Sister Cat, Brother Skunk

Another lady and I have been feeding a cat that was wandering around the neighborhood-or at least we were hoping the cat was getting some of the food. But lately people have been seeing skunks-not cats-on the property.

In fact one lady here said she was "stalked" by a great big skunk and another one said she saw two of them together.

Thursday, the cat food dish disappeared. I found out today that the maintenance man had taken it because a skunk was caught eating the cat's food. A skunk was trapped and picked up by Critter Control. I saw a trap over by the dumpster today to catch another one.

One lady looked me in the eye and told me that skunks kill cats; she's seen them rip the cats apart. (What a thing to hear right before dinner-gross!) So the cat may have either quit coming around because the skunk scared her or because he ate her.

We had some objections to our feeding the cat ever since another lady and I were given some cat food and asked to feed her. The objections had to do with attracting wild animals-especially skunks-who would eat the cat food and harm the cat or the people here-or dig around in the trash.

The day I found out about the cat I had a bag of stuff from Salvation Army-one of my favorite stores-in my hand. I wanted a cat so bad that that I purchased a wood "cutout" the shape of a cat-probably part of a kid's toy. I was thinking of what to name it. I wanted to name it "Wishbone" because of my wish to have a kitty and then to hear I have one to feed near my building. Then I thought of "Caritas," the Latin word for "charity"-or "Charity," the English word for "charity."

Whenever I referred (or refurred) to the cat by any name, I called it "Caritas." In a way she was a "charity case" as well as something for us to love-beside the little kids in this building. And I do think the cat's a female, since I was told it was a calico. And the noun caritas is in the femine gender in Latin. Many words that would be "its" in English would be masculine or feminine in Latin but some would be neutral gender. (In Spanish-one of our modern "dialects" of Latin-every noun is masculine or feminine.)

I think I need to confess pride, stubborness, and disobedience involving the cat. And I've been like this most of my life over things other than stray cats. I swore up and down that if a rule was made that we could no longer put cat food outside that the only way you were going stop me was if you evict me and put a restraining order on me so I couldn't come on the property and feed the animal-whatever it is.

There was a concern that the skunk might spray someone. I said I hope if it sprays anyone it would be me. That's how badly I wanted to continue feeding Caritas-but I don't want anyone else to get sprayed because of my stubborness or generosity.

I prided myself on telling people that their names are Latin for something. My name is Latin for "little", Amanda is Latin for "loveable", and Rex is Latin for "King." But that doesn't make me better than anyone that I know a little Latin or got good grades in it in high school.

My heart finally softened up over feeding the cat and the wild animals in th neighborhood when the lady told me about seeing the skunks ripping apart domestic cats and something about their bloody guts. I didn't get sick to my stomach-at least not in the physical sense-but I don't want to harm or scare away innocent kitties like that. If Caritas is dead or scared to come around because of that "black cat" with the two stripes running down its back and tail then I'm doing more harm than good to the animals-not just the people here.

I won't put out any more food until further notice. In fact I'll ask first before putting any thing out for the birds. I'd love to at least keep putting out the water for them because I've seen them bathing in the cat's water.

I don't want to cause any trouble taking care of the birds like I did with the cat.