Hello, It's Franklin

This is not Franklin. 

I'm a dog person. I grew up with a succession of schnauzers, and then, newly married and in my own household, we decided we wanted a real dog, and adopted an absolutely adorable puppy-mutt from the pound who refused to be housebroken, ate the bottoms of all the kitchen cabinets and regularly brought me used-up bunnies from the backyard to fix. To be fair, despite the bunny thing, Brandy grew up to be a wonderful dog, and when she passed away at the ripe old age of 14,  I lasted six sorrowful weeks before I gave in to my daughter's entreaties to just go look at some puppies. That's how we ended up with a sheltie - basically a walking fur-explosion - named Winnie, who at the home of the breeder we visited just to look .... looked me straight in the eye and swore she would never ever shed. I fell for it.  She also ate a wall and all of our carpeting. Anyway, the point is that we were a canine household. Also cute, furry little things are big fat liars.


So the summer my daughter returned home from a year long study exchange to find that her dad and I were splitting up, in one magnificent gesture designed to tell both of us just what she thought of the whole thing, she came home with a kitten. Granted, I went with her to the pound, just to look. 


It started out like this and went downhill from there:


Me: But your dad is allergic to cats.
Jenny: No he's not. 

So. Yeah.

 And Jenny of course... promptly went off to college.