Nobody's home.

Between Mommy's surgery and going to Michigan, I haven't spent a night at home since May 20--and I didn't sleep that night because I was up all night packing for my trip home. Luckily my darling husband loves me and has come to stay with me at my mom's the past two weekends. If it weren't for those visits, I don't know how I would stay sane. He keeps me centered enough to hold it all together.

On Saturday we went home for the afternoon/evening to check on our kitties and so I could have a break. My mom probably wanted me to get laid so I wouldn't be so tightly wound. Well, mission accomplished, and I also managed to do a load of laundry (to clean up the bath mats the cats puked on), clean the kitty water fountain and litter box bathroom (yes, they have their own bathroom), work on Jason's Corvette with him (we went through the car wash!), and have a nice dinner out. Score--on all fronts.

Meanwhile, other family members are also living out of suitcases. My sister has been in a hotel for a week because she and her roommates discovered a terrible mold problem in their apartment. They're trying to get out of their lease, but it's complicated with three people. Daddy and April moved to a hotel last night because of the tornadoes in Michigan--their plumbing doesn't work right now so their insurance company put them up until it's fixed. It could be worse--their neighbor a quarter mile down the road was killed. And Jason is on the road this week--tonight in New York, tomorrow in Vermont, and Thursday in Maine.

Thinking about other peoples' situations makes my cozy digs here at Mommy's seem not so bad, after all. It's not home with my kitties and husband, but it's home away from home with my Velveteen rabbit. And who can resist him? No one--not even the maintenance man who came to unclog the toilets today. Yes, the two toilets in Mommy's apartment clogged up at the same time over the weekend. We had to use the bathroom by the "community room" in the basement for anything nonliquid. Good times. Jason and I used it for more than just its flushing ability--privacy is hard to come by these days, and we were both pretty desperate. Although, if I had known we were going to get time off for good behavior on Saturday, I would have been glad to avoid the rugburn on my knees.

In a couple of weeks my life will start getting back to normal. I anxiously await this time. Until then, every day is filled with surprises like poopy toilets that I have to plunge until I have blisters on my hands.