Jenny's Birthday Book

Every day after school, Wolfie and I take the back roads home and count how many cats we see.

“Wolfie, how many cats do you think we’ll see?’

“Uh, 1…2…3….4…5!!” He says, slowly counting like he has a fail proof system.

The count varies from 1 to 10, depending on his exuberance.

We creep streets leading to our house, always stopping at a botched renovation house where the feral cats congregate. Peering into the cut holes in plywood used to ventilate and secure the house, feral cats peek out wondering why-the-hell the same mini-van stops in front of their house every day.

Wolfie yells, “Dada! Do you see? Number 4. Dada!!”

Cats are currently big in our family. Wolfie’s favorite book of the month (they’re always changing) is called Jenny’s Birthday Book. It’s about a city cat’s birthday in Central Park. All her friends are there and they dance the Hornpipe. Most of the cats have names (The Duke, Pickles, Edward, Checkers, etc) but some are just faces at the party. I asked Wolfie to name the guests and he came up with these names for the cats:

Money-Monkey
Blue Bit
Branches
Truck
Jingle Bells (his favorite)
Tree-Tree

Too cute.