'ONE FRIDAY NIGHT not too long ago, at the end of a long, stressful week, my boyfriend and I found a perfect deep-winter piece of nothing on TV, a documentary that was mostly footage of sprightly little kittens and ostensibly about the wonders and enigmas of cats’ minds. We set ourselves up to watch it on the couch with our fifteen-year-old cat, Tigger, having lifted him onto the couch and done the rounds of smoothing and scratching that show him it’s appropriate to tuck in and settle down.' (Introduction)