Spring Forward, Fall... Forward

First, the Spring...

We got an early start yesterday morning, wolfing down a quick breakfast before hitting the road for New Hope. I took Athennia and Riley through a scenic route my dad and I used to travel when I was a little kid accompanying him to the summer school music programs he directed when he taught music at Holicong Middle School...

The drive was peaceful, picturesque, and pleasantly jerk-free: No one's out here, because modern culture has convinced everyone that the cesspool-city life trumps the quietude of the hinterland.

We took Durham Road to Upper Mountain Road so we could drive over the mountain on Holicong Road; then we picked up Lower Mountain Road and took it all the way to our "secret" destination (Athennia knew where we were headed, but Riley didn't):

There was a lot of ground to cover, so we got to it!

Riley was on a quest to find a corndog to massacre like old times...

We loaded up on nature shots...

...And pictures of the "mill ruins"...

...And artsy pics...

Kevin's Pics

Athennia's Pics

Then we took another scenic route home—Street Road to Windy Bush Road, back to the outskirts of Richboro, and finally Hatboro Road back to my neck of the woods suburbia.

Then, the Fall (and the Catch)...

For those who don't know or may have forgotten, Riley has a cat named Lucky who has been living with Taylor at Lou's since early June (since Athennia's landlord discovered the kids' zoo and evicted their two dozen pets back in the spring).

We (especially Riley) have spent all summer anxiously awaiting the verdict on whether or not the landlord would let Athennia renew her lease for another year—so that we could go about bringing Lucky home again, either by moving him back in (legitimately, this time) or by moving as a family to a new apartment entirely.

And, as we recently reported, Athennia finally did receive her new lease in the mail a little over a week ago, and lucked out when the woman in the leasing office okayed her to bring Lucky back despite the recent policy change that no longer allows pets! We've since been working to cross some less-than-cat-friendly projects—such as shampooing her carpets—off the to-do list before bringing Lucky home again.

As fate would have it, Athennia and Riley were slated to pick Lucky up from Lou's tomorrow...

But, we'd only been home from Aquetong for half an hour or so, when Taylor called to explain that she hadn't seen Lucky in ~24 hours.

Now, I know what you're thinking...

24 hours?! Why'd it take so long to notice that he was gone?
—probably everyone

Lucky doesn't get along with Taylor's girlfriend's dog; so, the girls banished him from their bedroom a couple months back... and things have (rather predictably?) deteriorated between him and them, to the point that he now hisses at them if they get close or try to pick him up.

Thus, Lucky had probably begun making it a point to steer clear of them; and it probably wasn't out of the ordinary for them to not see him for extended periods of time.

But, at any rate, Taylor couldn't find him...

Moreover, she wasn't sure if he was even still inside (and just hiding very well somewhere) or if he'd bolted outside when Lou's neighbor had been over and left the front door open!

Athennia, Riley, and I immediately jumped in the car and tore over to Lou's in Fairless Hills to begin the search! Riley headed right inside to start searching there while Athennia and I did a quick perimeter check outside.

Nothing.

As Athennia headed inside to help Riley look there, I noticed that Lou's neighbors were sitting out on their porch; so, I walked over and asked if they'd perchance seen a gray cat.

Oh, yeah; sure! He was out here under the propane tank around 7:00 this morning...

Swell...

...He's real friendly, too! He comes up on the porch sometimes!

Okay; wait...

I asked when they'd first seen him...

Oh, just last night!

Well, damn. That confirmed that: Lucky was outside somewhere!

Before I could get back over to Lou's to relay the news, Riley came bursting through the front door, bawling her eyes out...

Lucky's not inside! I looked everywhere, and he's not there. He's nowhere!

I was completely thrown when she collapsed into my arms for a hug; and, as I hugged her back, I kind of stood there juxtaposing the weird reality that this moment was simultaneously one of the best and the worst of my summer...

I can't remember the last time I felt so helpless; but, I did my best to comfort her—pointing out that even though Lucky might be missing, he was almost certainly still alive and well.

For lack of any other immediate course of action, we found ourselves walking through strangers' backyards and scoping out their porches and properties (tons of fun to do—especially in an unfamiliar neighborhood, when I don't carry any kind of ID on me as a rule).

We were a whole block away from Lou's when I heard Athennia's voice echo through the air...

Rileyyyyy! Get back to Oma's NOW!

We bee-lined for Lou's and found Athennia and Taylor hand-feeding Lucky from a baggie of cat food: He must have heard Riley calling him! We had probably just missed him by mere moments.

Taylor actually ended up saving the day by being the one to spot Lucky first... and then managing to keep him around until Riley could get back to him... and then intercepting him when he jumped out of my arms and tried to make a break for it upon deciding that he wasn't a fan of being stuffed into Penny's cat carrier (which I'd brought along in hopes that we would need it).

We thanked God for Lucky's namesake—all knowing full well that there were a lot of other ways this could have gone, with none of them having particularly happy endings. But, we Luck'ed out bigtime... and Riley's BFF is finally home again after ~90 days at Lou's.

Back at Athennia's apartment, Riley caught me tearing up and asked if I was crying.

Yep. Little bit.

I was her age when my mom remarried and we moved ~20 minutes away from our old house: I remember letting my childhood cat Pluto go outside at the new house for the first time and worrying about whether he would know that this was home now, or whether I'd never see him again.

More recently, there was my flight home when I decided to call it quits living in the Caribbean a few years back... Unlike at JFK on my way down, the Grenada airport didn't have a dedicated room where their security agency could inspect Penny and her carrier: They demanded that I just pull her out in the middle of a crowded airport and walk through the metal detector with her! All I could do was hold her in a death grip and hang on to her for dear life—knowing that I'd never find her in there if she got spooked by all the commotion and managed to wrest herself out of my grasp.

Taylor called Athennia again later to relay that she had just heard another of Lou's neighbors calling "here, kitty-kitty." And, when Taylor asked whom the woman was calling, she responded,

Oh, this gray cat that's been coming around for the past two days...

So, it turns out that Lucky was actually out for 48 hours—a full day beyond the 24 hours after which Taylor finally noted his absence.

Somewhat ironically, she gave Athennia a crash course in Cat Care 101, providing a litany of Lucky's favorite foods, treats, and pastimes—and a pro tip on how to chill Lucky out when need be...

And, whenever you need to calm him down, just give him some of his catnip treats, and he'll chill right out...

Hmm.

Anyway, Athennia and I still had meal-prepping and such to do (with meat already defrosting on my kitchen counter all this time); so, we left Riley and Lucky to make up for their summer apart and headed back to my place.

I took the opportunity to snap an artsy pic when Athennia stopped to fill her tank on the way back...

Fawn with the Wind?

We got home to find my back neighbor Jeannie—and her front neighbor Jamie—examining a tiny fawn in her yard (which we had also noticed earlier but assumed it was relaxing in the shade, as other deer have countless times before)...

It's one of three that we've been seeing around for the last several weeks: Its development has been majorly stunted by a bad rear-left leg (its siblings lost their spots weeks ago), but it has been getting along surprisingly well. Sometimes it'll get stranded in my yard when the rest of the herd will pass through and effortlessly hop the fence (which the fawn can't do); but, it always finds its way back out and manages to circle around and meet up with them again.

Jeannie said the fawn had been there since 7:00 A.M. and seemed to be dehydrated (probably from the lack of available water, given our nearly two-month drought at this point)...

It drank as much as it could but didn't seem to have the strength or the desire to get up. Jeannie had called animal control, but they don't have any interest in edge-cases like this one these days; so, she and Jamie were doing all they could to feed and hydrate the fawn, as well as to try to disinfect its injuries (on the sizable side but seemingly not super-recent).

The rest of our evening was relatively uneventful. But, when Athennia finally got back home later, this is what she found when she popped her head in to check on Riley and Lucky...

The Next Morning

I've been awake for about two hours so far today, and it has poured non-stop! I can't imagine how differently things might have turned out, were we to have to look for Lucky in this storm or after it.

As for the fawn, it was still in the same spot when I first woke up... which probably isn't good (as one would tend to expect a healthy animal to make some attempt to get out of a heavy rain); however, when I checked again a little while ago, I found that it was gone.

Don't know any details—and kind of don't want to think all that hard about them, to be honest—but I'm crossing my fingers and hoping we might see the little guy foraging with its buddies again in the coming days.