You know, when a Fudgesicle is good, it is really good. Chocolatey. Creamy. Mmmmmmm.

I love stories like these. Three women, separated by the Holocaust, each thinking her cousins were dead, find out that they’re all still alive.

For 66 years, Ella Friedvald, 82, and her 79-year-old sister Lila were sure that their cousin Krystyna had been killed in the Holocaust, just as she was convinced they were long dead.

After all, the three women were barely teenagers when the Germans invaded Poland and their families were separated, their paths seemingly forever split as their world shattered before them.

After the war, Ella and Lila settled in Israel, while Krystyna, 79, made her home in the US, all having failed to find traces of their respective parents.

[...] Last month, Krystyna Friedvald got a call from the Polish museum. “Someone is looking for you,” the voice on the other line said in Polish. “Who?” she asked. The museum staffer asked her if she had any cousins, using their married names. Krystyna said she did not know of any such people. “How about Ella and Lila?” the voice - like a dream out of the past - asked. “Where are they?” Krystyna cried, thinking her cousins were in Poland. “They are in Israel,” came the reply. The next morning at 5 a.m. Krystyna’s phone rang. It was her long-lost cousin calling from Israel. “We talked and we talked and we talked,” she said.

The following week Krystyna was on a plane to Israel to reunite with her cousins.

After 66 years, the three, who look remarkably alike and who communicate with each other in Polish, were clearly trying to squeeze a lifetime into Krystyna’s one-week visit, her first ever to Israel.

God bless ‘em all.

Gracie’s rich orange coloring is offset beautifully by the black sofa and the green tissue paper in this picture.

Come to think of it, this would be a good picture to test someone for color blindness.

Tig, the mostly-Maine Coon cat, has a really lovely fur coat, and one of the things that cracks me up the most is what I call his pantaloons. But it’s tough to get them in a picture unless I snap a shot of him from behind, which I tend not to do, because, well, y’know, catbutt. Really, who wants to see a picture of a cat’s butt?

However, yesterday evening, since it was a freakishly-warm mid-80s, both cats were out, and I grabbed the camera. Then I noticed Tig’s pantaloons, and thought, gee, I’ll bet my readers would like to see this.

And so you have it: Catbuttblogging.

Looks like he’s wearing pants, doesn’t he?

is up, and ready for your listening pleasure.

Allison Kaplan Sommer is the featured interview.

Also, I now have a Google Talk account, thanks to Bruce, so if you live in another country (or even this one, only far away), we can talk to each other via Google Talk.

Strangely enough, I’m using my own name.