I went to bed early last night - early for me, the night owl - getting there even before Romie. I'd been asleep for a couple of hours when I was awakened by our little darling, Jilly.
Jilly is one of two of our outside cats that we want to be sure to put in either the garage or the pool house before we go to bed, or we are certain to be awakened sometime in the night by their meows at the bedroom window, accompanied by picking at the screen, or in the case of her brother Jack, climbing it.
Jilly missed curfew.
Cats have various meows they use for different reasons. Sometimes they're just making conversation and sometimes they want to really get your attention. In Jilly's case, it's always the latter, and she makes frequent use of it.
She woke me up and without turning on the light, I opened the window and let her in. Usually she'll jump right up on the bed and proceed to prance all around, walking across my face several times, kneading the blankets and licking my eyelids in an attempt to get me to open them. Not this time.
I laid in bed for a little bit and by listening to the sounds she was making, tried to figure out just what she was up to. I determined she was under the tall chest of drawers, but I was puzzled as to why she was under there and wouldn't come out when I called her.
I turned on the light and got down on the floor to have a look and it was then that I saw that when I had let her in the window, she had brought a 'friend.' Jilly is all gray, except for a teeny tiny tip of white on her tail, which is exactly how her mama looked. You'd miss the tip of white if you didn't know it was there. We suspect that Jilly's mother had a great deal of Russian Blue in her, although we'll never know, since she magically appeared here, about five weeks pregnant. Jilly's 'friend' was a similar shade of gray and I hadn't noticed it when I'd let Jilly in.
At this point, I retreated to the bed and coaxed Jilly to "Get him!" Much squeaking ensued and I contemplated just what to do. I considered the possibilities of what could happen here, and I didn't particularly like some of them, so I went downstairs to get Romie and suggested he bring a pair of gloves with him.
We got back in the bedroom and there was still some meowing and squeaking going on. Romie got on one side of the chest and Jilly was positioned at the other. After a little while, Romie was able to grab the tiny mouse and he returned it to the great outdoors where it belonged. And Jilly didn't seem to care much. She was just having a little fun at the expense of Little Mickey.
Such is life when you have cats. :-)
That's Jack on the left and Jilly on the right. They're siblings, born here after their mama showed up pregnant and just a few weeks away from delivering. Once in awhile, we feed them Special Kitty moist cat food in the pouch, as a treat. The other cats have been offered the same treat, but they give the impression that they can take it or leave it. Not so with Jack and Jilly. They looooooooooooooooove it. It doesn't matter where they are in the house - they could be sound asleep in a closet upstairs in a bedroom - the second they hear me shaking the pouch down before opening it, they are Johnny-on-the-spot. 
"Bejeweled"
