Ok, right off the bat, I have to apologize for the slight inaccuracy of this blog's title. Her eyes aren't strictly yellow — at least not as in lemon yellow. I'm afraid I don't have a painterly name for the hue, and it wouldn't have been good enough clickbait, anyway. And, truth be told, I'm not quite sure she's my cat at all.

I love animals, but — I also like my space. I live alone and enjoy my solitude at present. I also dislike the idea of animals cooped up inside: it's a dream of mine to have a small homestead someday where I can let them roam around. But this kitty appeared around my apartment complex recently and we hit it off pretty well.

Actually... that's another sweet mistruth. I totally had to lure her to even coming close to me with some mashed sardines. She was really skittish, but eventually let me pet her, though she would still hiss the next day as if she didn't recognize me — I was just some tall brute from inside the dark rectangle from which food occasionally appeared.

Anyway, I found out from the front office of my apartment complex that she was a stray that showed up a little while ago and was sleeping under their deck. I have a theory that someone moved out and left her behind. I figured as long as she was around I wouldn't mind helping her out. As a sign of gratitude for my goodwill, she gave me a pretty deep gash in my left pointer finger with her claws.

Over a couple of weeks she started to trust me, though, and I let her come in my apartment while I'm around. To my surprise, she is highly social — one of those somewhat rare affectionate cats that are borderline clingy once they get to know you! It's pretty fun because most people can't walk their cats but she follows me around the complex when I go for a stroll and I managed to snap these pictures a few days ago.

The other day I let her outside in the afternoon to wander around; some people from nearby units started to pity her. I heard her meowing and came outside. They had poured some kibble on the ground for her to munch on. As I smiled and looked down the gravelly staircase, "Is this your cat?" a woman asked me. I couldn't say much more than "Well... kind of" and blustered through some kind of manifesto of our relations. The woman seemed abashed, as if she had trespassed on my private property, and awkwardly walked on.

In truth, I cannot really see an animal as mine. At most, I have temporary stewardship over the things and people in my lives. Ownership? I'm not so sure. In my mind, I call her Topaz. Yet I can't quite bear myself to justify burdening a creature of the moonlit Texas plains chasing crickets with something so tediously human as a name. So I mainly just call her kitty — ah, but there's that name-game again!

Why am I telling you all this, you're probably wondering? Simple. Here's a boring, mundane story about a cat to take your mind off all the nonsense problems we humans create for ourselves that we won't stop incessantly blabbering about. Learn from cats. They wake up, explore, find some food and water if they're hungry, do their business, and then find another warm place to curl up and nap through eternity. Everything else is simply optional.