speaking of cats

What Beagles is calling outside cats I think are more commonly known as feral cats.  They have not  been cuddled by human hands as kittens and never developed a taste for it, and their lives are, as the philosopher described the condition of man before the formation of governments, nasty, brutal, and short.  That seems like a bit of exaggeration, hanging around the barn, hunting vermin and freeloading doesn't sound that bad.
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Not as nice as having your own cup and straw like inside cats

But really not so bad at all.  

There are some cats who never go outside at all.  Mine would be in that condition if I didn't have a balcony, but some might not consider a balcony with no access to the outside world truly outside.  Sometimes I take them for a walk in the hallway and in the course of that sortie I open the door that leads to the stairs that lead to downstairs and the whole rest of the world.  They bolt up or down a flight and out of my sight, but soon their heads reappear,and then they are trotting down at a rapid pace.  Is it because they find stairs boring or is the concept of infinity too intense for their walnut-sized brains?

But any cat owner whose door leads to the great outdoors, unless they are vigilant as hawks when opening or closing it, has an inside/outside cat.  As Beagles correctly notes if a cat is outside it wants inside and if it is inside it wants outside, and the preferred position is in the doorway while the great ape with the huge brain holds the door open and urges them to make up their minds, which they will in due course, or not.

I have been told, and I believe it's true, that a cat has to be taught by its mother to be a hunter.  Many years ago in my room in my hippie house me and my pals were smoking a joint.  My cat had had a litter maybe a month previous and they were snuggled in a corner of my room, but where was Mom?  Oh there she was trotting in holding a struggling squealing bird in her mouth.  She took it right to the nest and set it down before her wide-eyed kittens,  

We all believed in peace and love of course, but we also believed in Mother Nature.  What to do, what to do?  One of us stood up and walked out of the room and the rest of us followed and we finished the joint in the backyard,  When I came back there were  a few feathers and some lessons learned in the walnut brains of the kittens.  I expect they all grew up to be good hunters.

A couple years later I gave one of her litter to my sister, who moved to California and left the cat in my parents' house on Homan Avenue.  I had mice.  At first I thought they were cute.  Well they were cute but they also made quite a racket, scratching around inside the walls or wherever and I took that cat back to Champaign, and maybe a week later there was dead mouse laid out carefully beside her food dish.  I guess Mom had taught her well.

The cat I got from the shelter when I first moved into my tower caught a few birds that ventured onto my balcony.  I was able to save all but one of them.  There is no feeling like standing on your balcony with cupped hands, and opening them and having a bird fly free into God's blue heavens.  The one that didn't get rescued was entombed in one of my tomato pots.

My current crew were apparently not taught.  I was a little worried because I have some flax socks hanging from my railings to feed the house finches that drop by.  My new kitties did that teeth chattering thing when viewing them from inside the window and once they got out they appeared to stalk them, but after a few steps they stopped and shook their furry heads like, what am I doing, and they didn't know, so they just sniffed some tomatoes and curled up on the balcony floor.  The finches seem to have picked up on that and now no longer flee in terror when a cat steps out, but remain on the railing doing whatever their bird brains (the size of a pea maybe?) tell them what to do.  It is the peaceable kingdom outside my window.

My intention, many paragraphs ago was to expand on whether life was truly nasty, brutal, and short before we developed governments, but you know how it is when you get to talking about cats.  Makes em want to hunt up videos once this post is over.