Living above our good friends, Will and Ashley, packs a double whammy punch of being able to be neighbors with people we already know and like, and also, having a pseudo-pet. If you are a loyal reader of the blog, you are most likely already familiar with T-Bone--the Redbone Coonhound that belongs to them. T-Bone spends most of his afternoon snoozing upstairs on our porch, which is exactly what he is doing right this second.
Before he took his current prone position, he was sitting in front of our living room screen door looking in at me and Bryan eating lunch. The poor guy could barely keep his eyes open. He blinked heavily at us a few times before he gave up completely. His eyes shut in finality and he dropped his head down onto the deck.
I'm always amused by how T-Bone lets gravity reach up, grab him and haul him down with a bang. I can't believe he just flops his body around our deck like he is a big, heavy bag of bones.
I've grown accustomed and quite fond of having T-Bone's hulking sleeping form on our porch. He's less of an obstacle and a decoration and more of a constant talking piece. I talk about him and to him constantly. He barely lifts an ear in response.
I'm used to this by now.
So, it caught all of our attention when instead of sleeping the other day, T-Bone spent his afternoon in the sun roaming the cement pit that lines the backyard under our coconut tree. The pit is mostly filled with dead palm fronds left from the guys that trimmed our coconut tree over a month ago. T-Bone was stepping down into the pit and rummaging around with purpose. And every so often he would punctuate his search with a yawping bark.
Will and I were talking story upstairs in my apartment when I couldn't quell my curiosity any longer. Even Will noted that this was the most fun that T-Bone has had in the backyard since they had moved in two years ago.
As Will and I climbed down the stairs, T-Bone spotted us and instantly lit up like a firework. He was running in circles like a puppy, and his tail was wagging like a whip. When T-Bone saw Will grab a long, bamboo pole, he became even more enthusiastic. It's as if T-Bone knew that we had decided to join him on his hunting expedition.
T-Bone climbed back down into the pit, and Will and I stayed perched above it balancing on the edge. Will sunk the bamboo pole deep into the layers of dead palm fronds, and from deep within the pit, something moaned back at us.
At first, I thought it was the distant sound of a dying moped crawling up the street, but then we heard the sound again when Will dug down into the fronds.
Upon poking into the pit for a third time, a scrawny white cat with orange patches erupted from the brush with such ferocity and speed that both Will and I screamed like little girls. I'm surprised we didn't end up clutching each other in horror like they do in cartoons.
The skinny cat literally ran up a cinderblock wall and disappeared behind it in a flash as fast as lightning.
After it was gone, Will and I immediately started laughing at how close we had both come to dying from fear.
We put the bamboo pole back and came back upstairs to chat. T-Bone continued to nose around the pit. As Will and I were talking, we realized that the cat that came out of the pit was probably down there nursing kittens. We talked about it for a little bit more before we decided to come back down to the pit to investigate further. Will grabbed the pole again, and we dug around and found some dewy eyed, super fluffy and of course, ridiculously adorable kittens staring back up at us.
We left them as they were, put T-Bone in the house and hoped that Mama Cat would come back and hopefully move them someplace else.
That was a week ago, and the cats must still be there because every few days T-Bone goes down to the pit, stares down mournfully and howls over and over again lest we forget that "Hey, guys! There are cats down there!!"
I had the night off from work yesterday, and I spent most of it indoors getting over this nasty cold that's flying around the restaurant like one of the Wicked Witch's pet monkeys. It would have been a fairly peaceful evening in except T-Bone was going bonkers over the goddamn cats. He was barking so much that his voice was going hoarse.
There was absolutely no way to console the big guy. We tried talking him down. We brought him upstairs to hang out on the porch. We petted him. We talked soothingly to him. Nothing. T-Bone just looked at us as if to say, "Hey, guys. Have you heard me talk about the cats?" Then he would wander back down to the yard to bark at them in case we hadn't heard that he found cats down there.
Eventually, we just had to put him inside his house.
Peace and quiet.
When I woke up this morning, I had hoped the cats had been forgotten, but as I went downstairs with my laundry basket, I saw T-Bone hunched precariously over the pit, his forehead furrowed in worry as he continued his hunt for cats.
But there has been no barking. A marked improvement.
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