Why my cat must die, and other ramblings

Most of the time, I like my cat. His name is Bastian. He is white with big grey spots. He is mostly blind in one eye and not very graceful, probably because of lack of depth perception. Anyway.

Charles found him eating out of a dumpster at an apartment complex where we used to live. Charles, being a guy, gave Bastian a pat on the back, dumped his trash into the dumpster and strolled back to the apartment, doubtless giving nary a second thought to the poor starving feline. Undeterred, Bastian tracked him back to our apartment and installed himself at our front door, murping and mewling until we let him in.

That was about 8 or 9 years ago. Bastian wasn't a kitten then; he was a full-grown cat, so he's probably anywhere between 11 and 13 years old now.

In his advanced age, he has decided that he will no longer deign to go poopy or pee-pee in a litter box that is not spotlessly clean and odor-free.

When I neglect to clean out his litter box on a daily basis, he expresses his displeasure in a multitude of annoying and disgusting ways - the most recent one being spraying pee all over my lovely white waffle-weave shower curtain.

Apparently, you aren't supposed to machine dry a waffle-weave shower curtain. It now looks like I have a large used Kleenex hanging in my bathroom.

While I contemplate whether I am going to kill Bastian slowly or put him out of my misery swiftly and humanely, allow me to share some pictures of Drew's most recent adventure.

This is Drew with my friend Gail, and her horse GG.

This week, Gail gave Drew an impromptu horseback riding lesson. Drew, being unnervingly fearless, wanted nothing more than for Gail to let go of those reins and "make the horsey go faster."

Gail was quite patient with him, chatting with him and asking him questions, like how old are you? and can you count to five?, which she does to help distract young children so they won't feel afraid of being up so high on such a large animal.

Drew complied readily at first - as you'll see, he sorta skipped over his upcoming birthday and is apparently already four years old.

But after the first three or four questions, he became impatient, said, "I don't want to count any more" and ordered her to "Take your hands off the horse", which, thankfully, she declined to do.

I can see that another trip to the barn will be in our near future.