Missing Manchas

It’s been nearly a week since Manchas was curled up next to me at 11 pm and then didn’t come for breakfast at 5 am. I have no idea where she might be. We’ve searched all her regular hiding places in the house and anyplace she might have gotten stuck. Thinking she may have gotten out somehow, we’ve searched the perimeter of the house and around her mom Garfield’s home down the street and the abandoned house where she was born. 

All of the cats in La Yacata are gone. My father-in-law’s two gray tomcats, the neighbor below’s orange tabby, Pumpkin generation 7 (or 8). The little yappy dog we nicknamed Ferocious was poisoned about two weeks ago, so I expect that’s what happened to the cats. 

Manchas was an incredible comfort to me these last couple of years. She was MY cat. She chose me as her hoo-man and wouldn’t have anything to do with my husband. In fact, she’d often get up and leave the room when he entered. She tolerated my son if he was non-threatening and moved slowly. But me, me, she loved. 

Fuzz has been running around in the mornings, continuing the game of hide and seek he and Manchas would play. Even when she was here, Fuzz hardly ever found her being visually challenged and all. She’d perch on the top of the cabinet and watch him run back and forth searching. 

I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to put Manchas’ food dish away. As long as we don’t find a body, perhaps there is hope?