"i did love you once."

finding ourselves overwhelmed with cats who are no longer cuddly kittens i place an ad in the paper:

free to good home, cute gray tiger-striped 7 month old female kitten; litter trained; good with children.

saturday morning a woman called from a pay phone and asked if she could come by. she and her husband walked slowly, sixty years slowly, up the steps into the living room. i handed them the beautiful ophelia. the man says, "look what i brought you!" and pulls a rhinestone collar from his pocket. he takes the cat from the black-toothed woman (seriously, yes. those teeth that were left in her mouth were black. and pointy-sharp.) and tells her, "you're gonna have to drive home!" they limp (seriously, yes. there was limping involved.) away and i wave berio's paw at them (not really). she'll be renamed as her new owners could not pronounce "ophelia." she'll be crowned royalty, spoiled and pampered and bedecked in (fake) jewels. berio is probably jealous.

i predicted that henry would say, "where is mine other cat?" when he came back from swimming, that ernie would shout, "hooray!" as he danced a jig on the mashad when he came home from swimming. but they did not. henry has hardly noticed. i told him we were "sharing" one of his cats with people who did not have any cats at all. berio searches the house for his sister, meowing at all of us.

i felt dramatically sad and called my mom, who reminded me that ophelia peed on the floor. "think of the pee!" she says. ernie and i feel relieved. having one cat napping in the sun, frisking and batting at our feet under the table, is better.