I ended up spending the whole night here, on the couch at the Neighborly Abode. Patches alternated between wandering around to explore the apartment (his second favorate place: the windowsill), and laying on the couch next to me (his favorite place, I think). Then again, right at this moment he seems to like the area around the computer desk.

He's so funny! He stands with his hind legs on my lap, and his front legs next to the keyboard, and looks up at the monitor.

The way he licks me in the face reminds me of Snowball, the dog I had as a kid. Now he's lying down on the table next to the monitor, of all places!

After I wrote the previous rambling, it occurred to me that the "correct" thing to do would be to take him to an animal shelter. Maybe if he has a home, his owner will find him there.

Then again, I couldn't stomach the thought of him getting put into a little cage, or injected to sleep.

Thus, my alternate urging is to set him loose outside again. There does exist the remote possibility that he belongs to somebody in the complex, in which case they would then be more likely to find him, or he them. But everything about the way he looks and acts tells me he's just a lost little soul with no place to call home.

The way he paws at me, crawls into my lap, and snuggles just breaks my heart. Very gentle, though sometimes he does seem to like testing my tolerance limits. He would lie next to my leg, reach his paw out, and then very gradually extend the claw. When it started hurting, I would retract my leg, and then slowly return it to the original position. Then he would do the same thing again, like he was playing a game.

I'm no expert in telling cats' ages, but by this one's size and mannerisms, I'm going to guess he's not much older than a kitten. He's so little, and so playful.

This morning, he started digging around in one of the trash cans, and pulled out a paper towel and dragged it around. What could he have liked about it? I examined it closer, and realized it was one that had been used to absorb the fat from the turkey bacon I cooked yesterday.

Luckily, there were a few strips of it left in the fridge, so I pulled one out and fed it to him in soft form without cooking it. He loved it!

I'm having to face the fact that within a few hours, he and I are both going to have to vacate this place. Worse is contemplating that we will have to part ways; more likely sooner than later.

I think I'll go back and get a little more sleep first though.