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I am so positive I just heard a cat crying outside. It was so loud, and it sounded like Pepper when she gets "lost" upstairs and starts crying for someone to go get her. I actually thought it was Pepper, so I called upstairs to her, only to look over and notice she was sleeping on the chair. She looked at me, but wasn't crying. Then I heard it again, and since I was looking right at her this time, I could tell it did not come from her. I looked over at the bed and Mel was sitting there, looking back at me, but it wasn't her cry.

I walked over to the door and opened it up... and I heard it again! So I quickly put shoes and socks on, grabbed my keys, adn went outside (the weather is so nice today I didn't need a jacket). But of course, as soon as I get outside, I don't hear it anymore... and I look all around and don't see a cat anywhere. There is a group of kids out there talking, which leaves the possibility that (1) I mistook some noise they were making for a cat or (2) they may have accidentally scared the cat away if one was indeed out there.

Sometimes I mistake a baby in another apartment for a cat, but I could swear this was a cat. It sounded just like Pepper.

Mel is crying and scratching at the closet again. I've come to the conclusion that she thinks her lost plastic play balls go into there. I was trying to find one for her and she knew it (because I started by looking underneath the desk and she often loses them there), but when my search turned up empty and I gave up, she went over to the closet to howl.

I'm gonna go renew my driver's license (if possible) and pick her up another set of those balls on the way home.

I went to the shelter to visit Hermes today with the intention of asking them if I could take him out of his cage. There was a different volunteer there today that I had never seen before and she said she was the one who named him. Several key points of observation:

1. Hermes is now being sponsored, so his adoption fee has been significantly reduced.

2. When we first opened his cage door, he retreated to the back corner, and would nip and paw at my hand whenever I reached in for him. I told the volunteer that it seems like he feels cornered and maybe we should let him come out on his own.

3. Eventually he did come out and he explored all around the place. Now, he let me pet him almost as much as I wanted to. The only thing that seemed to bother him is if you make a sudden movement with your hand over his head. He had a tendency to rear his head back like he wanted to nip, then he'd jump up on his hind legs and clap his paws on my hand, but he didn't use his claws. It's like he's saying, "I'm warning you not to do that, but I don't really want to hurt you. Just don't scare me."

4. He is playful. He played with a ball in much the same manner Pepper does (pushes it, rolls on top of it, kicks it with his back legs and bites at it.) He also played with one of those toys that has a long string-like thing attached to a stick.

5. I don't think he's as aggressive with other cats as they said he was. There was another cat roaming around (a female) that he walked up to several times and she hissed at him, which made him back off. Right before I left, the female cat started playing with a toy by herself. Hermes saw her, got really low to the ground and charged at her. She went running and eventually flopped over onto her side and started hissing, which made him stop in his tracks and back off. I think it was the same thing that Caramel does - when Mel sees Pepper playing, she charges at her because she wants to play, too. The thing with Hermes is that he backed off, whereas Mel doesn't back off when Pepper hisses. We usually have to break it up. If this is the way he always is, that would be a really good thing. It means that he'd be willing to play with Mel, but if he tried to play with Pepper and she hisses at him, he'll back off and leave her alone.

6. At one point, he leaped up to a countertop. From there, he leaped up to an even higher ledge (actually the tops of the cat cages), where they had a bunch of cardboard boxes. Hermes loves rubbing his face on the edges of boxes just like Pepper does. So when he got up there, it was like he was in cardboard box heaven and he proceeded to walk down the row, rubbing his face on every one.

7. When he got to the end of the row, he acted like he wanted to leap across to another ledge on the opposite side of the wall. Both the volunteer and I were worried he would not make that jump and I prepared to catch him. Thankfully, he determined he wouldn't make it and gave up.

8. I lured him down off the cage tops with a handful of his food. He ate right out of my hand.

9. He purred a little, but not a lot. I tried to pick him up once, and he got upset, in much the same way Caramel does. When I sat him down, again he jumped up and clapped my hand with his paws. Again, he didn't use his claws.

10. By the time I was ready to leave, I waited for him to get close to his cage again, and I scooped him right up and put him back. This time, he let me pick him up with no problem.

So, my conclusion is that he is a cat that wants love and attention, but he's somewhat wary of people and other cats right now. It will probably just take some time to get him completely used to me. One way I'll know that he completely trusts me is if he starts rolling on his back, but he hasn't done that yet.

And once again, Pepper's going nuts rubbing up against me and purring. Maybe she likes it when I make myself smell like a cat.

Even at the lower price, I couldn't adopt him until I've got a job. Hopefully, the interview I have tomorrow will be a good one...I might go back on Thursday to play with him again. I think the more often I do that there, the more he'll get used to me.

And even if I don't end up adopting him, getting him more used to people might give him a better chance to get adopted by someone else. The volunteer who was there today said that she doesn't think he's been out of that cage since they got him in. She also said she was concerned that no one would adopt him because he's too "nippy", but she was delighted to learn I was interested in him.

They had a cat whose fur was so matted when it came in that they shaved it all off his body. His head and legs weren't shaved, so they looked bigger than his body. I called him "Poodle-Cat", because he looked like a shaved poodle. He's been adopted already. He was young (only about a year old) and really friendly, so I guess that's not too surprising. The cat who had the really bad frostbite on its ears and legs was adopted, too.

They have a couple of Siamese kittens (and I mean REALLY tiny Siamese kittens) that are very cute!

They still have Ozzy, too.

The only thing that seemed to bother him is if you make a sudden movement with your hand over his head.

Caramel had this issue when she first came in, too. I think I even mentioned it way back earlier in this thread. It will probably go away in time as he learns to trust us more. Maybe it's a cautionary instinct cats develop when they've been roaming around outside on their own for awhile.

Oh, one thing that was funny was when I started dangling the string toy to try to get Hermes to play with it, a bunch of other cats got up against the front of their cages and pawed for it, too. I even got "Baby", a medium-haired red patch tabby that looks like Bubba, to paw at it, too. The female cat that was roaming loose played with it, too.

Baby is really pretty. The red in her fur is so red, she looks like a fox. I would love to adopt her, too, if I had a large house and lots of money.