make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold

Aebleskiver post-bath. This will probably be his obituary photo.

Have you ever bathed a cat? If you try it, I recommend that you start on a cat who's so sick and old he hasn't got any fight left, and then work your way up to young, healthy cats.

Skiver is just a disgusting vector right now, and I feel sad that nobody will pet him because he's so gross. He stopped cleaning himself a year or so ago, and this morning he hobbled into our room with his bones creaking and popping and so much goop on his eyes it looked like they had dissolved and run all over his face, and I decided it had gone far enough. So I put him in the tub next to a basin of warm water and started sponging him off. The tragic thing is that he was purring the whole time, probably because it was so nice to finally be touched.When I pet him I just sort of scratch the top of his head and run my hand down his spine a couple of times, and then go wash my hands, and I don't think anyone else even touches him except Pinga when she's trying to steal the heater vent from him. During the bath Pinga kept asking, "What is that smell?" I told her it's the smell of a wet, dirty cat, because it's true. I don't think the bath helped that much, except for the de-sliming of his eyes. He's still pretty rank.

Do you remember what he used to look like? He was like a lush, shiny ottoman! He was a ponderous cat!It breaks my heart. And this is probably cruelly pragmatic of me, but it would be really nice if he would die on his own in the next week while the ground is thawed. I'm having a very hard time deciding whether or not to put him to sleep. I think he'd still rather be alive than dead, but what do I know? I'm not a cat. Yet.