I arrived a few minutes late at the airport when I drove to the next town to pick him up. Or, a happier way to put it, I arrived on schedule, but his plane arrived ten minutes early!

The boys were pleased to see my brother, as was I, because the place is neatly picked up and vacuumed (don’t check for dust…!) even though I didn’t finish the job until literally the last minute before I had to leave to pick up my brother.

We’ve lived in filth and squalor lately because I figured I should wait till the last minute to clean up before my family arrived rather than clean up when the place needed it, then have to do it again at the last minute. I don’t know, but I think next time I’ll clean twice instead of live in filth and squalor again!

Even I have a limit, I discovered. I had to empty my vacuum canister four times, there was so much crud on the floor. This is not that big a place! And I forgot yesterday was trash day. I barely got the trash out the door, but the sack with the week’s accumulation of “cat litter” — well, clumped urine and poop — didn’t get out in time. Not what you want to live with a second week. Andy and Dougy are cute, but there are some downsides to them, too.

As cats will do, they made sure the scent-marked him by wrapping their tails around him as they nonchalantly walked past him. At least Dougy did. Andy was more discrete about it.

My brother and I sat down, being old guys with bad knees and sore feet. I’d brought out a new toy the cat brothers both really, really, really like. Andy oftentimes is a bit fussy about toys, so anything he really, really, really likes counts as a major home run! Have you seen the price of cat toys?

I hate buying something both Andy and Dougy won’t play with. Andy, anyway. Dougy is a play slut: He’ll play any time, any toy! Especially if its his favorite human uncle, my big brother! Both boys enjoyed their play session with my brother and the new toy.

After all that last-minute cleaning, I hadn’t managed to bring in anything easy to make, so I was happy I had some frozen sloppy joes in the freezer. My brother and I had that for supper, and topped it off later with some mixed nuts.

Time to finish this update and get on with the icky chores for today!

We managed to stay up till a bit after 9 PM, though we both managed to nod off from time to time doing it. Yeah, we had to watch all the Andy and Dougy videos I made since the last time he was here, then we watched something on television.

The cats got me up at the usual time this morning, after two, before three. I caught up on my e-mails, videos, blogs, and Facebook since my brother wisely stayed in bed. Of course the cats know I’m the one who feeds them, so my brother gets to sleep in! 🙂

Today, I have to apply flea-tick-whatever stuff on the boys, clean their water fountain and put in a new filter, and — still — give Andy his medicine. He’s been begging me for attention, but I’ve ignored him on the thought he might be ready to be caught when I complete this update. Or not. Andy is no idiot, unfortunately, and he can run faster than I can!