The Phil Rizzuto obit is a great obit. It was probably one of the Times' prewritten obits.

My cats were always in and out cats, and I mean that literally. My role was cat doorman. They almost always stayed in the yard, usually inside the fence with the dogs, and we brought them in at night. The dogs always got along fine with "their" cats, even though they'd bark fiercely at the dangerous foreign cats, and two kittens grew up thinking that a dog's fluffy tail was the perfect cat toy. I have found that cats that have a chance to go outside don't do much tearing up of the furniture.

I think it's bullshit that the rescue doesn't think great adoptive kitten owners are responsible enough to make that call themselves. They do the checking, they meet you guys. That should be enough. They're pushing perfectly good applicants out the door and leaving some poor kitten in a shelter situation because they're being stupid.

I chose the gym today and the kids did well in the daycare.

I'm down to walking a mile in 16 minutes and 23 seconds. When I started two months ago, it took me nearly 20 minutes to walk a mile. My goal is to be able to do a mile in 15 minutes (which is what I could walk it in college).

That's darned good, Cashmere.

I need to mark off a mile and see what I can do. I wak around the neighborhood, but I've never bothered to check how far I'm actually going.

We once had a cat - classically beautiful but dumb as a box of rocks kitty - who wanted out in the worst possible way. One night - it was a dark and stormy night - she got out. We found her about half an hour later, huddled next to the door, meowing pitifully to be let in. But ... dumb. She still wanted out and tried to escape every chance she got. (she didn't have any sense of direction either - when she did escape neighbors would have to haul her back, since she had no idea how to get home)

Cash, that rocks!

If it wasn't so damned hot here right now I'd be doing more walking outside. If I weren't so damned lazy I'd be at the nice air-conditioned gym more often. The latter is definitely more of a problem than the former.

I need to mark off a mile and see what I can do. I wak around the neighborhood, but I've never bothered to check how far I'm actually going.

zenkitty, you could use this:

[link]

to figure out how far you're going. it's super fun!

Our cats are indoor cats. We would take Dread Beastie outside every now and then because former housemates of mine got in the habit of leaving doors open, and Beastie had gotten used to going outside.

But we're not taking the boycats outside. I don't trust that we'd be able to keep them in the yard, and they seem perfectly happy running around the house. Not to mention we signed a contract with the place we adopted them from promising they'd be indoor cats.

When we went downstairs to feed them this morning, there was an enormous squashed spider. They're earning their keep!

Oh, I like that, lisah! I was just going to drive around with the trip odometer on.

I've only had 4 cats. The first was always inside and unfortunately insane. He attacked my friends when I was out of the room. It took us a while to catch him at it. We had to have him put down because really seriously dangerously insane.

When I moved in with Stephen he had 2 cats. When we moved to Delray we had to leave one with the new house owner because he was blind and perfectly content going in and out his cat door and living in the trees in Fort Lauderdale. The other we brought with us. Bianca would only come inside if it was hurricane level storming. She stayed on the roof most of the time. She was affectionate and would come down to visit with us, but she preferred the roof. When she was too old to get on the roof easily she preferred hanging out under my old car that wasn't running. We would make her come in if the weather was dangerous. She passed sleeping under her car at about age 15.

My current kitty was given to me by my neighbor because she was moving to an area of Florida that has a lot of eagles and we were concerned that Georgia would be ill equiped since she hadn't lived with them before. After years of coming in and out at will there was no way to keep her inside. As she gets older she seems to prefer to relax on my bed or couch when we are home, but goes out when we go out. Her choice.

I get that many cats are inside cats, but mine haven't been. In Florida my dog is an inside dog, but up here she romps free in the woods happy as can be. Swimming in the lake, going back and forth on the path between my house and mom's. Freeeeedom!

Also, if I had kittens, which I wouldn't because I spay, I would happily let Kristin and Drew be parents. Idiot shelter people!