Today I gave away this.

I’m not actually sure what “this” is.

It’s something or part of something that we must have owned before our house fire. A few weeks after the fire, when all of our belongings were returned to us cleaned, two of these fluffy blobs were among my childhood soft toys and I can’t for the life of me recognize what they are. I’ve kept them, however, thinking that I might remember them at some point and even if I don’t, I might be able to make them into some toy. I had pulled out some googly eyes and glue from my crafting box the other day intending to transform them, but it didn’t happen. I had better things to do, thankfully!

My good friend Jane who is away for the week on a family trip to Yosemite, and I promised that I would help her out this week by stopping by to play with their new kitten who needs some company during the daytime. Today, my son Theo had his friend Rodrigo over for a playdate and I decided to take them with me so we could all entertain the kitty. Before we left, I spotted the fluffy ball on a bookshelf and decided that, whatever it was before, it was now going to enjoy a new life as a kitten toy. I cut a length of string and tied one end round the fluffy blob and headed off excited to test my brilliant toy out on Jimmie, the little cat. When we got to Jane’s house and opened the door to the kitten, he mewed with delight that he had some company. We mewed back equally delighted to get to play with a kitten. I gave Theo the toy to test out on Jimmie. He loved it and chased after it as Theo dangled it in front of him and ran around the room. But within a few minutes, the string came off and it was reduced to being just a fluffy ball again. No matter though. The kitten loved it like that and seized it in his claws, clutched it too its little chest and wrestled with it like it was the best thing he’d ever seen. For the next 20 minutes or so, the boys took turns, one trailing the piece of string after him while the other tossed the fluffy blob to him. The string was thrilling, but he couldn’t get his teeth into it the way he could with the fluffy blob. We stayed for about an hour and when we left Jimmie, we left his new toy with him hoping that he’d enjoy it without us. As we shut the door we could hear his sad little mews behind us. We’ll be back tomorrow, Jimmie, and I’ll bring the other fluffy ball too…