Strange Cat on the Roof

This isn't the strange cat, this is Cheesecake, several years ago, on a favorite perch, 20-some feet up in the air. Photoshopped, needless to say.

This week, on Sunday night, the neighbor's cat had gone over the roof, jumped down to the lower roof that connects to the balcony - and discovered that there was no way down. He was frantically running around looking for one when I went out to see what was going on out there.

(In the old days, before the roof was rebuilt, there used to be a way down for the cats, besides climbing the shingles. The cat who used to live upstairs discovered how to put his arms around the drainpipe and slide down like a furry fireman. While we still lived in the basement, Cheesecake watched that, and when we moved upstairs, he did it too. Sure wish I had a picture of it.)

Now the roof sticks out further, and there's no access to the firepole-drainpipe. Since I didn't discover the neighbor's cat out there until dark, and he runs from me (he beats up my cats), I just left him, hoping he might discover some way down. But he was still there in the morning, so I called the neighbors at 7:30, on my way out the door to school.

When I got home, there was a note from them. They'd used my orchard ladder to get their cat off the roof, and were keeping their cats inside for a couple of days as a "time-out"....