Now in her dotage, Callie is an indoor cat. Though I must admit her importunings are so vociferous that occasionally I open the upstairs bathroom window and let her roam the housetop and bask in the sun. She can no longer jump to the olive tree and scramble down to the ground because the tree trimmers cut back the branch she needed to make the leap successfully. She is restricted to the roof.

But in her youth, she was an indoor/outdoor cat. A killer kitty and proud of it. Many have been the mouse carcasses that have adorned the livingroom rug and not a few placed lovingly on the spot where my feet hit the floor when I get out of bed.

During the 14 years of her predations, she killed only one or two birds; the vast majority of them are too quick and too wary to be easily caught. She also retrieved lizards alive and unharmed for my amusement (must have been since she presented them to me usually at a time when I had company over for dinner). I rearranged the woodpile so that the lizards had more cover, and there were no more reptile-themed gifts.

When I moved into this house, the walls were alive with mice. We could hear them skritching around at night and in the morning found evidence of their visitations on the counters and in the drawers. Callie and her late sister Misty rid the house of mice, and I am most grateful.

Thank you, killer kitty. Without my cats, I would have found myself living in a house overrun by mice.