(One) crisis averted

When I awoke Friday morning, a song I’d been singing the night before played inside my head:

I want nothing 
I want nothing 
I want no quid pro quo

This was a months-old political parody from late-night TV or the Internet that used a certain politician’s words as head-banging lyrics. So, yeah, I’d been watching the impeachment hearings. I worry about our country and have spent the past three years participating in democracy as best I can.

But back to my bed. I realized I could hear my husband opening and closing lots of doors and climbing up and down the stairs, from the second floor to the basement. Whaaa? 

I soon learned that our beloved cat, Olive (we call her LaLa), had gone missing. She’s an indoor cat but has been known to occasionally dash out to the closed garage when one of us inadvertently leaves the kitchen door open too long. But she hates the cold, so at such times she always hurries back inside.

Not this time, apparently.

After searching and then closing off rooms in the house where she might be–no easy feat, as we’re empty-nesters with lots of clutter in unused bedrooms–he did a cursory check of the garage and then started on the perimeter of the house while I did my part: freaking out.

He followed the many sets of tracks in the snow, but still no LaLa. A couple of neighbors helped, and again I did my part: making freaked-out phone calls to other neighbors to alert them to the situation and ask them to keep a lookout.

Much later (just before that day’s impeachment hearings began, in fact), my husband did another search of the garage. Hiding under the steps was LaLa.

Whew.

Now, about that country …