Eating directly from the plate
Look, Mom, no hands!
We were having salmon that night, and Zoe is like a cartoon cat when it comes to salmon. He got his own little plate. He did not get wine.
The cat-related things on the table include petroleum jelly for his paws (trying to control hairballs), and the cat discipliner (squirt! squirt! squirt!). If you had really good eyesight and if the picture was a little better you could see a table in the background with a carved coyote, a ceramic cat flower pot, and a picture of the cute little baby Zoe before we knew he was the son of Satan.
I love this. I love how my father would be horrified, and I could sit and watch his blood pressure rise. Next time they visit I’m going to give Gene his own place at the table.
That would be funny.
When I was a kid, my mother never let a dog in the house, but a few years after my father died, I convinced her to get her little dog Lucy, who we now have. Lucy ended up not only in the house, but on her bed. She fed Lucy from the table (but never actually on the table), and taught her some really bad habits. If I had told my mother 30 years ago what she would be doing with her own dog, she would never have believed me.