(a/k/a DXB to ATL to PWM in 23 1/2 hours is rough on felines and humans)

Hello from Maine! This is going to be brief because I'm surfing the 'net on a hijacked wireless signal and I don't know how long it'll last. Yes, I'm "borrowing" the internet from some neighbor. Don't worry, I'll give it back soon, good as new.

So right now in Maine it's 8 am Eastern Standard Time on Sunday morning, although Kitty the Cat thinks it's time for his mid-afternoon nap. Yes, cats get jetlagged too. Who knew?

I can't fault him in any way at all, though, he's been a rockstar cat this whole trip. The fifteen and a half hour flight from Dubai to Atlanta was rough on both of us, naturally, but he did the trip with only one sleeping pill. I gave him another during the two and a half hour layover in Hotlanta, so he was still loopy as heck when we got home. It was funny, yet sad at the same time.

I mean, can you imagine being taken out of the Middle East against your will, drugged, flown across the world with a bag over your head, and then dropped in a completely foreign country? That's not fit for man nor beast!

Oops. Nevermind.

The other thing that Liz realized as we were driving to the airport was that the coldest temperatures Kitty has ever seen is when we drop the air conditioning down to 70 degrees. Yes, he's in for a rude awakening.

But we're here now and we're doing fine. Yesterday at dawn (we were both up) Kitty discovered that we have all manner of birds in Maine. And with screens instead of hermetically sealed green-mirrored windows you can hear the birds. Probably smell them, too.

If I had been wise enough to get out the video camera his running about from window to window would be a shoo-in for some award on that “America's Funniest Animals” show on Animal Planet.

The best part of the trip, though, is how completely useless the two different health certificates we got for him were. Which reminds me, I've got to write the Dubai Cargo Village story. That was pure Dubai.

Well, I'm going to go see what food I have around here - it's about time for my mid-afternoon snack.

Liz, I miss you and will talk to you soon!!