Last Thursday in preparation for a friend stopping by for a glass of wine before we headed off to a neighborhood concert I tidied up the SSR [Supplemental Seasonal Refrigerator] (aka our screened porch). One of the tasks was to drag the fancy log and tinder boxes (aka wheeled trash cans) to their proper places (aka the trash area). As I walked past the stack of firewood I glanced down and noticed something furry, face-down in the ivy.

After depositing the trash can in the trash area I went back and examined the furry thing more closely.

Oh My God, I thought (taking the Lord’s name in vain), it’s a dead kitten. A kitten was in our yard and DIED. We could have taken it in and had a new kitten!

I picked up a stick to turn the dead kitten over (why? I have no idea — I had not even started on the wine yet) and as I got closer I thought that it might not be a dead kitten after all. Perhaps a dead baby rabbit (better) or maybe a dead rat (even better. Sort of.).

It was hard to turn the dead kitten over with the small stick, but I persevered and that’s when I saw the tag. It was a stuffed animal. Not a kitten. Or rabbit. Or rat. Actually I think it was a wolf.

It had lain in the ivy for so many years that the ivy had grown in through its “mouth” and the face-down half was pretty much gone. I am sure it belonged to one of my kids though because the tag has a web site address on it.