Watching: Last season's finale of the HBO series Oz, a particularly brutal episode, though compelling as always. The new season of Oz starts next week. Finally, something to watch this summer.

Cute Things They Say: Stephen was resting on my lap with his head on my chest, then sat up and exclaimed, "I can hear your heart beeping!"

The Boy

As we were driving home from dropping off Tab this morning, Matthew suddenly screeched:

"Stephen's making faces at me, Mama!"

"And I'll bet he looks pretty foolish, doesn't he?" I responded.

"Stop making faces at me, Reno," Matthew ordered. "You look Polish."

(I hope my mother-in-law never hears him say that. Both of her parents came from Poland, and she is fiercely proud of heritage and quick to pounce on any real or imagined slight.)

When the boys and I arrived home, we saw Lorraine's car pulling up in front of the house. I dreaded meeting her, but decided that I couldn't avoid it forever, so I waited on my porch while she got out of her car.

"Someone reported me," she announced.

"Really?" I said, all innocence.

She said she had just returned from a lawyer's office. She doesn't want to let the health department investigator into her house, but the lawyer she just saw advised her she has no choice but to comply or risk arrest.

Deciding that now was the right time, I told her that a few weeks ago we had written a letter to city council in favor of the ordinance to limit the number of pets. "We mentioned that we live next door to someone who rescues animals. But we didn't mention you by name, and we didn't complain to the health department," I said truthfully.

She considered this for a moment, then shook her head. "Nah, that can't be it. They say they're investigating a nuisance complaint. My animals don't smell."

I looked at her in disbelief. "Lorraine, we can smell your cats through our basement walls. And the smell out back is so bad that this spring we didn't even put the screen in on the back storm door."

I don't know why seemed surprised at this news. We've been complaining to her about the animals for years.

A little later I went out back to take some trash out, and the twins followed me. Catching sight of an orange tabby cat on the porch steps, I yelled at them, "All right, who let Amber out?"

"It's not Amber," Matthew answered, and I realized he was right. This cat was as young and as thin as Amber when we found her last summer, but Amber is now full grown and plump. His eyes were pale green instead of Amber's gorgeous golden eyes, and he was obviously male. But he was a very friendly cat and let Stephen and Matthew pet him.

"She likes me, Mama!" said Stephen.

"He's a boy cat, honey," I said.

"Nice boy, good boy," the twins crooned at him.

The cat wanted to come inside with us, and I wished I could take him in. I have a weakness for marmalade cats. But we already have three cats, and in this small house that is already probably one too many.

So I brought a bowl of food and a bowl of water out to him, and he ate on the porch. The twins dragged the stool from the bathroom and stood on it by the back door so they could see him through the window. "We want to watch the boy," they said.

Feeling like the biggest hypocrite in the world, I called Lorraine and told her about the cat. She came out onto her back porch to investigate and realized that he is one of her cats that she is trying to place. He must have gotten out of her basement through a broken screen in one of the basement windows.

"You should take him," she told me. "He's so friendly and great with kids."

Of course, the argument that four cats were too many in this small house would not work on someone who has a dozen dogs and more than a dozen cats in a house equally small. I just took the easy way out and told her that Tab would have a fit if I tried to adopt another cat.

previous       index       e-mail me       next