The Slice: If you could just smile this week …

My Spokane-loving sister-in-law from Michigan is here visiting.

So if the sourpusses in our midst (you know who you are) could just pretend to be friendly and helpful, I would appreciate it. I’d hate for her to discover that Spokane isn’t perfect.

It’s just for this week. Then you can go back to normal.

Slice answer (this area’s loudest cats): Hayden’s Karen Botker has a 16-year-old pet named Tamara. Normally this cat is pretty quiet.

But Tamara likes to drink water from the bathroom faucet. That’s not unheard of in the annals of life with felines.

There’s one problem, though. Tamara requires assistance to get up onto and then down off the sink counter.

“She has recently taken to sleeping in front of the bathroom door,” wrote Botker. “Then, when we wake up in the early morning hours to try to sneak a quiet, dark potty break – you know, so you don’t wake up all the way and can go back to sleep – she starts in with the MerRowing to be put on the counter. We never realized what a voice she has.”

Recently Tamara’s insistent demand to be hoisted up to the sink woke up the entire household.

“Maybe it was because of the usual silence of 5 a.m., but she’s got some pipes.”

Reader comment of the week from The Slice Blog: “The ONLY appropriate thickness for a milkshake is what I would describe as ‘moderately thick.’ This is understood as thick enough to support the spoon in the glass but not so thick that the consumer cannot suck it through a straw (a ‘straw’ being defined as the sort they use at McDonald’s, not the chintzy little things they hand out at Zip Trip). Any thicker than this (listen up, Wendy’s) is soft-serve ice cream, not a milkshake; any thinner and you might just as well drink strawberry milk. Anyone who disagrees with me on this is a socialist teabagger.”

Today’s Slice question: Metaline Falls will celebrate its centennial on Saturday, Sept. 3 (call 509-446-2211 for details). A variety of festivities are planned. But if you were in charge of the event, what would you do to make the occasion memorable?