While big gardening projects and fun trips out of the house have been put on hold lately, our four-legged children have been up to their usual antics.
Hermione offers to help with housework.
Finding an interesting place to sleep is still a favorite hobby. Sites chosen lately include the kitchen table, top of the toaster oven (unplugged, of course), bookcase, couch, empty box in the living room, on top of Mom, on top of Dad, top of the water heater, in Dad’s sock drawer, and atop a stack of soda cases.
Hanging out with Holly the pit bull is always fun. Once in awhile she shares her snacks. 
And, it just wouldn’t be Our Lives in Stories without a tale to tell…
As I posted a few weeks ago, our three amigas became two when Harry died. (You can read about that here.) Since that day every one of us humans has been extra vigilant to know the whereabouts of the other cats, Hermione & Dobby, as best as is reasonably possible. We believe Harry was hit by a car in the wee hours of the morning. So we do our very best to get her sisters to come in before we all head to bed. Sometimes that proves to be easier said than done.
About a week and a half ago, Hermione and Dobby went out back to play at dusk. That’s part of their usual evening routine: supper, a short nap (or not), chase bugs, chase each other, play in the grass, do whatever it is that cats do after dark. Except no boyfriends. Our girls are spayed and will forever be the Spinster Sisters.
Time dragged on. The cats had been out back for several hours. Sam went to check on them. No Hermione. No Dobby. He called and called and walked the property looking for them. No answer. He broke the news to me. My stomach fell, as did his. I got up to help him look.
The loss of Harry was fresh on our minds and we felt sick. I called and called and walked around. We looked out front. We looked out back. Sam shone his flashlight here, there, and everywhere: under bushes, behind tool boxes, in the laundry room, in the old dilapidated shed. It was getting on toward 11 PM.
At first we made an effort to be as quiet as possible. After all, 11 PM is a bit late for decent folks to be carrying on. But every minute that ticked by made us feel that much more frantic.
Before long I’m quite certain I could have held a wailing contest with a banshee and given her a run for her money. And I looked the part, too. Here I am in my mismatched pajamas, barefoot, wet pant legs, hair flying wildly all over the place. Okay, that is sort of the norm for my hair on any given day. But it does go right along with the stereotype of the crazy cat lady traipsing back and forth in the dewy grass with a flashlight shrieking for a couple of cats in the middle of the night. I am not sure what the neighbors might have thought and at that point couldn’t care less.
About the time Sam and I were at our complete wit’s end, he just happened to shine his light upward. There staring quietly at us from the roof just above our heads were Hermione and Dobby. I could have croaked right there on the spot. Those two naughty girls had climbed a small oak tree that grows at the east end of our house and hopped over to the roof. They were having a grand old time, and that grand old time included silently watching mom and dad lose their minds in the yard below them. 
We managed to get the Devious Divas in that night, and most nights thereafter. On the rare occasion that they won’t both come in before bedtime, we are comforted by the soft pitter-patter of little feet on the roof in the night.
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