The cat seems to be feeling better. I’m supposed to be forcing his pill down the back of his throat by hand because apparently they taste so terrible no animal in its right mind would willingly swallow it. I’m supposed to be administering a liquid antibiotic by mouth twice a day, via a thing that looks like a hypodermic needle. And I’m supposed to be dropping medication into his ears.

In reality, what I’m doing is wrapping that pill in raw hamburger and putting it in a bowl. Then I douse the hamburger with the antibiotic. The cat goes for this cocktail like a moth to a flame and even licks the bowl clean. (Don’t worry, I rinse it off real thoroughly in nice cold water before I put it back in the cabinet.) And while he’s licking the pink antibiotic off the sides of the bowl, I squirt him in the ears with the other stuff.

I was never one for doing things conventionally.

I’m more than a little bit upset with the cat, though. I know he’s been sick, and I understand about the diarrhea and vomiting and all. But he won’t be spending much time inside the house for a while, other than to eat his hamburger cocktail, because when I went to pick up my good lavender sweater off the bathroom floor yesterday, I noticed, and just in the nick of time, too, that. . . .

Well, let’s just say that my sweater is soaking in the sink as we speak, and you probably don’t really want to know why.