Cats and garlic

This morning I met our garage cat.  DNe told me earlier in the week that there was a very friendly cat trying to get into the house. When I went out to leave for work, a gorgeous dark grey kitty came up to greet me. Either female or neutered male, it looks healthy and well-cared for. I'm not sure if we still have fish in the pond.  I'm going to encourage it to stay so that the rodents don't return. While the image of a rat popping up out of a toaster only to be chased around the kitchen by the dog is hilarious, the reality is grim.  The toaster didn't survive the experience.

All day long I've been thinking of the poem about the fog and little cat feet. The garage cat is quite dark with swirls of lighter grey.  I was thinking we'd name it TS, which is better than Smoke or Fog, because I thought the poem was by T.S. Eliot, he of J. Alfred Prufrock fame. I was wrong. The poem Fog is by Carl Sandburg

 

THE fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Now I think I'll name the cat Eliot. But it still stays outside in the garage. Milo doesn't have it in him to deal with an interloper and I don't have it in me to train felines to leave the birds alone. Besides, I think the cat has a real home and just likes to hang out around here. Overlooking pond and fish on silent haunches.

The birthday card made it to Iceland. It took long enough to have traveled by way of Ireland as I'd feared but the surprise (garlic seeds) actually caused the Icelandic Customs Officials to open it up.  I don't know why the whole thing struck all of us as funny but we giggled at several points throughout the day.  A friend called it subversive garlic and suggested that as a band name.  Why not?  But would they be a Canadian band or an Icelandic one?

And how was your day?