Winter has arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and this has been a bummer for Ding Ding. You see her above, enjoying her vacation home in the San Juans. Now she wonders every day if she will be able to go outside at all. Molly Bloom, our cat pre-Ding Ding, was a true native of the Northwest. She didn't mind if it was raining, or if she got wet. Dingers does. This is a problem for her humans, because she is still very energetic as cats go. We find ourselves putting her outside simply because we need a break from her antics. When she was little we could burn off her energy by throwing newspaper balls for her to fetch. She still likes for us to throw the balls, but she doesn't retrieve the way she did when she was a kitten. This means less exercise and a living room covered in small wadded up pieces of newsprint. And less energy expended in acceptable activities means we spend our time fending off attacks on newspapers we are trying to read, chasing the cat off the counters as we try to cook or clean-up, or having to pick up papers she has deliberately pushed on the floor.

We know we have been lax in training Ding Ding. I can only say that we were totally unprepared for the cat we now share our house with, and we haven't yet figured out how to get through to her. Suggestions from more disciplined cat people would be welcome.