Dear Felinadonna

I was recently invited to a lunch with some very influential and well-bred women, and found myself in quite a pickle. One of the lunchgoers, an Angora with a simply outstanding pedigree, ordered the fried mice fajitas. She exercised good etiquette by not letting the food sit on the plate for more than 14 seconds and, as you advised in a recent column, only used her left paw to eat them.  She preened herself well, too, as she ate -- except for a nasty crop of mouse fur left that had somehow clung to her chin. I couldn't help staring, but I felt too uncomfortable (and, frankly, too queasy) to point the omission out to her. What does one do when an otherwise fine lunch guest makes such as fur paux?

Aghast in Astoria

Dear Aghast,

I have just the thing for you. Always carry around a small bit of artificial mouse fur, bird feathers, and other animal remnants you're likely to encounter in a restaurant. If another member of your party misses a clump, discreetly reach into your purse and affix a similar clump to the same part of your face. The others in the restaurant will simply assume your party has established a new fashion, and therefore, they won't think unkindly of your lunch mate. And, if you begin to feel sick to your stomach, always barf in a conveniently-placed houseplant; the finer restaurants will have one near every table just for this purpose.  Most important, avoid criticizing your luncheon partner, at all costs.  Just remember: the next feline to have feathers on her face at an inopportune time could be YOU!

Are you tired of your litterbox looking like every other commode on the block? Do you  contemplate big philosophical questions, like: "is there more to a litterbox than just litter?" If you answered "yes" to either of these questions, then Litterbox Landscaper (LBL) is for you.

Based on the ancient art of Peeomancy, LBL will not only help you create a distinctive look and feel, and turn your litterbox into a garden of contemplation, but can actually improve your health and your luck. According to the great Peeomancy masters, proper orientation of your litterbox can actually redirect the flow of cosmic energy (chi) and revitalize your body. (Not to mention stimulating the best bowel movements you can imagine.)

If you're new to Peeomancy, you can use the built-in Wizard to guide you through the process of siting your box, creating complementary litter mounds and valleys (the Deluxe version includes a wet/dry bamboo litter rake designed expressly for litter styling), and  adding patio stones. (If you can get your human valets to spring for it, you can even add an electric waterfall.) The final step entails selecting a background that you can print and affix to the wall by your box. The supplied backgrounds include snow-capped mountains, rainforest canopy, cloud patterns, stream and meadow, Mt. Rushmore, and others.

Advanced users, or those who simply like to explore on their own, can manually use  the CAD drawing tools to design their boxes. The 3D views and time phasing features are especially clever; they allow you to catch a glimpse of what your litterbox creation will look like after a day, a week, and (yuck!) a month of continual usage, with and without human intervention. You can adjust for your weight, pawprint size, and diet, as well as your humans' relative fastidiousness.

Like all versions of the product, Litterbox Landscaper suffers from a few rough edges and feature omissions. The biggest drawback is that the program doesn't enable you to simulate the effect of more than one litterbox user at once. Given the number of  multi-cat households these days, it's easy to see how the program could cause a nasty bathroom hissout.

Another beef is that setup can be a bit tricky if you don't know the direction of magnetic North.  At the minimum, the inclusion of a compass would have helped. A better solution would be product support for Global Mouse Positioning Satellite devices, which are becoming more commonplace:

The publisher promises to address both limitations in the next release. But there's no reason to wait.  In the meantime, you can improve your chi while you pee!

Editor's note: you might want to read a review of Feng Shui for felines (see below); it makes an excellent companion guide to LBL.

Mates,

You'll be licking your chops as you read this, so if you're hungry, you might want to grab a bite before continuing.

There I was, sound asleep, when I was actually awakened by the delicious aroma of fresh garbage wafting up from the kitchen. And not just any kind of garbage, but my very favorite: fried chicken remnants. I waited until the humans had cleaned up and retired to their bedrooms. Then I struck, staying low to the shag carpet as I crept along the living room floor to the kitchen. My heart sank when I saw that the trash can was inside the shut cupboard under the sink. But I'd practiced for this mission hundreds of times and knew just what to do. By just slightly extending the middle toe claws on my right paw and inserting each into the crack between the cabinet door and the molding, I was able to pry open the infernal piece of wood that stood between my taste buds and a magnificent repast. It took but a moment standing on tippy paws to pull down the trash can and disburse its luscious contents around the kitchen floor. Best of all -- oh, I'm such a bad, BAD kitty -- I planted one of the now clean chicken bones by the sleeping dog's nose. Bad dog -- you're incorrigible! Ha!

Please use a #2 claw, and compute all responses to three decimal points. I'll ask you to turn in your worksheets along with your answers.

1. How many times a week do you get into the garbage?
2. Of the food you find in the trash, how many of the major food groups in the USDA 's food pyramid do you typically find?
3. On average, what is the ratio of protein to complex carbohydrates in a typical batch of trash?
4. What percentage of the trash can you paw your way through, without tipping over the actual trash can?
5. What percentage of the best trash items are buried at the bottom of the can, and require a thorough tipping to salvage?
6. Of the trash items you decide to recycle, what percentage will you keep?
7. What percentage of the recycled trash items will you give away as gifts?
8. What percentage of the recycled trash items will you place back into the humans' refrigerator (or closet, storage bin, etc.)?
9. How much of the time (as always, please compute to three decimal points) of the time are you typically caught, red-handed, while pawing through the trash?
10. Does that percentage a) increase b) decrease or c) stay the same when you find you have to tip over the trash can?

A Question to Ponder: 

If home is where the heart is, then whereís lunch?

Talk back to Socratail: socratail@meowmail.com

 A. Many feline families are in the same position. I understand from my BIG BUSINESS contacts that the airlines recognize the problem, and are going soft this summer on proof of age for young 'uns - remember, until kittens are two months old, they can legitimately fly at half fare. All you have to do this season is encourage your little ones to ACT as though they're less than two months old, and you'll have no trouble getting by on the cheap. Here are a few suggestions. At the ticket counter, have one of kittens bite Dad's tail. Another one or two might jump on the counter and play soccer with pens, paper clips, or anything else available. And a couple of other kittens can play hide and seek on the baggage conveyor belt (tell 'em to be careful), all while you shake your head. If your kittens do a good enough job annoying other patrons, then the ticket folks might even pay YOU to take off!