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You got your closure yet?

So with spring comes the stray cat. Only this one looks EXACTLY LIKE CRACKER. If Cracker was five years younger. And dirty and hungry. And only had one functioning eye.

He showed up yesterday and started meowing and at first I thought it was Cracker, but no, it's his little friend. Cracker has pretty much kept vigil at the window ever since. At first, he - oh, ok, we already named him CHEESE - Cheese was down on the ground floor, and then he slowly made his way to the top of the first floor apartment, which juts out slightly. Cheese stared at Cracker and meowed, Cracker stared longingly at his long lost cousin/brother/girlfriend/whatever, and this went on for hours, I am not kidding. They are totally in love.

I put some food out on the fire escape outside of the bathroom and late at night I saw Cheese hanging out there. The plate of food was empty. Cracker of course was sitting in the window next to the bathroom watching his new little buddy. I peered through the window at Cheese, and man, his eye is all kinds of fucked up. It's like a devil eye, just a little slot of raw red peeking through.

It seems like he's taken care of - he does a lot of lazing around in the sun and isn't the slightest bit agitated by noise. Of course I wanted to adopt him. Jonny and I and have been talking a little bit about adding another pet to our household so Cracker will have a little friend, and also perhaps as some way of staving off my maternal desires a bit longer. (Although they are already are at odds with my need to write books non-stop and also my pathetic bank account, so that might not be a problem anyway.)

But I don't know. He seems pretty happy out there on the streets. And I'm no Jimmy Legs, who is a man on a mission. (Seriously, check out the massive amount of work he and his lady have done with the feral cats in their part of Bushwick.)

We never had this problem in the old place. I never saw cats running around, and they would never have been able to get up on the roof of the building next door either. This is really the first time Cracker has had any exposure to other cats since his days on the streets years ago. It is awfully cute. I do hope Cheese (Mr. Cheese? Cheddar?) sticks around for a while.

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Yes, we are still looking for someone to take over our apartment immediately. Please spread the word.

(05/07/08)