Slow and steady on the weight loss: try using a little scale to weigh the usual portions you give her (you can include the scoop as long as you always use the same one) and after you have an average over a day or two, start making her new portion size just a few grams less. Between that and more playtime she'll slim down without being too mad at you.
If you have only been doing dry food you could also try changing one of her meals to wet food, keeping the same amount by weight. Dry food is more caloric per gram because water is heavy. The extra hydration will help her feel satisfied and be good for her kidneys.
Because you realize that poor stressed-out cat needs a home where someone understands the importance of regular meals even if she's a little slow sometimes, and is also willing to accept the rejection of pets. Goose and Manny may get along, and/or Goose may give Manny a legitimate reason for his drama. But they'll work out their boundaries and you're doing the right thing.
Okay I'm going to make allowance for the fact that of course you are insane from the intense responsibility of having a tiny human who's completely dependent on your wife and you 24/7.
Been there, and yes it's different from a cat or even a kitten. Mostly scarier.
For instance a cat's fur and claws mean a plastic bag on their face won't kill them. And they might get into trouble climbing all over the house at night but if they fall, or you drop them, they'll land on their feet.
Try to breathe, and remember, the nights may last forever but the weeks fly by.
Appreciate the intensity of your love, but don't begrudge your wife's brother's love for his cats.
The time will come when your kid becomes an adult and you can relax a little bit. And unless you really fucked it up, you'll still be their parents, bound for life by love.
Your wife's brother, who is just trying (failing but trying) to relate, will at some point be grieving the death of those cats, and I hope you'll do a better job of understanding his feelings than he is of yours.
Just another way the US is an Alpha Democracy. (as in, still full of bugs that got fixed in later versions.) At least I live in California which does a great job on elections.
Here's something else I found, looks like you can freeze the tomatoes in their skins, and then slip the skins off and turn the still-icy flesh into gazpacho. Might be an easier way to go, if you decide you like the salad-soup. https://ucanr.edu/sites/default/files/2019-10/312322.pdf
I get it, but it's really gonna be soup after you freeze and thaw it. Might develop a different flavor profile too. And if you keep it any real length of time, even frozen, you could be growing bacteria because they're not dead just slowed down. Read up on safe techniques on the website. And try freezing one portion of your salad for a few days, (that's at least as safe as leaving it in the fridge) then thaw it and see if it's going to be worth the trouble.
If it were possible and safe to freeze raw tomatoes for salads, you would have seen packages of them in your grocer's freezer. If you're willing to use them for soup/stew, here's how to do it without making anyone sick:
We have rules too, but the despot in chargge tramples on the rules, and his toadies in Congress and on the Supreme Court let him. He already had Musk and his DOGE goons get rid of most of the career government workers who normally carry out the rules. Elections are supposed to be run by the various states, and that's given us hope for changing control of Congress at the midterms in November, but he is trying to wrest control of the whole election process.
Under the current circumstances, with an administration that's actively working to restrict and gerrymander away the voting power of anyone who's not on their side, and firing many of the nonpartisan government employees who might get in their way by refusing to rig the process and results, I don't think we can have enough confidence in our government to call a vote of no confidence, even if it were in our Constitution.
One thing I've never understood: y'all declare you have no confidence in the government but you have enough confidence to trust it to run a fair election?
Slow and steady on the weight loss: try using a little scale to weigh the usual portions you give her (you can include the scoop as long as you always use the same one) and after you have an average over a day or two, start making her new portion size just a few grams less. Between that and more playtime she'll slim down without being too mad at you.
If you have only been doing dry food you could also try changing one of her meals to wet food, keeping the same amount by weight. Dry food is more caloric per gram because water is heavy. The extra hydration will help her feel satisfied and be good for her kidneys.