Even though Spyder left the house along with my sister and brother-in-law at the start of the month, we still haven’t moved Skooter into the house full-time. We’re letting her into the house for longer and longer periods, but the house still isn’t ready for her, in part because my sister and brother-in-law still haven’t taken Spyder’s old litterbox to their apartment. (They also haven’t bothered removing one of their old 27" television sets that’s currently an eyesore in the hallway outside of my room.) I’m still worried about Skooter being such a persistent leg-rubber and always getting underfoot, especially given how old my parents are now, but for now Mom has taken to walking around with tins full of pennies in her socks, so whenever she walks she makes a sound that Skooter can’t stand. I was hoping that Skooter would get less hyper around the house the more we let her in, but so far that hasn’t really been happening.

I don’t want to lose hope about being able to move Skooter into the house, though. It’s disorienting for me to be sitting here typing this right now, knowing that there isn’t the chance of one of my four-legged friends walking in to rub against my legs. Skooter came to the house shortly after Rowan had her last great romp, not returning to the house for a few weeks, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think Rowan intended for Skooter to be her replacement, and now Rowan’s been gone for over eighteen months and Skooter’s still not in the house. She didn’t get along with Spyder at all, and now we’re having even more problems getting her into the house full-time, and I can’t help but feel like we keep letting down Rowan. More to the point, we don’t really have a cat "keeping watch" over us now, and that doesn’t feel good.

As if all of that weren’t enough, we already have another cat auditioning for that role. About a week after Spyder left, we started seeing this orange tabby outside, and she’s become kind of a regular fixture. Spyder was never an outdoor cat, so there couldn’t be any connection there, but there is a coincidence here I can’t help but think about. Our family’s first cat — at least the first one I know of (I still remember her from my youth) — was an orange tabby named Crissy, and she’s the only not-all-black cat we’ve ever had. Crissy left the house one day and never returned, and I can’t help but wonder if this orange tabby might be one of Crissy’s great-great-great-great-grandsons. We’re not going to let this new orange tabby into the house — Skooter alone is enough for us — but as the weather gets colder over this coming weekend it’s going to be harder for me to see the orange tabby out there.