Dear Karen, Pawla, Moosmom, Lorraine, Mary, KAK, Crittercrazy, Eileen, and Brody'sMum, many thanks for all your good wishes and offers of help. The apartment maintenance people still have a bit of work to do to finish up.. some painting in the kitchen still needs to be done and checked for bleeding. And until that's all done, I can't really put things back in the kitchen except for stuff that goes INSIDE the refrigerator and cabinets. Stuff going on shelves or the floor has to wait.. so it's all still in the living room for me to crawl over. And the cats are still staying in the bedroom until this is all done.

But I am so thankful over how LUCKY we were.. The cats and I are all fine, and we lost nothing treasured or irreplaceable. All the rest is just a big nuisance and mess that we will get through sooner or later.

Everyone, do you have working smoke detectors? If you don't, GET THEM AND INSTALL THEM AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!!!!

I went out for about an hour and a half, then came back to find all this devastation. Fire had started in the kitchen (tiny kitchenette), smoke filled the apartment .. which set off the smoke detectors. Fire department responded IMMEDIATELY.. broke in when they found no one was home.. put it out before it got beyond the kitchen.

Cats hid in the bedroom, where I found them scared but safe and sound.

I shudder to think what would have happened if the smoke detector hadn't gone off.

Thanks again so much for all your caring and support and love.

Love,
Pat, Peony, Sydney, Poppy, and Elmer, and Priscilla Angel busy beating her wings to blow the smoke odor out