Great! Porch cats! Oh man, how in the world did it come to\nthis?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When our good neighbor, Miss Shirley, passed away last year, her two cats, who had themselves adopted her years before, went in search of a new place to eat and lay their heads at night. Porch cats are funny like that: Kind of nomadic. Never bitter or too down about their luck. Resourceful and enterprising. Unfazed and upbeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of all, they can always spot a sucker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exhibit A: My front porch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have my daughter to thank for this. A lot of people left\nfood out. Offered to help. Pitched in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what neighborhoods do. They pull together and help\nthose in need. They take each other in, and care for everyone. Porch cats\nincluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But my daughter opened up a virtual Holiday Inn for the\ncritters \u2013 putting out blankets, buying kitty accessories and carting the two\nlug nuts around like they were babies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know, if you don\u2019t stop treating them so good, they\u2019re\nnever going to leave,\u201d I specifically remember saying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I specifically remember hearing. \u201cThat\u2019s the point.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were slowly becoming porch cat people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve never wanted cats. At least my wife and I haven\u2019t. For\nstarters, I\u2019m allergic to them and blame most of my childhood\u2019s darkest moments\n\u2013 awkwardness around girls, some really awful soccer losses, my inability to go\nmore than 3 seconds without sneezing or wiping my nose on a sleeve \u2013 to our\nplethora of house cats as a kid. (Not to mention we had a cat named Jaws who\nliked to mark his territory \u2026 ON MY SCHOOL BOOKS!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cats were not my thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these two are different. The one, T-grass, is kind of\nround and lazy. She lays in the middle of the street and forces cars to go\naround her. I\u2019ve seen this phenomenon play out many times. They honk and yell,\n\u201cShoo, dummy!\u201d and eventually go up on the curb to navigate around her lazy\nhindquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other one, an orange-striped male has a tip missing from\nhis ear, is deaf, and has just a handful of teeth to his name. But sweet as can\nbe. He always used to come out to touch noses with my dog, and then rub up\nagainst her like he was in love. My daughter named him Sunburst a long time\nago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each morning now I look out the front door window and am\ngreeted by two furry faces. They seem to be saying, \u201cMister, we have guarded\nyour porch all night. Now what do you say you fix us up some tacos?\u201d Or at\nleast, that\u2019s what I read from their meows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My house has had all kinds of critters over the years. Dogs.\nTwo chickens in the backyard. A lovebird named Gabby many moons ago. Fish, and\nhummingbirds, if you count the visitors to our bright, red flowers on the side\nof the house. But never cats. Never wanted them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neighbors, though, stick together and help each other out. Nomadic\nporch cats included. It\u2019s the code of the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, at least if I know T-grass is up on my porch, I\ndon\u2019t have to worry about driving up on the curb to get down the road. Maybe there\nare SOME perks to porch cats. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Great! Porch cats! Oh man, how in the world did it come to this?<\/p>\n
When our good neighbor passed away last year, her two cats, who had themselves adopted her years before, went in search of a new place to eat and lay their heads at night. Porch cats are funny like that: Kind of nomadic. Never bitter or too down about their luck. Resourceful and enterprising. Unfazed and upbeat. <\/p>\n
Most of all, they can always spot a sucker. <\/p>\n
Exhibit A: My front porch. <\/p>\n
I have my daughter to thank for this. A lot of people left food out. Offered to help. Pitched in.
\nThat\u2019s what neighborhoods do. They pull together and help those in need. They take each other in, and care for everyone. Porch cats included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,555,563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-animals","category-houses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions\/1917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}