EAST END ANIMAL REPORT

Dead ladybugs keep showing up in unlikely places in my office; bookshelves I didn't think they could get to. I always find them upside down.

The squirrels were undaunted by the steady drizzle today. I would run into them under naked bushes, feasting away on an acorn held in two hands. Another one was digging furiously. They didn't get scared off when I walked by; two even met my eyes directly.

A flattened dead pigeon on the sidewalk had the 2-D appearance of a flamingo's neck with a turkey's body. The flamingo pink was the skin of a wing whose feathers had been trampled by steady pedestrians. This was in front of the Mellon Center, one of the ugliest and most oppressive buildings I've ever seen.

Speaking of turkeys, the wild turkeys have not been spotted for a few months now, by me anyhow. There was the time in September that the sight of them scared me, they looked so much like dinosaurs. Just pecking around the grounds of M_____ Hall, right there on Bouquet Street when I was coming back from the Post Office. I stopped dead in my tracks. I don't think I've seen anything that surprising since I watched the second tower go down on live television, that old black and white set my roommate found on Manhattan Avenue.

The two brick apartment buildings on the Murray Avenue end of Hobart Street birthed another litter of feral kittens recently. The old ones were black and white and stand-offish; they'd sit on the highest steps and run away or stare at you through slitted eyes if you dared to call or move closer. The new litter is white-calico and needy: They came running from every direction to me, from the steps and from various hiding places in the flora and fauna.

Back at home, Spooky peed the rug for the fivehundredth time, then slept soundly in front of the radiator. Weetzie Bat looked dissatisfied, but raised her ass high when her flanks were patted.