Remember these guys? Though we do not know their exact birth date, by our calculations, they turned a year old this month. They look like grown up cats now.


Long, rubbery, stretched out, grown up cats.

It's nice to have a couple of pure breeds around to class up the joint.

The KingofHearts went to an allergist this week and found, to his surprise, that he's allergic to cats. (Which is odd because even before he met me and my Lizzy, he pretty much always lived with cats.) He's also allergic to dogs, horses, cows, ferrets, rabbits and dust mites, so please don't suggest any of those as an alternative pet - we've already looked into it.

Dormouse: "Daddy is allergic to cats."

Me: "I heard that. Guess it means we have to get rid of the cats."

Dormouse: "No!"

Me: "Well, we either have to get rid of the cats or we have to get rid of Daddy. Which do you think?"

Dormouse: "... ..."

Me: "Wow, you're really thinking about this, aren't you?"

Dormouse: "... ..."

KoH: "Which do you think does more for us around the house?"

Dormouse: "The cats. Definitely."

KoH: "Yeah, you're probably right."


In his defense, the cats are not converting the half bath in the basement to a full bath, so I tend not to agree with her. They do, however, sleep on my feet at night and keep my toes warm. It's a tough call.

Don't worry, we aren't getting rid of the cats. As it turns out, he only has a mild reaction to cat dander. So we'll be keeping Maggie and Barker, but picking them up and rubbing his face in their bellies, is no longer an approved way to pass the time. He does, however, have a strong, almost violent, reaction to dust mites. So unfortunately, John, Paul, George and Ringo have to go... along with my dreams of the fame and fortune that accompany running the most popular flea circus in the Western world.

*sigh*

In other pet news, our prodigal possum has returned.

Though I tried very hard last year to take care of kitty and make him feel at home, he finally left and hadn't been back until yesterday, when I heard a kerfuffle outside my window as I was getting ready to leave in the morning. It stopped, so I didn't think much else about it until I went out to get in the car and spied this:


I love how the closer


and closer I get


the more still he becomes.

Seriously, I was walking around right under him for a good three or four minutes and he didn't move a single muscle, nor did he even turn an eye to watch me. Not even when I put on the flash and took a picture,


did he flinch or try to run away. I guess that's why they call it playing possum.

He clearly loves us and wants to come back home.

I like to think of it as my own version little Incredible Journey story, witnessed here by my humble household, and I wonder where he's been and what he's seen. The Obama inauguration? The passage of Health Care Reform? Stayed in the Watergate hotel and reported a break-in? He could be the Forest Gump of the opossum world.

And I know what you're thinking, "How do you know this is the same opossum?" I don't. But shhhh, The Dormouse might hear you.

I wonder if they tested for opossum dander on the scratch test?