A Cat's Tale

Monica and Linda both blogged about dogs. I thought I’d blog about a cat, and it’s not even my cat. His name is Julius, or as we call him That Julius (spoken in a tone of being amused and amazed by what he’s done). I had hoped to include a picture of him, but the last time I had a chance, my camera jammed. So, just picture a black cat, not too big, with poufy long fur and arresting yellow eyes.

I talked to his owners once and they were surprised to hear he was a frequent visitor to my yard. Julius lives down the street, but he considers a whole two block stretch to belong to him. Our yard is right in the middle of what Julius views as his domain.

Most of his visits have occurred when our cats are inside. I did hear some bad cat noises coming from the backyard once and discovered Julius and Rocky wrestling on the ground. Rocky lives up to his name and is a big, black and white, bruiser. Julius maybe smaller, but he has a presence and I hate to admit it, but I think he won. Eventually, Julius taught Rocky how to escape from our backyard. But apparently Julius left out how to get back home. We found Rocky a half a block away sitting in Julius’s neighbor’s yard, waiting to be picked up.

Thanks to Julius’s lesson, we had to erect what we call The Great Wall of Kitty. It sounds more impressive than it is. Actually, we just took two folding laundry dryers and hung them on the gate they were jumping over and then covered the whole thing with a blue tarp. By the way, it is very effective. Rocky looks at it, but doesn’t jump over.

However, The Great Wall of Kitty seems to have no effect on the comings and going of Julius. But thankfully this time he’s keeping his route to himself.

When Julius comes in the backyard, he takes off if I try to get close to him. But the other day I noticed him lounging on our front porch. I was actually putting out bags of giveaway things for a charity pick-up. Julius didn’t make a move to leave. He just looked me in the eye. Maybe it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a lot going on behind those eyes of his. I reached out my hand and to my surprise Julius made contact with it. He made no move to leave as I went back and forth, bringing out the bags. He finally got up and I realized he was planning to follow me inside. What a gutsy cat.

Meanwhile Rocky watched the whole episode from the living room window and our other cat Spago patrolled inside the front door.

Julius lives with a corgi. They are Queen Elizabeth’s favorite kind of dog and have bulky bodies and little short legs. I’ve had a few runs in with Pepper when the dog came charging into the street on those little short legs as I was walking by with Goldy. But apparently Pepper and Julius get along very well. Every now and then I see the man down the street walking the corgi on a leash. Not to be left out, Julius scampers along behind them, making side trips into everybody’s yard. It’s my favorite Julius moment and every time I see it, I can’t help but say that Julius!