signs

I really have no idea why I moved. I had a nice apartment in a cool neighborhood with good roommates and a ten-minute walk to work. Now I live in a dark basement with crazy roommates (more on them to come, I am sure) and a ten-minute walk to the subway that will take me to work. But I think I made the correct decision.

Yesterday morning, before the big move, I received a text from Ellen informing me that the alcoholic homeless man who lives on my stoop was passed out, his pants and the ground smeared with his own feces, with twenty-some flies dining on his poopy ass. "Congratulations on your move to Brooklyn," she said. If that's not a sign from God, I don't know what is.

What I'm hoping isn't is what happened later on in the day. So I am now in charge of a little black cat named Walter. I am, unequivocally, a Dog Person. But I like this particular feline, and so far his attempts to bite and scratch me have been on the playful side. Anyway, last night, his first in my care, he managed to get himself into the boiler room through a hole four feet off the ground in the padlocked door. I think he was in there meowing for about nine hours, finally emerging on his own volition after several failed rescue attempts. Phew. Anyone know how often you have to feed those things? And what the hell is catnip, exactly?