When I came home yesterday from my run in Greensboro, I asked Blair what he'd done with his morning.

"Oh, little of this, little of that," he said. "I straightened the house, got on the computer, read the paper and--oh yeah--played with Lucy."

This was news. Lucy is not really a playful cat. She's more of a "feed me now" type critter.

"What did you play?" I asked.

"We played her favorite game of "Just try to pet me, you rat bastard," said Blair.

I cracked up. That in fact is Lucy's favorite game. She meows and meows at us to pet her, but when we sit on the floor with the brush, she inches just out of our reach, so we end up chasing her around the room an inch at a time, trying to comb her.

Lucy wandered into the room. "Did you play with Daddy?" I asked her. "Did you win?"

She threw me a bored look. I always win, it said. Now how about a little mid-morning snack?

That's our girl.