Stray cat

Kristi came in this morning carrying a little yellow cat. She said that he was sitting on a tire in the wheelwell of a car in the parking lot, crying, and when she called to him, he immediately came to her. The ground was covered in ice and we were supposed to get a lot of snow today; the poor little guy was shivering. She had a conference call that she had to do, so I took him into my office and closed the door so he couldn't run around and get into any trouble.

I don't know how old he is, but probably no more than six months or so. He's a tiny little thing, with long legs and a long skinny tail. Kurt went out at noon and bought a bag of kitten food and some kitty litter; once we poured some litter into a low cardboard box, he jumped right in and peed, obviously having been waiting for us to do just that. A smart little guy.

I took some camera phone pictures of him, and Dave made a "Found Cat" poster that Kristi duplicated and put up in several store windows on the street, but by time to go home, no one had called. The snow had started, and, in fact, Cello was out in it and called and said that it was a blizzard, so everyone started packing up to leave mid-afternoon. I decided I would take the cat home for the night. I'm not sure why I didn't just leave him at the office, though. At the time, I was thinking that it would be dangerous for him down there because of pesticides that had been sprayed, etc., but I could have easily just left him in my office with the door shut.

Oh well. Bob says I just wanted to bring him home, and I guess I did. He cried for awhile in the car, but after about a half hour, he settled down and went to sleep in the box I had him in. With the snow, it took me two hours to get home, so we had a long ride.

When we got home, I put him in the downstairs bathroom with a bowl of food, a bowl of water, a blanket, and a temporary litter box made from a cake pan. Dinah and Pyewacket weren't very happy; Dinah, especially, was upset. It was probably a bad idea to bring him home, but now (nearly 11:30) everyone seems to have mostly settled down. Baby kitty is quiet in the bathroom, Pye's upstairs with Bob, and Dinah is on my lap.

Quite an eventful day! I so enjoyed having a cat at work! I didn't really get much work done, though. He spent most of the day walking around on my desk and pouncing on things. At one point he was trying to catch the mouse pointer on the monitor, then for awhile he would lie in wait and pounce on my hand as I moved the mouse. He was pretty entertaining.

Update:

I got an email from Kristi last night that while no owner has come forward, she did get a call from someone who lives down near our office who saw the posters, and said that if the owner doesn't show up, he'd be willing to take the cat. So we won't be becoming a three cat household, thankfully. I suppose I'm a little disappointed, but it's definitely for the best.

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