There are days that suck, and then there are days that really, really suuuuuck. Yesterday was the former; today, the latter.
I spent three days driving 1,300 miles while feeling very under the weather. Got into town yesterday, and step one was a visit to the doctor who pronounced “pneumonia.” If you’ve ever had it, you know it saps your energy to a remarkable degree. So I collected two cats – Raedthinn and Fingers – from the vet clinic where they were boarded, and pretty much just collapsed. Buttons and Marvin were, in contrast, at a neighbors house. Due to being pretty well beat to death, I contacted the neighbors and asked if they could hold the cats one more day.
This morning the call came in: sometime during the night, Marvin apparently decided that she had spent enough time at the neighbors house, somehow clawed her way through a window screen, and slipped out into the night. This seems rather remarkable to me, but there it is.
So, still sick as a very sick dog, most of today was spent in looking for Marvin. But at this point I hold out no hope of ever seeing her again. When I brought her in in February, she was seemingly just passing through; it may be that she has decided to continue her travels. It’s not how I would have chosen things to work out, of course.
Not a good day. I can’t get over the “if I’d only been one day faster” issue…
UPDATE: I *finally* picked up Buttons today (Friday) and examined the window Marvin escaped from. It would have required no great effort on her part to get through it; it was a simple fiberglass screen simply held in place with that rubber tube or gasket. These things pop out *easy.* She might well have simply leaned on it and fell out.