Heh. Whilst doing the morning cat swap routine, I discovered Squirrel in the basement. I didn’t get a picture at the time, so here is Squirrel:

GAH! Kawaaiiiiii (cute in Japanese, cuz I’m a nerd). Dis the cat we think belongs to the new neighbors. I nicknamed it Squirrel because it’s hair is mostly short-medium, but LOOK AT THAT FLUFFY TAIL! Do not know if Squirrel is male or female.

All the same, when I was traveling to the basement with Comet and Mars, I discovered that Batman was already downstairs… I am going to happily assume that he and Squirrel became friends, because there did not seem to be any arguments and Batman being down there already is actually quite strange. He usually sleeps with me or in the chair in the living room. Comet is the one that alerted me to “Stranger Danger” when she hissed after reaching the bottom of the stairs. Squirrel was sitting in the basement bedroom just like they are in the picture above, calmly looking at me like, “Oh hi!” They were stuck inside our house the entire night, as we always shut the back sliding door so random critters don’t come in and cause havoc (Trash Pandas, man… adorable but destructive!).

Anyhoo… I went in and picked Squirrel up (they let me with no problems), so I could take them upstairs and outside. Due to Comet’s hissing, Squirrel did some grumblies, but we managed to get upstairs without incident. Once they saw the back door, however, they REALLY wanted to be put down. So I let them go, opened the door, and grabbed a handful of crunchies for them. And that was that.

Now, I shall share pics of our 4 cats – Princess Fluffybutt, Batman, Comet, Mars:

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OMFG I missed them so much while we were gone – I mean, look at them! They’re so adorable!

Oh yeah – The Thing that we did! We did a thing and we were gone…

It is seriously SO good to be home. To be able to use AI Generating for my Featured Picture. To sleep in my own damn bed. To love on my cats… vacations are great, but coming home is good stuffs!

Quick Side Note: I am going to be nicknaming all parties involved in The Thing (and 1 extra), for ease of writing and anonymity.

• The Boyfriend’s Deceased Best Friend: Chef
• The Boyfriend’s Ex/Chef’s Sister: Typhoon (the extra not involved in trip)
• Chef’s Widow: Curly
• Curly’s Boyfriend: Dolph (short for Dolphin, cuz hyper ADHD lol)
• BF and Chef’s Male Friend: Ketchup
• Chef and Curly’s 3 Kids: Javelin, V-Dog, Aria

So yeah… Curly rented an Airbnb in Cape Coral, FL for… 12. Days. All my previous “Day #” posts were done whilst there. I mentioned previously that I wouldn’t be able to give a lot away due to drama from Karen. The risk of Karen showing up at Curly and Dolph’s while we were gone (and possibly even OUR house) was too great for Curly’s comfort, so we were instructed not to post anything about the trip on social media. I was fine with that, though it did make blogging a little difficult. I’m not one for being vague, but I think I managed!

Smol Side Quest: Chef, Ketchup, and The Boyfriend were all besties for a very long time. Curly came along and married Chef, thus becoming part of that friend group. Chef, unfortunately, passed away from Cancer 3.5 years ago. The Boyfriend had helped Chef and Curly financially in the past, and thus Curly wished to impart a sort of “paying back” in kind. Thus, this trip to Florida.

The Airbnb had 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a salt water hot tub/pool, right next to a canal. I don’t recall having stayed in a place that fancy before. Day 1-2 was a picture of the pool, btw. Getting there was a bit of a pain, as we had to wake up at the Taint of Dawn (like 2am-ish) to meet up with Curly and her minions before driving 2 hours to DIA. Ugh, that place sucks so much. Too much damn walking for my crippled ass, let me tell ya. For the most part, though, we made it to Tampa without any hitches, got our rental vehicle (separate from Curly) and The Boyfriend drove us to the Airbnb. I promptly took a nap.

The Boyfriend, I noticed, was suspiciously affectionate the first few days of the trip. No complaints here, of course, but… SUS! 😛 We had a bit of a difficult time doing the daily check-ins, given how busy and social we were, but we managed to get them in late at night after we’d gone to bed.

I’m so brain-dead that I won’t be able to go into a lot of details, mostly just give a basic account of activities and such. I pushed myself way beyond my limits in all ways, but the lazy days helped ease the pain in small bits. This trip definitely convinced me that pain medication is needed, if I wish to enjoy life events with any alacrity.

We visited 2 different beaches on 2 separate days. There was a lot of swimming and hot tub relaxation. I spent most mornings out on the dock under the Tiki Umbrella. There was much eating, though I can’t say I was a fan of the seafood restaurant we all went to (I cannot partake in the smelling or eating of things that grew in water, unfortunately, it’s a whole thing – not an allergy). On Saturday, the 21st, The Boyfriend did (belated) stuffs for our 1 year Anniversary.

There were other adventures and lots of shenanigans. I was taxed physically, mentally, and emotionally – so much socializing, continuing with my EMDR therapy (twice), and physical things I probably should not have partaken in (but fuck it, I’m on vacation!), but overall it was a really great trip and I had a good time.

Can’t say the same about the return trip. That was… horrendous, to say the least. After taxing myself so much for 11 days, checking out of the Airbnb at 10am and having to entertain ourselves for 12 hours (flight left at 1030p local time)… ugh. Curly managed to find a fun thing for us, involving the Aquarium in Tamp and Penguins – so much fun, but alas, too much walking. We ended up getting to the airport almost 4 hours before our flight, because we were just DONE. The Boyfriend… bless his heart (and I don’t mean that in the shitty mocking way), was REALLY overstimulated and overwhelmed. Did not handle well. That caused both of us many problems and yesterday sucked as a result. We didn’t get home til around 330am. I had a doctor’s appointment at 12:30p and then our separate support group therapies for the addiction stuffs in the evening. We did our usual check-in, which went well for the most part… not so much near the end. Then we played Valheim YAAAAAY!

All the same… now we get back into the swing of normal life… regular blogging, all the therapies and appointments… existing.

I need a nap.