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She rises from her humid curl on the comforter, the blind shut, and marches toward the door. Today is warmer. Immediately the shut-in wants to go outside, even before offering her opinion at her dish, even before a crunch of kitty kibble in her little teeth. She knows the temperature outside already, the forecast for sun. She has calculated the effective temperature in the sun on the back deck, given fur, wind direction, air temperature, the angles of the mid-day sun in early January. (And she has amassed some extra weight for winter, kept me guessing at the food bowl, opening can after can, not all of which she will eat. "A little porker," my mom said when she came to visit for Christmas.) I am happy to let her out. She will patrol the deck for a while, until she rises to the window sill to come back in. "Yap." Like the one little talon of a claw she pricks my side with when I'm sitting at the desk here ignoring her, just so. A tiny needle to make me jump, as she runs to her dish. A cat's electric sense of humor.