Carolyn Holm

Dear Puffin,
You have been very jumpy lately. Is it the noise across the street?
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
This petit cat appreciates that Madame understands! Oui, the noise she is excessive.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
It has been noisy, hasn’t it? I’ll be glad when they are finished with that endless house remodel. The pounding, the sawing, the jackhammer, and god knows what else. But honey, you don’t have to run out of the room when it starts up.
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
When a petit cat sleeps next to an open window, the noise is a blast to assault the nerve endings. Le petit cat cannot help but jump.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
But you jump at any unexpected noise. When there was a loud cat scream in the night, you clawed me in your scramble to get off my lap to hide. There was blood involved! Still, I can understand your horror. It was one of your people.
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
By my people does Madame mean French?
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
No doofus, I mean cats. I don’t think we’re likely to hear a French person screaming in the night.
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
Toujours le sarcasm.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
You even jump when the garbage truck pulls up to empty our bins. You don’t have to jump, sweetie. That happens every week. And those men never come into our house.
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
One does not know. Anything can happen. Et alors, one day the terrible man next door with the leaf blower may just get it in his head to invade us.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
No he won’t. Though I’m annoyed by that racket as well. And then there is also the doorbell. When it rings, you tear out of the room so fast, you leave your shadow behind. Where do you go?
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
Under la bed, bien sur. But Madame is making light of the terrors that a petit cat must face every day. Toujours she is cruel.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
I think you are maybe too tightly wound. Last night Monsieur dropped a book and you almost went out the window. Sometimes it is perhaps understandable, but you overdo it. There was the time, on the Fourth of July, when someone set off a fire cracker nearby. Granted it was with a boom so loud it sounded like it was in our house. But you were amazing. I did not know you could jump that high.
Love, Carolyn

Cher Madame,
It is not kind to take a mocking tone with a petit cat living in a world très dangereux.
Regards, M. Le Poufin

Dear Puffin,
Your world is not a very dangerous one, Puff. Maybe you take it all too personally. Maybe you could try to accept that life is full of loud noises that don’t necessarily threaten you. When that fire cracker went off, Poppy just looked at me to see if I was worried. I was startled, but she could see I wasn’t worried, so she decided it was fine. And Mia just rolled her eyes and said “Ouf, humans.”
Love, Carolyn

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