Four-legged kids.

That's what Oprah calls her dogs-- her "four-legged kids." I can relate to that, since I talk to our dog and three cats as if they were children in this house. And don't laugh too hard at that, because I swear they know what I'm saying most of the time.

Since we've been home from our trip to Germany, our middle-cat ShadowBaby has been more than living up to his name. He follows me all over the house whenever he's not on the screen-porch. He will sit on the newspaper when I'm trying to read it, he looks into the mirror with me as I put on my make-up, and if he's comfortable on one side of the house and I walk to the other side, he's right there with me, sometimes beating me to the room I'm heading for. If he sleeps inside at night, he's right on top of my pillow, taking up more than half of it. I think he missed us most of all. (Except for Gracie, who misses us if we leave the house to check the mailbox.)

AngelBoy spends most of his time on the screen-porch and I guess he's getting used to that now. When he does slip into the house, he does so with race-horse speed. I will open the door to the screen porch to let Gracie out there, and AngelBoy will be hiding right by the door so he can race between the dog's legs... Gracie goes out, and AngelBoy runs in and sits in the middle of the kitchen. He gives me that blue-eyed innocent look of his, and I tell him "AngelBoy, go and use that litter box. Go use your box!" Within a second or so, he will slowly prance into the laundry room and use the litter box. Then he watches me clean it out, as if to say "There! Are you happy now?" His reward is that he gets to stay in the house for half an hour. But I still watch him... I just don't trust that blue-eyed cat anymore.

Mickey Kitty has been trying to climb into my husband's slippers since we got home. Those slippers are his favorite things in this house, I think, besides his little red mouse. We left the slippers by my husband's chair in the TV room when we were away, but we don't think he played with them while we were gone. When we got home, the slippers were perfectly set side by side, just as we left them. I don't think Mickey Kitty is that talented, to have put them back that way after he tried to shove his little head into the toes of the slippers. And I don't think the pet-sitter would have bothered to straighten them. Mickey Kitty is still rather small, and looks like a kitten. If he tried hard enough, he could get half of his body in one of those slippers. He plays his own little games with the slippers, but his favorite part seems to be stealing them from my husband's feet. So I guess if the feet aren't in the slippers, it's not as much fun for him.

Gracie got a bath today... my husband took her out in the driveway with the shampoo bottle and the hose. She went out there smelling like a dog, and came back in smelling like Dove soap. All the cats have closely examined and sniffed her since the bath. I guess they were all used to Gracie's puppy-in-the-grass aroma, since she loves to roll over in any patch of grass that's sun-soaked.

Speaking of soaked, the backyard got a good soaking last night. So much so that we had a little pond back by the fence. I've always thought we might as well dig out a pond in that spot since the rain gathers there every time when we have heavy thundershowers. We had lightning and thunder last night, and at one point during the storm, I was on the phone with one of my cousins and a huge loud clap of thunder broke--- I screamed into the phone, my cousin screamed back at me. Scared us both to death.

And today is hot and sunny and beautiful. Looks as if it had never rained... unless you look at the shallow pond near our back fence where the sparrows are bathing.