BOOGER HAS COME IN FOR THE WINTER

This is Booger, my semi-feral cat.
When the weather turned bad last week, she came inside. Our relationship is characterized by the understanding that I will refrain from trying to pick her up. She definitely does not like to have her picture made and this is one of about fifteen attempts...fourteen of which were nothing but shots of my books and/or the tip of Booger's tail since she had vanished before I could take a picture. I found her abandoned when she was a week old (one eye had not opened) and I made the mistake of trying to make the tiny kitten with an unnerving screech into a "barn cat." It didn't work and she vanished. A month later, I found her in the garden, so coated in begger lice that she couldn't walk. It took all day to clean her up and she has never trusted me since. She lives in the woods above my house and comes in late at night for a snack. She sometimes sleeps with Jack, my Jack Russell, but she is gone by daylight. That changes in the winter when the temperture drops below freezing. She does not trust me, but I sometimes find her playing by herself in the kitchen late at night. Right now, she is sleeping in front of the shelf where I keep my Dan Simmons. She is about twelve years old now, and this winter she has been showing up at 3 a.m. on my new electric blanket.