Why Lilly didn't get her catnip yesterday

"Lilly found a patch of catnip yesterday," Mom said this morning. (The cat was lounging in a sunbeam, occasionally rubbing me with her head or playing tailsies.)

"Oh?"

"But she didn't get to enjoy it. Just as she'd discovered it and sniffed it thoroughly and was just settling in, a harududu came roaring along!"

Lilly looked heartbroken, remembering this sad event.

I asked, "But what's a harududu?"

"It's a--machine. Like cars. This one was a roto-tiller. Haven't you read Watership Down?"

"Oh. No, I haven't." Amelia and I had discussed last week about how I hadn't read Watership Down. It's a really good book, but dense, and if I was expecting something like Redwall, that would explain why I hadn't been able to get through it.

"So Lilly never got her catnip because of the harududu."

Lilly went up to the door and begged to be let out. "Please? Out?"

Dad put in at this point, "It was a ro-TO-till-er."

"The harududu was a ro-TO-till-er. That's right," Mom said.

And I added, "That's right. It doesn't drink alcohol. Only rotos." Because, you know, the original tee-totallers didn't drink alcohol--only tea. That's the story I've heard, anyway.

Mom let the cat out. She immediately sat outside the glass door and looked in. She didn't want back in; she just wanted to watch. She does this; but it's possible I caught her looking nervously over her shoulder at the harududu. It was curled up on a corner of the patio, mumbling in its sleep. "Really hard ground...earth for breakfast... with just a hint of catnip..."