More of the story ...

First off, scroll down please to the previous post, so that THIS one will make sense.

Okay!  So!  (Oh LORD, how do I get myself into this stuff?!)

Several weeks ago, an acquaintance contacted me about helping her find one of her cats, who had escaped out a patio door, fallen off a back deck, and gone missing.  She had SEEN the cat, a rescued feral, in the cemetery two doors down, so she knew the fall hadn't seriously injured him, but he wouldn't come to her (former ferals can be jerks that way).  This is the same woman I designed the trap-that's-not-a-trap for, so I advised her to set up the trap where she had last seen him. 

A few days later, she said that she hadn't trapped HER cat, but she had trapped and released a couple of others, including a long-haired orange cat with a funny haircut.

Waaaiiiit a minute, I thought.

(and here's where the story gets a little confusing)

There's a local Facebook page where people can report lost and found pets.  Lots of people, including me, then post the listings to our own Facebook pages, so the word gets around.  I remembered that a few weeks ago, someone had reported that a long-haired orange cat with a lion cut (funny haircut) had escaped its carrier at a local veterinarian's office and had been missing since July. 

The veterinarian's office is in between my friends house and the cemetery.

DING DING DING WE MAY HAVE A WINNER

I looked up the post (my friend's not on Facebook) and asked her to call the phone number and let the people know that she may have seen their cat.  She did, but when she called, the woman who answered the phone explained that she was actually a NEIGHBOR of the people with the missing cat, and that the missing-cat-people were currently in Vegas, but she would let them know when they got back that their cat had (possibly) been spotted.

okay, so, life goes on, blah blah blah, and last weekend my acquaintance said that she STILL hadn't found her cat, and could she borrow my gamecam to put in the cemetery?  Sure, I said, and I went over and helped her set it up.

Monday, she said that she had pulled the memory card from the gamecam so she could look at the pics, and she said that the card was totally full, but with old pics, not ones from the weekend.   I figured that she probably had gotten confused, because there was no WAY that card could have been totally full, so I popped over after work with a clean card, grabbed the old card, and took it home to have a look.

OH MY GOD THIS IS EVEN CONFUSING ME AT THIS POINT

I got the old card home, popped it in my computer, and sure enough, the problem was user error.  There were two folders on the card, and evidently she had only clicked on the first one, which had some pics from previous weeks on it.  The SECOND folder had pics that had been taken over the past weekend in the cemetery.  (and just as I thought, the card was nowhere NEAR full, so I have no idea where she got THAT from, but anyhoo) I started scrolling through.

I didn't see her missing cat, but I did see the orange cat.  Several times.  Still with that same distinctive lion cut he had had when he went missing.  (Cat fur can take a long time to grow back.)

Well.  If that poor cat had indeed been fending for himself for the last two months in the cemetery next to where he had gone missing, he needed some HELP.

So I found myself getting up at dark o'clock this morning so that I could stop by the cemetery on my way in to the office.  I baited the trap with food and water, and I'll go back at lunchtime and after work to check it.  I called the phone number for the missing cat this morning (it was too late to call last night by the time I put two-and-two together), and left a message on the voicemail.  Whether or not they want the cat back (it is sadly common in rescue to find a long-missing cat, only to discover that the owners have "written the cat off", so to speak, and no longer are interested), I am going to try to help cemetery cat.  Karma looks out for idiots, right?  I SURE HOPE SO, because I have a feeling that I AM one right now.  Ha.

To be continued ...