The American writer Andre Norton once said, “Always the cat remains a little beyond the limits we try to set for him in our blind folly.”  Truer words were never spoken.  Our sweet but mischievous half Siamese kitten has inadvertently saved us a little bit of money.  I have always enjoyed getting fresh flowers from the grocery store each week, as I feel it has lent a cheery warmth to our home and our dinner table.  However that has gone out the window (and down the sink) since Mr. Blue arrived.  True to his Siamese roots, the little thing is a veritable hunter.  Nothing is safe from his grasp.  I used to think coming home to find scattered rose petals would be a romantic surprise.  However, coming home to find roses have been “killed” and strewn about in nearly every room of the house as well as on every available surface is NOT my idea of romance.  Add to that huge wolfies inadvertently grinding their giant paws into them and clean up is just miserable.  I have always eschewed artificial flowers, I suppose because I they have no life.  However I am now a reluctant convert.  See these roses?  Fake.  And guess what?  They look like this every day — no broken vases, no spilled water, and no flowers upended staring back at me in some macabre fashion.  They cost the same as the grocery store roses did for one week only these will last forever.  The greatest part is our mischievous cats leave them alone!  I have broken down and purchased some type of trailing (artificial) flowers that NEVER would have survived in our house if they’d been real and the gatos have not even touched them.  It just goes to show your pets can indeed push you beyond the limits, but maybe that is not always a bad thing.