Window Kitties

Window kitties come and go. They are a big city phenomenon, mostly, but they probably exist in the burbs as well. Discovering suburban window kitties, however, is more problematical: it would involve cruising in a car or walking endless miles and peeking into windows as an unwelcome stranger. Cities allow us to peek into windows with impunity, and cats to peer out at us without censure.

One day these special cats are resting on a second floor window sill and following your progress down the street, the next they are somewhere else taking care of business: lunch, litterbox, or nap.

We usually don't know who they belong to, these window kitties. The owners are seldom seen with their paws on the sill next to their furry friends. They are behind the scenes, out working to support the litterbox, luncheon and nap.

There's something comforting about a window kitty looking out at you. It's through a window in winter and sometimes through a screen in the summer. It is someone who notices you walking down a New York side street when there is no one else around. Of course, they can't call for help if there's a problem, but window kitties have been known to meow a less-than-tentative hello toward faces they find familiar.

Not everyone likes them there, those window kitties, those finding them aloof and mysterious and impenetrable and their eyes piercing through to things that are too private. Many dogs have a goofy, friendly, street-level way of saying hello that's more immediate to a certain temperament.

Window Kitty One lived on a ground floor and vacillated between two bamboo decorated windows on West End Avenue. One could easily be at eye level with her when her eyes were open (usually not for long). But one day, the bamboo shutters covered with rice paper, were closed and Window Kitty One become invisible.

Window Kitty Two lived between Broadway and Amsterdam and you had to look up to her. Sometimes she'd mew hello through the screen because she was only by the window in the summertime. In the winter she probably had a warm spot somewhere inside.

Now Window Kitty Two is gone with her owner to some other place. Some other apartment. Some other city.