Now we are four. It’s a bit of an abrupt turnaround from last week’s Feline Friday, when I reported we had sadly resolved to stop feeding the “visiting” black cat and send it packing.

Friday’s post was actually written Thursday night, and posted automatically Friday morning. Well, in the meantime, we had wimped out. Black cat missed only one meal before we decided to make another try with the cat trap before giving up. So Friday morning, we traipsed off to the Hawaiian Humane Society to borrow a trap (for the second time). And we developed a plan. We would feed it again Friday evening but skip Saturday morning, so that by Saturday night it would be hungry enough to enter the trap to get food left there. It was probably a good plan. But….

Friday evening we were feeling better. We had a plan that didn’t involve having to ignore the cat just outside on the deck waiting on our largess. So we had a drink before dinner, and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. We were feeling pretty good as we cleaned up the kitchen. Then I sat down to check what I could find to watch on tv, and Meda disappeared. Not long afterwards, I heard her talking to someone on the deck. She was talking to the cat. Okay, may she had an extra glass of wine. It wasn’t that long before she suddenly came in from the deck, closed the door, and announced that she had the cat and was heading for our spare bedroom. Sure enough, when I turned toward her, Meda was holding the cat to her chest and, to my surprise, the cat was placidly cooperating. As soon as I grabbed Ms. Kali off her favorite spot on the futon in that spare room, Meda set the cat down and we exited.

So since Friday night, The-Black-Cat-With-No-Name-Yet has been in the room by herself, isolated from the Insider cats until she gets a medical all-clear. She has quickly settled down, purrs a lot, and has been eating, with bodily functions working (although missing the cat box several times, pushing us back to the puppy pad routine).

On Wednesday, her first vet visit. She got the whole treatment. Physical exam. Shots. Blood test. Deworming. De-flea. Claws clipped. Awaiting blood test results. The bill we got listed her as “Stray Cat Lind,” which is how she appears in this week’s photos. Although we have a name in mind for her, we’re waiting for that medical “all clear” before officially assigning it.

So we’re now at full capacity, I think, for inside cats in our small home. If all goes well, we’ll begin introducing Stray Cat to the others sometime in the next week, a little at a time. So far, the Insiders all seem mellow about the stranger they can smell and hear behind the closed door.

Fingers crossed.

And the unused cat trap gets returned to the Humane Society tomorrow.