A Welcome at the Window

When I come home from work, there is often a cat or two looking out of a window. I can’t say for certain that they are watching for me, but it is enjoyable nonetheless to see them on a cat-tree, staring out. Tucker and Josie are the ones I see most often. In this first photograph, Tucker may be plainly seen, and Josie is almost hidden in the reflection above him.

I usually enter the house from the side-door, but sometimes I climb the steps to the front door, then peek around the corner at the roly poly one, if he’s there. I usually get a meow, silent to me, asking why I’m not coming in already.

My Chubs is most frequently seen, if gazing at the outside world, on the shorter of the sitting room cat-trees, to one side. There she is, all folded up and blob-like.

Renn I sometimes observe from outside curled up in the sitting room armchair, one of his favourite sleeping spots. But now and then, I’ll catch him at the bedroom window. The weather is getting a little cooler these days, and windier, so the windows are not open as much as they have been. My big boy has to crouch to peer out.

Cammie is sometimes watching the world from her old saddle-topped cat-tree in the bedroom, but pictures don’t show her dim-coloured body very well in such a setting. Kola will more often see me off from a window in the morning than welcome me back from one in the afternoon. And Tungsten would show up colourfully if she ever looked out a window, which she does rarely. Besides, as my veteran beast, she knows I’ll be home, so why rouse herself from a comfortable snooze just to look for me?

Seeing my cats at my windows is a sight that never fails to make me smile, especially when I return from an inauspicious day, which, at my job, is nearly every day. Yes, I will spend the next forty-five minutes feeding the animals, sifting through their litter-boxes, sweeping up debris and perhaps even cleaning up the odd pile of vomit. But then I will eat, and finally relax, and my cats will tell me I’m home.