Dressing older people is a

challenge.
I had to dress the Senior Cat yesterday. He can do it himself but it takes time and time was not available yesterday morning. He had to be ready to go when his friend came to pick him up.
It is things like his fiddly little shirt buttons that are the problem. No, before you ask, he has to wear a shirt - preferably a white shirt. White shirts are what you wear on Sundays. He has always, always, always worn a white shirt on Sundays. These days he does dispense with a tie - except for weddings and funerals. (He has two ties. One is for summer with the clan crest and the other is for winter in the clan tartan. I dispensed with the rest at his request.) 
The Senior Cat no longer wears a suit - except for weddings and funerals - but he still insists on a white shirt on Sundays. Given the state of some of his other shirts I am happy to give on this matter.
But getting him dressed is an issue.
     "Put your left paw in first," I tell him. His left shoulder is an issue of major concern and I have tried to explain that it is much easier and safer to put things on that side first.  The problem is that he is, like most of us, a creature of habit. He dresses right side first. 
Somehow though I managed to get him into good grey trousers, white shirt, and heavy blue cardigan. He actually looked - reasonable...and his shoes were clean.
Once home again he has to change into his "old clothes". These are ancient, disgraceful and, according to him, "comfortable". I dare not argue. 
He has been wearing one of the striped "left over" pullovers my mother made. They looked "interesting" when my mother made them. She would take a ball of yarn and knit until she reached the end of it. Then she would take another ball of yarn left over from something else and knit until she reached the end of that - and then another, and another. She might add a stripe here and there with the "little bits". The stripes didn't match but the yarn would match - sort of - and she would end up with something "good enough for the shed and the garden". He has gone on wearing them. They are now all more than thirty years old and they look appalling. I thought he was wearing them because my mother had made them. There may be something in that but yesterday he actually said,
    "I  suppose I should give this one up. It's just that I don't like to waste things."
Waste? I have re-knitted the cuffs three times and the bands twice. I knitted a patch to cover the hole he made tearing it on the circular saw about fourteen years. (No, the saw was not working at the time or he would not be here.) There are patches where he managed to spill paint and glue and furniture wax on it. It is wearing thin in other places - and yes, I darned the elbows.
I think it is time to convert it into a pet blanket of sorts. I know one small animal which might, in a way, "appreciate" such a thing.
    "You should make him another one," Middle Cat told me.
No. He has others. They were made in the same way by our mother and he will use those. 
Anything I made would not be the same.