The WatchCat
It is said that Burmese cats have dog-like traits ... this is true of our Qetesh (there are pics of her here) . Very early on she showed us that she could play fetch and she's reasonably well behaved (for a cat!) on her tether and leash.
We found she has another dog-like trait - she's a watch dog, and thank heavens for that ...
On the weekend I was weeding the front lawn (yes, yes, I know, very anal, possibly obsessive, I weed my lawn by hand, but that's not what this is about ...), Mistyqee was in the back room of the house playing on the computer, Thuderbolt was further inside the house. The weather was pleasant enough so the glass sliding door was open, with the screen door shut but not locked.
Mistyqee looked up from her screen, a rather unusual occurrence, because Qetesh was 'growling' (you know, that throaty thing cats do) towards the back door. Luckily Mistyqee could not be seen from the door .. there was a youth standing there looking in, who then took off across the back yard.
My money purse was in plain site on the kitchen table, about 5 steps in from the door. My handbag was even closer as I'd dropped it at the bottom of the stairs after the jaunt to purchase Thunderbolts' guitar .. it was two steps at the most, from the back door.
Probably he had seen me weeding out the front and decided to jump the back fence and see if the back door had been left unlocked. I know this happens very often, read about it in the paper all the time.
Yay for Qetesh
I'm so relieved for whatever it was that scared him away - Mistyqee is sure he didn't see her, so the only thing could be that he didn't want to come in due to Qetesh drawing attention to his prescence. (It surely couldn't be her size, Burmese are not large cats)
Who knows what he would have taken if he'd come in, and worse, what would have happened when he saw Mistyqee right there too. These are the things that go through your mind.
Paradise Lost - How Do you Get it Back?
So now Mistyqee's feeling that home is a 'safe' place is diminished once more. It had taken quite a long time for us to feel safe at home after the last 'visitor', though having had the security screen put on the weak point of the house certainly helped.
We are living in a prison again - when I go outside, even for the briefest reason I take my keys and lock the door after I've exited.
We've been made to feel vulnerable again, shown the 'darker' side of life that we all try to pretend doesn't exist, or at least, wont affect us. It's not a pleasant feeling, and I feel helpless in trying to re-assure Mistyqee - because I can't. Working in the industry that I do I know that all you can do is slow them down; if they want to get in they will.
I've been made to feel again the vulnerability of being a woman who lives by herself a lot of the time. It would only take a few weeks of watching to see the routine of when there is only one here, and when there are three.
But what are we to do? I can't change what time I have to be at work, and what time I finish (though the finishing time is a lot more variable than the starting time), I'm sure the kids school wouldn't appreciate me wanting them to start and finish school at different times every day either.
I don't like living like this, I don't like not feeling safe in my own home. We all need a place where we feel safe (harkens back to Maslow). For me it usually my home ... maybe it would be better if it were a place inside of me instead of somewhere physical that can be invaded.
Where do you feel safe?
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