Sabine gets nervous and starts licking her fur off -- like she did when I visited my mother in Milwaukee. Her belly is a bit shy of its normal rich black covering right now, but not as bad as it was this winter when she had hair midway down her flank and then naked to her furry socks.

They're all odd ones, they are. Every last ne of 'em different. I feel like I've spent my life being a cat shrink.

And then there's the shy little ferals -- Banjo and Creamsicle. They're in the house but not OF it. I'd love to catch 'em and get them to the vet to be, ah, "repaired". Creamsicle is so much more refined and discrete in her yowling than Banjo (who is probably more likely to be caught one of these days, probably when the weather gets cooler and she'll sit on the bed).

But I guess Mort and Sabine, at least, keep me from needing a shrink.

Linn