After four arduous months, the Great Experiment has come to a conclusion. Last night we slept in our new home, half a house in Watertown. The implications are enormous. We no longer have to live out of a suitcase.  We don't have to carry our passport with us wherever we go.  We can remove the foam mattress from the back of the station wagon.

We have to say, homelessness is not all it's cracked up to be. We are not trying to make light of the plight of the truly homeless.  The nomadic camping out with friends we have done since April is a far cry from the depressing reality of not having a place to lie down and die in peace. On the other hand it is also a far cry from what we fantasized: a carefree return to our hippyish youth, when we often left our apartment or dorm room with a few dollars and psychotropic substances and didn't return for days or weeks.  Sometimes we would even remember where we had been.

In those days it was a lot easier to leave home; there was nothing really there but some dirty laundry and cold pizza in the fridge.  It's much harder when your whole life is stored in your home. It's near impossible if you have pets.

Tonight we recuperated our cats, who have spent the past four months in the apartment of an Immigration attorney who is learning Spanish from Norma Yvonne. In the eight years we have had them it was the first time we had left them for more than a few days. They are now exploring the new digs in Watertown.

It was traumatic. We even started to dream about Chiqui, the 8-year-old Tom.   We've been through a lot together.  We got our vasectomies the same month (although his was more complete than mine). Sometimes in the dreams he is a cat, but sometimes he is a human being. He is usually mad at us for leaving him with the lady lawyer.

In their honor we would like to direct your attention to the strange case of Jasper, a thoroughly American cat, who was found wandering in the streets of - Oxford, England! How do they know he is a Yank? He was wired, with a microchip! And they STILL can't find his owners.

A stray cat that was wandering the streets of Oxford was found to have been registered in the USA when rescuers did a microchip scan on it.

The RSPCA says it has no idea how the cat, nicknamed Jasper, got to Britain, says BBC Online.
And it has been unable to trace Jasper's owners in the USA.

It is now hoping someone will recognize the animal, which was found in Campbell Road in the city.

RSPCA inspector Doug Davidson said Jasper was friendly and 'a good ambassador for the USA'.

He said he had three theories on how he managed to get across the Atlantic.
"The first is that he's a strong swimmer, the second is that he belongs to Americans living in Oxford and the third would be that it was a British family in the USA who adopted him and then brought him back," he said.

Or maybe he bought his ticket on the internet, where nobody knew he was a cat....

from Ananova