This morning I heard Moose crying outside my office window, which usually means he wants to come inside. But when I opened the front door, he just sat there, underneath a small table we have outside, looking up at me. Cats being cats I figured he’d just changed his mind, so I went upstairs to get ready to go to the gym.

When I came back down, I could see he was still sitting outside the front door. “Hmmm, something’s up”, I thought, so I went outside.

That’s when I saw what had captivated (cativated?) him:

The lizard — probably in desperation — had figured out how to arrange his body underneath one of the table’s feet so the cat couldn’t get at him.

Not that Moose didn’t try.

I figured any lizard smart enough to outwit a cat, even briefly, deserved a shot at life, so I put Moose inside and moved the lizard over into my neighbor’s yard next door.

But wouldn’t you know it? Either the lizard wandered back over, or Moose managed to track him down again, because later that afternoon the cat and the lizard were at it again, with the lizard missing a piece of his tail. This time the lizard was scrunching himself underneath the siding bordering the porch.

Moose got put back inside again. This time I decided to move the lizard across the street. But when I was about to put him over that neighbor’s fence, I surprised my neighbor’s mother (or mother-in-law). She doesn’t speak much English, and I speak no Mandarin, but it was pretty clear from the look on her face she didn’t want me dropping the lizard over her fence. He ended up in a bunch of bushes in their front yard.

I wonder if Moose will manage to hunt him down again?