As we wander through the house it is customary to announce to each other, occasionally, what particular cats are doing. Hence our house often rings with a chorus of "Honey, Allegra is being wonky again," or "Honey, Azzie is being cute at me," or if they are cleaning themselves, then the announcement is more like "Tangerine is cleaning her toes," with the appropriate response always being "Well, one must have clean toes."

I tell you this in explanation as to why it was that I told Richard that Rosemary was cleaning her butt this morning. This was only because she was perched on the rug in front of the fireplace upstairs, assuming the perfect cello position as she did her business and it was kind of cute. How the conversation jumped from there to what was next I'm not exactly sure, but I do know that Richard made some comment that everyone should have a clean butt and I retaliated with the fact that not everything *has* a butt to clean, because having a butt implies that you have a digestive tract, and for the rest of the day, especially as we drove down and back to his parents' house for his dad's combination birthday/Father's Day party, we had animated and laughing arguments over whether certain creatures have butts. Earthworms, we agreed, had butts, as do octopi and most fish, but plants don't (even though Richard kept singing about how all God's children had butts and thus all God's children could fart), and then we got hopelessly stuck on whether jellyfish have butts because neither of us is exactly clear on jellyfish anatomy.

It is little things like this that indicate just how smart it was for us to get married. After all, who else in the world would have been willing – nay, eager – to participate in a discussion on whether or not jellyfish can fart? Yes indeedy, we're soul mates. What can I say?

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When you are driving to work and you pick up the coffee cup that you just bought at the local bakery and which they filled a little too close to the top, and your car hits a bump and you dribble coffee onto your cream-colored slacks, and when you then dash to the bathroom to try to wipe it up as soon as you get to work, here is a little something to keep in mind. Avoid the paper towels. Trust me on this – even the most sturdy of paper towels will shred into trillions of tiny little pieces that adhere themselves to the fibers of your garment, such that even if you do manage to sop up enough coffee so that it does not stain, it will be obvious you did *something* because the coffee will now be replaced with an irregularly shaped splotch of paper towel tidbits that will flake off slowly over the course of the day.

Instead, grab a toilet seat cover. They may be flimsy and not necessarily as absorbent as a paper towel, but they don't shred and stick to your clothes, and they still manage to hold enough water to clean away the stain.