Two nights ago, I was getting ready to go to bed at 3:30 when I realized that I hadn’t seen Missy for awhile.  Usually she’ll come at night to sleep next to me or at least hang out in the room.  I decided to go searching and remembered that the cat door hadn’t been closed, so I was pretty sure she was outside playing.  After calling her for awhile, I started to get worried.  We had lost a cat before and all the dread that I had felt then came rushing back.

It never took more than 15 minutes to call Missy back usually, so when it was approaching half an hour with no sign, I got really worried.  I got a flashlight and went outside around the neighborhood, to see if perhaps she had gone far and just couldn’t hear me.  I kept hearing rustling in the bushes and paused each time to see if she was prowling in them.  No such luck.  Back at the house, every time Molly came around to see what I was doing, I thought it might be Missy.  An hour into my search, I was freaking out.

By then it was 4:30 in the morning and all sorts of horrible scenarios of what could have happened flashed through my mind.  At the same time, I would go through periods of calm where I convinced myself that there was still hope that she was fine and I’d find her later.  Eventually, I decided that I needed to get some rest and I couldn’t do much more until the sun came up.  At 5, I lay down for a nap and set an alarm for 6.

However, I woke up on my own at 5:30 and instinctively called out for my cats.  A shadow appeared in my doorway and I figured that Molly was there to see what I was doing.  It was getting light out, so I climbed out of bed and went to see if I could track down Missy this time.  When I got to the doorway to pet Molly though, I discovered that it was Missy!  The relief that washed over me was fantastic and I immediately went to close the cat door.  I probably hugged Missy a little too tight, since she jumped out of my arms (probably wondering why I was making a huge fuss).

Since then, every time I spot Missy I feel extremely happy.  I decided to keep the cat door closed for now and only let her outside during the day when I am around.  Luckily, she’s pretty good about coming back – I think she only goes further on her night runs, so as long as she’s back before it gets too dark out, I feel pretty safe.

Ah they’re so cute! When I was a kid, you could get ducklings and chicks to raise but then they banned those sales. Looks like you can still find them though.

Philosopher’s in town so we went into D.C. today to check out the sights. We came across this duck at the Constitution Gardens Pond… little did I know it was a wounded fellow! I quickly left him alone after that.

It’s hard to see, but those blotches are bunny rabbits hiding in the darkness. For awhile, every night they’d come out and nibble on the grass by the neighborhood pool, so one night I decided to do a little paparazzing.

Of all the places to land, this dragonfly chose Panda’s leg, so we gave it a photo shoot. It was a great model, keeping still for me!

Panda seems to have a bee stalker friend – it’s huge and apparently obsessed with his window. Or maybe it’s trying to tell us something with its dance…

I like to tease Panda about his photography skills because his pictures usually come out blurry. Here is one such case where he took a picture, which looks kind of cool, but doesn’t exactly show you what it is we were trying to capture… (though now that I look at it from afar you can kind of tell it’s a bird). Click on the pictures for larger views!

This is Panda's idea of a good shot, which is great if you're trying to get branches and not the bird.

This is my idea of a picture in focus. Less artistic but you know what the subject is!

The life of jellyfish… slow, meandering, and glowing?

The Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar had a special day for Bruin alum because the founder was a UCLA grad himself. We got to see lots of cool creatures!

They start so small and light, but then get HUGE!

What a curious fellow. Too bad I couldn't put him in my purse to take home.

You can’t see them all but boy can you hear them! The birds had taken over that roof.