I'm hoping my parents can stay in their city for as long as possibly as they've got a huge community there. Duh, they've been there 39 years!

eta: And they really love it there.

But it is nice knowing that I have senior apartments that are really community-driven, as well as higher levels of care, nearby, should they need to be closer to one of us. I figure my SIL will call dibs, and she's such a people person, she wouldn't let them isolate either.

I do think my parents are very good at socially engaging. Probably better than their daughter; I'm much better at it than I used to be, but sometimes their social calendar just sounds exhausting to me!

Uh-oh. One of these days, Mister O'Malley'll follow you inside....

I'm fine with that as long as he's OK with remaining an indoor/outdoor cat whose litter box is the great outdoors. I have exposed brick walls, hardwood floors, and mostly wood furniture, so my apartment has relatively little that's vulnerable to feline destruction.

If he does, you'll want to get him fixed. It'll cut down on the inclination to mark.

In that case, outside he stays. I want him to continue fathering broods of feral and predatory little kittens that will keep mice far, far away from my building.

Jesse, adding on to the yay your dads friends thing. Dang, I hope I've got friends like that when I'm old.

Also, y'all with the heat issues should move to Seattle.

Jesse, the dessert thing is simply adorable.

I feel moderately bilious today.

Matt, if it makes any difference, you can get him fixed, keep him mostly indoors, and he'll still drive the mice away. When I had two fixed cats in my apartment, I never, ever, ever had a mouse problem. The rest of the building? Oh hells yes. My apartment and the apartment of the one other cat owner? Totally mouse-free, and one of the neighbors offered to have my cats over for a playdate just so they could stink her apartment up with their cattiness and the mice would leave.

(eta, and yes, I realize this makes me sound like someone in a Matt Groening cartoon: My cats in fact smelled very nice! Just not to mice.)

Mind, this may make it slightly worse for your neighbors, as it doesn't eliminate the mice, just makes them prefer other people's places to yours. But, fine, they can go get their own alley cats.

Yeah, I was biting my tongue on the cat-fixing-over-feral-population-better-for-cat-and-cat-population thing (my parents curate a feral colony, all are fixed or on BC, it's made for a more healthy colony,) and JZ enabled me to continue to do so. Also, my complex was completely mouse infested. In the 12 yrs I lived there, I encounter...what? 3? Presence of catsmell alone does it.

More feral cats is pretty much always a bad choice, isn't it?

Ungh. Had pain therapist tonight. Exhausted. Night, night!

A successful trap-neuter-release program in my neighborhood reduced the stray cat population drastically. This summer there have been more songbirds and butterflies and little wildlife like skinks than I've seen here before. It's nice. And no mice, because I have three cats indoors and there are still a couple ferals moseying around outside.