Last night I dreamed I had a sexual affair with another woman, and rode a motorcycle out to a meeting in order to tryst with her. When I woke up and told Christopher about it, he had three questions: Were you wearing a helmet? (No.) What kind of sex did you have? (Subtext: can I watch? No.) And: what kind of motorcycle was it? (How should I know?)

Such is life at the old homestead.

We figured out that Trixie's peeing the bed might have something to do with the fact that she is furiously and seriously in heat. She humps the floor, Christopher's leg when he stands there mixing cat food, his shoes, anything she can get her little furry body around. She hunches up her back and assumes the position at random moments throughout the day. We can hear Whiny, the big gray tomcat, prowling and yowling out in the yard. I swear they can smell each other through the walls.

So yesterday Christopher brought her in to have her lady parts fixed and right now he's picking her up, poor thing. I still have mixed feelings about what we've done, making her tame and domesticated and dependent on us--and now neutered. On the one hand, being a feral cat in an urban neighborhood is no picnic. I've seen many dead cats on our street over the years, hit by passing cars. It's cold and wet out this winter, and there are a lot of pit bulls, crazy drivers, kids on skateboards, and other scary things. Plus I have no idea how they eat if not for people like Christopher who feed them.

On the other hand she often perches on the back of the sofa looking out the front picture window at the street, as cats do, and I wonder if she is missing her lost freedom. And while there is no percentage in letting her answer nature's call and produce a new litter of feral babies, it also seems cruel to cut off such an essential part of her being. But maybe I am just projecting here. Maybe I am grieving my own fertility and my own lost wildness.

For the last two days we've been hosting one of my oldest friends and her almost-eleven-year-old son. She remembers dinners with my family when we all lived at home, she remembers my mother when my mother could walk, when my mother was a force to be reckoned with, and she remembers me when I was a thirteen-year-old bundle of insecurity and originality, my head a frizzy dandelion full of dreams.