ON A LIGHTER NOTE...

With only two weeks left until the return of Her Who Must Be Obeyed, suddenly I find I can concentrate on things that have seemed utterly unimportant for weeks: the garden, which is one solid bank of violets, which choke EVERYTHING else out; the house, which while not exactly filthy, is beginning to turn grey under a film of cat hair.

The cats have gone crazy. One of them has just STAYED crazy, farting and sneezing all over whoever picks her up, and running to hide whenever it's time to trade an evening feeding for a night spent in the laundry room. Well, I refuse to chase her all over the house, but I somehow wind up with a bed full of cats in the morning...

The other cat has taken to shredding things. A prayer rug from Iran looked like it had multi-colored dandruff before I rescued it and put it out of reach; the tin foil I put on the newel post to keep the Stinky Cat from clawing it done to a toothpick is now the source of endless pleasure to the Shredding Cat, who is also a Shedding Cat, being a long-hair. The house is littered with little bits of foil, and covered, as I may have already said in a gray film of cat hair. I don't understand how she can produce so much; she should be BALD by now. An hour after I sweep it looks like nothing has been done for days. It's time for a MAJOR cleaning...

The annuals I promised I would plant are still languishing in their root-jammed six-packs; it has been so cold and rainy that it seemed dumb to put them in, but now that it's sunny and hot [who knew?] I can see that I have missed the boat. So I spent the afternoon trying to root out enough violets to get the annuals in in one bed at least. I can see that this is going to take a lot of the week, and that's before I even try to track down the Very Last Tomato Plants in New England.

I don't mind laundry [with my own clothes, there is no drama about what is allowed to go into the dryer -- EVERYTHING does]. But I love putting it out on the line, and I love taking it down and bringing it in. I don't love folding it enough to get all the wrinkles out, but neither does any one else. So we just look slightly rumpled in our clean clothes. Who's to know they aren't yesterday's?

Of course, with the children returning home, things like what kind of coffee and how much gets made in the morning will become hot topics again. And then there is the serious side of things... but you have all heard enough of that for a while.

Had the good sense to give up a treasurer's post today.
Nothing like letting someone else do the work to make you feel better.
So something is working.
Hang in there. I am doing my level best to do so.