We warned them, but our two cats...

We warned them, but our two cats foolishly looked directly at the solar eclipse the other day. The vet says the blindness is temporary, but they’re having a heck of a time trying to maneuver around the house holding those tiny canes in their tiny paws, tap-tapping their way from room to room.

Tragic.

We tried taking advantage of the situation, however, sneakily substituting our hand for their paw whenever they got around to washing themselves with those long, lazy tongue-strokes. It worked the first time, but they wised up real quick. When we tried getting a free bath the other day, they bit us.

We’ve got a good mind to put them both out on the street, with dark glasses and pencil holders.

Let ‘em chump for some change and see what it’s like to work for an honest living.

“Nobody cleans our litter box,” we told them the other day, figuratively speaking.

Who answers our plaintive meows in the night?

It’s no use. You can’t reason with cats.

Maybe we’ll put them on some corner on Hollywood Boulevard, then coolly walk by them as we take the Hollywood Heritage historic walking tour at noon today. (Call 874-4005 for information.)

The cats are a bit unnerved by all this tough talk. No reason to get their whiskers all bent out of shape.

Putting them out on some street corner, begging, may be somewhat harsh.

The Formidable Companion probably said it best: “Be nice. Can’t you see they’re blind, lunkhead? Open your eyes.”

We will, taking in George Hadley-Garcia’s book “Hispanic Hollywood: The Latins in Motion Pictures,” which the author will read and sign at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Midnight Special Bookstore in Santa Monica. (Call 393-2923 for information.)

“There’ll be no going out for you two the entire week,” we told the cats. “No yowling at the moon. No chasing mice. No sitting on the fence.”

Leave that to Hamlet, another supreme fence-sitter. The premiere of a restored film version of the Shakespeare classic will be screened by the UCLA Film and Television Archive at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Melnitz Theater. (Call 206-8013 for information.)