My wife and small son have been gone for several days. I stripped and painted the mantelpiece to keep from being lonely; rounded up some friends and saw "Independence Day" ("NOT a chick-flick," my wife said, though Sukie laughingly set me straight about that); and then read some of the books I wanted to read (which is to say books that do not begin "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish"). After that I got lonely. I was sitting around with my morning coffee, lonely and loathing the bike-ride through congested (earth-killing and soul-draining) traffic to work. Little nip on the sock-tip. Winston, the stray we adopted, who I nursed through ECE, sleeping next to the cage because he would only drink water out of my hand and needed rehydrating. Another nip. He's peripatetic, wants a pick-up. He likes to be cradled and to have his ears scratched. God, I haven't done that in too long for him. He started to lick my cheeks as I scritched. Another nip: Derrida, my deconstructionist ferret. She's my first ferret: she would sit on my shoulder while I played at a local coffeehouse, and I'm sure helped the pass-the-hat harvest. She likes to crawl inside guitars, _loathes_ the key of G for some reason, and tries to gnaw my hands off when I play harmonica. Another pick-up. I'll be late for work, I thought, and it serves them right for not taking care of me like these two. We wrestled for an hour. I was late. I don't care. Peace, Otter [Posted in FML issue 1634]