a bit of afternoon panic

On the weekends, the Bemo and I are late to bed, late to rise. When I got up this morning at about 11:45, I sort of swung quickly into working on finishing our big furniture/books shuffling project, so I was trotting around with armloads of books. When I finally took a break, I realised I hadn't seen my eldest cat, Gracie, around anywhere since I got up. Cue me calling her name...at first calmly (she was probably in the closet sleeping on my sweaters). Then with a little more urgency, since she usually comes when called. Then mild worry - had she gotten closed up in the coat closet again? Then a great deal of panic, because still no cat. I start trotting around the house, looking under things, behind things, and finally look behind our vertical blinds...and see her standing outside on our balcony, glaring up at me and going, "MEW DAMNIT."

Poor, poor kitty. She must have followed Bemo outside last night when I got home from eccentricartist's and mentioned the sleet - he stepped outside to see it and when he came back in, neither of us noticed that she was locked outside. She's absolutely none the worse for wear, having been a street cat before we found her behind the dumpster at a KFC. She trotted in and ate some of her favorite food that I offered her, sauntering past her rival Kit with a tired, but still queenly air. Kit looked a little disgruntled, actually - she probably thought that she had finally managed to bump off her rival for Top Cat of the household.

Gracie is going to get gobs of pampering to make up for this. GOBS.