this cat being in her home. She just wanted to know where Zero was. Michael responded to her post saying that we have a white cat that looks just like the cat in that picture, but our cat was home with us. At least we think he’s our cat. Now I don’t know. I don’t think it was Albus at that woman’s house because she said he was snuggled up with her kids. Albus is skittish with people. He is a rare sighting for strangers that walk into this house, but now I’m wondering if sometimes these cats switch places. Like they are Parent Trapping us. It is even possible that there are three identical white cats out there, since we know that Albus isn’t the cat in the picture she posted. These cats are just rotating through houses around the neighborhood.

There is a peace of mind in knowing that Albus has a safe, loving and warm place to go to when he gets fed up with us. He’s never happy with us when we leave him for a weekend with a bowl of kibble. Albus has been very vocal about it whenever we return home from a trip. Every time he starts bitching, I’m surprised by it because he’s so indifferent to us in general. Well…except me. He comes to me when he can see the bottom of his food bowl. My lap is his favorite sleeping spot. Albus wants nothing to do with Michael, the guy who saved his life. Last night, I really studied Albus’s face while he was curled up in my lap. I took particular notice to the two scratches across the bridge of his nose. He has a nick in one ear. Not a big one, but a tiny little notch. His tongue sticks out a little bit because he has teeny tiny front teeth, like he never lost his baby teeth there. His eyes are yellow-green but sometimes they look black in certain lighting. I’m trying to memorize him in case I have to point him out in a line up of white cats.

We’ll keep our pet door open for Zero too, if he ever needs a place to stay.