May can pretty much be divided into pre-vacation and vacation, an even split down the middle. As such, I had very few of my traditional May PTSD issues. There were enough near the beginning to get me to re-listen to What Alice Forgot, my go-to book this time of year, but only once, and only barely. Now I just need to plan something in late July/early August, something that will get me out of the heat and take me out of my typical seasonal depression, and I might escape this year mostly unscathed by very old scars!

Reading and Watching
I read six books this month, including one reread. It was honestly a brilliant month for books. While one of the books was just okay for me, I had five others that were great: the ending of a long-time favorite series, an installment in a series that helped me regain the interest I’d started to lose in it, a reread of an old favorite, a fascinating and complex book that took me way outside of my comfort zone, and a circus-horror novel that was so good I read it twice in a row. Before Hide, I was fully prepared to list The Last Remains as my favorite book of the month. It’s a comfort read series, and honestly just a fabulous wrap-up. Hide, however, lit my soul on fire and I’m still thinking about it long after reading it.

I didn’t watch much this month. A lot of shows wrapped up their seasons and I didn’t start anything new. On the ship, Jason and I did get to see A Man Called Otto, which was nice.

Goals
Finished two of the big ones: going on our Alaska cruise, and seeing Alaska (state #37 on my list – only 13 to go!). I had hoped to do some of my specific photo projects while on vacation, but the timing was all wrong. Very late sunsets and early sunrises. The one port we were docked at late at night, the boat still moved just enough to cause micro-movements. Etc.

The Ferals
I haven’t talked about this much, but there’s been a bit of a chaotic shuffle on this front. First, we turned in Sassafras, who got adopted immediately as expected, and then we were foster-free until the last couple days when we picked up Mr Juicy, an almost-four-week-old bottle baby who is pure chaos incarnate (pic below). More on him later. But I do have further news about the actual ferals in our yard, too. Lord Grey and Unicorn have pretty much stopped coming to see us. When the two of them became friends, Unicorn brought LG to his home base, which was apparently the same colony that our tabbies came from, by the hoarding house. Why the colony caretakers never TNRed him is beyond me, but whatever. Anyway, I’ve seen him and LG both lounging around on their driveway, on their bins, inside their garage and even on cat beds there! They’ve been sitting fairly close to the caretakers, and Unicorn ran up toward me once when I passed by. Hopefully they’re both getting super social under that colony’s care.

Meanwhile, we moved the food in our yard to the solid ground next to our deck, to keep it away from raccoons and such. It turns out Feather prefers to eat from our yard still, and she likes the food so close to our deck, which allows her to eat within a hiding nook. Plus, now we get a lot more birds and such up by our yard, and that’s fun. Unfortunately, it’s definitely kitten season, and our neighbors saw a kitten just a few nights ago on their backyard camera. It was eating the food that they set out for the raccoons (ha!), and ran toward our fence. We haven’t seen it, but this is what happens if ALL the cats aren’t fixed. This is why TNR is so important – if you’re feeding cats, you should be fixing them, too!!!!!

Health/Fitness
You know how people say that they gain so much weight on cruises, eating all that food? Y’all. I’m completely the opposite. I eat so well on cruises. There are so many options for fruits, veggies, proteins, carbs, etc. I eat desserts at each meal, sure, but the desserts are so small! The dinners, brought out in appetizers and entrees, allow plenty of time to eat slowly in a natural way. So I had desserts and alcohol and plenty of food…but I also ate so much more produce, and I walked tons, and I came home lighter than I was when I left. (physically and metaphorically, tbh) It’s funny, because I wasn’t super active on the cruise. In fact, two days in, I got a cold and was sick for 48 hours, so I spent a lot of time lying in bed when I wasn’t out eating or on excursions. The other days, I lazed about reading, playing board games, and napping. But you have to walk across the ship to get to the dining rooms. It’s often not worth waiting for an elevator if you’re only going up or down a few floors. I was having so much fun with the Ducks that I kept leaving my room to go check on their hiding spots. My phone – which only picks up steps while in my pocket, so it’s not always very accurate – noted that I was averaging almost 10k steps a day, while I was pretty sedentary. I’m honestly hoping this burst of micro-fitness, just moving around more regularly, will snowball into more exercise now that I’m back at home!

Favorite Photos
These obviously do not include vacation photos. Those will have their own dedicated post. I’m currently about halfway through sorting and editing around 500 photos, so it might be awhile. In the meantime, though, here are my non-travel faves:

Clockwise from top left: L “models” pink short for my sisters; luminescent fungi; Mother’s Day treat at Nowhere; sweet little Sassafras; a mix of Mistflowers.

Highlights of May
I’m excluding all the fun moments of vacation. This would be waaaay too long if I tried to include all of those!

• coffee dates with Sisa
• my telephoto lens arrived!
• watching Sassafras interact with some of our permanent kitty residents
• game night with the girls
• purple mascara
• talking with Ember for Mother’s Day
• 90s escape room
• Sassafras getting adopted within hours of availability
• dinner/pastries/book-hunting with friends a few days before vacation
• brief visit from my youngest sister in her break between semesters
• dying my hair purple

Coming up in June
All I want to do in June is catch up from May. I’m way behind. At least I have no events or anything in June. It’s a good month to try to catch up!