My cat Yuki has a new early morning game that she likes to play. It entails locating one of her smaller-sized crackly cat toys, for starters, and then batting it around on the floor for a bit and carrying it around . . . just to get warmed up. Then, when she's through warming up, and when she's also sure that I'm fully engrossed at the computer with my first large mug of coffee, she charges the laptop table, leaping up by the computer, crackly cat toy in her mouth, and then slam-dunks said cat toy into my large mug of coffee with a triumphant splash. (At this point, the choice of the smaller-sized crackly cat toy has now become disconcertingly clear: it has obviously been selected because it is the size of cat toy that will actually fit within the opening of the large coffee mug.) Having slam-dunked her cat toy into my coffee, Yuki then immediately lets out one of those throaty, loud Siamese yowlps. She is without a doubt, at this juncture, extremely pleased with her bad self.

These morning WNBA-style shenanigans, however, can clearly take it out of a girl. Afterwards, fierce and gratuitous napping is frequently in order.

Things I never imagined I would hear myself say out loud before I had cats:

1. Don't make me get up. Hey . . . ! Don't MAKE me get up!! Are you really gonna make me get up? Look at me . . . yeah, that's right, I'm getting up, missy!

2. Hey . . . where did you . . . that's MY scrubby thingy. That's not a toy, mister! You give that back!

3. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, nobody likes a pig licker.

Yay, you're back, you're back, you're back!! We've missed you very much!

- Shannon from Seattle

It is about time! Hooray!
-Shannon from MSP, by way of Vermillion, born of Yankton, always South Dakotan.

YAY! I'm doing my happy dance.

hot DAMN! You're back!

...and yes.. YOU'RE BACK!!

My goodness, you've been missed.

--anne

Yayyyy....

And the Bean-Bean has gotten so BIG! He still looks just like our Dash.