the good cat

This is Elvis. He is a good cat.

Elvis and Dave go way back. Dave acquired Elvis when he was just a young strapping man of 19 years old. When he and I met and started dating, I was not much of a cat person. In fact, I found it a little strange that a single man would own two cats. They grew on me, however, and now I'm glad to have them as part of my life. Elvis has two names, and has not really gone by the name Elvis for many years. He is called Roo, originally because he can jump like a kanga, but also because he caterwauls in the middle of the night and it sounds a lot like "A-Roo! A-Roo!"

We've had a mouse in the house for the last few weeks. Dave and I have seen evidence of the mouse, and once the dog was able to trap it in the garbage bag, but it got out and away before we were able to take it outside. We don't like to set traps for them, we just hope nature will work itself out. Last night it did. At 2:00 am, we heard a racket in the kitchen, and then Elvis came tearing up the stairs into what will be the baby's room. We heard a tiny squeak, and we knew the mission had been accomplished.

We're happy to have a mouse free house once again. We even got up at 2:00 am to congratulate Roo on a job well done (he received half a can of tuna as his reward). And we didn't let him toy with the mouse until its death - Dave grabbed it and took it outside. It may have been mortally wounded, but this way we didn't have to set a trap and know for sure that it had been destroyed.

I was beginning to wonder if he still had it in him, but at nearly 12 years of age, Roo's still got it.