Gee, I’m really on a roll with getting stuff up here for a change. Or course that can and probably will come screeching to a halt again because that’s how I roll. Rolling, but only occasionally and sporadically, and then skidding to a halt.

Anyway, here’s darling Spot when I took him for a walk in April. He’s posing on our neighbor’s pontoon boat. I mean, wouldn’t you have to pay a professional photographer big bucks to get a shot like that of a cat? “Just tilt your head up and the the side,” the beleaguered photographer would say, and of course, normally, a cat would just look away or turn completely around.

Another prof photo-worthy shot – Lovey is getting ever so slightly less terrified of me, and I was able to capture this when she was curled up on the kitty round a round. She enjoys lying on it, as does Lester and sometimes Sweetie.

Lovey is getting so slightly less terrified of me that when I have opened a door to the outside she skitters inside past me. I can’t say anything to her or make eye contact, when this event occurs, but I do think this is huge progress. In another ten years or so maybe she’ll let me get near her. But maybe not. She’ll be pretty old by then (as will I), and maybe that’ll mellow her out. Time will tell.

Spot and Lemon Drop enjoy sharing my lap and stretch all the way down my legs. When Lemon Drop gets there first she plops right down on my knees which is sometimes just a bit painful. But they’re so happy when we sit with them, so it’s totally worth it.

And meanwhile, non-cat-related – I’m sure I’ve mentioned that our bedroom is my workout room. I lift free weights there, I do High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, and also as yoga.

On April 5th I finished a workout and set my yoga mat on top of the wastebasket which is right next to the fire extinguisher. I must have bumped the fire extinguisher because it suddenly went off and started belching out huge clouds of fire-extinguishing stuff. It was light green and man, it billowed liked crazy. I wish I’d have gotten a video but I was too busy frantically getting it to shut off.

We’ve been watching the TV show “Once (upon a time) and people are always vanishing in a puff of smoke or the smoke is billowing out, and I felt like I was in an episode and suddenly Rumpelstiltskin was going to appear. He didn’t show up, but I watched in horror and disbelief as the clouds oozed down the pathway in back of the closet and around the corner towards the bed.

And then there was the clean up – many times when I work out on my bedroom rug I think, “I really need to clean in here.” I do vacuum every once in a great while, but I’ve never cleaned the floor like I had to do that morning. Kevin says that most modern fire extinguishers are filled with some type of carbon dioxide that doesn’t cause this mighty, crazy thick film.

This picture doesn’t do it justice; it was at least a quarter inch thick and when I vacuumed, the dust just billowed right back at me. I finally had to use the nozzle attachment and it took a very, very long time. It had crept under the dressers and into the partially open closet. It was most thick in this section you see here, but there was enough dust on the floor and under everything to make it somewhat of a nightmare.

I will say that the floor is pretty clean now. After vacuuming I wiped it all with floor cleaner and I’m pretty sure I’ve never cleaned quite that far back under the dressers and other stuff. Whew. I got a bonus workout that morning.

On a more cheerful note – Hyacinths always bloom around the front of the house; they grew around the old front door when Mom lived here as a child, and they’re spreading more so I decided to pick some because they’re so lovely and fragrant.

And now I must get back out to the yard work. I already weeded and did a little mulching down by the dock a few weeks ago but because of all the rain, the weeds are bigger than ever. The past couple days I’ve been trying to make some headway in the fenced yard. Yesterday I found some of the dreaded chameleon plants back there and I must tackled them right now. At least I think there aren’t quite as many of them this year.

Ok then,

Mrs. May Hughes.