Christmas was in full swing everywhere. Wherever I went, old Christmas tunes played cheerfully in the background. In little stores, in shopping malls, in headphones of strangers with the volume fa ... [+]
Kitsy Boo hated his name. "Kitsyyyyyyyyyyy," his owner, Marguerite, would call. "Boooooooooooooo!" Every time the shaky old voice called for him, the other neighborhood animals would laugh. "Kitsy Boo, Kitsy Boo, Kitsy Boo Boo Boo," the chatty birds echoed from the trees. "Call me K.B," Kitsy Boo insisted. But no one ever did. The only time Kitsy Boo had ever felt like a Kitsy Boo was back when he was a teeny, tiny kitten. Marguerite had found him early one morning, alone and shaking by the recycling bin. She'd fed him with a baby doll bottle—left over from her grandchildren—and carried him ar