Yes, it was a JOKE. For heaven's sake. I fully intended to post an entry, but it's been an extremely unpleasant couple of weeks. When I sat down to write and saw the date, it occurred to me that for the second year in row, not one person played a trick on me. That and hey, it got me out of writing about it for a little while.

Without further ado, let me get right to the unpleasantness. 

I had to return that darn cat and it broke my pretty red heart in two. There was something terribly wrong with him. He yowled non-stop and while that alone might have seemed normal for a kitty dropped into new surroundings, he also vomited, and produced weird, yellowish poops. Aside from his yowling and the stuff that came out of both ends of him, he was a very sweet kitty. Just lolled around and purred so long as you were holding or petting him. Once the contact stopped, however, the incessant meowing began again.

I cried when I returned him, then came home and cried some more. 

Only later did it occur to me to be angry with the shelter. They must have known this would happen and surely were aware of his digestive trouble. They not only caused me a lot of pain, but they disrupted the kitty's life as well. Jerks.

Aside from the kitty fiasco, I've been boo hoo hooing around here a lot lately, if you need to know. I've had a heck of a time breathing as of late and it's one of the issues I was struggling with awhile back. Here I was, nearly six months without a cigarette and I felt worse than when I smoked. Frightened that I had given myself emphysema, I went to the doctor for some nasty tests. Imagine yourself in a sealed chamber about the size of a time machine into which they pump chemicals so dangerous that the test administrator wore a mask. And she was outside the time machine. 

Essentially, they induced an asthma attack and that's what I have. Asthma. Delightful, no?

Then of course, the idea that we really are moving away from Chicago hits home and while I really do want to go back to New England, suddenly I'm behaving like a kid in a toy store. "Nooooooooooo! I don't wanna goooooooooooooooo!"

So there it is. I'm feeling very sorry for myself lately, thank you.

Now if you'll excuse me, Hula is apparently having the migraine of the century and I must prepare an icepack for his head.