Bob the Cat

A neighbor of ours was on a cruise to Mexico with her brother, tripped over an unsecured photographer's cable and broke her hip. She's been in the hospital this week and moved yesterday to a nursing care facility. Her physical therapy is going well, she's quite fit for her age, so the prognosis is good.

We've been looking in on her, taking her the mail, checking on her house, etc. We brought her some photos of Bob, our cat, too, which really cheered her up. When we first adopted Bob (from other neighbors who were moving to Hawaii and didn't want to put him through the quarantine), this neighbor also knew Bob, but wasn't very fond of him. He is an outdoor cat during the day (nighttime, too, if he can get away with it--but coyotes live in the 'hood, so we do our best to prevent that) and he used to wander into her yard, which she didn't like. Actually, he used to have a pretty big territory, but now that he's almost 12 years old, he's content to stick closer to home. Still, he continues to believe that both neighbors' yards are his territory--one is where he originally lived, the other he has laid claim to on his own.
We asked our neighbor to feed him when we went away a few years ago, and despite her feelings about him she agreed. After that, she was "hooked" on Bob, and always looks forward to caring for him when we travel.

We sometimes refer to him as "Bob the cat" to distinguish him from "Bob the brother." We didn't name the cat (or the brother) but opted not to change it after we adopted him. Of course, we have many sickeningly cute terms of endearment for him which I'm too embarrassed to share with you!

Until next time...

Rick