Even my mom was surprised. She picked up the Week In Review Section of the New York Times to catch up on current events. Right on the front page of this section was a big story about a stray cat the author found in India. It’s the old story about a scraggly cat that recovered, with the help of a lot of love and good food.

Ophelia was a little scraggly when she came to live with us. She wasn’t exactly starving like that cat. She weighed fifteen pounds. She had an eye infection and she hated Creampuff. Now she’s got a healthy coat, she tolerates Creampuff and she still weighs fifteen pounds.

“The cat in the story liked to roam around,” my mom said. “That would never work here.”

We all feed sad about Creampuff sometimes. This ditzy calico loves the outdoors. With the right owner, she’d be an indoor/outdoor cat, my mom says. Alas, she’s destined to spend her life inside, as a city apartment cat. She seems happy. She purrs a lot.

And after all, what choices did she have? She wouldn’t have survived another month at that shelter. Let’s not go there.

But we’re still puzzled. How does a cat story merit all that space in a distinguished newspaper?

“She’s adjuse