Stalking my Neighbour's Cat: First Contact

I've been stalking this cat for months. Well, maybe more like a year or so. I'm not sure I have the narrative right since I'm pretty much making it up in my head, but it seems like either this stray cat has adopted my boyfriend's neighbour as his food supplier or the neighbour has adopted this stray cat as his window dressing. Either way, I noticed the cat when I started spending time at my boyfriends place. Whenever we sat outside on the balcony, the cat was wandering around the neighbours yard or sleeping on their balcony. The neighbour is a smoker and he leaves a filled-to-the-brim ashtray in the outer frame of his window sill which the cat has adopted as his nap spot. He literally wraps his plump cat body around this ashtray in order to fit in the little space on the window sill. I have to admit that the visual of a cat and his ashtray is a bit absurd, I feel sorry for him having to be so close to the smell and at the same time I find it childishly amusing that it looks like he himself has a bad smoking habit.

Eventually the neighbour started putting out bowls of food for him but I have never actually seen him enter the house. It seems he is an entirely outdoor cat. Now that I share the apartment with my boyfriend, I have taken to peeking out the window every morning to see if he's out there, lounging around his ashtray looking as if he's had a long rough night. I know, crazy cat lady. I'm not denying it. He's awesome, and I'm jealous that I can't have a cool outdoor cat call Sir Fluffy Mewington, the Third (because that IS his name, I'm sure of it). I've contemplated buying cat food to coax him over to our place, but we are in an upstairs unit and it doesn't make much sense. So I continue to pine away for Sir Fluffy. Unrequited love is the hardest to get over.

But today as I was leaving for work (a wee bit late already) I spotted Mr. Mewington near the sidewalk. I've never seen him up close, I've only admired from afar until now! I tried to call him over using my 'cat gibberish' voice  and to my surprise he mewed at me and came over. First contact! I regaled him with flattery and conversation as I pet him; Who's a good boy?? You are!! What's Sir Fluffy the Second really like? You really should quit smoking, you know? Awww, you're so cute! He was so soft and playful....awwwwww. He has such a lovely coat for an outdoor kitty. But what do expect from a cat with an actual title in his name? Pshaw, of course he's awesome! As you can probably expect, he got tired of me before I got tired of him, and he took off across the street to sniff recycle bins. Such regal behaviour, no wonder why he answers to the honorific of Sir! All I could do was make sure the street was clear so he could cross and hope that I'd get to play with him again.

(Side note: I noticed a bit too late that a neighbour was watching me the whole time and now I am appropriately embarrassed.)