I have a family again!! :D

M & L arrived home Tuesday evening just a few minutes before I got home from work. It was great to see them, and I still have lots of Luciana cuddles and love to catch up on. After dinner, they showed me the pictures and video from their trip. I had a little private mourning time for my loss of time to myself (goodbye to productivity, relaxation, and a clean, organized house). The critters were SO happy to see them! The dogs were performing full-body wags while simultaneously jumping around and flinging themselves at their long-missed family members. The cats were much more “cool” about the whole thing, but they were pushing in trying to get their loving, too. L. also spent some time visiting with the birds and Scraps, who always love to have her in there with them.

This morning I was finally able to get my high-stress work issues resolved and will be able to make my deadline with no problem. That allowed me to go to the farmer’s market earlier than I usually am able to go, so I scored lots of good produce—most of it organic/pesticide free. I got a lot of good fruit for snacks and smoothies, too. Since Dej will be having all four wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow morning, I got enough to keep her in smoothies for a few days, as I don’t think she’ll be eating anything that requires chewing for a few days.

My cats are making me crazy! They have been SO naughty lately! Ivan, well, he’s just an ass to the other cats about 90% of the time. He likes to lie in the middle of the floor, sprawled out on his back, growling over anything he thinks might be moving. He torments poor Jasper by chasing him, which Jasper doesn’t really like. Then he gets in a weird (for him) pleasant mood, tries to play with the other cats, and when they hiss or walk away, he has the nerve to be upset about it. Petey continues to break things and knock things over--preferably in the middle of the night, to wake me and scare the crap out of me all at once. It would take ages to type in a log of all the damage he did just over the past 11 days that M & L were gone. Baxter, the food addict, follows me around all the time, begging. Not just when I have food. All. The.Time. “Mow mow”. “Mow mow”. No, not “meow”; he just goes with the “mow” portion. He steals food mercilessly from others (although Jasper does this too). All of the cats get treats when I first get up in the morning and before I go to bed at night. The treats are in closed containers that can only be opened with an opposable thumb. They found out how to break into everything else. These treat containers reside in a basket that is kept up on top of my dresser. Several times a day, he jumps up on my dresser, yelling “mow, mow” repeatedly, pulls the basket off, tips it over, making noise and scattering treat containers all over. He likes to do this in the middle of the night also. Baxter and Oliver love to wrestle. This is fine, except that they seem most inspired to have these matches in my bed while I’m trying to sleep. This morning, at around 4:30 , while playing chase, they launched themselves the approximate 10 feet from the hallway to my bed. Ollie landed on the back of my leg, claws extended, and skidded up, ripping my skin. What a special way to wake up. Just to make sure I couldn’t go back to sleep before my alarm went off, Carrie (yeah, if you’ve been paying attention to the cattery, you’ll notice I kind of slipped her in) insisted on parading across my stomach and chest repeatedly, so she could get the best angle at which to knead my midsection. She follows this up with demanding cuddles and love. If I try to pretend I’m sleeping, she puts her face nose-to-nose with me and just stays like that, breathing on my mouth and nose, until I respond with the desired attention. Right around that same time period is when Delila snuggles up to me and demands her morning loving. Do my cats have no respect for those of us who are NOT morning people? I could continue. There is oh so much more. They also work in teams to achieve extra levels of naughtiness. It's frustrating. As much as I love them, they are really driving me nuts, because there is no way to win with cats. With the dogs, the Ceasar (The Dog Whisperer) method has been invaluable, but there is no training cats. I will spend the rest of my life trying to outsmart them and find a way to sleep more than an hour or two without being awakened by my furry little criminals!

Since Mark has copied his vacation pictures onto our network, and I'm too lazy to walk down and grab his laptop, I'm going with some more flower pics that I took at the Olbrich conservatory.