At and about three a.m. the streets, at least in oldtown, belong to the cats, more than a few and not far between.  We go see them sometimes, each in its own restricted territory, often in pairs or threes but mainly solitary.  People mustn't hassle them much because more than you'd expect are friendly.  It happened accidentally the first time when we walked one night to the southernmost point and the southernmost kitty came over to see us and then followed us for a block and a half.  One night we met a hungry one and went to the K store and bought a can of sardines, but now we bring dry food in a little paper bag and, as you'd guess, more of them are friendly.  It's quiet and cool and relaxing and, fairly often, adventuresome.

Last night we were walking down deserted Duval and ahead of us sprawled out like a queen in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a brightly lit gallery was kitty number twelve for the night, a cat looking very much like Lilly, clean and shiny with a collar and a tag so presumably not hungry but runs for the food and we sit on some steps with her while she eats a little but when we leave she follows  and then we've gone as far as we're going so we turn to head home.  She follows, crosses the street, a block, another street, another block and pretty soon we meet a gray kitten, also with a collar, sleeping on a fencetop at about eye level.  She's darling so we stop and talk and wonder what the black one will do but it turns out they're friends and now they're both following us.

Sometimes they stop to poke or sniff around so we wait but in a couple of minutes we say, "Come on," and they do.  They cross not only the side streets but Duval, though this takes longer to get up the nerve for and once we thought gray kitty wouldn't, but we waited and she dashed across.  Shortly, though, we passed a house with a fairly big cat on the porch and the black cat couldn't resist the confrontation but also couldn't win (she did the same thing later, earning the nickname woosycat) and split to the middle of the street and sat there.  Bully cat strolled after to push it.  I intervened and scared the big one away but it took off toward gray kitty, who'd been under a car watching and freaked at the approach, squealed and ran home.

The black one was still with us, though, and we asked her if she wanted to be the southernmost kitty for a moment.  She didn't say no so we went that way and she followed, block after block.  When we got there she went on full alert, in a slight crouch, her head turning this way and that in response to the sounds of waves crashing.  She'd never been to the ocean and we thought that was pretty cool but as she got used to it it intimidated her more rather than less so we started to walk her home.  She likely could've found her way but would've had to cross many territories to get there.

Fairly near where we met her we found gray kitty and while woosycat was distracted we split, baffled by what had just happened.  We stopped momentarily to look back and saw gray kitty bounding after us, but we got away.  By the time we got home we'd seen twenty-two cats.

P.S.  Earlier, when we were on kitty three or four, we were sitting on the synagogue steps and there was a cat on the far edge of the parking lot, lying there watching us.  We shined our flashlights at her (we bring them to let cats know, if "know" is the right word, that they've been spotted, that they're not really hiding) and found that we could make her eyes flash if we panned back and forth.  Then we realized that though we were sitting next to each other and the cat was maybe a hundred feet away, making the difference in direction of the light from our flashlights tiny, I couldn't see the flash Julie's flashlight made and she couldn't see the one mine did.