There is a beetle couple having sex on my window pane...And it's been approximately 28 hours since I first noticed them. Admittedly I'm impressed, intrigued, and...well, feel a little bit sorry for them all at the same time. "Beetle style" doesn't look like very much fun. Beetles, at least this species, simply back up to each other and connect in a line, facing in opposite directions. I haven't actually seen them move, but every time I check on them they are at a different spot on the glass. I wonder if they communicate when it's time to stretch all those legs, trying to look backward at the other without breaking connection, possibly hollering in romantic bug-ese..."OK, on the count of three we're going to move right...no, your other right...no, your other two rights also!...wait wait stop, baby!...we're headed for a corner!"
Over the past week I've often been looking out this window that they are coupling on. It's really a waste of time, but it's become second nature for my eyes to scan the shrubs; the dark spaces under the sugarhouse, the vehicles, the porch, and all the other random things in our yard. But in my heart I know she's not anywhere on the premises. My cat, that is...Annie.
Annie came to us as a stray. A neighbor up the hill had moved away and abandoned her. We figured she was a year or two old...which would make her about 5 or 6 now. She's a beautiful cat...medium to long hair that is white-based with gray and brown patches. We had her spayed and declawed (the latter decidedly after I found her dangling from a shocked and crying toddler-Mae's knees one afternoon...all in fun, but painful nonetheless). She was happy as an inside cat, living the lap of luxury, and soon became Mae's. Annie was leery of anybody on foot except for Mae, but she'll find the lap of anybody in about two seconds after they sit down. She's a love, and she's funny. Her favorite position is what I call "the sloth" where she'll lay her belly and chin on whatever she's upon (your leg, a couch arm, or even something as narrow as a crib rail), with her legs hanging limp at the sides. She does this to me in bed every night, pawing my face...or did, before she ran away.
The first time she got out was soon after we adopted her (and just after we dropped $200+ on her at the vet, of course)...I think she came home on her own that same night, it being late in the fall and pretty cold. The second time she was gone for a week, and then I spotted her underneath our shed. We caught her in the have-a-heart trap. She had a few ticks on her, was skinny, but had refused to come to us. But after entering the house she was in pure bliss with all her creature comforts.
Last year she got out in late June - actually fell out of a screen window - wasn't even trying to escape. But of course after she was out, she didn't think twice about STAYING out. We figured we'd catch her in the have-a-heart again and didn't stress out too much over it. But after several mornings of finding really pissed-off strange neighborhood cats in the trap (although they didn't actually have any reason to complain after a good feed of trout and tuna) and no more sightings of our Annie, our hearts started getting a little heavy. We put up a sign at the top of our road but got no calls. Mae cried almost every night for several weeks. We figured she couldn't possibly still be alive, out in the woods with no claws, and after finding her so skinny after only a week the last time. But wouldn't you know it, 4 months later when the weather was turning cold, we saw her cross the driveway one night in front of our car. We put the trap behind the neighbor's shed that rainy night, and at 3 AM I brought our Annie home...full of (I'm talking 20 to 30) ticks, scraggly, dirty, and wild-eyed. She camped out in our closet (next to the food dish and litter box) for the first one or two months while she regained her strength and personality. Surely she would never leave us again.
But she did (and don't call me Shirley). Last week my husband had opened our bedroom window, just a few inches I thought. I noticed Annie that morning eating at the food dish, but just moments later I let the dog out and noticed our bedroom screen laying in the walkway. I searched the house - she COULDN'T have gotten out...but she was nowhere. And when she didn't show up after my shower, to stand on hind legs on our bed and bite and nose my hands for attention while I dressed, I knew she was gone.
And so our days pass by with the domestic things that mark the beginning of summer...Making lists of things to pack for camp next weekend (Memorial Day)...smacking at no-see-um bites milliseconds too late...dusting off and experimenting with the ice cream maker ("Mom, what did you PUT in this!?")...grill-charred dinners eaten on the deck with family and friends...filling in the last spots around my walkways with perennials transplanted from a good friend's yard (who actually knows all their fancy names and characteristics, while I simply say "whatever, as long as it doesn't need any maintenance")...breaking out a fresh bottle of sunscreen and chuckling over sunburned outlines of hands that didn't quite reach everywhere on dad's back...frosting drippy birthday cakes in a too-hot kitchen (time to dust off the ACs too!)...
Mae mentioned to her dad yesterday, "I wonder what Annie's doing today." I wonder this too, more often than I should admit. How does she spend her time now...out in the woods?...in a neighbor's shed or barn?...hunting in the fields despite her declawed front paws, desperate for something to eat? Does she have a place that she can sleep as soundly as she did while laying on Mae's quilt in the quietness of her bedroom? I wonder how many ticks she has on her already...how they must torment her, and do they make her feel lethargic? It's hard to think about...my sweet Annie-kins out there, alone, through rain and thunderstorms and chilly nights...when there are loving hand rubs, warmth, dryness, food and water dishes, and Mini (our 1-yr-old PITA cat and Annie's wrestle-with-and-race-around-like-demons-are-chasing-us partner) all here waiting for her, if she'd only give up the wild and come home.
The first teary night Annie was gone last week, I sat on Mae's bed and tried to comfort her, told her it wasn't that Annie didn't love us...kitties just love adventures, and she was an outside kitty once and hasn't forgotten all the fun things...that we need to just think of it as her being on a long vacation for now. She replied, between sobs and holding Annie's well-worn picture..."I know, I just miss her..." and in a calmer moment..."I think we won't see her again til it's almost winter, if she's still alive"..."Yes, I think that's probably right, sweetheart." Daddy told her some creatures just can't be tamed for good. But I just miss her too, Mae...so very much.
I suppose I shouldn't make fun of the beetles. They, unlike cats, don't have nine lives. This may quite possibly be their first and last enjoyable act, other than flight, which surely must be exhilerating. Enjoy the time you've been given to the fullest, I say...I promise not to flick you off my window for at least another 28 hours.
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