reports

1. Cat report. Tybalt is over 2 1/2 now, and he's starting to slow down a little more. He's not quite so frantic and demanding for playing, and he cuddles more. When I find him sleeping on my pillow - which he does a lot (Who's been sleeping in my bed??) - I nudge him over and he will snuggle next to me. Of course that does mean little claws digging into me, and sometimes if I stroke his head he wants to snap his teeth at it, but that's because he's Tybalt.

Maia continues to be all-suffering. She comes into my office to demand attention, which ideally consists of walking over to the bedroom and petting her on the bed. But if Tybalt is anywhere in the vicinity, she demurs. He's poked his head into her affairs too often. One time we were walking towards the bedroom and Tybalt was sitting in the hallway. Impasse. Nobody moved, until I gave up and went back to work. Another time Maia jumped up onto the bed to find Tybalt already there. She then jumped down to the hamper and huddled. Mind you, he wasn't doing anything, but she wasn't having it in case he did.

2. Pandemic report. So the administration has given up on fighting the virus because, to quote the spokesman, "it's contagious." Was it any less contagious when they were claiming to fight it? All the more reason we should take strong measures. But we won't. The virus is related to the flu and in some respects behaves like it. (This is why DT, taking the parallel too far, was convinced it would disappear come spring.) So we're in for a grim winter, especially in states where winter weather is heavy.

Here it's not so heavy, and the rates are not going up, but I'm redoubling my vigilance. In-person grocery shopping now only in the early mornings. I was up today before 6, which is when the markets open, so I went out for a supplementary shopping. For some reason most markets aren't selling eggs by the 6 any more, so they have to be bought by the 12. The only dinner dish I make that uses eggs up fast enough for such a rate is vegetable quiche, so I have to redouble on the veggies (and cheese). There were only about two other customers in the entire store, and it wasn't easy to find a checkout clerk either.

3. Literary report. A correspondent, reading my obituary of Dick Lupoff, writes, "I didn't know that 12:01 pm was written by Lupoff. When I saw it, I thought it was far superior to Groundhog Day which I saw later and which was just boring." Dick certainly thought he'd written a high-caliber story (no arguments from me), and he'd be very pleased at this testimony that the movie made directly from it is superior to the commercial imitation. Now I regret that I can't write him and pass along the compliment.