I have now lived with Annabelle the cat for about three weeks now. It is nice to have a pet at home again. She appears to have thwarted the mice. I have seen no evidence of them in the last few weeks. Because of this we have gotten careless and this week alone have had two taco nights where we fill the counter by the stove, the favorite picnicking spot of Brookline mice, with a cornucopia of Mexican foods like onions, tomatoes, tortilla chips, avocados, cheese, and ground beef. No mice have chosen to join the fiesta. Annabelle does not appear to be spending her evenings policing the kitchen. I know this because instead she spends her time waiting for me to fall asleep and then tries to vigorously rub off some form of scent from behind her ear onto my hands. I must admit that I feel a little violated by the experience of Annabelle trying to not mark just her territory but pretending to be a possessed bottle of cheap cologne aggressively marking me. She is headed for a showdown with the vet regardless of this behavior since we signed a contract to spay her as a part of our contract to rescue her from the MSPCA. I am hoping that spaying her will alleviate her need to rub up against me while I am sleeping as I generally don’t get much sleep to begin with given the other new inhabitant of my apartment.