My cats are sleeping--one in the window and one at the end of the chaise.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY CATS ARE DOING, NONE OF THEM ARE IN SIGHT! SHOULD I BE ALARMED?!!

ONE OF MY CATS IS OUT OF SIGHT AND THE OTHER IS VULTURING ME.

THEY ARE BOTH VERY CUTE.

HERE, HAVE SOME PICTURES [link]

My husband's right here being sort of adorable. Does that count?

It's too hot to wonder where the cats are. I'm just glad they're not on me.

Shall I start narrating the movements of my roommate's cat?

Feel free to defer that portion.

Oh, too late...

Mine are asleep. One on each side of me.

WAIT!

One has awoken and wandered off. Possibly towards food. I shall have to investigate and update in a moment.

I swear, Dita is the imagined lovechild of Devi and Mister Kitty. Devi's markings and fur, MK's nose and eye color.

Oh, jeez, I'm still trying to get over my phone call from Mom.

Backstory: Big brother cheated on his wife two years ago and they divorced last year. Since then, he has had to live with Mom due to financial constraints (alimony, child support, college costs for oldest son, etc.), but he's stayed in his kids' lives every chance he gets, going to all of their school and sports functions, had them on weekends when they first separated, everything he can. But, several months ago, his daughter told him to (and I quote) "Fuck off" and has refused to speak to him since. In the past few months, his youngest son has also stopped speaking to him. The only child he's still seeing/speaking with at this point is the eldest, who is actually coming over to Mom's next weekend.

At first, we thought the niece shutting him out was her being 16 years old and going through the pains of having divorced parents, but it's going on far too long for that, and having youngest son do the same is leading us to think it's X-SIL behind it. This is being confirmed today.

Yesterday, Bro gets his first text from his daughter since she cut him off, telling him to read the e-mail from his X. Email says that niece wants to go on an archaeological dig in Peru next year, and that they need his permission and wallet for half the costs. He emails his daughter (ccing his X) that he's all for the permission, but thinks she (daughter) has a lot of gall asking him for that much money after telling him to "fuck off" (which he included in the email in quotes). The response came not from daughter or from the X, but instead from Bro's lawyer, who apparently was cc'd on an email from the X to her lawyer in which she forwarded Bro's message and went off on a two-page diatribe about how he is such a horrible father, not supportive at all, never there for the kids, after all, they can't even talk to him, blahblahblah.

Bro's convinced she's fucked with the youngest kids' heads so much that she's putting them through Munchausen's by proxy, as evidenced by that email to the lawyers. I have questions about that "diagnosis," but I think he's right that she's enjoying this little game in which she's using her kids as pawns, but everyone else is getting hurt.

Cripes, Kathy.

Oh, Kathy. How awful.

Divorce can really be hard on kids and having one parent trying to make it worse is just disgusting.