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Note to readers who do not enjoy reading about cats: You may safely ignore this post without fear of retribution.

Remember how our neighbors took in that cute stray cat? Well, she’s staying with us for the holidays while they drive up to the frosty white North. They wanted to take Brenda (the cat. please keep up.) with them, but can’t for various excellent reasons. E and I are excited to have her hanging out with us, and (increasingly) so are our cats.

I’ve been emailing little updates to Brenda’s mommy and daddy to let them know how we’re getting on. Here’s the first one:

From: Dan Sandler
Subject: Brendadventures, day 1
Date: December 21, 2006 12:25:02 AM CST

So, at the end of her first day up here, Brenda’s doing reasonably well. I kept her in “her room” until about 5 PM, poking in to hang out with her every now and again. Once we let her out, she quickly encountered the other cats and sought refuge deep under the bed. Attempts to coax her out resulted in merely giving her the attention she wanted; by retiring to the living room we forced her to poke her head out in order to stay near the action of the house.

Over the course of the evening, Brenda got progressively more comfortable, which naturally made her seem more threatening to the permanent residents. At the moment (see Figure 1) she’s napping peacefully on the towel below the big front window, while the other three cats sit across the room, half-hunched in mild alarm (let’s just call it DEFCAT 3; see Figure 2). There is still occasional hissing; there’s a pretty reliable perimeter of about 5′ at all times. For a period, Brenda hunched herself squarely in front of the litterbox, which made Emmaline extremely agitated (it is, after all, one of her very favorite places to be).

I don’t foresee closing Brenda up in the bedroom again unless there’s an actual fight or other argle-bargle that seems to warrant it.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.