Poltergeist

I honestly did vacuum and mop before I left for a week but you sure could not tell on my arrival home. So I got out the tools today to attack the whole haunted-house vibe from the rolls of cobwebby fur in every corner. It wasn't just the fur, either: it looked like a poltergeist had been at the place with receipts, pens, pill bottles, magazines, and letters in every possible spot on the floor. Apparently not only does nature abhor a vacuum, my cats abhor a clean floor and attempt to fill it with as much plastic and paper as they can lay their kitty paws on in my absence. I got quite a bit done, though. The place can sure use it, since I've been laid up one way or another for more than a year and a half. But if I can hit one bookcase or corner a day, eventually it will look more like my house again and less like a half-finished episode of Hoarders.
I talk to OoA#1 about four times a day and she is keeping busy and it's cooler there, at least. She seems pretty resigned to having a sucky birthday tomorrow and I am resigned to not telling her I told her so. I spend quite some time playing on the Southwest Airlines website researching fares for her to come home at Christmas. She will be going to NYC at the end of the week to stay with friends so that will cheer her up. Which will cheer me up.