Cats are precious.

Today did not start off well. As I was walking to the new apartment from the old (for story, see below) Koharu nearly sliced her precious face to ribbons on some broken wine glasses in clementine box, in a rubbish heap, because clementines are her favourite food and neither of us expected to find pointy, jagged shards of glass in a box that should contain delectable orange fruits. Anyway, we passed an opossum who had been struck by a car the night before, and I felt so sad to see such a lovely creature killed in the height of his bliss; spring time when food is plentiful and the female opossums are so coquettish. The person who had struck him had moved his little body onto the sidewalk, and tears sprung to my eyes as I saw him. Not twenty paces further, we encountered an even more grisly sight; the body of a grey stripey cat, also hit by a car, also moved onto the sidewalk. I immediately burst into tears, and Koharu and I just stood there on the sidewalk, uncomfortably and unavoidably faced with the reality of the conflict between urbanization and the natural habitat of our animal friends. We went inside, and I hugged my cat. I've renamed her Cranberry-Never-Sue, with the "Never" being short for, "Never go outside." Cats are precious. (For the record, so are possums.) The reason we are living in two apartments is neither simple nor fun. All of our belongings have been in the new apartment with my Mom and cat for over a week, but Kaz and I move back to the old apartment each night and sleep on a horrible, leaky airbed because of the Japanese feng shui followed by my husband and his family. This year is apparently a VERY inauspicious year to move, and I would be struck with illness or business failure if I moved on any day other than April 15th. Though I am a Christian who does not believe this, I have limited chances to impress my in-laws due to the physical distance and the language barrier, so I've compromised on this issue and must sleep in the old apartment and drink water brought from the old house until April 15. Kaz has made a lot more compromises for me (ie. going to church together, attending house group), so I'm happy to do this for him, because I love him.