Today is the day I get to start to tell about the marvelous adventure I took this summer. As they say in Australia, I went walkabout. Yessiree I did. I left just after dinner on July 14, 2009. The adventure started when the boy peep took the garbage out after dinner and did not check to make sure the latch was on the back door. Having butted my head against it on previous occasions I knew that I could actually open the door and just walk out, if the latch was not on. To make this part of the story shorter, I watched and waited for several days. I knew that if the man peep was out on the deck when the boy peep went outside that he would be chatting with his dad, and not paying any attention to me. It worked. The boy went out, the latch did not click and out I went. Quick as a bunny.

At first I was just the tiniest bit afraid because the outside is very very big. There are trees and shadows and birds and rabbits and smells everywhere. You would not believe the smells. There are flowers to smell and rocks to smell. There is grass everywhere. The outside is absolutely full of grass. You can roll around on it, and You can also eat the grass (when you get hungry - which I did, but more about that later).

So as I said it was after dinner when I left on the adventure. First I took a quick left into the neighbor lady's yard. That backyard is a dark and scary place. Its lucky that I am a very brave cat, or else I would not have enjoyed being there at all. There is lots of stuff that a cat should crawl into and under and behind. You can hardly see the sky because of the leaves on the trees. You may not believe this, but there is a hole under the garden shed where lives a family of rabbits. They were not pleased to see me when I poked my nose in their house. Nope they were not. So, I got out of there fast and jumped right into the garden shed through the open window.

After walking around and over and through all the stuff collected in there, I jumped back through the window and landed with a thump in a bush that had prickly things all over it, which got stuck in my fur and made a big ugly matt on my back near my tail. I was starting to think that adventure was over rated - and I was starting to get kinda hungry for my evening snack, so decided to head home. Imagine my surprise and horror to find that all the lights were off and there was nobody waiting to scoop me up and bring me back inside. I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO SLEEP OUTSIDE. This was not good. Where should I sleep? I missed my nice warm cat tree curled with with Phinney. I had to find a hidey hole. Did I mention that it was very dark now and it was starting to rain. I do not like rain. Nope, I do not. Your feet get wet and its cold. I stayed outside the window and called to the lady peep to come get me, but she did not.

So, having very few options, I decided to walk down the street and see if I could find someplace warm and safe to spend the night. Two doors down, I found it. It was in the back yard in a tree. There was a tree house up there with a ladder and a rope. It was exactly like my cat tree except much bigger. Inside the tree house, there was a chair and a pillow and a table. It was warm and dry, so I snugged down for the night. It was about 2 hours later when I woke up with a start because I could hear someone coming up the ladder. Yikes, what should I do. I stayed put, that's what I did and closed my eyes really tight (except for a tiny slit that I could see through). Up that ladder came another cat. A big grey cat, just like me, except with just normal feet. He was a feral cat, who lived on his witts and he liked to come up into the treehouse sometimes to see if the kids who played there had left him any food and to catch a few winks. He was not happy to see me, but I was there first - and its pretty obvious that I am not a fighter at all. I just watched him through my almost closed eyes while he slinked around the tree house. We did not talk or hiss and spit. Nope, we just watched each other, then after a few minutes, the other cat (who did not have a name - did you know that feral cats are almost all nameless), jumped up on the table, curled himself into a tight ball with his tail over his nose and went to sleep. So, I did too.

The next part comes later. The lady peep wants to play Bejewelled Blitz on her computer.