Shabbat will start in a few minutes, if it hasn't started already. The time change has altered my sense of time. Well, sad news: the gray cat died. I found him dead back in January, belly up in the garage, and-- the worst part of all-- partially eaten. I don't don't know what ate him, but it was after he died, because there was no blood on the ground. Needless to say it was a dreadful, dreadful sight to behold.

I went inside, got a bed sheet, wrapped him up and managed to dig a hole deep enough for him behind the Forsythia, even though the ground was partially frozen. "No more outside cats," I promised him. And I apologized for the final humiliation he had endured. The hole was deep but somehow one of his paws was sticking straight up, so that paw is not far beneath the surface, making me wonder if whatever ate him might come back looking for him...

I suspected the opossum but had to suspect the other cat, who has turned feral and has coincidentally been AWOL since last night, when I last fed him. I went looking for him this morning but he was nowhere to be found. Sometimes I find a small pile of dry food left by some stranger at the gate, and I'm always concerned it's poisoned. But why anyone would benevolently donate food to this last remaining cat, I don't know, because he is fat! He eats more than a dog and looks pregnant even though he's a boy (with his manhood removed no less). Yesterday I found such a pile of donated cat food, so perhaps his absence today means it was indeed a successful assasination attempt.