Marvin is probably on his ninth life now, so I thought I'd slide a photo of him in here before...well, before. He's sixteen years old, having been hugged home from a yard sale (Free kitten with any purchase! Please!) when Joshua (now twenty) was four years old.

Marvin has outlasted one collie (Gus), two iguanas (Iggy and Natasha), two hermit crabs (Evil Knievel and Shy Guy), and finches and goldfish too numerous to name, but who all remain with us in small boxes buried in the backyard; he will probably be survived by one ornate box turtle (Bubba), whom we found huddled between the yellow median stripes of a state highway on a distant Memorial Day, and one iguana (Boris), who (unless somebody cleans his cage very soon) should probably try to figure out which direction is south before a hard freeze arrives here in the next few weeks.

Marvin and I didn't begin our joint residency here on the best terms. His selection from the litter occurred without my participation, and an unreasonable resentment lingered for a long time because that was the first "major decision" in Joshua's young life (when he was our only child and our only concern) from which I was excluded because of my absence due to work. Although I certainly would have approved of Marvin otherwise � he comes, after all, from the best and heartiest of breeds, the American short-haired alley cat � I was slow to appreciate him because of my lack of "ownership" in his selection.

We have grown to trust each other and to respect each other's needs and boundaries. When I enter the kitchen and speak the words "Down, Marvin" at a quiet, conversational volume, he promptly (as a cat might interpret "promptly," that is) sidles to the edge of the counter where we butter our bread, and drips languidly to the floor. Although I will never become his "person" (that honor goes to the household she-who and, when he's here, to Joshua), now that he's no longer up to running with the big cats overnight, he trusts me to let him into the house late at night and to love him up a bit before he settles in. And I think he has come to understand that I'm only kidding when I suggest to him that the carousel in the microwave oven might be a cozy place to hunker down for the night.

Tuesday the air was warm enough here to force dandelion fluffies out of the ground as if the season were spring, and not fall. That same evening, the air was so moist that I had to run the car's air-conditioner on the way home from work to keep the windshield clear. So far, we've had only one night that was cool enough to leave a frost on the car windshields the next morning, but I think that the nights of open-window sleeping are over as November approaches and that the pumpkins will not be frost free.

Reading:
The Year of Reading Proust: A Memoir in Real Time, Phyllis Rose