I’ve tracked down where Romeo has been disappearing to. He goes off, often for several hours, and returns quite often with new nicks and scratches. Sometimes he comes home exhausted and crashes for most of the day or night, a sign that he’s on the downhill side of a pumped-up adrenaline rush confronting another cat.

So I did what any parent would do. I stalked him. I’ve seen Romeo several times returning from one corner of our yard that leads into four acres of state-owned land, now leased to a nonprofit group which is building a small retreat center. They recently cleared an area bordering the two houses next door to us. I can’t get there directly from our yard because our end is just too overgrown. Hence the walk around the block.

So one afternoon when Romeo couldn’t be found around the house or anywhere in our yard, I went for a walk. Down the street, left turn, then another left at the next corner, and back to the end of Hiwahiwa Road, which is just at the back of our stretch of four houses.

As I walked out into what is now a mostly mowed field, I noticed a bit of gray in an area of raw dirt in the distance. As I approached, two things happened. First, a big gray and white cat, a hefty male, took off running for cover. Second, Romeo looked up at me but otherwise didn’t move. He’s been a sometimes wanderer through our yard, but Romeo has kept him at bay. Now, it seems, Romeo’s is gone on the offensive. When I found him, he was making “big body,” with his fur puffed up to make him look bigger and scarier.

Apparently I interrupted what we refer to as a meatloaf session, a reference to cartoonist B. Kliban’s famous definition of a cat: “One hell of a nice animal, frequently mistaken for a meatloaf.”

If you’ve ever introduced a new cat to a cat household, you’ll recognize the meatloaf phase. First, it’s hiss and run. Then there’s perhaps hiss and fight. And then there’s hiss and hunker down, sitting for long periods staring at each other, dueling meat loafs. At some point, at least in the household setting, it eventually settles down into a relationship. But I don’t know how this really works out there in the big mean world of cats. Perhaps they are close to making a deal. Perhaps it was just a break in the fighting.

In any case, here’s Mr. Romeo, back from the meatloaf wars.

–>Click here to see the rest of this Feline Friday’s foot gallery.