Well, I'm finally back home in Thailand. It was a long trip (3.5 weeks) and I missed my little buddy Vino terribly. Fortunately he was in very good hands. The maid came in every morning and evening to feed him. From December 19-29th, our friend Dane who lives down the street came by every couple of days and hung out in the house and played with Vino for a few hours at a time. Then a transient female pilot came to town and Dane got her to stay in our house until we got back on January 14th. Oh, that sounds strange. We *do* know her, she's not a stranger. Anyway, Sue was very quickly indoctrinated over to the feline side and Vino has her firmly wrapped around his little paw. She wrote up this little thing and left it in our mailbox. Proof positive of the brainwashing influence of the mothership:

Top 10 Reasons Why You Know You Are Home

10) Your head has finally stopped ringing from the 24 + hours of planes, trains & automobiles.

9) You go back to work with a ton of cat hair on your clothes. So much so that your coworkers think you are an escaped lion from the zoo.

8) The good news is that you are served breakfast in bed by a loving member of your family.

7) The bad news is the loving member of your household is "the cat" and breakfast is a fresh cockroach.

6) One morning you wake up tired and not rested. No wonder. You are sleeping on a paltry 1/5 of the bed while "the cat" luxuriates on the other 4/5.

5) The next morning you wake up tired, not rested and with a stiff neck. No wonder. You are resting "comfortably" on the hard mattress. You note that "the cat" is hogging the one and only pillow.

4) The next night you are woken in the wee hours from a sound sleep by a pounce that registers 6.8 on the Richter scale. In your sleep deprived stupor you realize that the previous day you neglected to play with "the cat" (aka HRH Vino) and lavish him with the appropriate amount of attention.

3) You watch cute cat poses instead of satellite TV.

2) You fear your vision is failing because everything you try to read or write is blurred with a large dark shadow in the middle. You then realize the shadow is in the shape of "the cat". You start to worry less about your vision and more about who controls the household...

1) You finally notice your life slowly and insidiously starting to revolve completely around "the cat". But it's too late. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

Anyway, the little stinker was decidedly less enthusiastic about our return from this trip than from previous trips. I wonder what she did that we don't do??? Oh yeah and he brought us a fresh cockroach in bed on our first night home. Wonder what that means... LOL!

Copyright © Britta Wilson
January 17, 2003