Finding Nemo. Really

Here in the Hudson Valley, the temperatures are finally dropping. We've started to light the wood stove and my winter-long soup obsession has started. Looking out the window at my horses, I felt a momentary twinge: boy the couch looked comfy. But I pulled on my boots, my jacket and my overlarge bomber hat.

I walked into the barn, I heard the usual snorts from my impatient boys but there was another, higher-pitched sound. My bomber hat reduced my hearing quite a bit, so I pulled it off and listened. I followed the sound to my hay storage area, turned on the lights and there he was. A tiny, pitifully thin cat. I knelled down to look more closely and he launched into my arms. Cold, lonely and hungry, he was so happy to be held. I promised him I would help him find his way home.

He spent a warm and contented night in our bathroom, his belly full for the first time in weeks. The next day, he stationed his self on my husband Michael's lap as he combed the Internet for clues. Several hours into his fruitless search, he needed a coffee to fortify his efforts.

The best coffee in town is a 5-mile car ride away. Reluctant to leave the cat behind, he loaded him into a cat carrier and headed out. Schmoozing with the regulars around the coffee urn, Michael mentions his co-pilot. Surely a coincidence, a customer says that her cat went missing several weeks ago…can she take a look? Michael brings her out to the truck and introduces her to his charge. "That's my cat!" she says, astonished and grateful. Michael offers to follow her back to her house with the carrier but before he leaves, he asks her the cat's name. "Nemo," she said. "Thank you for finding Nemo."