I didn’t post yesterday. This time, it wasn’t because Mom forgot what day it was. This time, it was because she was waiting for a special announcement. She spent a lot of time since Sunday morning working on the finishing touches to her latest cozy mystery. Tuesday and Wednesday, she and her publisher exchanged dozens of emails about the final assembly of the parts. This was her last chance to do any edits on the book, the blurb and the acknowledgements. She didn’t include me in any of those parts! At long last Finding Sarah Winters is now available in soft cover or in Kindle versions. I love to watch Mom dancing around the living room.

I want to start this post by stating loud and clear that I have never seen a zebra. I’m not sure I would ever even want to see a zebra. A zebra running free is just plain scary to me. Mom told me that a group of 4 zebras escaped from a trailer in Washington state. Three of them were quickly captured and returned to their trailer, but one continued to run free for 5 more days. That zebra became a folk hero to people in the area. Just like Bernie Sanders sitting with his mittens, her picture was added to memes. She appeared on ferry boats, at bars and restaurants, and seeing the sights in Seattle.

Mom thought that she would take the picture of me sitting on the large dog, and replace the dog with the zebra. That is when she realized that she remembered the concepts of using Photoshop to do that, but since she rarely used the program after she stopped teaching, she had forgotten the steps. She did a sloppy job of removing the dog and an okay job of isolating the zebra, but her efforts to combine them were a disaster. It is a good thing that she is no longer teaching this class! I would not let her share the picture where she removed the dog. This version is embarrassing enough! I think she need to stick with just writing her novels.

 Ruchindra Gunasekara on Unsplas

I am a lucky cat. I’ve had two mothers in my life. I know my birth mother loved me, and did the best she could to give me a start in life. My Mom adopted me, and has shown me love and care for the past 10 years. What more could a boy ask? One of her human son’s sent a card, but I can’t do that. I can, however, snuggle close as she sits on the loveseat to finish reading a book. She likes to do that, and I like to snuggle with her. It is part of our special time.

This morning Mom plugged in the electric connection to the van. She also told me the frig is now on. It always takes it a while to cool down before she can pack it. We will leave on Tuesday morning. She has packed her clothes, our food, and Missy’s as well. The beds are made and other things packed and loaded. I know she will spend part of today running through her checklists, but I also know she is almost ready to start this trip.

Being on the road means that she won’t always have an internet connection for her laptop. She does not like to do a lot of typing on her phone, so this may be my last posting until we return home in June. If she has good book signing events, she will probably post about those on her blog. Until then:

Happy Mother’s Day