Recidivists

We lounged on the porch drinking coffee and watching another Sunday morning go by. It was mostly quiet save for the random car and rhythmic thumping of bare feet against the floor decking -- the drumming was more of a nervous tick than an intentional beat. 

The odd clicking sounds coming from one of the phone keyboards we each had in our hands was an unexpected bonus. And one I didn't appreciate.

The more it draws my attention, the more I wish it would stop. This article I'm reading won't read itself, seeing as how I tend to keep my phone on silent mode.

The dog sat at attention as our less virtually active neighbors crisscrossed the sidewalk at the top of the lawn. 

Some waved if they happened to notice us watching from the shadows, not that the canine showed the least bit of interest. 

We waved back. She just stared. 

The dog perked up a little as others passed by with their pets. Her tail gave a half wave, sweeping the last of the maple seeds into an elegant curve, but she remained seated and calm. Her territory is decidedly further from the main road with its early morning trickle of traffic and truck noise.

A torrent is coming.

I wasn't feeling particularly territorial, either. 

I had mowed the grass and weeded the things near the flower beds that I thought were probably weeds. 

I'm not a gardener. I can never be sure what I'm yanking out by the root isn't the globe thistle I planted two years ago that never grew as prettily orbital as it did prickly sharp.

The cat joined us. Ever-so-slowly, stalking her way to the house from a thicket of shrubbery I had yet to trim. 

From time to time, she would stop and sink low to the ground. Moving not a single whisker.

Nothing moves in my scope of vision, peripheral or central. There is neither a chipmunk nor a catbird in sight. 

I wonder if she's losing her touch?

The mighty hunter, always on the prowl, finally growing long in the tooth.

It would be a bittersweet change. I certainly wouldn't miss rescuing rabbits or clearing the tiny corpses of mice from the feline's mortuary under the carport, where I also happen to keep my handful of barely used gardening tools.

But she's not alone out there in the grass.

A shadow of almost equal size wobbles out from under the forsythia and toward us on the porch. 

It's not a cat. I can tell by the white stripe along its back. 

For a moment I wonder if this juvenile

Le Pew has mistaken our Penelope Pussycat for its mother.

As she inches closer to our stinky new friend, I imagine something far worse. 

The dog.

My husband flies off the porch to scoop up the cat and save her from her questionable intuition while I grab the dog's collar and tow her into the house.

Of course, it will be the dog, in the backyard, two Sundays later in the middle of the night, who will inevitably meet the skunk face to bum.

That's how it works around here.