Shake It Off!

Sunrise on a recent morning. *sob* not today.

I’ve yet to jettison this down, stressed out mood. There are reasons for it but still — must shake this off!

First up? I'm flying to Pittsburgh for a visit with Vati this Saturday. It’s a day trip — lunch and just  an hour or two of chat actually. Why so short? It’s all I can manage. I’ve got a sick cat and, if I’m not home to annoy him, TAB will eat nothing but cookies. The man needs a good meal! Yeah, coming from me and my bad cooking rep, that's rich.

Rocco pre-illin'

Rocco lately

What's this about a sick cat? Rocco’s got some kind of infection. What started as a bald and oozy spot on his lower back has spread big time. He’s back to spending most of his time in the basement rafters. His appetite’s good and he’s using the litter box but only when no one’s around — even me. He’s back in Big Feral Mode. I’m hoping like hell that I can get a vet to make a house call. He won’t let anyone else near him and I know that I don’t have the strength or balance to wrastle him into a cat carrier.

I kept waking last night, every hour, with worry about the poor boy.

Jen will call the vet this morning — if they don’t make house calls maybe they can refer us to someone who will. Also too, poor Jen. Yesterday I gave her a list of calls that I need her to make for me today. Doctor appointments that I need rescheduled, the vet, canceling my rental car and switching my hotel reservation to a single versus a double.

Why can’t all this be done via email?
Wut up with the cancellations? I’m going to Pennsylvania on my own. Jen couldn’t make it and Helen had a late scheduling conflict. In addition to moral support and company, Jen and Helen ‘terp for me. They sign what I can’t lipread. That and they do the driving. My father’s small village is 70 miles northeast of the Pittsburgh airport. Seeing as my flight arrives late morning and I don’t drive after dark, I’d have a pathetic, piddling one hour visit with the old man. Pffft. 

Friends and fam came to the rescue. Michal, The Balm of Idaho, will pick me up at the airport. She knows some ASL and will join Pop and I for lunch and chat. Afterward, Helen’s husband, who’s doing work on Daddy’s house, will drive me back to the airport. YEA!

So then, my trip to see my father’s been sorted. With Jen’s help, Rocco’s infection (if that’s what it is) will be seen to and my doc appointments will be shifted. The other bits that would surely help my mood are sunshine, warmer weather and getting my brandy new trike’s wonky gears fixed.  Can’t do anything about the first two BUT I can bring the trike into the shop this week.

For that matter, I think I’ll go to the Y today and see about that spinning class.

Panic and worry get in the way of solving problems so why do it? Hells, they’re two of my more finely tuned superpowers!

“How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."

"Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."

"I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest