Updates Various

I tell you what, readers mine, it has been insane trying to swipe a moment on the computer lately! Anne Elisabeth spends all day every day pouring over it, typing up her silly stories (which aren't half so interesting as mine, so why does she bother?), and when she is through, she closes it all up and refuses to let me get on it.

She's very selfish like that.

But today, I finally have an opportunity to update you on some of the events happening around Rooglewood from the four-footed perspective.

First item of note . . . the Minion was found to be with fleas.

Or at least, flea.

Didn't matter. One was enough to send Anne Elisabeth into a silly tizzy of tizziness. The Minion was tossed into solitary in the studio (Heheheh. He sat at the door and mewled his little heart out, quite pathetic! I would never do such a thing.) Then Anne Elisabeth subjected the rest of us each to a flea-inspection, which, if you have never had one, is a completely undignified procedure.

I tried to explain to her that a flea would not be caught dead on my glorious personage. Being wretched, Anne Elisabeth didn't pay any attention. Of course, she couldn't find one, not on me or Marmaduke or Molly. So Minion remained in solitary overnight, and today, Anne Elisabeth sallied forth to fetch home flea medication.

Ick.

It's all gooey on the back of my neck even now as I type. And I don't even have any fleas! To make things worse, Anne Elisabeth has gone on a vacuuming spree. She vacuumed last night, she vacuumed this morning, and she's threatening to vacuum again this evening, just to be safe. I mean, isn't one vacuuming bad enough? Ugh!

I hate the vacuum monster. Whenever it comes out, Molly flees (Hehehe, or fleas! Get it? I am very funny today.) for the highest bookshelf top, Marmaduke skulks under something low, and the Minion disappears to who knows where. I am not so cowardly. I follow the vacuum all through the house and bat it on the nose now and then, just so it knows who is Ruling Despot around here. When it stops its grumbling roar, and Anne Elisabeth puts it away again, I scold her looooooudly.

But she never listens.

Hmmm, let me see, what else have we been up to of which you should be informed? Rohan is still quite perfectly wonderful. Want to see proof?

He grew a mustache recently. Anne Elisabeth laughed at him, but I thought it was beautiful.

Our souls are so in-tune, we even make the same faces!

And here he is without a mustache.

Ours is a Love for the Ages. It's a bond that few can understand (certainly not Anne Elisabeth). He is my darling, and I am his sweetie, and this is how the world should be.

Okay, moving on.

So yesterday, Anne Elisabeth and Rohan disappeared for a mysterious forty minutes in the evening. When they came home, Anne Elisabeth reached out to me and . . .

and . . .

Phew! There was a very strange smell on her hands. Marmaduke and the Minion noticed it too, and we sat, the three of us, for a long while, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. It wasn't a smell I recognized, but it was strong and, I thought, perhaps animal?

"What do you think, Minerva?" Anne Elisabeth asked me. "Are you ready for a new sister?"

A new . . . what?

"And this one isn't a kitty, either. You're going to have a BIG new sister!"

A new sister. A big new sister. Not a kitty.

Could it be? Dare I say the word?

Is it a . . .

But no. I won't even think it. Rohan would never let Anne Elisabeth do such a thing! Not to me! Not to his sweetie!

"What is it?" the Minion asked me afterwards (this was after he was confined to the studio, and we were chatting under the door). "What was that weird smell on Mommy's hand, Minerva?"

But I hadn't the heart to tell him my suspicions. We will wait. We will see . . .