It is persimmon on the flower clock. Yes, I know that persimmons are not flowers, but I don’t have a fruit clock. Although it might not be a bad idea. Yum, persimmon salad. With a little walnut oil.
It is brisk but beautiful today. A bit unusual for us in our wettest month of the year. We have had rain but with breaks, which makes the early darkness slightly more bearable. Carlo is thinking there are just more hours for treats, right? I give him treats when it gets dark and I bring the bird feeder in for the night.
Speaking of Carlo, we went to the vet yesterday for our annual checkup. Well, his at least. Same office, same location, but a new vet. Our previous one retired. The new vet is lovely and Carlo liked her because she did the bare minimum of poking and prodding. He got some anti-itch stuff in his ears and lab work done. They had a bit of a challenge getting blood and that was not exactly comfortable or easy to watch. But he is fine about it all now.
I admit I drugged him. Gabapentin the night before and in the morning. The part we both loved is that the vet said he can keep eating the same amount and the same kind of food. If I want to give him supplements for his getting stiff old guy hips, I can do that but for right now I want to celebrate a no meds at all cat. He is getting close to 14 years old, so this is good news.
Mrs. Sherlock asked me on the way home if I was considering getting another cat. Carlo likes being an only cat. He likes ordering me around and getting me up and all the things I do for and with him. After 12 years with his hogging all the attention adorable brat of a brother Diego, he is just fine with the status quo. Even if he talks trash all day about how bad he has it.
The best thing was that I got to spend quality time with Mrs. Sherlock. She is doing okay but she says she has newfound respect for caregivers as taking care of her husband right now is relentless. She says he is grateful, knows who she is, kisses her hand every morning but that he repeats things over and over. He is officially in homecare hospice and is taking some pretty strong drugs but is getting up everyday and getting dressed. He still wants to watch the news, which is also driving her a bit bonkers.
I was so grateful she could get away for a couple of hours to take us to the vet. We sat in the car and talked for a good while, catching up. Her heart is still being a bit wonky so she is having a procedure this coming Thursday to see if they can regulate it before doing an ablation. It is so much, the load she is carrying. She keeps telling me that I am going to inherit her car. This is kind of a joke between us, but in fact I am in her will, and I will inherit it. Kind of a way for her to keep being useful after she is gone. It is a brand new pearly white SUV with heated seats, she discovered recently.
Stating the obvious, I would take her over the best car in the world any day.
The area in my mouth where I had the graft is tender and I am finding this slightly alarming. I do have an appointment to see someone down at the dental school next Thursday, I am not sure what for, but I think it might be a follow-up on the graft. Fingers crossed this isn’t something that needs more work.
This is not my favorite time of year. Once we clear Thanksgiving, I am good but until then, ugh. The dark, the cold, the wet blanket of yellow and brown leaves on the ground. When I woke up this morning after falling into an early and exhausted sleep last night my fitness tracker asked me if I was feeling tired and suggested maybe I take it easy today.
I am, as usual behind on League stuff and anxious about it. We hired a payroll company to help us with all the tax filings for our one employee recently and when I submitted their timecard, I put in the cover email that this it was for 140 hours for the month. When I went to post the payroll amounts against the budget I was like wait a minute…they only paid them for 74.5 hours. The payroll person only looked at one sub-total, not the complete total. This is critically important, that we get this payroll correct as we do not need an unhappy single employee. I reached out to all the parties and got it resolved but it took hours I did not, well, have.
One thing I do know for sure, on my watch, this is never ever going to happen again. Too many cooks in this kitchen.
My fascination with red leaves has become a kind of a theme with the guys at the dialogue group. I had skipped last week, too much League stuff to do, and when I got there this time one of the guys showed me a picture of a group of red leaves, he had brought me when I wasn’t there.
Yesterday I got a photo text from Walt, of one single red leaf. I was touched. I have these guys looking at red leaves and thinking of me. The leaf had a pretty pattern of decay, and I texted back that I thought it looked almost indigenous. (Because, I mean, what do you say when someone texts you a photo of a red leaf) and he replied that “It is indigenous”.
Fine. And I was like how does he know that? I don’t even know what kind of leaf it is. So of course, I had to find that out and it turns out it is from a Smoke Tree. Cotinus Coggygria and don’t tell him, okay, but it is not native to these parts.
We’ll just let that little bit of mansplaining go, okay?
Carlo and I have some recovering from the exertions of the last few days to do.
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