Buddy and Frankenkitty

The stray cat Buddy is no longer on our porch. He started his cat life as “Tom” at the neighbor’s barn across the road. When the neighbor tried to get him into a crate and take him to the vet to be fixed, he ran off and ended up on our property. I didn’t know he belonged to the neighbor and I named him Buddy... he was here for nearly a year, sleeping on the porch in nice weather, and in our garage on the cold and rainy nights. But then Buddy discovered neighbor G down the road... she has other outside cats, and I think Buddy liked their company, so he chose to relocate.

Enter Frankenkitty... a brown fluffy cat that looks like a Himalayan, complete with blue eyes. Usually, I am a pushover for blue-eyed cats, but this cat was clearly feral, hissing at me if I got too close, and then running away to hide in the barn. But his hunger got the best of him, and he came up on the porch, so of course I started leaving food out for him, which he ate, hissing at me in between bites if I stayed out there with him.

I couldn’t keep calling him Cat, so I named him Frankenkitty because the markings on his face make him look like he’s wearing a Frankenstein mask. Plus that attitude of his isn’t exactly gentlemanly. He still hisses at me, but it’s half-hearted and meant more for conversation than for fierceness. I have a cat-sized, house-shaped wicker box on the porch, covered with a heavy blanket for warmth, with a pillow-bed inside it for comfort. That little house has been a warm sanctuary for the stray cats who have made their homes on our porch from time to time. Frankenkitty sleeps in there when it’s raining or cold. I don’t let him go into the garage because I doubt he would be as comfy in there as Buddy was. Frankenkitty would most likely howl and hiss until he was let out. And if he gets too cold on the porch, he just goes over to the barn anyway.

My inside cats watch Frankenkitty through the windows of the TV room. There is silence on this side of the windows, while Frankenkitty hisses and meows at Sweet Pea, Julius, and Peaches from the other side of the glass. Savannah doesn’t like the Himalayan at all, and given the chance, she would probably chase that cat off the porch and way past the barn.