I'm trying to eat vanilla ice cream and a squishy persimmon but Sutra, the fluffy orange kitten, keeps trying to see what I've got in the bowl. He's settled down by the keyboard for the moment, seems not to have spied where I put down the bowl. (Sh. It's behind him.)

Sundance had his first outdoor-by-himself adventure tonight. He's seen the dog go in and out her flap. Finally he figured out how to make a cat-sized gap. He was out wandering several minutes before we realized he'd escaped. Kent stood in the yard calling his name and says he heard a mew. "He seemed to like squeezing under the fence." Yeah, cats don't choose open spaces. They like to go around the edge of the room.

OK. Sundance has come to plague me (none the worse for his poking about in the wet grass) but I have managed to finish my treat. Sundance licks at the bowl a little but Sutra's the one who's really sticking with it. But then Sundance finds the vine cuttings K is trying to start more to his liking and uproots one. Swats it even after it's down. So I tuck the stem back in the soil and toss cat to carpet, a couple times, till he decides to surprise the little rubber snake by the pile of newspapers.

That cat has been thieving my earplugs from the shelf by the bed. Here and there he leaves them on the floor. I don't suppose he'll grow up someday and support me.