The News from stately Bosworth Manor

• Kitty Mystery Solved! When we first saw the new cat dipping his paw into the toilet, we thought he was reprising the trick that made us fall for him in the first place, namely wetting it so he could lick the water off it. (Why not use his water dish? I conjectured that it was too shallow.) Last week, I noticed some odd little wads of damp toilet paper on the rim of the bowl and wondered. Monday night, I got my confirmation as I caught him in the act of fishing out moistened squares[*] and nudging them into wads on the bathroom floor. I told the Old Man about it and quoth he:

  "If kitty has learned how to fish out soggy tissues to "pawfacture" toys does that make him Felis catus habilis? If so, we may have an evolutionary jump taking place in our very condo!"

  Can operating the food synthesiser be far behind?


• Communication from Another World? We returned Tuesday night to find our media arranged into the accustomed pyramidal stacks, except that on the dining room table it took the shape of an inverted pyramid. In the downstairs bathroom, I found my dental floss placed upside down atop the backsplash. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? The message in the shower, where the new bottle of conditioner had been taken out and replaced with the nearly empty one that I had set aside but not thrown out, was clearer; after washing my hair this morning, I dutifully scraped every last particle of goo from the neck with my finger so it would not go to waste.


• Community Thirsty for Justice! As I was walking home last night, a stout woman was marching down the middle of the street yelling into a cellphone. Right in front of our media room windows, she confronted a group of young boys. Loudly accusing them of stealing, she forced a pre-teen off his bike and knocked it to the ground. The child maintained that the bike was his and only resembled the bike of the woman's child, so she simply changed tack and pinned the bike to the sidewalk with one foot while she demanded that the boys tell her, "Who stole my baby's bike?" At this point I went inside, but I opened the upstairs windows in order to follow the further developments. At one point, I caught sight of her apologising abjectly to a grim-faced adult before calling out loudly and repeatedly to all in earshot that she would give $50 to anyone who could find her baby's bike.

[*] Before anyone gets too grossed out: monshu and I are in the habit of blowing our noses with toilet paper and tossing it into the john. Hmm, I guess that's still pretty gross, but not nearly as disgusting as the alternative.

Harbingers

It's so chilly, gray, and melancholy today that you would think yesterday's crystal blue skies and near-record temperatures were only a dream if not for what they coaxed up out of the flowerbeds. I was relieved to discover that the builders hadn't plowed over all of the winter aconite next door; at this rate, it will soon be in full bloom. Snowdrops are appearing as well, although not in the profusion they are near the administration building. The hyacinths there are up and budding. In response, the ground crews have been busily stripping the winter mulch to avoid smothering the spring shoots. Surprisingly, I've only seen one or two squill, even though these are usually one of the first flowers to appear.

But it's in the south-facing lawns of cozily residential Arthur Avenue that the real show is shaping up. Those fragile croci I first spotted last week actually survived after all (although they still haven't opened) and they are coming up in profusion a few houses further east. I can't find the the daffodil plant that was collapsed by the cold and its neighbours are coming into bud. The true surprise, however, is the appearance of irises. When I spotted one a few days ago, I thought it was a fluke, but now there are several tight blossoming bunches of them. Perhaps this year's equinox will be on time after all.