The plumbing project has been moving along during our hiatus as well. Both bathrooms, the laundry room, and the outdoor hose are plumbed and all lines are connected to the Manabloc. Unfortunately the process has not been mostly painless as the hammer finally made contact with the Gimlet’s thumb, making it necessary to take a break from home improvement until it can heal.

During GimletBlog’s unexpected holiday, a kitten was abandoned near the grandparents’ house. The veterinarian gave her a clean bill of health, nobody in the neighborhood was missing a kitten and they decided to keep her. However, since they had already made vacation plans, we offered to watch her for the week. She’s “a little black nothing of feet and fur” with green eyes and thirteen toes on her front paws (7 and 6, respectively).

We discovered that babies are very much alike, whether human or animal. They were attracted to each other’s toys, competed for attention, and the house was almost too cute (and messy) for the week. The kitten took great delight in stalking and pouncing on Thing Two, who was less than thrilled with this game.

It looks as though she will be called Persephone, a suitable name for a 13-toed black cat who arrived on one of the hottest days of the year as if from the Underworld. But if Thing Two’s French were up to speed, I think he would name her Bêttie.