Friday I came home from work and Yoru didn't show up. I went over to the folks for dinner and visiting. Dad and I talked about computers. Yoru still wasn't there when I got home. I played TA and drank ginger tea. Still no Yoru. I looked all over the yard and shone my headlamp on things. I spotted a non-Yoru cat. I moved my bed to the kitchen so I could sleep with the door open and let her in when she came by. While dozing off I had a vision where someone was arguing with my mom about taxes being too high to pay for something, and mom waved her hands and said "oh whatever I'll pay for it." I had another vision where there was a brightly colored SUV in the church parking lot, and I somehow knew it was the animal control truck, and they were taking Yoru somewhere. I also thought I heard her purring behing me for a second, but there was nothing there. I didn't actually get much sleep.

I had intended to make party food on Saturday (guacamole and hummus for Woody's party), but due to the missing cat situation I spent it making flyers, posting them around the neighborhood, and asking neighbors if I could poke around their backyards. I saw a lot of squirrels. I saw no Yoru. Slept by the door again, and actually slept this time.

Sunday I got up pretty early and biked around Whitcomb and Loruth looking for Yoru. I did not see her, but I had a nice ride through Orchard Ridge park.

I stopped by the folks' house for some breakfast and coffee and then wiped out into the road while trying to shift gears and sip coffee at the same time. Then Sarah and Hannah came over and chopped avcados for me, and then we went with Granny to the Taste, where apparently Ian spotted me searching for people, and where we ate several different pieces of cheesecake. Then while we were waiting for the bus to go home I got stung by a bee. Then I drug Wendy over to Woody's party where they seemed to generally like my guacamole and oniony hummus. We made smores out of the giant marshmallows and I got really sick of eating them after 2. Someone kept making pitchers of yummy lime stuff.

I had a dream that there a mountain with a lot of little tunnels through it. You could pass through it with a lot of help. A lot of the tunnels were full of water. There were guys throughout that would pull you out of one water-filled tube and shove you into the next one. You had to be sure to breathe in between.

Monday night I decided to put on my headlamp, walk around, and shine it into every yard and every garbage can in the neighborhood. I started with Hammersley. When I got to near the corner of Dorsett and Whitney Way I saw the Raven Computers car next to a big rock with "Raven" enscribed on it. It reminded me of the truck that had been parked in the church parking lot in my dream. I turned around and saw a pair of shiny eyes across the street. I walked over and asked "are you my kitty?"

"Meow, meow" was the reply, which is better than I get from most cats. On closer inspection this was a young tabby cat. I asked if he knew where my cat was and he led me over to the yard in the corner and stopped and rubbed his face on me a lot while I petted him. I figured maybe he lived here. I was standing in the driveway about to leave when the garage door opened. I said hi to the man standing behind it and asked if he knew anything about this cat (who had seemed a bit startled by the garage door opening and moved over to the side). I had to repeat my question but then he answered "yes, that's my cat!"

"Oh good, just making sure." I said. Then I left down Whitney Way. A few seconds later an SUV left the garage and drove South past on the other side of Whitney way before making a U-Turn and driving back past me the other way. I shone my light down Tolman and pretended not to notice the car. After it passed me I decided to follow it.

I got to Piping Rock and didn't know where to follow from there, so wandered a little bit and then headed back to pick up my Yoru search where it left off. Once back on Tolman, halfway between Whitney Way and Gilbert, an SUV pulled up next to me and stopped. Same one! The man from the garage asked if I was having any luck. None so far, I told him. And that I was from all the way across the neighborhood. I asked what he was up to at this hour and he said he had to take care of something at work.

After he took off I walked east on Dorsett, back west on Barton, back east through the school forest (which was dark, windy, had big moving shadows and was kind of scary), and up to the top of the hill on Flad. I walked around behind the church and then down and up the hill again to make sure I checked every single garbage bin. I peeked under all the bushes on the south side of the pool. I saw another cat sitting on a bench on a porch. I walked through a circle and checked all the bins and backyards that I could see. No Yoru. It was really windy.

At about 2:30 Tuesday morning I came back to Marvin and thought about how nice it would be to, in the last 50 feet of my walk, find my cat somewhere. I shined my light into the neighbor's bushes. An old soda can shined back. My back porch light came on. I went around to the back to spy on the racoon or foreign cat or whatever it was. The catfood I had put out was completely gone and the water was tipped over, as it had been the night before. I peeked around the corner of the garage hoping to get a glimpse of whoever had done it. I heard a "Mraaaaaaow!" and a pair of shiny eyes on a black cat with a blue harness come out to greet me.

And Yoru and TOG lived happily ever after.