The pat-downs do seem to vary in thoroughness from airport to airport and agent to agent. Since I usually opt out of the backscatter, I've been getting to sample quite a lot of these when traveling for work :P But invariably the most annoying part is not the patdown itself but waiting for a female agent to mosey over to do the patdown.

Welcome back, and I hope your cat forgives you soon for going on vacation without her ;)