That’s about all I can say. I did many things to distract me from how sad Goldie is looking. I just want to get her to the oncologist tomorrow to see if there’s any hope for giving her a pain free life.
Thank goodness for goofy comedies. I watched the first episode of High Potential and then three episodes of Elsbeth. They were similar premises but both very funny. It helped. TV is good for something, sometimes.
It’s fun waiting to see what interesting challenges pop up every day to give me practice in non overreacting and finding the humor in scary situations. Spoiler: I did fine.
To start the day, the suddenly announced work meeting I was concerned about turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be. My team has quickly pivoted to embrace the possibilities of being in a different group with a different leader. So that scary issue ended up not being entirely scary, though more organizational change is coming. Good thing we’re now in change management.
I’m glad I had lots of work challenges today, since it took my mind off Goldie. The other dogs are being very good to her and Harvey both.
The big scary event occurred this evening. I’m glad it ended up okay. Another spoiler I guess. Anyway, I was reading a magazine and heard Lee in the kitchen grumbling about ice. You see, our fancy refrigerator has an ice maker that dumps into a tub that slides out for you to get the ice from it. It doesn’t have an in-door dispenser. That’s one less thing to break, but sometimes if ice builds up in the back, cubes can fall behind the freezer drawer, making it not close all the way.
Usually I get the ice out, since I have small hands and am relatively flexible. But this time, Lee got annoyed, and went after the ice himself. Our guess is that he leaned hard on the drawer to balance himself. That caused the entire very large fridge to fall forward. Yes, apparently when it was installed they didn’t anchor it. Why just today I discussed contractor shortcuts at both lunches (indeed, I was at two different Mexican restaurants today).
Where was I? Oh yes, refrigerator trying to squish husband. When we heard glass shattering, both the nephew and I ran into the kitchen. I picked up giant shards of glass, so dogs wouldn’t try to eat it, since two types of broth spilled. The nephew tried to stop things from falling at first, then gave up and just shoved the thing upright so Lee wouldn’t be pinned under it.
Lee popped his shoulder out, but it popped back in, got hit on the head with food items, and has a small cut. That could have been worse.
The cleanup was icky, but we did it, and all the dogs stayed away until all glass was removed and the floor mopped. It was family teamwork at its best, and sure got the adrenaline flowing. I’m very glad I wasn’t the only one in the house with Lee tonight!
The positive outcome to all this was that I had to take all the mess out to the dumpster right as the lovely harvest moon was rising like a big old pumpkin. I’d missed the partial eclipse last night, but the moon was just fine tonight. I got to do some healthy deep breathing while I watched it, too.
Onward to the next scary thing. I can take it!
It’s just so hard to think about my two sick dogs. You know when you get one that you’ll probably outlive them, but it’s not easy to watch them suffer. Our animal companions really fill our hearts.
So mine is hurting for Harvey, like I said yesterday. He’s a little worse each day. I don’t even know what to do.
Goldie is also doing worse, so we went and got X-rays for her in College Station. She was very good in the car, but I think getting in and out wasn’t good for her leg. She’s limping way more. But we had to get her there somehow.
The veterinarian and staff were very nice, too. They were kind to Goldie when getting her X-rays and gave me lots of scary reading material on osteosarcoma in giant dogs. It makes me wonder why anyone breeds giant dogs, knowing how often this happens. Well, we didn’t breed her.
The good news is the tumor isn’t all in the bone, just around it. And her lungs weren’t full of upset lymph nodes. Maybe we can help her?
So we have yet another expensive trip to an even more distant specialty practice on Friday. Not we, just me, because Lee will not get up early to go to a 9 am appointment. Wow, it’s a good thing he works for himself. Sometimes you have to do things on someone else’s schedule.
I’m just upset so forgive my grumpy talk. This final visit will help me come up with a plan, as I should be able to talk to both an oncologist and surgeon. I hope I make good decisions that the rest of the family will be comfortable with.
I did find a couple of things to enjoy outdoors, watched lots of birds, and laughed at some episodes of Only Murders in the Building. I’m so glad we have streaming now, though I’m perturbed that no one has come to fix our satellite dish.
Least of my worries. Tomorrow there’s a mysterious new boss meeting, too. I guess we will know what team we will get stuck under in the reorganization aftermath. Or…
I admit it. I’m spending some time feeling sad about how my dogs are feeling. Goldie is limping more, and Harvey has gone downhill since he couldn’t get downstairs yesterday. He seems confused about why his legs aren’t acting correctly right now. We are, too.
We still don’t know if the lump on his leg, a back injury, a stroke, or his liver issues that are causing his problems, but we are medicating him as hard as we can.
Goldie’s lump is bothering her more, so her meds haven’t done much. Tomorrow we are taking her to a facility in College Station to get X-rays and scans to see what they find. I hope that will help us figure out how to proceed. I’m thankful Tarrin is advising us, since she knows many veterinarians, and is dealing with her own dog challenges.
It was darn good to have some positive work things to balance this out with. I solved a thorny problem in a project that made me feel smart. Then a package arrived that contained my gift from my employer for being a good contractor last quarter. They wrapped it all fancy and festively, and I appreciated it. Being acknowledged for hard work is rare in contract work, so I’m not all cynical like I might be if it was more common. This was a real highlight.
Other than that, I just did my best to enjoy my animal buddies and breathe. They always make my daily highlight reel.
You can’t help but smile when you have hummingbirds and calves to look at and every flycatcher in the area to listen to. Hooray for fewer flies!
Having a balance in life can help you get through challenges. I know so many of you readers are also facing challenges. This time of year seems to bring illnesses, loss of loved ones (humans and animals), and financial woes. Noticing beauty, kindness, and generosity can go a long way toward negotiating change and challenge and bring highlights to a low time.
Today I got a bee in my bonnet to arrange my list of birds seen in Milam County, Texas phylogenetically. That’s how my friend Ann says most birders want to see their bird lists. Here’s the official list, which is all formal and in Latin.
I’m not making it that complex. I’m using David Sibley’s English interpretation, which is how most of the checklists I’ve seen for state parks are organized. There are lots of variations, as I discovered when I looked all all Ann’s examples.
I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity about how many birds of each order we have. Once I got started, I just couldn’t stop arranging. I kept going until all the birds were arranged. I’m embarrassed to say I spent at least four hours formatting, cutting, pasting and labeling.
I sure got fixated on my list! I’ll share it when we are finished.
All that concentration meant that I was a bit late getting to the horses, so I got rained on. Yes! Rain! At least it cooled down a bit. I’m not enjoying the fact that our two moderate weather weeks are over.
I did find a couple of interesting plants today. I was particularly happy to find gomphrena weed on the roadside, because I didn’t know it grew here. I’d seen it before while camping. And I just thought the goldenrod was graceful.
It’s always rewarding to find something new. Living in the moment! Even when hyper focused.
There was a funny/punny song from the movie Walk Hard called Let’s Duet that made it sound like the singers wanted to “do it,” and it always made me laugh. Today’s duets might have been about hooking up, too, for all I know.
Basically, large birds of prey had things to tell each other today.
First, when I went on my morning walk, there was a Red-Shouldered Hawk making a lot of racket. As I walked down the road, it became obvious there were at least two hawks. It’s interesting to me that once they start duetting, you can tell the difference between birds. I couldn’t figure out the topic of their communication, but it did keep the other birds quiet. I didn’t hear a House Sparrow until late afternoon!
I came back to work after enjoying four different woodpeckers, including a booming Pileated hard at work on some poor tree. I enjoyed watching it go up and down as it pecked.
After a pleasant lunch with my rather giddy friends who’d all watched the same televised event last night, there was more work (including a chat with a guy in Scotland whose daughter loves horses).
I decided I feel better, so while the horses were eating, I chopped down more evil cocklebur plants. I’ve discovered that the plants eat my arms and make little cuts and peeling skin. But I did it anyway. I love watching them shrivel up. Apache and Fiona toss the stems around.
Drew, on the other hand, now asks me to spray the water hose near him so he can drink it. His lips get all flappy and I can’t stop laughing. Too bad I can’t get a photo, because my hands are full. He really can be funny.
By the time I was finished lopping, I realized it had gotten hot outside and I’m actually not completely better. I have to go a bit more slowly still.
To recover from the bur attacking, I sat by the pool to watch the birds, only there weren’t many. All the cute little Cave Swallows must have been flocking the last few days, because they are gone. Boom. Safe travels, Swallows!
The other birds were lying low because of the next duet, which was between Great Horned Owls. I usually hear a few hoots, but tonight it was just like the hawks earlier, a long and complicated interaction. Again, you could distinguish the two birds. It was just beautiful. It made me feel all autumnal, even if it got again.
Have a good night or day!
Whew. Today I exhibited more patience than I knew I had, and finally triumphed over the maze of confusion known as AT&T/Direct TV customer support. I win.
My actual reward is a glass of lemonade. I deserve it, too.
You see, last week our DirectTV stopped working. I called to get repairs scheduled, because Lee is easily annoyed with service providers. I believed I had it scheduled for today.
In the meantime, we joined the modern world, and hooked the Apple TV up so we could watch television on it. Well, except that DirectTV and Disney are quarreling again, so we had to watch ABC on the antenna.
Over the weekend we used streaming, which we’d been avoiding due to our rural bandwidth issues. It feels so modern to watch football on Peacock and Tulsa King on Paramount +. Kathleen will be very proud of us.
Then came today. No repair person showed. So, I dialed the number someone had left in a text. It was a magic number. It let me actually get help and service. In a mere 2.5 hours I got all my telecommunications needs met. It was a LONG 2.5 hours.
First I talked to a nice woman who determined that no repair person came because there is ONE technician in our area (Waco) and they got injured last week. Apparently they tried calling me but it came up as Spam Risk so I didn’t answer, and they didn’t leave messages. Grr. DirectTV is looking for a substitute, but as of now, I have no prospect of getting the dish realigned.
Next, I talked to a billing guy. He was hard to understand, but tried to figure out my bill and my two different accounts. What he accomplished was to get money taken off our bill since we have no satellite. He was also able to tell me what phone numbers were associated with our account. Holy cow, there were eight. Four phones, a hotspot, two watches, and a “device” of some kind. That was unsatisfactory. I now understood why Lee said the phone bill was so high. That had to change. But billing guy couldn’t do that.
That fellow successfully transferred me to a very nice young woman who works for the mobility department, which is extra separate from the television department, the billing department, and the internet department. This woman and I spent at least an hour straightening things out. The bill is now halved, with fewer gigs on the RV hotspot, only phones for me and my children (yes, even the uncommunicative one), and no watches. We determined they don’t need to have their own numbers. I’d been trying to get these things cancelled for months, but the “helpful” app wouldn’t let me get to my phone info.
Modern life is hard.
I did enjoy talking to the agent about camping, Native American history, and the weird weather lately. That’s what happens when you’re kind to the people on the phone. She worked hard to fix my account, too.
However, she could not help with my final issue, which was to get the wifi setup cancelled on the Red House, since we aren’t renting it out anymore. That was a different department. So she transferred me and because the system only wanted to give me a call back on my landline from when I lived in Round Rock, I had to wait on hold.
That’s okay, I spent 15 minutes weeding nut grass in the pool flower bed. This made the next customer support lady laugh when I told her I had to crawl out of the flower bed to find my account number. But by gosh, she was able to cancel that account! All I have to do is return the equipment. Ugh.
Still, I did it! I finally got the right people to help me, didn’t get disconnected, and didn’t lose my cool. This is a true sign of modern competency.
Here’s an admission, one we probably can all relate to in our own ways. I can embrace two conflicting beliefs and feel fine about it.
I’ve always been quick to smugly point out cognitive dissonance in others when I spot it. It does make you feel like you’re intellectually superior, like you’d never do such a thing. But I bet you do.
Here’s my example. I’m not at all comfortable with violence. War disturbs me deeply, as does killing of other humans in other situations. I can’t fathom why my friends and neighbors want to arm themselves so they can be ready to kill at a moment’s notice. I’ve no tolerance for domestic violence. Yeah, quite the pacifist wimp, I know.
But today I watched three professional American football games enthusiastically, especially when the Dallas Cowboys were playing. I enjoy the strategy and athleticism of the game. But there’s a lot of hitting, pushing, falling, and hurting involved. Hmm. How on earth can I love football and hate violence?
There’s no good answer. Part of it is the culture I was raised in, which is a subset of American culture that lacks the gun worship, but has the sports enjoyment feature. It’s just how I ended up.
I could work on being more consistent. Alternatively, I could just live with it, just like all those Christians who hate people who look or talk differently, or the law and order folks who are fine with electing a lying criminal as their leader. Our minds work in mysterious ways. Asking humans to be logical and consistent is probably asking too much.
Go Cowboys.
I didn’t blog yesterday because I had no deep thoughts, but I’m still here and taking care of all the animals and myself.
I haven’t been able to do much with the horses, because my saddles are in south Texas. I loaned my trailer out for a weekend while I was in Colorado, but it’s still there thanks to the Covid. We probably should have road tripped this weekend to fetch it, but there’s a chance it might be back before my next lesson. You really can’t predict who’s gonna get sick at any time in our family, so you just roll with the changes.
Instead of road tripping, we sat in the porch all morning, watched some college football until the streaming got wonky (our satellite went out when I was gone and should get fixed Monday), and had dinner with our friend Martha.
We’re hoping the new restaurant lasts a while. They tend not to in the old 50s Cafe building. I had liver and onions, and there was enough left to feed Goldie her medicine in for a couple of days. Win!
The dogs are no worse so far. They both seem cheerful enough, though Goldie was off her feed for a while. Fingers are crossed.
Coping is what we need to practice now, and we are doing that around here. I need to go out and enjoy the morning now. It looks like the gale winds of yesterday have died down. Enjoy your Sunday.
Worrying about my sick dogs won’t help, so after getting them both to eat their medicine (Harvey eats anything and Goldie finally ate hers with chicken breast), I figured I’d better work on my own well being.
Work was a good distraction, especially if you enjoy rolling reorganizations. But I really leaned into (ooh, I finally used “lean in” on purpose) making a comfortable environment for myself. I haven’t been able to swim due to being on antibiotics and wanting to stay out of the sun, but I worked on making the pool area better by getting rid of two volunteer trees and more annoying nutsedge and spotted spurge. It was too windy to use herbicide, and besides, it doesn’t work on sedges.
The biggest improvement I made was to set up my outdoor workstation where I can keep my laptop and phone charged. My household member got us a bartered table with two chairs that’s perfect for my needs. The chairs are comfy and easy to clean.
Lee helped me get it perfectly in the middle of the back porch, where it’s always shady and there’s usually a pleasant breeze. It will get more sun in winter, I hope. At least I’ll be able to use it in three seasons.
Watching horses, birds, and cattle are really soothing for me and keep me centered. I’ll need that for the foreseeable future.
Self care also means looking around and enjoying life around me. That was helped by discovering this beautiful new (to me) butterfly, the Common Mestra (Mestra amymone). It’s pretty on both sides. I got to watch it feeding on frog fruit for quite some time. I just found out from my friend Linda Jo that this butterfly hasn’t been recorded on iNaturalist since 2016!
There were also the usual flowers, fungi, and insects. I’m so glad there’s always something new.
One kind of self care I engaged in was getting the heck out of a potentially dangerous situation. I went to pick up a package from by the front gate, and heard a droning noise. Oh my gosh, it was another swarm of bees, only these weren’t all massed together. They were everywhere. I couldn’t tell what kind of bees they were nor if they were angry. I left after taking this picture. Zoom in and you’ll see all the insects!
I also tried to take a nice walk in the woods to see the pond on the other side of the fence, but tiny and zippy mosquitoes chased me off. I understand why the cow that was glaring at me went swimming.
Between all the outdoor pampering and some great conversations with friends, I’m not too bad. At least the Covid symptoms are about gone.
The Hermits' Rest 