First, let me talk about flowers. As some of you know, I’ve developed an interest in photography, an interest I hope to indulge a lot more in about 11 weeks. Macro-photography fascinates me, and a few weeks ago I bought flowering plants to challenge my photographic skills. Following are photos of an Purple Aster, bought before it started to bloom. These photos were taken over four days.

It’s fun watching flowers bloom on your own back deck, trying to find the right light and the right moment. During the work week, that isn’t as easy as I’d like, even though I do work from home. Blame it on meetings.

And now, a Raji update:

For those of you who missed the excitement of my last post, you can read it here. In the week since I wrote that post, we managed to get Raji confined to our garage. Poor little guy had hurt his right front leg jumping down from the roof of our shed. We didn’t want him gallivanting around, making it worse so we coaxed him in with food (of course!) one evening and shut the cat door.

Oh, was he pissed about that! I had never heard a cat complain so much. He has quite the repertoire as well. Not just the usual meows for Raji, but howls, trills, pips and peeps. And he kept us busy playing hide-and-seek, except he was the one always hiding. One of his favorite hiding places is our canoe which hangs against a wall. Watching him climb boxes and books and then slip into the gap is much like watching a kid climbing the stairs to his room, loudly complaining the whole way.

We had arranged to take him to our vet, but the appointment was a few days off. We were worried about his leg, the fact that we were expecting heavy rain, and the lack of sunshine and fresh air in the garage. So more or less spontaneously, we took him up to a spay/neuter clinic and got his pom-poms snipped. He also got his rabies and distemper shots, tested for HIV and feline leukemia (both negative), and his claws clipped. His leg wasn’t swollen and the clinic vet said the pain meds would probably help with that. After we brought him home, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with us.

Then our worries changed to whether he would eat (and through eating, take his pain medication), whether he would use the litter box, or whether he would just curl up in the canoe and die.

Happily, within 24 hours, his appetite was back and he had peed in the litter box. I’m sure you can imagine my delight when, another day later, I found an impressive pile of poop in the box too. And so we go. He has a great appetite, and the more I study him, the younger I think he is, perhaps not yet a year old. He still does not like us to touch him, but he tolerates our furtive pets and strokes while he eats. Although he insists on social distancing, he’s become comfortable enough with us to groom and play while we watch like doting parents.

We want to keep him confined at least until he sees our favorite vet at the end of this month. Because of his apparent youth, however, I’m loath to release him to the wilds of our neighborhood … ever. To make his current confinement tolerable (at least to our conscience), we bought him a playpen and fastened it to the side entrance into our garage.

We have this luxurious penthouse set up so when the side door is opened, he can go in and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine while still being held prisoner. No surprise that he has a lot of complaints about this.

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Raji has inspected every possible flaw in this setup, searching for any gap big enough to squeeze through, and giving us a piece of his mind while he does it. We’ve bolted, strapped, and twist-tied the pen in place, and secured wood panels where a kitty’s head might stick through. We were not only afraid of Raji getting away, but of him getting stuck. So this is a daytime playpen, to be used only when we are up and about and available to check on him frequently.

I guess you could say the adventure has begun in earnest now. The slow, thoughtful and patient process of getting Raji used to us, comfortable with us, and then (fingers crossed) integrated into the household.

For now our three indoor kids are in denial. They do hear Raji chattering away in the garage, but pretend not to. Their ears, however, give them away. In the meantime, Junior still claims my sandals.

Thank you for reading! If the news is getting you down, find a good distraction, like adopting a semi-feral stray cat. Believe me, it helps :)