Some of you probably think this is a photo of Lydia, the feral cat I've been feeding in my back yard for most of this century. It's not. Say hello to Murphy.
I started putting out food for strays decades ago with a cat named Jackie. By the time Jackie passed away, there were others who'd been attracted by the dishes of grub on my back porch so I put out food for them. Cats died or disappeared but others found their way to Mark's Cafe and there was always at least one who seemed dependent on me putting food out. At one point, I was up to four: Lydia, The Stranger Cat, Max and Sylvia.
The Stranger Cat died in May of 2012. Max, who was about as Alpha Male as any cat could be, stopped showing up and was presumed dead later that year. For a while, it was just Lydia and Sylvia but Sylvia was killed by something — we'd need Jack Klugman as Quincy to know what — in August of 2018.
Lydia has persisted and if she's been lonely out there, she's shown no signs of it. I say that having no real idea of how a cat might indicate loneliness. She sleeps a lot and eats a lot but she always did that.
In the last two weeks, this new cat has found its way into my yard. I don't know why. It doesn't seem to be after food. It nibbles now and then out of Lydia's dish and she doesn't seem to care. In her youth, she would have chased it far, far away but the new cat doesn't eat much and she doesn't care.
Murphy does not seem to be in search of love. I'm not even sure if it's a he-cat or a she-cat which is why I opted for a name that works for either gender. Lydia is pretty old and was fixed long ago. I think Murphy just wants to be in my yard. He or she sits not all that close to Lydia and just howls a lot like it wants…something. It flees if I get within ten feet and when I'm at least 10.5 feet away, it sometimes approaches Lydia perhaps seeking some sort of companionship.
The other day — and I'm really sorry I didn't get a photo of this — Lydia was in her little house and Murphy was walking around it and maybe dancing a bit. At one point, Murphy jumped up on the roof of the house as Lydia was inside, curled up as if in bed. If it was a panel in a comic book and I had to write dialogue for it, Murphy would have been saying, "Aw, come on! Let's play!" And Lydia would have been saying, "Leave me the hell alone. Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?"
And that's about all I have apart from my assumption that Murphy has someone nearby feeding him or her because s/he doesn't ever seem hungry. Lydia has not always been at the back porch waiting to be fed when I expect her to be so maybe she's following Murphy to that cat's feeding place. I'll let you know if/when I find out more but I'm not sensing a Love Connection.