RIP Sneejers

Last week it snowed here in New Orleans. A record-setting, once-in-a-lifetime snow: the predictions were for five inches at most but we got like ten. Which probably sounds like nothing to someone living in a place where it snows regularly, and the houses are built to retain heat, and people have snow chains, and cities have snowplows, and the residents have the slightest idea of how to deal with snow. Down here in the tropics we have none of that.

There’s five cats who live under our house, and mostly wander in and out of our part of it as they please. We tried to persuade all of them to come in during the freeze. But one of them refused. Sneejers (aka CJ, aka Curly Joe – cat names migrate over time) has always been the most feral of the clan of cats living under our house, and has rarely been in. He was starting to be a little more curious about inside lately but we really didn’t expect him to be too happy with this prospect. So we wrapped an old blanket around the crate we use to take the cats to the vet, and put it in the back shed along with some food. They like to lounge in it sometimes so we figured it smelled like Family.

Someone seems to have used it, some of the cedar chips we lined it with got kicked out, but we don’t know who. We never managed to see it in use and found a few handpaw-looking prints in it, maybe the local possum used it and I guess I’m okay with that too. But we haven’t seen Sneejers since before the storm. It’s been a week now since his last sighting at feeding time; yesterday and today there’s been a new young grey-white cat hanging around who sure has some “hi I heard you have a vacancy, would you like to consider me for employment as your local Dude” vibes. We’ve seen other cats who live across the street and visit occasionally, but no Sneej.

Sneej was small, with a scraggly coat, so we are kind of assuming the worst. Rest in peace, kid, I hope that we generally made your life better with our bumbling attempts to care for a cat who mostly didn’t want that, and I wish you the best of luck on your next ride through this world, whether as another cat, or something else.

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