Meet the latest regular at our backyard bowl: Meezer Girl.

Meezer Girl is wary, as is only appropriate for a free-living feline.

She is not, however, as wary as she should be.

I was tempted to open the window and shout “Get out of the street, fur-for-brains!” I suspect the HOA would not have been amused. Fortunately, before I got the window unlocked, she moved out of traffic. Well, mostly.

Yes, she is standing in the gutter, and yes, cars really do drive in the gutter. But that’s a post for another day.

Moving on.

We’ve caught glimpses of her around the neighborhood for several months, but she’s become much more visible over the past couple of weeks. Now she’s figured out the bowl-filling schedule, and we’ve spotted her out there every night this week.

She’s an enthusiastic eater.

“She,” by the way, is a guess. Quite frankly, we’re guessing for all of the neighbors. We usually only see them from the front or above, so the most obvious clues aren’t visible. So when we refer to Grey Tabby as female and Faux Tux as male, those are assumptions based on behavior.

We haven’t firmly settled on “Meezer Girl” for the new arrival. “Meezer Lady” might have more long-term utility, after all. We’re also considering “Meezer-san,” just in case we find evidence that she’s actually a he. We’re open to other notions. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

If Meezer Girl continues to come around, we anticipate some interesting maneuvering for dominance with Grey Tabby. So far it’s been rather mild. They’ve been taking turns at the bowl: one will come into the yard, then leave when the other shows up. We don’t expect it to stay that polite for long.

Well, that didn’t take long. No sooner had I written the previous paragraph than negotiations started heating up. No angry words or weapons, but there is a certain amount of tension in the air.