One from the Night.

  While indoor cats may prowl about the house at night, it would be easy to say that most have been trained to be more active during the day.  Outdoor cats, on the other hand, tend to be both diurnal and nocturnal.  Whichever suits the needs of the cat directs their activity patterns.  Ms. Put loves to snooze in the warm sunshine and hunt most of the night.  She will come inside when the weather is inclement but invariably about midnight, she is howling to be let outside once again.  She is a huntress and knows that most rodents forage by the light of the moon.  As we start stirring about at daybreak, it is not unusual to find where she has left us several corpses.  These are intended as gifts (or perhaps she is totally disgusted with what we eat and tries to improve our diets!).  Anyway the point being, cats love the nighttime hours!

  Now enters a new feline.  A gorgeous, long-haired cat has been hanging around the shed for the past few days.  This cat is jet black!  As a rule, I have a tendency to name anything that stays around the Little Bayou House more than one day so I pondered a suitable name for this new friend.  Inky?  Midnight? Ebony?  Nothing seemed to be an apt name for the cat.  This was a fine, sophisticated cat after all and no common name would be proper.

  Then a few days ago, my cousin popped something on a social network that clicked.  She had posted a definition for nyctophilia which is supposedly a name given to those who love nighttime.  That started me thinking just what nycto meant.  I asked Michael.  He is my "go-to" man when I have a question that involves "smarts".  "Nycto is a Greek word meaning night.  It usually is a prefix describing something related to night or darkness." he informed me!  Ahhh, yes!  My lovely, sophisticated cat now had its name!  Nycto!  (pronounced Nick Toe even though my cat does not have a nicked toe!)  So now every time I see the new cat, I say its name...Nycto.  Since Nycto has not snarled, hissed or bitten off my hand yet, I assume that the name is satisfactory.  Hopefully, Nycto will decide that the Little Bayou House is a nice home.  It would be nice to have another cat around the hillside to help Ms. Put with her quest of eradicating the voles and rice rats.  My only concern would be explaining the new cat's name to the veterinary office staff.  With the other two critters named Ms. Put and Ms. Ez, Nycto seems a bit different!  Although when I think of the true names of the other two, Puddy Tat and Esmeralda, this does not seem too strange!  Darling daughter, Elizabeth, named the other two.  I merely shortened the names and gave them their "titles" but Nycto...now that is a name with class!