Curiosity 67: And a new year begins

It started with pet shenanigans. I was awakened at 2 a.m., first by a dog barking (neighbor's?), then by repeated ringing of the doorbell. I wish I could say Milo realized that barking wasn't working and he needed to try something else to get our attention, because yeah, it wasn't the neighbor's dog. I don't know if the nice police officer simply heard him barking outside our front door and stopped to ask if he belonged here (I was not exactly wide awake when all this happened), but we did ascertain that not only was the back gate open, but so was the deck door! Leading to a very simple escape... I believe Milo was agitated by the fireworks/firecrackers, which continued to go off sporadically until at least 3, which necessitated me snuggling in with him on his bed until he finally dozed off. He does not like fireworks... Meanwhile, David slept soundly through the entire ruckus!

Pet shenanigans continued when, in the afternoon shortly before we were about to head out for our walk, David told me that our orange kitty, Ravi, hadn't shown up for breakfast—or subsequently. What with the deck door being open, he no doubt took his opportunity. But coyotes live out there! Mountain lions even! And he always wants his breakfast.

David did a walk through the neighborhood calling, and he spoke with our nextdoor neighbor Chris, who said he'd keep an eye out. But no Ravi. So we set off on our afternoon walk with worry in our minds. We have lost three cats to—well, one to a coyote for sure, and two simply disappeared. One of those two, sweet Jolie du Châtelet, showed up in my FB birthdays today, since I arbitrarily gave January 1 as her day of arrival in the world (yes, she had her own FB page). It would not be a pretty irony to lose another one on the same day...

As we were turning onto one of the last trails through the oak woodland, I spotted a lucky penny in the dirt! And then I remembered that I hadn't started the day with the Rabbit rabbit rabbit! incantation, so I quickly uttered that (why not? better late than never!). And then, mere minutes later: the phone rang. And it was Chris, saying that Ravi was hunkered down under his car, looking none the worse for wear, just a little dirty. Whew!

I wrote a haiku in honor of Ravi:

please come home kitty
there are infinitely more
gophers to catch

Here are some photos from our afternoon walk on the former Fort Ord army base:

And since I'm determined to get more exercise now that a new year of possibility has rolled around, I had to supplement that walk with another one, this one to our local Frog Pond. I listened to a great discussion on the podcast Hidden Brain called "How to Believe in Yourself" about motivation and accomplishment, with organizational psychologist Adam Grant. So I ended up with well over 10,000 steps. Yay for podcasts and beautiful places to walk!

And yay for all the pets being safe and sound at home! And no more fireworks for a few months.