The outside world is a drape of velvet rain right now. As I write, my wife is reading in her chair, the page illuminated by the grey light coming through the porch window to her left. Jinx is in the back bedroom, a spotted comma on the loveseat, and Bluebelle is sitting like a stone sentry on the back porch, watching the squirrels and birds in her yard. annoyed and agitated but not yet ready to commit. Dixee is snoring in her little bed at my wife’s feet. And me? I am here in this quiet room of muted light, thinking my thoughts and chewing a cracker and poking at…