Today the joy bells were ringing. Robby got back his kitty zoom-zoom. What a night and day difference. I celebrated by taking two naps with Robby. I'll tell you what, a sick kitty takes it out of you, the worry and all. So, we bonded post-illness. I mean, he's still a little congested, but surely truly on the mend.

The man in the rain yesterday, he found his chiwawa on one of the busiest streets in St. Pete. 38th Avenue and 40th Steet, if anyone is interested. 38th Avenue is something else, that's where DTD and I got rear-ended. Too bad I was in my pajamas. Standing on busiest street with DTD whispering in my ear, Mom, you have a wedgie.

Well, Mr. Marriot was in his car on 38th Avenue when his eye caught this itsy bitsy dog about to head into the oncoming traffic. And the traffic is coming on, let me tell you. So, without a thought he jumped from his car and went chasing. Two teenagers on the sidewalk also helped corner the chiwawa, which was doing his best to evade capture. Mr. M. said about 69 cars stopped in their tracks to watch this spectacle. Which was great, because Mr. M. loves nothing more than creating a froth of which he is the epicenter.

Mr. M. put ads in the paper and posted signs around the neighborhood and went driving up and down speaking to people. He said he met one woman who saw a Mexican family dump the dog. So it might be a REAL Mexican chiwawa. The long and short of it is, the doggie now has a home, as of 6 months ago, with Mr. M. and two cats. Mr. M. loves and adores this wawa, THAT much was obvious. Rats, I forget the wawa's name.

The next thing I know, Mr. M. asks me to reach down into his plastic grocery sack and pull up the living color newspaper photograph of...are you ready?...Mr. M. and Wawa. I have to admit, it was a super shot. Mr. M. and Wawa were dressed up for some Cinco de Mayo party. Wawa had a homemade sombrero, crafted by none other than Mr. M. himself. The straw hat was decorated with assorted colored pom poms hanging from the edge and a taco holder or something on top. I was so amazed by all this, that I could not exactly take in all the details, but it was cute all right. VERY cute. Right on the front page of the B section.

Then I got a monologue on how Mr. M. is a published writer. That's right. His work has been in Sports Illustrated, the world's most widely read periodical, I learned, TWICE. Once was a letter to the editor, but HIS letter was HIGHLIGHTED with a RED border and right next to the picture of the first true African baseball player, whom, of course, Mr. M. has since met. The comments were about the Nobility of Sports or something and if you want to read all about it, it's in the August 31st issue, 2009. I honestly forget what his other SI jazz was about because it's hard to register flaming facts hurled at you as fast as an army throwing their darts in sync, ha, ha.

Mr. M. has also been in the St. Petersburg Times 3 times. I didn't tell him I'd been in there twice. What would have been the use of that?

Let's see, there is way more, this Mr. M. is a character to the Nth degree. But he was definitely good hearted and he proceeded to tell me that my vet is no good. He had to tell me this, he said, because I am an animal lover. That's right, he did listen to my Robby story. He knows all the vets because that's his job, he's a rep for some kind of animal product. He's the EXCLUSIVE rep for millions of vets all over the earth.

So, I said, Who IS a good vet down my way, then? He said Doc. Brown. Doc. Brown is 5 blocks away from my house. Does Doc. Brown play golf?, I ask. I believe he does, with So and So and So and So, says Mr. M. Turns out, when I checked with Mike, because all of this was sounding very familiar, that Mike has played golf with Doc. Brown, if you can believe that, and Doc. Brown lives by our neighborhood and drives his big truck around, Mr. M. knows all about it. This is St. Pete, dear people. I've said it before, I'll say it again, St. Pete is a small town. If you meet someone, within minutes you will realize you have a mutual acquaintance, it never fails. Mr. M. just proved my point.

Mr. M. seems to know his stuff. Furthermore, if I want to drive to Largo, there is a vet who is world-renowned, had written 6 books and is in demand as a lecturer. In fact, Mr. M. was going to schedule Mr. Largo to speak at some meeting coming up.

Well, there was more funny junk courtesy of Mr. M. but I didn't jot it down last night, so maybe tomorrow it will come back to me. He had bad teeth, too, but that wasn't about to stop him from being famous, no way. He said it didn't matter, all his excellent achievements, there was no way to impress his wife after 17 years of marriage. If he lifted the Statue of Liberty she would yawn and blandly ask him if he dusted under there while he was at it.

Oh dear, "dusted" reminds me that tonight we had dinner with one of Mike's German workers. She is great and guess what? She is also a perfect housekeeper. SHE started keeping her house clean when she was 10 years old because her mother was not, in a rare instance of going against the grain, a good housekeeper. Meaning, Jessi thinks that she reacted against her mother's poor habits, which made her into the OCD young woman she is today. Honestly, you know how the Amish have a barn raising? Where the whole community comes together to build a neighbor's barn in a day and all the women bring the food? I need all these sickening neat freaks I know to come to my house for a day and pitch in and fix me up. The Amish women also gather a week before a wedding and clean and paint the whole inside of the house, so it will be perfect for the ceremony and dinner following. Doesn't that just waggle your tail? Community style living, is GONE, my dear friends, and I believe we are the worse for it.

I need to tell you about a girl I know, also perfect, who is so perfect it's nauseating. So nauseating, in fact, that when she and her husband hosted a Sunday School class party, the guests had a high old time covertly positioning mini meatballs behind vases and such decor, wall-to-wall decor, in fact, which were poised high on over-door-shelves, tops of kitchen cabinets and the likes. I think the guests were confounded that anyone could have so much stuff and still be perfect at it. Truly, I would have loved to have seen her expression when she made the discovery. She's so perfect she probably uncovered the wayward meatballs that very night, when she was tidying up after the party. Even her MIL says, T. wouldn't dare think of stopping until EVERYTHING was back in order. No finding moldy meatballs 10 years down the road, like KEM would be wont to do.

For not feeling like writing anything but a mini blogette tonight...what happened?

I hope I can remember more about Mr. Marriot. I was fully anticipating that he would tell me he was a gazillionaire, first cousins with the Marriot Hotel family. Figures old KEM would get stuck in the rain with the likes of him. And I spoke first, ha!

Kontented Kitty KEM