“I’m going shopping. I think I’ll get some salmon,” I say to Roberto, and he agrees. We both like salmon a lot. You might be imagining a couple of nice salmon steaks, being that there are just two of us, but he and I know that whoever goes to get the salmon will come back with at least half a fillet, even a whole one if it’s small. Because we are not the only salmon lovers in our family.

About twelve years ago a feral cat came wandering through the community. We have a flat roof with a huge apricot tree hanging over it, and he took a liking to that spot where he could look down on us going in and out. We called him Bruiser, he being big and orange and very manly. One day we were standing in the patio looking up at him, and I said in a rather hushed voice, “You know, if we could ever catch Bruiser I would take him straight to the vet and get him fixed.” Bruiser’s hearing must have been excellent because he disappeared for at least a year. I regretted my words and hoped that he would return. We learned from our neighbor Wayne that he was hanging out at his house, and for the next few years we co-parented. Wayne and Roberto built a handsome house for Bruiser, complete with a heating pad and heated water bowl for below freezing nights.

But there was domestic trouble at Wayne’s. His two cats were upset with their foster brother and expressed themselves by spraying the furniture. Nothing would stop them and it apparently became unbearable. In order to save his marriage Wayne trapped Bruiser in a big cage and took him three miles across the arroyo and through the hills to a lovely ranchette with horses and barns and lots of mice. In less than 24 hours he was back at Wayne’s.  (more…)