He had found the tiny teeny tiny kitten wandering around outside, with its fuzziness and its big kitten eyeballs. And it was trying to suckle on Ian's fingers because it was hungry. It was a little hungry kitten. If you are capable of resisting the fuzzy face of a little hungry kitten, you might want to get your chest cavity checked out.

In a panic (kitten! hungry kitten! fuzzy hungry kitten!) we phoned the people we voted Most Likely To Know Something About This Sort Of Thing, h and Jenfu. They said intelligent things about what we should do, and then I raced off to the pet store to get some food for the cat. He ate the food and seemed happy about it, and immediately started exploring his surroundings.

We fed him, played with him and watched American Idol with him. (I tried to get a picture of him looking up at Simon Cowell on TV, but he was too fast for me.) He attacked our feet:

And played with toys:

And he was very, very interested in the birds:

(I love my birds so much that instead of rushing over to save them, I took a picture of their imminent doom.)

Anyway, once our neighbor came home, we discovered that the kitten did indeed belong next door, and--here comes the tragic part--we had to give him back.

So last night, for a few hours, I had a kitten. I had a beautiful vision of a household with chirpy birds and a giant dog and a tiny cat, where everyone wants to eat everyone else and it's the Circle of Life, right there in our house! But no. Now I have no kitten. I'm so confused.

Oh well. At least I live next door to a kitten, and hopefully he will escape and come visit again soon. Incidentally, I also learned that kittens produce very smelly poo. And there's something to be said for not being the person responsible for dealing with it.