Cat aloft

She's a tawny tabby with black stockings and some pronounced stripes and not yet a year old, by appearances. She wears a new collar with a shiny bell. We'd seen her once before, peeking out from behind a potted plant on a neighbor's porch. She spent a lot of last night yowling outside our windows upstairs. Twice we opened up and let her in, took her downstairs, and placed her on the catio. The first time we had to snag her; the second, she jumped in by herself once the screen was unlatched and pushed out. Before true dawn, this morning she was at high altitudes again. Just after breakfast, she found a way to return to terra firma on her own. She's very talkative, and perhaps in heat or perhaps just plain lonely. She's not plump but is a well-nourished feline and very shiny and sleek. Maybe she's just at loose ends, on her own for a day or two. I remember that our Samson seemed to be losing that hallmark leanness. Eventually we learned that he had been getting three sets of annual shots and went by way more than three names. Where cat-doors weren't installed just for him, he shouldered his way in anyhow. The vet to whom we were taking him told us, once we all knew the truth, that he was very surprised that there were two such splendid specimens in the same neighborhood. One household called this burly guy Fluffy. Our Mothra was also claimed by quite a few households.