Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

For those of you within my legion of … what am I at now … 45 readers, who may be wanting more information about Lord Buster and Nemi First of Her Name, then guess what I have this week?

A fat cat.

Yep, it was reported to us that Nemi has some girth on her, coming in at a rotund 12 pounds almost in defiance of our work to get her to lose weight. She was sitting at 11 last year when our vet gently encouraged us to get her to lose weight by telling us to get her to lose weight.

We tried and tried and tried. We’re not feeding her whatever she wants, save for perhaps spoiling her with a few too many treats.

So the problem isn’t necessarily with what we feed her highness, but rather her tumultuous relationship with Butthead (one of the many names we have for Buster).

Now, don’t be calling the Minnesota ASPCA about how we treat our cats. They are spoiled rotten and get everything they want. They have a box filled with toys, have more areas to sleep than we do and generally get away with whatever they want.

What happens is Buster is incredibly active. Both of our hands are a testament of this as it is frequently said throughout the house that we are Buster’s favorite chew-toy. We’ve got cuts and scratches up and down our arm as this feline terror bunny-kicks the ever-loving bananas out of our arms.

He runs like a madman up and down the stairs, into the basement and through the house. He’s become my unofficial laundry assistant and I have no doubt that he’s judging the amount of detergent I use.

He has more boxes to play in than he has a right to.

He just plays — a lot. That sometimes transfers to wanting to play with Nemi, who is not as keen as Buster to play, which has partially led to her roundness.

To put it mildly, Nemi is a dainty little girl who will have none of the roughhousing that Buster so desperately wants. Buster will chase Nemi, who is actually fleeing for her life. However, Buster sees this as play and gets her cornered resulting in what we’ve termed as her warcat scream and in turn results in my stubbed toe as I race to rescue our little damsel in distress.

Or, during the chase, she will run to one of us adults in the room who act as her saviors.

What all of this has turned into is a little girl who does more lying about than playing and therein lies the challenge.

We try to play with Nemi. We really do, but the moment Buster sees this then he wants to play and Nemi heads for the hills.

The only time she plays is if Buster is mowing down Zzzz’s upstairs, oblivious to Nemi and her sudden desire to run about, safe in the knowledge that Buster is not part of the circus.

On top of all of this, we will now start to cut down on food and treats, which absolutely will lead to a humanitarian issue by the time their Oscar-worthy performances of starving are shared.

To be a little more precise, Nemi starts “dying” around about 5-5:30 p.m. at night -— a full hour to half hour before her meal. She crouches where we can plainly see her, casting mournful glances and sad cries our way.

Buster puts on a show of calm, though the disdain of not being fed when he would like to be fed is clear in his side glances.

So now we are at the point of trying to get Nemi a little less ball-like. She has a slight developmental issue with her nose that does have an affect on her breathing so there is a very real desire to get her to lose weight. She’s a pretty important part of our house, even if Buster disagrees.