I was going to write something profound this morning, but instead, I’m going to complain about my cat.

I have some time blocked out in the morning around breakfast to write some stuff for the blog. It’s not a lot of time, but it seems to be enough to actually get some written stuff online, which is more than I’ve been able to do regularly over the last couple of years.

The thing is, this is at the same time as Deimos, my assigned family pet, is eating his breakfast.

This isn’t so terrible, really, but Deimos has a diet issue. That is to say, he’s super skinny. His brother, Phobos, is a pig of a cat, and for their 12-year residence in our house, Phobos has pretty much always eaten everything we put out for both of them. This explains why we’re now forced to give Phobos insulin, but I digress.

The end result is that we’re having to feed Deimos wet food to get his weight up. And wet food, as any cat owner knows, stinks to high heaven.

The other compounding characteristic of this situation is that Deimos has some need that I do not understand. He’ll finish with his food (which doesn’t mean all the food is gone, just that he’s finished with it) and then come over and meow at me wantingly. Frequently, there are claws batting at my legs, and I’ve learned to never wear shorts to breakfast and to tuck my feet away where they can’t be unintentionally ripped off by his batting paws. He wants something, and I have no idea what. The relevant bit to today’s story is the loud and persistent full-throated meowing.

And his breath is bad.

So imagine me, as I am right now, seated at the kitchen table with my coffee and iPad, trying to write some profound blog post about the state of the world. Deimos comes over and uses his breath weapon, which causes both sound and smell damage. And I can’t really get him to stop. I have no idea what will satisfy him. He may use be thanking me for breakfast – I have no idea.

I have lighted a candle. Yes, the smell is really that bad. I had to open the window briefly to air out the kitchen, but it is too cold outside to leave it open.

He’s currently back at his food bowl, licking the remnants of Rachel Ray’s gourmet (the only cat food with fish apparently left on the shelf after quarantine – don’t get me started on what happens to our carpets when you feed Deimos something other than fish) cat food out of the corners of its plastic container.