Making a case for the outdoors.

What do a black leather recliner, a maroon Ligne Roset couch, a brown leather sofa, 2 piles of laundry, a Tumi garmet bag, a brown leather ottoman, a Nordstroms shopping bag filled with my mother-in-law's new shirts and a pile of pillows all have in common?!

Think hard before you answer this. It's not intuitive, unless you are familiar with the members of our household...

They have all been peed on by one of our three cats. As I sat here, moments ago, typing out an ad for a "Free", but stinky, Lignet Roset couch on Craigslist, I was struck by the vast financial burden that these critters have been upon us. Between the professional cleanings, professional cleansers and total losses, we could have probably paid to board them for the last 4 years of their lives and still been ahead. At least they are equal opportunity pissers, though. Both of our premarital assets have been equally targeted by the beasts.

So here is the problem: 2 of the 3 cats are frontally declawed. For that reason, we have put up with their shenanigans for this long now and kept them as indoor cats. My vote is now in favor of letting them learn to fend for themselves and send them out into the great outdoors. But an argument can be made, and has been, that this endangers their little lives because they are claw-dicapped. Others say that it doesn't matter, it's the rear claws they fight with. Another argument in favor of their continued entrapment is that we live on a busy corner and cars are unknown enemies to them. To that, I can only point you to Darwinian theory.

My question to you is, what is the fair thing to do with the beasts? Do they go out? Stay in? What would you do?

Random Farm Visit Pics

Here are some pix from Bubbie's camera taken during our recent visit:

Nearly Neked

We spent the last week on the farm in Tennessee, and somehow managed to forget to take photos of all the farmy stuff. But we did get some cute bedtime photos of Zach and Miss Vivian.