Yesterday morning...

...we noticed that Stewie wasn't at breakfast with the rest of the animly (my animal family). I immediately became worried because that cat has been desperately trying to get outside lately and I had done laundry the night before which...for reasons you have to see, I can't explain it here...meant that the front door was open. So...it seemed as though Stewie had been out for hours during the coldest night of the year so far. I didn't know what to do.

Eventually my sister, son and I started going outside to look for Stewie...during the coldest day I've been victim to in a very long time. My blood just isn't as thick as it was when I was growing up in the Chicago suburbs. I printed up MISSING posters and hung them out in the neighborhood. I had to make them purple because I'm out of black ink which also made it tough to print out a decent picture of Stewie...a black and white cat. Without black, he would be the only thing you COULDN'T see in a picture of him.

It was an awful day. I didn't know if he had been taken in or if he was just out there freezing somewhere. We had walked and driven everywhere in the neighborhood and we didn't see him on the side of the road so that was cool.

Then, when Cheek Dude called, I told him that one of my cats was missing. He said, "The one inside or the one that was outside when I left?" Cheek Dude saw Stewie outside but didn't know that we don't let him out so he just drove away. I figure that by that time, Stewie had been outside for about 5 hours. That's how long Cheek Dude was over and the cat had to have been out there for that long, at least. If I had walked Dude to the door, I would have seen Stewie myself. But, I got tucked in and didn't want to get back out of bed...that sort of defeats the whole purpose of getting tucked in.

Anyway, about every half hour or so I went outside and called Stewie but he never came. My son was outside walking around for over 3 hours during one of the searches.

Then, when it finally got dark, I went out front to call him and instead of walking back inside to go out the side door, I just walked to the end of the front porch and peeked around the corner. There he sat, eating the food we had put outside to lure him home. I shouted, "There he is!" and went out to get him. Just then, my sister came running out of the house saying, "Where? Where?" The stupid cat ran away.

We chased him for a while but neither of us had coats on so we had to go back home.

I sat in my recliner with a heating pad, trying to get the blood moving in my hands. We had flashlights so at least one hand had to be out of a pocket. My son and his girlfriend went back out there and looked in the yards. Nothing. But we knew he was alive...that was something.

My sister went out with a flashlight and eventually called from a neighbor's house. She said she had Stewie cornered but couldn't get him, much less carry him home. My son and his girlfriend went over there but the cat ran away again.

I started sitting out on the steps, first front and then back and then front again...all wrapped up in a couple of comforters. I was hoping that he would just walk home again. During one of my warm ups...I decided that I needed to go back where they had seen him and look some more. I don't have a coat warm enough for that so I couldn't stay out long at all.

I went back home and sat there with the stupid heating pad wrapped around my frozen hands thinking, "If he comes home...that cat is SO grounded!" I have a cage and I'm not afraid to use it.

It's amazing how many cats I saw out there while I was searching for Stewie. I had no idea that so many people just let their cats run wild like that. Anyway, if those cats could handle the weather, I figured Stewie might be able to do it too.

I was getting tired and I didn't want to go to sleep with that stupid cat outside so I put on long johns, flannel pajamas on top of them and then I topped that off with sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I put on two of my sisters coats, 3 pairs of socks, gloves and a hat. I had a bag to carry him in and my flashlight. I went back to the yard where he was last seen and walked back to all the thickets in the middle of the yards of this block that I had never even known were there.

As I was crawling under a bunch of dead ivy, it occurred to me that now that I had put on 2 loads of laundry, that stupid cat would come home. Just then I heard my sister calling me from down the block. I haven't heard my name called out like that since I was a kid and my mother wanted me to come home from a long day of playing outside. (Kids did that when there were only 4 channels and no video games.) I replied, "WHAAAAAT?"

She said, "He's home!"

So, I took my Pillsbury dough boy dressed up roly poly self and walked back home. Stewie was there, all freaked out but apparently otherwise OK. It's amazing how much fat a cat will lose in 24 hours of trying to stay warm. He ate like a pig and then I took him and sat in the recliner with him under the heating pad.

Just about then, Payton came up and started licking Stewie and sniffing him all over. I guess he wanted to be sure that his little buddy was OK. Eventually I let Stewie down and Payton and he sat in the corner playing for a while. Then, I went to bed and they all jumped up there with me. I fell asleep secure that my animly was all safe and sound.

Now I have to send my sister out to get the posters. If she hadn't come running out of the house, I would have had Stewie the first time I saw him. All the shivering I did after that was her fault.