Baths and vagrants

Been keeping up with Garfield lately? He's got catdom down to a science. He hasn't moved from his spot on the floor for days....

Whereas I was trying to occupy only a small portion of the countertop next to the sink this morning, when the brat decided he needed to dry his hands off - ON ME. It was a surprise attack as at last look, Cam was in the bathroom too and I KNOW he wouldn't have let that happen. Wet fur, especially wet fur that smells like watermelons and cucumbers is NOT cool. Very undignified for a cat of my stature to wander around smelling like something out of those horrendous envelopes that always seem to accompany department store bills. I did make sure that before I began the long, arduous job of cleaning my once fine fur, that I shared with Cameron exactly what the brat had done. I got rid of the worst of the water and now loose fur on his pants. At least HE has the option of changing out of wet stuff that I don't have. It was only a moment later that I heard the satisfyingly loud smacks that told me the bath brush was being used in the manner it was designed best for. You could hear the dirt screech and jump off rather than get compressed between the backside of the brush and the backside of the brat. If the brat didn't learn from those few smacks that he should keep his wet cucumber hands to himself, maybe he learned that he'd be far smarter to wait until he put his clothes on to try that again. Cat 1, brat 0, as if there was any doubt.

Now I need a moment to vent, since this forum was set up for that express purpose. There happens to be two vagrants that have shown up for three days straight. The brat is feeding them in the far corner of the yard - MY yard, and against ALL rules of the house. One of these days I'll let Cam know but at the moment I'm waiting to see what I can learn about them. The one comes in monochrome. She wears a mask of black over a white face and flicks her tail expressively. Kind of like my cousin, but a lot more svelte. Her eyes are intriguing, staring back at me in the depths of the night as I patrol the downstairs windows against intruders. I had been thinking I might go out and introduce myself, but she has a bratlet of her own. No doubt a bastard child, a youngster grey from head to tail with thick fur he can hardly handle at the moment. While his mother was eating the brat's dinner, the youngster danced along the fence, diving under it, around it and trying to climb up it. There is NO WAY I'd get involved with someone who had a ready made family. My brat is almost more than I can handle, and to have to adopt a bratlet would give me that heart attack the vet is fearing I might have one day. Want to learn more about her - but the urge to fix the brat's wagon about feeding vagrants is getting more tempting by the day.