Bad Cat!

Sebastian has discovered books.

Not a good thing.

He weighs, what, 9 pounds? The bookshelf, well, a heck of a lot more.

In the evenings, he's especially drawn to the bookshelf in my living room. It's about four feet tall and three feet wide, holding four shelves of my hundred-plus cookbooks. Sebastian gnaws on the books' corners, ever so casually. Bad cat! He sticks his paws between the volumes. Bad cat! He gets that gleam in his eye, like he's going to jump on top--oh, Sebastian, no! Bad cat! One evening he actually jumped on--in?--the next-to-the-top shelf, wedging himself into a space that, yes, to his credit, is just big enough for a small cat. You know how some books are too tall to prop on the shelf vertically? A few of mine lie flat on their sides. That's my boy to find just that spot.

I'm scolding Sebastian a lot more often now, but I don't mind. Most of the time, he's just a doll. And smart, too. He's trained me how to play fetch with his new favorite toy, the Looney Loop. He sleeps on my lap. He uses the litterbox! He gets along with Sylvia.

Bad cat? Nah.