It’s Memorial Day, and most folks here in the Valley of the Sun are kickin’ back, enjoying a few brewskies in the shade, or taking a dip in the pool where it isn’t 103 degrees. I’m guessing a few are at the Superstition Springs Golf Club driving range, but today my mind is as far away from golf as it ever has been.

Why? Because I’m shoveling fouled sand into a wheelbarrow to prime my sandbox area for whatever the next stage of my Tiki bar area recovery effort takes me. Why? Because that %#$!@ neighborhood cat that everyone in the neighborhood knows about but will do nothing about has destroyed my Tiki bar area, leaving me a gazillion options but none that are as clear-cut and financially attractive as I’d like. Here are just a few:

1. Rip the entire thing out and pave it over with concrete.
2. Leave it as it is and allow the cat to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants.
3. Lay a coating of chicken wire or window screening on top of the sand, then cover it with a thin coating of sand.
4. Create a “boardwalk” by laying weathered planks down on top of the sand.
5. Buy a gun and shoot the son-of-a-bitch.
6. Lay a trap to capture the bastard and hold it for ransom until it’s owners come begging.
7. Fence the entire area in.

Obviously, #2 is the option that requires the least attention and cost, but who wants to walk in a sandbox they know has been pi$$ed and $hit in by a cat? And, while #5 is the most desirable option, it would be my dumb luck to miss the cat and hit one of my neighbor’s kids in the head. Next thing you know, I’m on the front page of Drudge Report with the headline, “Missed Cat, Killed My Kitten!” and my neighbor wanting the government to put all NRA members in an internment camp and confiscate every gun in America.

Frankly, #6 ain’t worth the bother. I’d rather poison the cat. And, #s 1 and 7 aren’t especially aesthetically pleasing.

But back to Memorial Day. I’m not enjoying a few brewskies in the shade or relaxing in the pool, I’m carting fourteen – fourteen! – wheelbarrow’s full of soiled cat box sand and creating a big mound in the scrub area out front (they call this “creative landscaping”) and carting the rest of it 1/4 mile down the street into the desert area by the canal behind the houses across the street. (I originally thought of bagging the soil, but my second plastic bag ripped open as I was tossing it into the wheelbarrow, so I knew that idea wasn’t a keeper.)

While I was back in Massachusetts I had awoken one night at 3 AM with option #4 in my head. Unfortunately, the company in Wisconsin that sells weathered planks wants $1,000 plus shipping for nine 12″ X 2″ X 9′ planks, so that ain’t gonna happen. I really like the boardwalk solution, however – it not only would deter the cat, but it offers a potentially-attractive upgrade to straight beach sand. So now it looks like I’ll be traveling to Home Depot, or Lowe’s, or Lumber Liquidators to find pressure-treated lumber and stain the whole thing myself. It’s a lot of work for the hottest months of the year, but I don’t see a lot of alternatives at this time.

And it’s all because of a %$#@! cat.