when a cat is not a cat.

contrary to popular belief, inga does not have a heart of ice. recently, i've adopted two stray kitties. one is a mostly ferral cat named ingrid (unless you're ena, in which case you call the stray sophie) and a pretty friendly black cat named mr. wickham, who any day now will be lured into the kitty carrier by a can of fancy feast with gourmet greens and whisked off to the vet, so he can be checked, fixed, and let into the house.

but i digress. back to ingrid/sophie. one day i opened my garage door and startled ingrid/sophie, who startled me back. she'd apparently taken to sleeping on an old piece of pink carpeting rolled up in the garage. she'd found a spot where the carpet had unrolled a bit. feeling especially domestic and my heart apparently thawed somewhat that day, i found some old towels in the linen closet and made ingrid/sophie a little bed-nest in the garage. i put her dish in there. we were all happy.

sure, she often ate outside the garage, shouldering mr. wickham out of the way for a bit of his food, but whatevers. she's homeless.

or...she's been put out of her nest.

by the nasty possum, caught momentarily in the glare of my headlights late last night, who dashed into the garage (via a hole in the bottom of the door) as my car crept up the driveway.

possum = gross, gross, gross. possum = garage-cleaning-out this weekend!

and, uh, stella? thanks to these here posts, you can totally disregard the letter heading your way!