Odysseus' Travels

I might have told you about Odysseus before. He's the cat that has been hanging about the neighborhood for about a year now. I thought he might be the next door neighbors' cat at first, since he was always right around my house. But he's always outside, even on days that the temperature is in the teens or below.

So I kind of think now he never belonged to them or anyone. I see him every day, no matter what the weather. And his coat is definitely the coat of an outside cat. And he is very wary of people, although I would not say he was feral. He may be an abandoned cat, like Miss Gracie was.

I have been feeding him and watering him for about a year. I know. I know. I can hear my mom paraphrasing Pat Sajak in my mind "Once you feed a cat, he's yours to keep." But because of that, his measure of trust for me has grown to the point that he will sit in the front window and look in. And he only hisses at me occasionally now.

When we had the blizzard a few weeks back, I was not able to tempt him into the garage, but R was able to track him to where he has been living. Apparently, he has opened the ventilation hatch under the house and has been living in our crawlspace near the heating ducts.

That makes me worry less about him. But it also makes me sad, because it means that he has nowhere else to go. Obviously, I can't bring him inside right now because of a lot of reasons (feline viruses being one of them), but I am going to continue to make sure he has food and water and a place to live.

Maybe by this summer, when we will have known each other about 18 months, he will trust me enough to take a bed in the garage?