Nine years, I do believe, it has been since a letter from M.E. last appeared in my mailbox. Nine years, or so, I think it was since I did much paper correspondence. He was British, I the crass American teenager. We shared musical tastes; how much else I do not know.

This past week, my mother phoned me. As an aside, she mentioned, "A letter from a [M.E.] arrived today; I've put it with my things and I'll bring it with us when we come visit this weekend."

My response was of sheer astonishment. He was someone I hadn't thought about in quite some time. But, in the classic "don't think about a white elephant!" sense, I spent the next few days wondering how his life has changed over nine years.

Occasionally I have to remind myself that to Tenzing and Edmund, everything in the world makes perfect sense. It's only the humans, who have this daft notion of 'logic,' that get confused about things that are perfectly normal to those inhabiting the feline world.

A bit of an interesting subject came up today while Kat and I were out shopping. It's one that I've pondered for a while, and just don't have any answer or response to.

Re: my previous entry, 'A hair rock band, and a red-haired girl'—not everyone appears in my life, stays for a while, and completely vanishes shortly thereafter.

"Are you going out today? If you are, then don't forget to take your umbershoot."

If my mother said this to you, you would probably look at her with a great degree of puzzlement. If my mother said this to me, I would know that we were supposed to get rain that day.My mother can be dour and serious. She was the eldest of four children, and her unasked-for position of seniority required her to be the caretaker of her siblings while her parents ran a small store.

As a result of that caretaking, I can vouch for her excellence at it.

She graduated from high school in 1961, when in Arkansas, the propriety of the 1950s hadn't quite been overtaken by the gaiety and looseness of the 1960s. She was unmarried, and through casual comments she made, I gather that her family despaired that she would ever marry.

We have Caller ID, and it has been one of the best services we've ever purchased, despite my sometimes missing the element of surprise when I pick up the phone. Once, there was a time when the phone would ring, and I would answer tentatively, expecting telemarketers or wrong numbers, only to be thoroughly gratified to hear an old friend's voice on the phone.