Bye bye MamaBob

We had a lovely afternoon of nothing in particular around here. Picked up yard debris, moved a big tractor tire to make a sandbox for Thing 4, pulled some weeds, sat in the sun, got the neighbor kid to do some bike fixing, helped Thing 4 work on the fine art of tricycling, lit a fire in the pit, and just generally took it easy. Not a bad day at all.
Sadly, I believe we are now a one cat family. Thing 1 came in just devastated that one of the neighborhood kids said they thought Mama Bob was laying on the side of the road. Our cats tend to go walkabout now and then if they are let out, and we were just starting to wonder about her whereabouts. I went over to see for myself, and the poor kitty looked as if it had been there much longer than our cat has been gone, but I don't know what a few days in the summer sun does to the decomposition process. I couldn't really tell. The color was off, but that may be sun-induced. Hubs checked, too, and he thinks he saw some familiar markings on the nose. The kid who reported it had seen it a few days earlier, and specifically mentioned the bob tail (which I could not discern), so I fear the worst. All Things old enough to realize were very sad, but Thing 1 took it especially hard. Poor baby. We have only ever buried one kitty and our old wheezy cocker, Bandit. Several kitties have gone walkabout and not returned, but one can hold romantic fantasies of their better life with a new family they adopted (usually due to overcrowding at our house.) One kitty is plenty, but we are sucker parents and someone will come home toting a stray eventually. Those who read the old blog may remember the tale of how we rescued this poor, soaking wet kitten from the cinema parking lot, and brought it home, and christened it very unoriginally "Bob" because of its stub tail. We tacked "Mama" onto Bob's name after the first of three litters of kittens. She will be missed, if she does not prove us all wrong and come moseying home, wondering what all the fuss was about. One can still hope for miracles. Failing that, hubs assures the kids that she is now in the land of Eternal Mouse.
***
A mouse went to heaven. After a few days he bumped into Saint Peter, who asked how he was enjoying it.
"It's great," said the mouse, "but its so big! Could I have a pair of roller skates to get around better?"
Later, a cat went to heaven. After a few days Saint Peter checked with him.
"It's great here!" said the cat. "I especially love the meals on wheels!"
***
Tomorrow is another two-job day, so I'd better go get my things, and Things, in order. Good news is, I'm getting hours; not so good is the fact that I won't have another full day off until next Thursday. Be careful what you ask for...