Cats of Hawaii

Something that puzzled me once we arrived on Oahu was the mystery of how there could be an island full of cats of which I had not heard. Much to my superb happiness there were cats almost everywhere we went.  Our resort had wild cats roaming all about the beautiful grounds, but they were much too skittish to let me near them. One morning I opened my door and found a cat dining on our doorstep room service leftovers. Another day we came back and found 3 cats sitting around our front door, which I took to be a good omen, like our cats from home were sending us love through the meow connection.  Another cat would bird watch from our sunporch. Sadly though, none of the cats  would let me pet them until the final day when I left my door open and a cute little grey and white tabby sauntered in and just started roaming and sniffing the room. He let me pet him. I was happy.

We dined at a busy food truck that sold sea food with a big shark sign out front and a fat old grey cat with a lopsided beat up ear sprawled himself on the ground basking in the sun, virtually ignoring the throngs of people walking around him. He kinda reminded me of Heathcliff.

My next big cat sighting was at Malaekahana state recreation area. We drove in just as the sun was setting because I was chasing a rainbow photo opportunity. As we drove into the park a line of cats sat in the drive blocking our path. The bright beams of the jeep stared into their eyes and they stared back unflinchingly. The jeep pressed forward and they continued to play a game of chicken, letting us know it was their territory. Kinda felt like a scene from Sleepwalkers. We pressed on an they finally sauntered away. As we entered the park , more glinting eyes flashed at us. They were everywhere. There must have been over a hundred. By and large they appeared pretty healthy.  The light was too dark to get any pictures so we came back a few days later in the daylight and found the pack again. Again, most the cats were pretty skittish but one approached me. Sadly, he appeared to have an upper respiratory infection, marked by nasally snot bubbles,  I ended up feeding a group of chickens and roosters my leftover seeds from feeding roosters in Kauai and fed the cats some bread pudding I bought from a roadside seller. The bread pudding was covered in coconut milk and was pretty darn amazing, but I was willing to part with it for the sake of the kitties. Throughout my stay I had been wondering how the fowl and feline lived together. I witnessed the roosters chasing away the cats from the bread pudding and stealing it and pecking their behinds. Some of the cats had bald patches on their butts. That solved that mystery. I think there is joke in here somewhere about alternative words for cats and roosters AKA parts of the anatomy...but I will let you fill in the blanks.