About a half-block from where I saw Glow, a relatively new neighborhood resident lives at the corner of Maryland and Monroe. The house sold to new owners a few months ago, and some renovation followed—including the clearing of sidewalk-side foliage rising up a vertical protective wall along Monroe that obscured the backyard. The space attracted crickets, which until October 2017, during some evenings, I collected for our cats Cali and Neko to chase and eat inside our apartment; at the time, we lived around the corner on Cleveland. With the recent changes, I would be surprised if the insects gather there any longer.

The forty-eighth kitty in the series looking out from behind window or door was a sentimental sighting—for all the time that I spent skulking about the sidewalk and wall in the dark, with a flashlight and couple of plastic containers with lids. Surely, then, I needn’t explain this fine feline’s nickname.

We commemorate the last Caturday in July with the first of two felines looking out from behind windows—both on Maryland, and this one approaching Monroe from Meade. Earning nickname Glow, the blackie is our forty-seventh indoor-to-outdoor gazer. I used Fujifilm GFX 50R and Fujinon GF63mmF2.8 R WR lens to shoot the Featured Image, on May 23, 2019, while walking home from the grocery store.

I deliberately held back the portrait, so that I could crop and re-crop with different mindset over the course of weeks. I also hoped to perhaps capture another moment. This composition qualifies as the least-dissatisfying of those created, and I seriously considered not including Glow in the series. But the cat is clear enough behind the glass, particularly its green eyes. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/340 sec, 63mm; 2:11 p.m. PDT.

Two days ago my wife and I resumed our San Diego Zoo membership. This morning, we walked through the animal refuge for the first time in more than a year. The caged creatures there inspire the nickname for the tabby spotted on June 13, 2019 along Florida between Madison and Monroe. He (and hopefully not she) is first feline in the series seen inside a catio.

I captured the Featured Image using Fujifilm GFX 50R and Fujinon GF63mmF2.8 R WR lens. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 125, 1/125 sec, 63mm; 3:28 p.m. PDT.

Our forty-fifth kitty to appear behind window or door, like the others, is nameless—or at least to me the street photographer. I dub this one Hawk, for watching birds on the wire. Their reflection in the glass punctuates the moment, which I captured using Fujifilm GFX 50R and Fujinon GF63mmF2.8 R WR lens. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/125 sec, 63mm; 9 a.m., June 17, 2019. The Featured Image is best appreciated by clicking through (warning: 19MB file).

I spotted Hawk along Panorama Drive, where also live Brick; Herbie, the Love Bug; and Roadie—surely others.

We follow up Ludgwig, with one of his street buddies, quite appropriately and unexpectedly. Two days after the white and orange kitty joined the series, his close neighbor John Adams disappeared. Perhaps because the tiger tabby is so handsome or maybe because so many people like his name, he caused quite the consternation on Nextdoor when reported missing. I didn’t learn about the two beasties’ close residences until about a week after John Adams was found. He hangs out on North; Ludwig around Madison, not far from where the streets meet.

Ludwig’s owner was one of the many folks scouring alleys and rapping locked garages searching for the cat who would be named president of the United States. No one guessed that he was trapped a stone’s throw away (for five days) inside the nearby, abandoned florist shop, which closing I wrote about one year ago today.