Inkhat Meets the Chocolate Poets!

In my constant quest to find internet over the past few days I’ve spent probably more time than I should at café’s and book stores. The intelligent, responsible thing to do would be to go home and unpack. Instead I am wasting time at a book store which has, charmingly, named all its drinks after famous writers. I am currently half way through Sappho, who is apparently a cherry mocha. Have I mentioned love this town?

If I were being honest with myself I might see clearly that the real reason is simply that I feel sequestered and confined in the big house. Neither of my roommates plan to show before September, and a trip to visit the only two people in town only served to heighten my sense of otherness. Not that they weren’t lovely people. Actually, I hope we can become friends, but they, being married, had formed that sort of comfortable cocoon of intimate life. I am fairly familiar with this, having lived with couples before. Usually it’s charming and adorable. At this particular moment it served to remind me that the closest friend I have has whiskers and enjoys playing with a sock.

Not that my cat isn’t a good companion. I do worry, however, what she will think when she discovers the multiple strays living outside our house. I see them mostly at night and in the morning, when it’s cool. It’s a silver and white mother, and at lest two kittens. I saw her this morning looking for them. She was sitting on my back stairs calling. It seemed silent to me, behind a glass window, but I could imagine the sound she made. She looked very much like my cat, only opposite. She had silver wherever Claudette had white, and visa versa. Finally, a tiny stripped and spotted kitten erupted from the bushes and collided with her, full of that ecstatic adoration of family. The two wandered away together, rubbing heads and shoulders.

I decided that they each need names, if only so I can talk about them at length and annoy all the non-animal folk of the world. The tiny stripped and spotted kitten needs something dignified, to temper that wildness, and to adjust for a life begun in the dirt. Reginald I think. The mother, being a tough, lanky lion of a cat, needs something strong. After much deliberation, I decided on Zelda. I do not have proof of the other kittens, so I will name them as they come. I hope I am getting genders right, but I suppose I can be forgiven for some discrepancy.

And now, having completed all my excuses for leaching the internet, and Sappho having been drained of all her cherry/chocolate goodness, I have no more excuses but to walk back home.