The Column About Cat____ and Dog____.

Oxalis waited for Plot and Duck to head East, then took the garden over. It's pretty, and you can't get rid of it, so Plot just lives with it during the winter. You can see a few sprigs of arugula and a snapdragon or two poking through, but oxalis is boss and everybody knows it.

But, for a weed it aint too bad. Oxalis stays a nice green and it will have pretty yellow flowers in the Spring and will protect the ground against any unforseen freezes.

The problem is oxalis grows OVER the cobbles marking the edge of the path. And therefore when the neighborhood cats come through the garden looking for a nice place to poop, they have no problem finding one.

When Plotnik composes his epic poem about his garden path he will have to include several stanzas about cat poop. The thing is, he doesn't own a cat.

There's this big fat white Siamese, who lives up on Randall, and there's Pastis, who lives next door, and there's the black sneaky one, whose name is Fluffy or Muffy but should be called Turd Brain. Others appear occasionally. The Massive Acreage at Great Plotnik World Headquarters has become the powder room of choice for neighborhood felines.

By the way, due to our values, we have decided to call it poop.

(Speaking of values, and poop, didn't you just love Tiger Woods's apology? What a shmuck! If you can't stand the heat, get out of the bar maid.)

Where were we? Yes, dog poop is worse, of course. But dogs are kind. They like embarrassing you, for sure, when you're walking them at night and the church group choir stops in front of you to sing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," but they can't help it. And they would never poop where you (and God) wouldn't see it.

Cats hide it under leaves, pretend to be burying it even when they're using concrete pavers. Guess what, kitties, poop does not disappear just because you bat it around with your sadistic little paws.

It's gotten so bad that Plotnik doesn't dare walk down the stones to the arugula patch after dark. And cat poop, in addition to its awful stench, has one more unfortunate characteristic: you never notice it until you've tracked through the house, across all the rugs, up the stairs and into the kitchen where you are standing cutting up the scallions you just brought in for dinner, and your wife calls out: "What is that smell? Better check your clogs!"



Lemon blossoms do smell nice. But we're not talking about lemon blossoms, are we?

Who knows how to keep neighbor cats out of your yard? Short of poison, of course. Not necessarily too too short, but short. We would love the little sweeties to survive, but knowing something bad lurks in their old pooping grounds, like an enraged spouse cat with a three iron to the back of the head.