OPIE AND GRANDMA MEET AGAIN

I had hoped that Opie would keep in touch when he was out on his own. I taught him how to climb up and down his “tree” to get back and forth to the cat food shelf outside of the bathroom window, thinking that he’d always be able to find food and perhaps stick his head in every now and again if he needed anything, but because he ran away, thinking that he was going to be stuck in his box forever, he didn’t trust me anymore and didn’t climb to the shelf again.
(I know that he eats from a bowl placed on the patio, as the sky cam has revealed.)
Well, knowing about the open bathroom window finally paid off with a brief reunion.
He was chased by a ‘possum his same size from the back porch (I think he may have tried to eat from the dog food dish on the porch that some other 'possum thought was his own private bowl) into the dining room and through the kitchen and into the living room past me (sitting on the couch) to the far side of the room where a fight started. (I have seen enough ‘possums fighting each other over the cat food bowls to know that scene.) I jumped up and yelled, “Boys! Boys!” (it's the males that fight) and scared the aggressor back out of the room, heading for the kitchen, but Opie also took off running and headed down the hall to the bathroom with the aggressor seeing him and taking off after him again. I trailed behind, with all three of us circling around the small hall until Opie hid behind a box in front of Chris’ closed bedroom door. Bill opened the door to his office to see what in the world was going on and Blackie, the cat, came running toward the excitement as she never wants to miss a good fight. I waved Bill back and stepped slightly back into the office to give the aggressor a chance to circle back down the hall past Blackie where I saw him hit the kitchen and make a left into the dining room where I hoped he’d go back out into the porch again.
Opie saw his chance and hit for the bathroom to crawl up the heavy-duty extension cord (that I use when I mow with my electric mower) that always dangles down from the window between a towel table and the sink counter. He was frantically grabbing for the sink counter with its myriad of items strewn on it and I was able to move a bowl full of god-knows-what so he could get a better grasp and pull himself up onto the towel table that is in front of the window. While he rested a moment, I put my fist up to his nose to let him smell me as I always used to do (I wouldn’t put my open hand in front of because he liked to bite fingers) and I kept saying, “It’s grandma” as I always did. He wasn’t afraid of me and didn’t hiss or cringe as a strange ‘possum would so that’s why I know it was Opie, but he wasn’t going to let me catch him again either so he got his breath and jumped out the window and onto the shelf and was gone. (Another clue that it was Opie- if it wasn't Opie that was on the floor, how did that 'possum know that there was an open window up there that the cats always used to go in and out and that Opie used to peek in?)
So we had our first encounter for a brief moment. When he was faced with danger, he had rushed into the house for safety. He had used the shelf that I hoped he would. He just used it to get out, not in.
We saw him (via the sky cam) a couple of hours later eating his midnight supper on the patio with his new little friends scampering about. (Actually, I think one finally scared him off, the little rapscallion.)