Kitten News Dispatch

Girls, you'll be women soon. Here, a tentative suggestion that Eleanor, Lucy and I have reached cruising altitude.

Since we last checked in with Eleanor and Lucy, I’m pleased to report some encouraging developments.

Some of them are cosmetic, but that doesn’t make them unimportant. I was able to get the pee out of the giant Berber rug I feared I would have to chuck out. All it took was three gallon jugs of enzyme solution, two more rounds of ozone bombing and another month of the rug isolated in an upstairs bedroom with the window open. (Total time: two months, total cost: almost as much as the rug itself.) The girls no longer linger near the trouble zone where they once let themselves loose. Occasionally I spray mixes of essential oils on previous bomb sites—cats don’t like citrus or lavender—so the house sometimes even smells actively good. As a cat owner, this is more than I have any right to expect.