Lily and Murphy

Our neighbors across the hall, Tom and Montie, have three cats: April, Murphy and Kyra (okay I'm not sure how they spell that). The way our condos are set up our unit sort of shares a back deck with theirs. There is a fence separating them, but really it's all one deck. Murphy and Kyra like to go venturing outside some and they often come over to our deck to visit. Perhaps they just like the change of scenery - or maybe they're hoping to get some extra food out of it. I often feed the "meow monsters" when T&M are away on vacation. I suspect they've started to associate me with copious amounts of dried cat food. Also, Gordon gave Murphy a chicken leg once!

Anyway, Lily is also a BIG fan of the cats. She loves them - Murphy in particular. Her love affair with him started long before she could walk. She has a book with pictures of things and their names in it. The cat in the book is orange like Murphy. For a long time she would pick that book just to get to the cat picture. She'd sit through the beginning getting more and more excited until you reached the cat picture. Then she'd laugh in delight. I find the whole thing amusing because I also have a soft spot for Murphy. He looks ALOT like our family cat Sunshine. Sunshine is no longer with us, but he was a wonderful and very loved member of our family.

When Murphy or Kyra appear on our back deck Lily will race to the kitchen door and demand to go outside and see them. Kyra pretty much takes off the minute Lily makes an appearance, but Murphy will stick around and hang with us a bit. Here are some pictures of the Murphy and Lily during one of his visits. In the first you can see how delighted Lily is to see Murphy.