At ten years, Fluffie considers herself too mature for the four-foot jump to a favorite perch; so I improvised a stairway from a couple of crates, and am gratified to see her merrily hopping up and down it.

You can see my house! In 1988–92 my then wife and I occupied the ground floor of the white three-story house to the left (north) of the red building behind the yellow truck in the foreground. We liked the cool climate but the damp got to be too much: some of my books mildewed.

The flat came with a brain-damaged cat; the previous tenant had found her with a cracked skull and had her patched up.

When Lady Underfoot disappeared we sought a replacement at Greyhaven, which had for some time been notorious for supplying local fandom with well-socialized kittens. We brought home Gilgamesh because he jumped up and washed my beard (perhaps mistaking it, because of its color, for one of his tribe; but he never did that again). Soon we decided that he missed his large family, so we brought home his sister Flojo. (But we called them Red and Pink respectively.)

Eventually the missus moved out and we sadly returned Pink to Greyhaven (Red having died, apparently of blunt trauma in the street). I don’t know how she ended up.

Fluffie says I’ve been staying up too late.

See, the deal is this: I go to bed at a predictable time (give or take an hour); Fluffie joins me; I scritch her about the head for awhile.

But if I stay up flaming on talk.politics.guns, poor Fluffie (who doesn’t ask much, after all) is cheated of her tickles, and complains.

We’ve been thinking that a companion of her own species might do Fluffie some good – if she could be induced to make peace with a nonhuman. She had kittens before she was fixed, and we sometimes get the impression that she misses them. So we want to try a kitten on her: one young enough (though weaned) that Fluffie will be obviously the boss. Got any?

Driving home this evening (don’t tell anyone: it’s not insured yet), I saw a scrawny siamese kitten by the divider, lifting her head to stare at the headlights. She was soaked, of course, and too weak to stand; I could feel each vertebra. Took her home and tried to feed her (out of sight of Fluffie, Who is a jealous Cat); but now she was too weak to lift her head. (Had I picked her up too roughly?) So I looked for a vet that was open late. “Hi, I found a cat in the street and it’s too weak to eat, what should I do?” “Well, would you like to bring her in for an exam?” So I went; but she died on the way. I rather fancy she breathed her last just as I thought of a name for her.

Now I just hope I didn’t rescue any fertile fleas.

Catnip’s little flowers, I find on closer inspection, are not plain white: they have little pink freckles. They are somewhat orchidlike in shape.

Yesterday I caught Fluffie washing its leaves.

You may ask why a member of such an edumacated household has so dull a handle as ‘Fluffie’. It happened rather by default. Her human, my housemate, neglected to name her for months; she was ‘(the) cat’ or, being a longhair, ‘(the) fluffy’ – we being of such long acquaintance that we occasionally dispense with such formalities as articles. In the fullness of time we needed something with a capital letter to write down for the vet; and so, for the sake of (the) form, ‘Fluffie’ she became.

The vet says Fluffie is healing nicely. Whew. But she won’t be going outside for awhile: the other cats might tease her for the shaved patch on her butt.