I can't add to your cat stories - my last cat passed away last winter.

It was Poppy barking to alert me that I'd probably overslept my snooze alarm this early morning, and I had. Someone put their eBay auction of a platter just like the one that broke in my antique set to end at 5:25am. I sometimes will get up for the last few minutes and bid, I don't use any of the sniping software. But that snooze button didn't fire off and I slept through it, so the first and only bid, already there, got the platter for $5.99. Darn. I always make sure my auctions end during the waking hours - I figure I'll get more last minute bids that way.

I reclaimed my kitchen yesterday, so it looked okay when I went to bed last night. I'm still filtering the juice but for now it's in the fridge settling. Most of those pots and sieves were for juice for grape jelly. Next time I'll go with my friend's steam juicer. I like the darker color from cooking the fruit all together in a pan so the skins color it, but I really like the ease of steam juicing and not having to filter at all.

I mowed about 1/3 of the front yard yesterday, and I took the trimmer around to get the straggling tendrils of grass that grew over the curb along the entire front yard. I'll finish mowing today (it got hot so I just stopped). We had two solid weeks of rain that ended Sunday, during which time the yard grew wildly, and then the short-sighted code enforcement officer comes around and posts citation warnings on the house three days after the last rain. I'd have waited for that curb inspection after the next weekend and then all of this would have been gone as people got out after lawns had a reasonable chance to dry (it always amazes me how people down here will mow the same day it rains). There is no fine, just extreme annoyance at the anal tendencies of some of these minor bureaucrats.

SRS