Night Sounds

(May 13, 2010)
Last night, as I was loading the car for Tradewinds/choir practice (music, concert flute, alto flute, water, purse) Eiger and Homer were yelling. The sound was somewhere between a growl and a scream. They often grumble at each other through their shared fencing, probably would kill each other if they shared an enclosure like Eiger and Tiva do.
Like birds singing or frogs croaking, cougar screeching is an unremarkable sound for me in this Casa Del Gato (House of the Cat) life. Traffic sounds are a distant memory. During my month at the Marilyn House in Greensboro, North Carolina, the highway traffic never stopped. Ambulance sirens, police sirens, semi truck gear shifting, cars zooming by were my bedtime background noise. In my Colby, Kansas apartment, conveniently located downtown and next door to the local bakery, the slamming of the bakery back door would wake me at 4 a.m. each morning if the college-student partiers hadn’t already. In our house on School Avenue, sometimes my slumber would be interrupted by the vacuum cleaner at two a.m. or Jack wandering through the house in his Ambien + Fiornal #3 haze, asking me whose cats those were anyway.
But here, night time is unremarkable save for the occasional dog howling or cougar screaming. Once in awhile I hear cupboard doors rattling, but that is just Mom having her midnight snack—generic Fruit Loops generously doused with half and half. Fortunately, our housecat, Orie, has long given up his habit of bringing screaming baby rabbits in the house through the cat door in my bedroom. I might hear the rumble of John’s diesel truck as he leaves for the bus stop at six a.m. or the roar of his motorcyle on the mornings he rides in at eight.
By 9:45 p.m. last night, when I got home from choir, the cougars were silent. The frogs didn’t even make a peep. The dogs didn’t bother to run up and greet me. I unloaded the car—in a single trip this time—and crept into the house so as not to wake Mom. The only sound was the memory of choir music running through my ears.