I was a little worried about Corky for a few days when I noticed that he couldn't jump up to his food dish on the counter. I took him to the vet, but the vet just told me to keep watching him.

Whatever it was must have been a passing bug. Corky has been back to his spry self for a week. He jumps up to the cat food dish handily.

When Corky was feeling under the weather, he slept through the day and didn't want to go out much. His schedule got turned around, and he wanted to go out at night. For a few nights he meowed at the door emphatically. When we wanted to take the dogs out for an evening walk, we said "Corky get back." He moved back but paced rapidly back and forth, using body language to express his eagerness to go out. Roger said that he is dissatisfied that we are "hiding the car keys from him." Finally last night he slept through until morning, so I think he's back on schedule.

What a regal, well-behaved cat Corky is! He gives me clear, expressive glances with his pale green eyes. I enjoy interacting with him every evening when I sit down in the reading chair. His fur has exquisite texture: I cannot feel where fur ends and cat-skin begins. He leans back against my hand and half-closes his eyes as I pet him.

Corky's legs, belly and face are as white as Mark Twain's linen suit. On his back and the top of his head, he has a "corky" butter-tan color. His muzzle is a mixture of the two -- it looks like he dipped it in foam from a glass of dark beer.

Corky has a broad, hearty face. The fur on his neck stands up luxuriously, giving the effect of a cavalier's beard.

I notice that he has a "sound track" of various meows to narrate what he's doing. When he is let in after waiting outside, he makes a declarative "myoh." When he gets ready to jump into my lap, he makes a whirring announcement "mmrrhh". He also makes a whirring purr before going up the stairs. His daytime request to go out is "yauw," which is different from his pleading "woiau" when we won't let him out at night. And he has a special purring grunt he makes while eating. He communicates generously, but his sounds never grate on the ear. And he is also silent for hours at a time.

One evening as I let Corky in, I noticed that a mouse was hanging from his jaws. As soon as put the mouse down, it ran behind a leg of the CD player and squeezed into the space between the leg and the wall. When Corky approached to bat it with his paw, the mouse would run behind the other leg. When Corky scooted under the CD player cabinet to get within striking distance, the mouse would then run under the shelf beneath the low table. Corky then lay on his side and tried batting his paws under the low shelf. At this point the mouse would run back behind one of the cabinet legs. Corky would then crouch at a distance from the cabinet, waiting for the mouse to move into an exposed spot. At times this cyclical chase became uproarious, with Corky pouncing this way and that, then trying to squeeze under furniture. Janie was sitting on her sofa, craning her neck to watch the activity behind her and muttering. I didn't want Janie to join in the commotion, so I said, "No Janie, stay out of it." When I said that, Janie actually settled back down and reclined on her sofa!

This absurd cat comedy went on until Corky got drowsy. He gave me a look as if to say "This is taking longer than I thought." He even came over, made a quick turn in my lap, then went back to his crouching position near the cabinet. I too got drowsy and went to bed. The last thing I saw was Corky in his cat-Buddha position, his gaze directed under the cabinet, but beginning to doze off. I don't know if he caught that little wood mouse in the end. If not, it must have made its way to the basement.

Perhaps it was sadistic of me to sit there and watch this. Perhaps I should have shooed the cat away. But the cat was made to hunt, and I enjoyed watching the elegance of its leaps. I saw comedy in how Corky's regal hunting movements were frustrated by the mouse's agility.

Xena tends to plead for attention more than Corky does. On early morning walks, she sometimes tags along with me and the dogs, meowing plaintively, all the way to the beach. As I walk up the driveway, she sometimes lays down prone in front of me and wriggles on her back -- maybe it's a ritual of obeisance. At first I didn't know what she wanted when she did all that meowing. She's only after a little petting.

The feral cat Nata is still her reclusive self, but she had contact with a human when Roger's son visited for the weekend. Ian went into the study and put a quilted cat-house (shaped like a small igloo) near Nata's hiding place. He reached into her hiding place trying to touch her, making her dart into the little house. Ian then picked up the cat house. He carried it into the living room and gingerly put his hand inside it. This was the first time Nata has been out of her study. Under these circumstances, Nata allowed herself to be stroked for quite awhile; but showed no urge to jump out of the little house. She even began to purr. However, this has not led to any behavioral breakthrough. She is still not interested in exploring the whole house. Ian got lucky when he tricked her to hide in that little house. She still avoids contact when I reach my hand under the recliner where she hides.