Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, General Musings, Health, Preparedness, Sleep, Survival
Well, as I mentioned yesterday, we had an Open House here for our neighborhood all afternoon. Which meant a lot of cleaning and prep beforehand (we’re still dealing with all the leftover stuff from the estate division for Martha Sr), the crunch of which has occured in the past week. And then I was on my feet all day, pushing my extrovert batteries to the limit of their enduance by playing host to strangers in my home. In short, by the time everyone left and we got the worst of the mess cleaned up and put away, I was exhausted.
A bit over a week ago I wrote about getting an assessment of my health here sometime after the first of the year. As it happens, a couple of days later I had reason to wonder whether I needed to do so in a more immediate manner, thanks to a clear-cut case of peripheral edema which was the result of being on my feet a lot, more or less in one location. Now, the beta blocker I am taking is a known culprit with this kind of swelling, and I have seen some problems with it off and on over the last couple of months. But this time it was really bad. Made me wonder whether it was evidence of a much more serious problem with my heart. First chance Monday of this week, I called to see about getting in to see my doctor.
Naturally, she is out of the office until next week.
*Sigh.* Well, rather than have to go through and explain everything about my life and condition for the last few years to another doctor, I decided that I would take some reasonable precautions, but just make an appointment with my doctor for next week. And I have no real regrets about doing so – if something serious happens, I can go to the ER about three minutes from here.
Anyway, all of this is a bit of prep for explaining what I decided to do last night. Following the clean-up from the party, and getting a bit to eat, I was beat but my legs were aching – both from being on them for much of the day, but also from making about 50 trips carrying boxes up to storage that morning and the day before. I also had some significant swelling again. A friend suggested a soak in the sit-up jacuzzi tub we’d installed for Martha Sr a couple of years ago, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. Before bed, I went in, got things ready, and climbed into the tub.
As I sat back in the tub, which is really pretty small (to fit into a little nook in our downstairs bathroom), my left elbow came back and smashed a plastic cup containing ice-water. It’s one of those 16-ounce ‘to-go’ cups you’ll find at about any pizza place, intended to last longer than a disposable cup so you can see the logo for the place where you got it. No big deal, right?
Well, not exactly.
But sorta.
See, this one was a nice red. Only one in the house like it. Meaning that during parties or whatnot, it was easy for me to find *my* cup, if I set it down and wandered off to do other things. By tacit agreement with my wife, this had become ‘mine’ – she didn’t use it. Bit silly, really. You know how it is.
So, it busted. Caught it perfectly positioned against the wall, the entire force of my body sitting back focused on it. Didn’t explode or anything dramatic, and I wasn’t doused with a lot of ice water. But it busted beyond repair, a couple of chunks of the red plastic dangling, nice crack around the top.
Coming at the end of the New Years Day celebration, I couldn’t help but sit there and reflect on the appropriateness of the busted cup, as the tub continued to fill around my aching legs.
As I’ve said before, I’m not religious. But many years ago I was a fairly serious student of Zen, until I figured out that for me that was a bit of a contradiction in terms. And from that time I still carry along some perspectives that I have found valuable. One of them is about the inherent ephemeral nature of all things.
So I sat there in the tub, thinking about my poor broken cup. And about my aching legs, and what they may signify. And I felt touched, in a funny way. Letting the cup go – letting it stand as an unintended metaphor for the past year and the changes and costs it has seen, was easy. Allowing that same attitude to seep into me as the water covered me was somewhat more difficult, but eventually worked.
I may find out Tuesday that I have a serious heart condition. That the cost of being an Alzheimer’s care-giver for those years was higher than I or anyone else expected. Or I may not. Either way, my wife and I will cope with the news, the facts, and move on with our life to the best of our ability. Because unlike my special red plastic cup, I am not busted.
Happy New Year.
Jim Downey
Cross-posted to Daily Kos.
Let’s see how many people I can piss off . . .
Saw a good thread over on Balloon Juice. In a nice rant about the stupidity of how the mainstream media is covering the effects of the financial collapse on Wall Street, John Cole made the comment “I may have to just shoot my tv.”
This particular sentiment was picked up in the discussion which followed. One of the best passages from that said, in part:
Fifteen years ago I was so broke I sold my tv to make rent. I didn’t have much of a withdrawl. I spent the next 10 years without a tv, and I began to notice very weird things. I noticed how a ton of people couldn’t describe an event or situation without referring to some TV show. I call it the Seinfeld Effect, because at that time so many people would try to describe some event in their life and they just couldn’t without saying ‘Omygod it’s just like that Seinfeld where George and Jerry do that thing with..blah blah blah’.
I don’t watch TV. We got out of the habit when caring for my Mother-in-Law, since regular programing would greatly confuse her Alzheimer’s-addled brain. Eventually, we just dropped our cable service altogether, and didn’t bother to reconnect it once she passed away. I don’t miss it in the slightest. I get my news online and from the radio, I watch movies (and a few select TV shows which enough people will recommend) via DVD/NetFlix. And I think that I think more clearly as a result. It’s a lot like giving up on religion.
Seriously – you stop believing stuff just because it is on the tube. You stop buying-into the whole cultural imperative to be on top of the latest fad, the latest product, the latest brainwashing. You start to think more for yourself, and to give less of yourself over to others.
This isn’t the first time I have given up on TV. While in grad school my TV died, and I really didn’t see the sense in buying a new one. For about four years I just didn’t watch TV. Then I learned the same lessons as I have this time. Except this time, I look back on the period between those two absences, when I did occasionally watch TV (though still a hell of a lot less than average), and I am convinced that I lost more of myself to being sucked into the TV than I ever thought possible at the time. It is only when you are outside of that trap that you see just how insidious it is.
So, the old adage is right: kill your television. Because it is killing your ability to think.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Health, Hospice, NPR, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Sleep, Survival
No, I don’t know what it means.
It was one of those things I woke up thinking in the middle of the night, a week or so ago. So I wrote it down.
Why did I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking such a thing? Good question. It was about 3:00, the usual time I would wake and go check on Martha Sr the last couple of years of her life. And even though it’s been almost a year since her death, I still wake about that time fairly often. I try and get back to sleep, and usually succeed. Because I know sleep is important to my recovery.
I’ve mentioned several times the steps I am taking to get my health under control, and why. For the last six weeks now my blood pressure has been stable in the 145/85 range. Still high, and next month when I see my doctor we may need to tweak my dosages again, but about 90/40 points better than it was three months ago. The meds I’m taking, a beta blocker and a calcium channel blocker, are doing their jobs and helping me detox from my cortisol and norepinephrine overloads, but I’m not past it all yet. My waking at night, even occasional bouts of insomnia, are evidence of that.
And researchers have added another level of understanding to just how dangerous this sleep disruption is:
Morning Edition December 24, 2008 · The human heart requires a certain amount of sleep every night to stay healthy, and that link between sleep and heart health is stronger than researchers suspected, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
* * *
When they put it all together, the researchers got a surprising result. Among these healthy, middle-aged volunteers, those who averaged five or fewer hours of sleep had a much bigger incidence of silent heart disease.
“Twenty-seven percent of them developed coronary artery calcification over the five years of follow-up,” Lauderdale says. “Whereas among the persons who slept seven hours or more, on average, only 6 percent developed coronary artery calcification.”
In other words, the sleep-deprived people had 4.5 times the risk of heart disease — and that’s after researchers subtracted out the effects of other known coronary risk factors, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking.
It remains to be seen why too-little sleep is linked to clogged coronaries. Maybe it has something to do with stress hormones. Lauderdale says other studies have shown that depriving people of sleep raises their levels of cortisol, one stress hormone.
I don’t yet have any indication of serious heart disease. The preliminary checks from visiting the doctor over the last few months haven’t turned anything up, but she has been mostly concerned with getting my blood pressure under control. We’ll be doing a more complete exam in the new year, now that this other issue is less of an immediate concern.
That’s not to say that I expect that we’ll find anything. But neither would it surprise me if we did, given what else I know about what the stresses I’ve placed my body under over the last five years. I’ve been my own puppet, dancing at all hours.
Maybe that’s what it means.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Flu, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Science, Society
Once again, I have a mild cold. Been fighting it all week. It is depressing how many times I have had such minor bugs over the last couple of years. And an indication that my baseline health stats are compromised still from being a care provider. It’s for the birds.
Actually, new evidence suggests that the cold virus is from the birds:
Common Cold Virus Came From Birds About 200 Years Ago, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2008) — A virus that causes cold-like symptoms in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago, according to a new article published in the Journal of General Virology. Scientists hope their findings will help us understand how potentially deadly viruses emerge in humans.
* * *
Human metapneumovirus is related to the respiratory syncytial virus, measles, mumps and parainfluenza viruses. It infects people of all ages but is most common in children under five. Symptoms include runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever. Infection can also lead to more severe illnesses such as bronchitis and pneumonia, which can result in hospitalisation, especially in infants and immunocompromised patients. HMPV infection is most common during the winter and it is believed to cause up to 10% of respiratory illnesses in children.
“HMPV was first discovered in 2001, but studies have shown that the virus has been circulating in humans for at least 50 years,” said Professor Dr Ron Fouchier from ErasmusMC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. “HMPV is closely related to Avian metapneumovirus C (AMPV-C), which infects birds. Because of the similarity, scientists have suggested that HMPV emerged from a bird virus that crossed the species barrier to infect humans.”
A cautionary tale, and a reason why a lot of scientists and public health officials keep a close eye on Avian Flu (H5N1) around the world for evidence of a new pandemic.
Me, I plan on taking direct action along with my OTC meds. I’m going to get even today, and enjoy eating a turkey. It’s a simple matter of self defense.
Oh, the other thing that has kept me entirely too busy the last few days has been working on the new ballistics site mentioned earlier this month. There are a couple of remaining tweaks to be done, but it is basically ready to go, complete with an associated blog, all the data, all the downloads, and over seventy pop-up graphs. Sometime this weekend we’ll migrate it over to its own domain, but if you want an advanced look, feel free to poke around.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Blade Runner, Connections, General Musings, Health, movies, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction, Survival, Writing stuff
As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been very busy getting ready for our trip to Patagonia, including some long hours to wrap up work for clients before I leave.
But I took some time out for a follow-up visit to my doctor. A good thing that I did.
* * * * * * *
As I sat waiting in the exam room for my doctor to come in, I looked around. All the usual stuff. But high up on top of a cabinet, only barely visible from where I sat on the exam table, was a wooden box. Some light-colored wood, perhaps pine or a light oak. It was a bit battered, but in decent shape, about the size of loaf of bread. Not one of those long loafs of sandwich bread – a short loaf, of something like rye or pumpernickel.
One the end of the box bore a large seal, the sort of thing which was popular in the late 19th century. Big outer ring, inner motif of a six-pointed star, cross-hatched on half of each star arm to indicate motion or something. Center of the star had three initials: JBL. Around the ring was more information: “TYRELLS HYGIENIC INST. NEW YORK CITY U.S.A. PATENT JANUARY, 1894 AUGUST, 1897 JUNE 1903.” Outside the ring, one in each upper corner, and one below in the center were three words: “JOY. BEAUTY. LIFE.”
You can get some idea of what this looked like from this image. So far, I have been unable to find an image online of the box I saw.
* * * * * * *
I’d gone in first part of the week to have blood drawn, for tests my doctor wanted to run. I still have the bruise where the aide who drew the blood went a bit too deep and punctured the back of my vein.
My doctor looked over the lab results, looked up at me. “Not too bad. LDL is a bit high, so is your HDL, which helps. Fasting blood sugar also a bit high, but not bad. I think we should give both of those a chance to settle out some more, as you continue to get diet and exercise back completely under your control. The rest all looks pretty good – liver & kidney function, et cetera. Nothing to be too worried about.”
She handed over the sheaf of papers to me. “But I want to do something more about your blood pressure. It is still dangerously high, though you seem to have made some real progress with the beta blocker.”
Yeah, I had – I’d been testing it. And it was down 50 points systolic, 20 points diastolic. About halfway to where it should be.
“Would you be willing to try something else? Another drug?”
Echo of the first conversation we had on the topic. “What did you have in mind?”
“Calcium channel blocker,” she said. “We could still increase the dosage of the beta blocker you’re taking, because you’re on the low end of that. But I would like to see how your system responds to this additional drug, also at a minimal dosage. Then we can tweak dosage levels, if we need to.”
Another good call. “Sure, let’s try it.”
* * * * * * *
My doctor returned with my prescriptions. “Do you have any other questions?”
I pointed at the box up on top of the cabinet. “What’s the story behind that?”
Caught off-guard, she looked at the box, confused.
“I mean, what was in there? Is there a particular reason you have it?”
“No, not really. Nothing’s in there. I just came across it at an antique shop some years ago.” She looked at me. “Why?”
“There was an author in the 60s & 70s who wrote a lot of stuff I like. Philip K. Dick. He had a lot of health issues, and I can imagine him sitting in a room not unlike this one, looking at some variation of a box like that.” I got down off the exam table. “One of his most important books was made into the movie Blade Runner in the early 1980s. In that movie one of the major characters goes by the name Tyrell, and he has a connection to . . . um, the medical industry. I just thought it an interesting coincidence.”
“Oh.” She was completely lost. I’ve worked with doctors enough to know that they do not like this feeling. “Well, we’ll see you after your trip, check out how the new meds are working, OK?”
“Sure.”
Jim Downey
“I’m glad it was just the two of us. Seems appropriate.”
* * * * * * *
My wife’s family settled in Missouri in the Nineteenth century. I don’t know (or I should say, don’t remember) all the details, but they wound up south of here in Maries County. They started a small community which no longer survives, and a church there that does. The family still meets in the church annually for a John Family reunion.
I’ve mentioned previously my own connections to the southern part of the state, and how much I actually enjoy going there. Particularly this time of year, when the air is crisp but not cold, when there is fall color starting to settle onto the trees. It’s the reason my wife and I decided to get married in October.
So there was some pleasure in the drive today down highway 63. But still, we both cried.
* * * * * * *
I spent some time this afternoon reading journal entries from my partner in writing, dating back to the early onset of his mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s. Raw stuff. Honest stuff. Bits about some of the early signs of declining mental ability, confusion about where she was, what was happening. How he and his wife were trying to cope with it. And now and then, when his MIL had a particularly bad period, or her health required hospitalization, wondering how long it would be before “Mumsie” passed away, how long he would be able to see through the role of care providing.
Thing is, this was *two years* before her actual passing.
Sometimes, the only way you can keep going is if you don’t know how long you’ll have to do so. If you knew the true length of the road ahead, and the condition of it, you’d be too likely to give up.
* * * * * * *
This evening I’ll fast after dinner. I go in in the morning and have blood drawn for tests, and later this week I’ll meet up with my doctor for a follow up to my earlier exam. We’ll find out what things other than my blood pressure need attention. We’ll also see if I need to do something in addition to the beta blockers mentioned in that post – possibly, though my bp is down 50/20 already. This is a huge improvement, though I have about that much further to go to get to ‘normal’. Yeah, like I said, it was scary bad.
But I’ve begun to notice other improvements. I sleep longer, better. There are even nights when I don’t wake up at 3:00, listening hard for the sound of Martha Sr’s breathing over the baby monitor.
* * * * * * *
“What are you thinking?” my wife asked.
I watched leaves skittle across the road, tumbling in the draft of the car ahead. A wide and glorious vista opened to the north, ridge after ridge of green, little clusters of other colors here and there. “Lots of things.”
Yeah, lots of things.
“”I’m glad it was just the two of us. Seems appropriate.”
She nodded.
“I mean, we were with her pretty much on our own. It just seems appropriate that it was the two of us to bury her cremains.” I paused, thinking of the memorial service. That was for the family, for the friends. We’d decided on making the trek to the family church, where there is still half the graveyard reserved for family members, on this day, because it was the anniversary of her parents.
I’m an atheist, and I don’t believe in the survival of the soul or any such. But it seemed like the appropriate day to bury Martha Sr, there next to her husband. And that Martha Jr and I should be the ones to do it.
I now know how long the road is, and in what condition. But I am glad I drove it the full distance.
Happy anniversary, Martha and Hurst.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Health, Hospice, Preparedness, Sleep, Survival
I mentioned in a comment on UTI yesterday that I had a doctor’s appointment, and expected to find there that I had a respiratory infection that needed treatment. Well, I did, and I do, and now I’ve started a 10-day regimen of antibiotics.
But that’s not the reason why I made the appointment two weeks ago.
* * * * * * *
Almost a year ago I wrote a very raw and painful post titled “Beats having a heart attack.” Here’s the crucial passage:
And as I stood there at the sink, washing the dishes, thinking favorably on the option of having a heart attack, it sunk in that I was done. I mean, I’d been considering that a heart attack might be the best solution to my problems. Yeah, a heart attack. Hell, at 49, I’d probably survive it. It’d come as no surprise to anyone, given the kind of physiological and psychological stress I’m under. No one could blame me for no longer being a care-provider for someone with Alzheimer’s.
Well, I didn’t have a heart attack. And I wasn’t done. We made it through six months of hospice care for Martha Sr – easily the most demanding period of care providing. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a cost to me, physically.
* * * * * * *
I sat in the exam room, waiting to meet the new doctor. My face was flushed, my heart racing. I was having a low-grade anxiety attack.
No big deal, right? Lots of people get nervous around doctors.
But I don’t. Hell, I put myself through grad school working in an outpatient surgery unit. Because it was a remote location far from the central supply facility for the hospital, they had established a large sterile storage area adjacent to the 8 surgical theatres. For five years I manned that storage area, keeping the surgical teams supplied. And I was in an out of operations constantly, bringing necessary sterile supplies to the surgical teams. Even my designated break room was shared with the surgical staff. In that five years I got to see and know a lot of doctors in almost every imaginable medical situation, as well as personally. I’ve never been nervous around doctors since.
The doctor knocked and then came into the room. I was sitting on the exam table, still fully clothed. I hadn’t been told to undress or anything by the aide who had parked me there half an hour earlier, so there was no modesty issue connected with my anxiety.
“Hi, I’m Dr —.”
“Jim Downey. Pleased to meet you.”
She held out a hand, relaxed. “Likewise. What can we help you with today?”
I shook her hand, then passed to her a book I had been browsing through. One I had seen on the shelf there in the exam room. “This was my life for the last 5 years.”
* * * * * * *
I’ve talked about the stress of care-giving before, and how I am now in a detox period from a prolonged norepinephrine saturation. As I wrote in June:
The problem is, those stress hormones come with a price – they exact a toll on the body. For most people, occasional jolts of this stuff isn’t really dangerous, but for someone with a heart condition or an aneurysm waiting blow, such an event can kill. That’s why you see those warning signs on roller coasters.
And consider what happens to someone who slowly ramps up their stress hormone levels over a prolonged period. That’s me. My formerly excellent blood pressure and heart rate is now scary bad, and has been for a while. I’m lucky that I started this in good condition – but think back to this episode last year, and you’ll see what kind of effect the excessive stress hormone levels had. In the final year of care giving, my system became saturated with stress hormones – my ‘fight or flight’ reflex changed from being related to a sudden threat to being an ongoing condition. I adapted.
That was why I made the doctor’s appointment. And the reason I was nervous was because I was afraid of what the cost I had imposed on my body actually was.
* * * * * * *
Dr — took the book, looked at it. She nodded, then looked at me. “Tell me about it.”
We talked.
We talked about the care-giving, when it ended, what I had tried to do to care for myself during and since. She looked over my records, asked a few questions, did a few of the typical exam things doctors do to confirm their innate understanding.
“Well, let’s treat this respiratory infection.” She paused, looked at me. “You know, your blood pressure is quite high.”
Actually, my blood pressure was scary bad. When the aide took it earlier, she was startled by how high it was. Let’s put it this way – it’s in the range where if it were just a bit higher, hospitalization would be indicated in most cases. If I walked into an ER with that blood pressure, people would start rushing around.
“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” I told the doctor what I’ve said in those post cited above.
She nodded, realized that I knew what I was talking about. “How would you feel about starting a drug therapy to get it under control?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Beta blocker.” She looked at me. “You may not need to be on it forever. The other things you are doing and recovery from the care providing might be sufficient – later. But for now, I think it would be wise.”
It was the right call. Beta blockers act specifically to counter the effects of stress hormones, especially norepinephrine.
“Sure. Let’s do it.”
* * * * * * *
So, that’s part of the cost of care-providing, documented by medical authority. It’s too early to say whether this drug therapy will be sufficient. I do still need to shed weight (though I’m now only about 20 pounds over what was my ‘normal’ weight about ten years ago), and keep an eye on diet and exercise, control stress, get plenty of sleep. And there’s no way to say how much long-term damage I did to my system by my period of high blood pressure (which increases the risk of stroke, dementia, heart disease and kidney damage). There’s no indication yet that there’s been any long-term damage, but . . .
I’m still glad I did it.
Jim Downey
My wife teared-up as we went over the statement from the auction house.
* * * * * * *
I’ve mentioned previously the chaos of the last few months, as we went through distributing Martha Sr’s household items between family members and then packed things up to go to a local auction. Well, things are starting to get sorted out and put away now. And we gave away my old computer on Freecycle to someone who needed it. So, while it still feels like we’re knee-deep in boxes, we’ve been making real progress.
But as I said, it has come at a price: tapping into my energy reserves. Another component of that is that I think I have developed a respiratory infection. I’ve had awful problems with allergies all this year, but in the last couple of weeks things have compounded. I’m scheduled to see a doctor tomorrow for a general check-up (since I just turned 50 and haven’t had one for a while), so we’ll see if there is something else going on.
* * * * * * *
I charge $100 per hour for my conservation services. Oh, I usually don’t bill for all my time – there’s prep, and clean-up, and distractions, and breaks – but that is my rate. So I use that as a rough rule-of-thumb when considering whether it makes economic sense for me to do this or that thing myself (like working on my car). Now, a lot of times I do decide to do things like yardwork or gardening, because they get me out of the house or give me pleasure. But still, that calculation is there, running in the background.
And so it was as we packed up things for the auction last week. I knew that it would probably be more financially sensible to let someone else do it (the auction house will have their people wrap, box, and load things at a flat rate less than mine), or just not bother taking the time to individually wrap up glasses and old dinnerware. I knew that it was unlikely that most of the stuff we were sending to auction would generate much. But I just hate to waste things, to see them damaged, when they are perfectly good and serviceable.
* * * * * * *
My wife teared-up as we went over the statement from the auction house. After all the costs were factored in, and the split with her siblings, our share would come to less than one hour’s worth of my time doing conservation work or her doing architecture work.
But that wasn’t why she was ready to cry. The money didn’t matter, not really. It was because the memories associated with those things were still so strong. Yeah, even the silly chipped dishes and the aging salmon-colored loveseat. And holding the statement and check from the auction house in her hand, it was one more bit of her mom she had lost, along with all the others which had slipped away over the years.
Letting go is hard.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Book Conservation, General Musings, Health, Sleep, Weather
I’m afraid that Hillary will need to continue to cope with chaos here on the homefront. This morning we did have the people from the auction company come and haul away the better part of a truckload of furniture and boxes – boxes which we’d been working the last couple of days to fill with various kitchen items, dishes, silverware, china and glass. The place is a lot less piled high with boxes, but now we need to move into the next phase of rearranging furniture into its more-or-less final configuration.
Gods, I am so ready to be done with this. Between moving my wife’s office here home and getting things ready for the auction, I’ve not accomplished any conservation work in too long. And I’ve tapped into my reserves too much – now I am feeling tired, worn out. It shows in my uninspired writing, too. In spite of the desire to just get things done, I may well take a long nap today. With the remnants of Gustav rolling through here for the next couple of days, it feels like a good time to nap.
So, more, later. Hopefully stuff more interesting than reports on how chaotic my life is.
Jim Downey
These stupid monkeys! Why can’t they leave well enough alone? Sheesh, every time I come down from a nap, I find that they’re once again playing with space. Moving furniture here, only to move it back there a couple of days later. Boxes – lovely, empty, mysterious boxes, perfect for playing in – all filled up with pointless glasses and dishes, then stacked high in the front room so that I can’t even get to sharpen my claws on the back of that ugly old couch. And every time I go to supervise their work, sitting quietly in the middle of the floor so that I can properly observe what they’re doing, they shoo me away (if I’m lucky – if not, one of the big oafs will attempt to step on my tail or something). Even the idiot, drooling dog has the good sense to hide when they get going.
Sheesh. Well, maybe in all the moving and changing space, they’ll turn up a nice mouse for me to play with . . .
Hillary
Communion Of Dreams 