My husband and I were on our usual daily walk when Mike sensed a disturbance in the Force and whipped around. His expression was so odd I turned too, and we both spotted a cat with a tuft where a tail should be running at us full speed.  It's not like a lion stalking across the Serengeti at you, but in a suburban neighborhood it can be unsettling when a strange cat has eyes for nothing but you.

As she grew closer and we muttered things like "Uh oh" and "This isn't good,"  she started meowing, which made her seem either less threatening or so desperate to rip out our throats she could barely stand it. We still didn't know which.

We were still rooted to our spots, resigned to our fates, when she started running figure eights through our legs and rubbing her face on my shins.

This year I decided I would plant everything we like to eat during the summer by seed, so when I bought an avocado and found myself rolling that smooth marble of a pit around in my palm, I thought--I'll plant this too!

I'm not what you call a green thumb to start out with. I inherited that from my mother, who could kill a bouquet of plastic flowers. Of the twenty tomato seeds I planted, I ended up with two viable stalks after the seedlings died one after the next. They took one look at me and thought, "Eh, why bother."

I think my goofy husband Mike might fear you all have the wrong impression of him (or that you might have the right impression and he'd like to change it anyway...).  I think he's going for more of a suave Don Juan type now... though you should be the judge of how well he's doing...

I started my Kilty series because I tried to watch Outlander (which isn't my thing but my mother was insistent) and all I could think the whole time was..

• This guy is hot but you know he smells like B.O. There's no deodorant unless she thought to grab a hundred packages of it before she was whisked away.
• If they keep having sex like this she is definitely going to get a urinary tract infection and antibiotics haven't been invented yet
• I doubt she smells like Chanel no. 5 either.
• They just had sex for the first time and she's just lounging around in the bed like pregnancy isn't even a thing and maybe that's something she might want to consider with everything going on at the moment.

After hearing the story about the man whose Alexa sent his friend a recording of him and his wife talking about flooring, Mike decided to go online and check our account. Sure enough, there were a million recording of me saying rude things to Alexa, because it amuses me. For instance, we have her setup to turn the lights on and off with a command, so every night I walk into the bedroom and say  "Alexa -- Turn on the lights" and bing the lights come on. And then, because she's been so sweet, I say some variation of, "Thanks, ya pox-faced trollop!"  All of which are recorded for posterity. Fantastic. Luckily, I'm an author and not a political hopeful.

Last night I reheated a meatball to throw on the spaghetti squash I was making for dinner (in case you were wondering how to shoehorn a bunch of fat and meat into a healthy vegetarian meal... oh, and don't forget the metric ton of Parmesan cheese...butter soaked garlic bread...). My husband Mike was standing next to me as I reached into the microwave with my clunky oven gloves to grab the little glass bowl I'd sat the meatball in for reheating.

You know where this is going don't you.

I had my parents over for dinner last week and decided to make "brie bites" as appetizer. Lovely aren't they?

<---- Yeah, those aren't mine.

The problem started when the food store didn't have those cute little Phyllo dough cups, so I bought a regular old roll of Phyllo dough. Giant crinkly sheets of the stuff.

It wasn't until I got home that I realized how utterly impossible it would be to make little cups out of a material akin to what I imagine the original Declaration of Independence feels like when crumpled in your hand.

Did I tell you there's a restaurant in Florida called "Aaron's Table" that sells candied bacon? And they serve it like laundry hanging from a line. This is my husband during the few seconds when he thought he might get a piece before I gobbled it all down. I'm still dreaming about it. Thought I'd share so you can be unhappy with everything else you eat today too. ;) I found a recipe for it here: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/221007/candied-bacon/ but I haven't had a chance to make it yet... maybe I should go do that now...

My husband Mike is obsessed with "smart bulbs" and "smart sockets" now, so instead of clicking a button now I have to ask Alexa or Google Assistant to turn on my lights.

But do I say, "Hey Google, turn on the bedroom lights?"

Nooo....that would be too easy.

Mike gave all the lights names.  I have to walk into the bedroom and say "Alexa, turn on Hanky and Panky." That turns on our two bedroom lamps. And in the front room, I have to say "Hey Google, turn on Love and Hope." That turns on the two family room lights. But that also means when I turn them off, I have to ask Google to TURN OFF HOPE AND LOVE. And when I do, Mike looks at me disapprovingly and clucks his tongue, shaking his head sadly...like I've ruined all his hopes and dreams.

*sigh*

You can see your husband's quirks in a new light
My husband/muse, Mike, has a lot of...let's say idiosyncrasies. I'm used to them and they make great character tics in my novels...but in new situations I never know how they might manifest. For instance, he's overly polite. To the point where he's practically knocked me into traffic to make room for someone approaching from the other direction - someone he's never met and will never meet again, and someone who probably won't even help him shovel me off the asphalt. Between him and the 700 speeding bikers (like 10 speed, not like Hell's Angels) it's a miracle I survived our morning walks. He was also paranoid we'd be to loud in our condo and insisted we whisper until about noon and watch all our television at level one with the close captioning on. If you could see me listening to television sound again, it would be like watching a Hallmark special where a woman regains her hearing.

Mike and I visited his mom in Florida and then stuck around to avoid the miserable weather in Maryland. We went to Bern's Steak House in Tampa, which is amazing if you're ever in the area.

The place has 600k bottles of wine so we didn't run out! Ha!

I was sitting on my exercise bike when a commotion just outside the basement doors caught my eye.

It was this squirrel trying to drag 50ft of weed blocker up to his nest.

I only wish I had video of it... I took this picture a day later but he didn't take the bait this second time. When I saw him the first day, he dragged that whole roll across the stones and up the stairs towards his tree before finally giving up. Yanking, wrestling, rolling...

At one point he was stuffed up in the corner against the glass trying to shove it all in some non-existent pouch on his tummy. He was going to get that up the tree if it killed him. I don't blame him. At the time, it was about 2 degrees.

Squirrels are insane. 

One of the funniest short stories I ever read was about man vs. squirrel and it ended with the squirrel running full speed into the screen door and using it to bounce off and onto the bird feeder the man had tried so desperately to keep him from. I wish I could remember who wrote that!