oh God oh God oh God I thought she wasn't ever coming back! Tenzing kept saying she wasn't ever coming back and I kept telling him that she would, but the sun kept coming up and she wasn't ever there to feed us in the morning and I was starting to worry that maybe Tenzing was right.He's the smarter kittybrother, after all.

I pounced on her as soon as she came in from the kitchen. You should have smelled her shoes! They were fabulous! I know she was wearing them when she left last week, but when she brought them back tonight they smelled totally different - like a place I've never seen or sniffed before. They also smelled a little like those cats she visits while she's in Atlanta (I heard her say "Freya likes me," but I don't know this 'Freya' - is that even a cat's name?) but mostly it was that strange, far-off smell.

I followed her into the bathroom, because she seems to think that she can pee without my help, and I'm afraid that if I let her pee by herself the toilet will eat her. Toilets do that, you know. They make rumbly noises, and are kinda scary - I don't care what she says. I don't want her to be eaten by the toilet, so I stand guard by her while she sits on it and talk to her to reassure her that she's not going to fall in.

She reached down and scratched me - oh, bliss! how I have missed that! - while she was there, and made those funny not-meowing sounds she makes that she seems to think we understand (even though it's total gibberish) and then we went back to the living room.

I got so excited about her being home that I chased Tenzing around the living room and meowed a lot. Really loud, too, because it feels good when I let loose like that. It helped me take the edge off of the excitement. It was either that or I was just going to burst. Instead I yelled it all out and let my tail go all puffy and bottle-brush-y and it was all good.

…until she brought in The Box, and I honestly thought my little kitty brain was going to explode. It was the most sniffylicious thing I've ever sniffed in my life. The box smelled sorta like her shoes, but stronger, like it had been there longer. She started pulling out things she called 'sweaters' and oh oh oh were they soft and none of them smelled like the box, or her, or anything else I've ever smelled in my entire life.

It was like when she brought all those clothes home from a place she called a 'thrift store.' I don't know what a 'thrift' is, but I know it's soft and feels like laundry and each piece smells different from the last one and it's all so exciting that I barely know how to make my paws type fast enough to describe it before I just pass out.

Tenzing can't wait for her to take the 'sweaters' out of the box. I want to sleep in the sweaters; he wants to sleep in the box. Just because we're brothers doesn't mean we agree on anything, after all.

I just hope she stays this time. She was gone, and then she was sick, and then she was gone again. I'm afraid to hope. Will she be here when I get up? I hope so. I mean, Jeff feeds us and all, but she gives us scritchies.

I've missed my scritchies.