What I am doing right NOW

Besides making dinner...

I went outside this afternoon to take pictures of the outside of my house...seeing as friends and family have been mentioning those the most (and I've been avoiding them because I don't want to show off how much work I still have to do to get ANYWHERE in the yard).

I hadn't seen my cat since I let him out last night. I was a little concerned, but he's a little wanderer so...

And then I heard it...the meowing. "Mal!" I called. "Mal!" and followed the nearly hysterical meowing to there. What? Didn't you see it? Check out that picture again if not. He's stuck 25 feet off the ground in a tree in my backyard (bottom left quadrant).

Seriously now what??

We've got fleas.

Ugh.

Only half jokingly, remind me not to get any more animals.

In case you thought that maybe there was some quirky story to go along with my title. . . No, just we've got fleas courtesy of our newest household member.

At least, i'm guessing that is the reason I have 10+ bites on my upper thighs today. Bill found a flea on Mal and had some bites on his ankles the day (day after?) we brought Mal home. He had had flea medicine that day and we went and got him a flea collar. But, honestly, I thought that would be it.

I was wrong. They are still existing in...my bed? or my clothing bottoms? I dunno but uh I already had to wash a whole drawer (drawers are part of bed frame) of previously clean clothes after Mal peed in there. Now I'm thinking I need to wash up everything on/under our bed and set off a bug bomb? Anyone?

I should SO be doing something productive: Like unpacking and laundry

Meet the newest member of our household!

This is Mal

(whose actual name is Malcolm, and yes, he is named after a Joss Whedon/Firefly character some of you may know...)

Mal became his name because it was either that or "Wash" (another allusion to Firefly) and Mal sounds suspiciously like "Meow" which Miriam can say.

He meows a lot, and tries to climb on my shoulder, and sleep in my bed, and wakes me up at night (which I do NOT appreciate). He was totally freaked out of Miriam at first (well freaked out of moving to a new house and then: "What the heck is that large thing that is screetching at me???!!!!). Today, though, he actually came up on my bed when she was there and hugged her with his head. She gave him kisses on his nose. It was so very cute I can hardly stand it. Later of course she was screetching again and chasing Mal around the house. This time though he might have been playing with her. At least... a little bit.