I had been playing with Scout with one of her favorite “toys” of late, a stretchy string that served as the ribbon on one of my wife’s Christmas presents. Sam and Emma came over and they all stuck their noses together. I ran to get the camera and when I came back, Emma and Sam had each grabbed an end of the string while Scout looked on.

Seeing our Big Three get together reminded me of the famous photos of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta in 1945.

Templeton had a drinking problem. Now his problem wasn’t getting loaded up on hooch while scatting about town, but more that he didn’t drink as much water as he should.

He didn’t like wet food, so encouraging him to drink more water was the only way to keep him properly hydrated. We tried several approaches, starting with a drinking fountain that kept the water circulated and aerated, but he wasn’t too impressed. We started keeping a water bowl on each floor and that certainly helped.

There were two approaches that worked really well, once I realized that Templeton liked to drink water from just about anywhere but where he thought he was supposed to. One was to fill his water bowl and hold it out for him near the sink, he’d hop up away from Scout’s affections and drink heartily. Sometimes instead of a bowl, I’d cup my hands in the sink and he’d drink quickly before the water seeped through my fingers.

My master stroke, however, was getting him to drink during his supervised outdoor visits. I always brought out a bowl of water with me, but Templeton always went to drink out of the nasty old water that I left out for the birds in an old flower pot base.

After fruitless efforts to try and get him to drink the fresh water in the water bowl, I started cleaning out the bird bowl first and filling it with fresh water, then putting it back for Templeton. He was aware of the ruse but willing to live with it, and always drank from it as shown here.

In an attempt to look more sophisticated, Emma grew a long white beard.

We’re breathing easier here — literally in Scout’s case — after a close call. She started wheezing at times late last week when she sat with her mouth closed, and her lovely purr developed a noticeable rattle. My first hunch was that despite our best efforts she had picked up a respiratory infection from the other cats, so we kept an eye an her.

By Monday it hadn’t gotten better and I called the vet to see if we should bring her in. I didn’t want to be one of those overprotective parents who bring their kid to the doctor at the first sign of a cold, but after losing Templeton last month to breathing difficulties, it was hard to listen to little Scout wheezing as she slept on me each night. They wanted us to bring her in and fortunately my wife was able to take her in the afternoon.

I grew increasingly distracted at work, which was unfortunate as what I thought would be a quiet day got increasingly busy. I hadn’t been able to eat much at lunch, worried that the news was going to be much worse than a simple infection since she hadn’t been sneezing or coughing. By the time of her appointment, I was a wreck on the inside and unable to concentrate, I sat with my cell phone in my left hand and the right not far from my desk phone.

My wife called after the appointment with great news, it was most likely a respiratory infection after all, and a day later Scout’s breathing is almost back to normal. As is mine. But even today I felt out of sorts, like a shadow of yesterday was still hanging over me.

This picture is of Sam squeezing out from under one of the dressers, he likes to run under them and pop back out, he’s the only one small enough to do it. Sam and Emma play together frequently, and although Scout hasn’t felt much up to it, she and Sam snuggle together at night.

In fact, the other night Scout went over to snuggle with Sam and I and lay down halfway across Sam. She dwarfs the little fella and was laying across his chest, talk about your breathing difficulties. Fortunately she got up to have me pet her some more, and Sam wisely moved up closer to my head.