Friday

It's Friday of an upsetting week.  My dog Chances is not doing well.  On Sunday she got in front of my car when I was moving it, and I hit her.  Not hard, but hard enough to damage her back.  She can't use her hind legs now and has been at the vet's since Monday.  She showed slight improvement on Tuesday and the vet & I were hopeful, but there's been no progress since then.  I went to see her yesterday--the vet and I talked about having me take her home, but we agreed she was probably better off there, where there aren't stairs she has to be carried up & down.  It was hard to see her but also really nice.  She's in great shape, very perky, wags her tail a lot, eats like a pig and has control of her bodily functions.  He's not sure what's wrong, maybe something blocking the blood supply to her hind end.  We're going to wait 2 weeks before making any decision, but it doesn't really look very good.

What does Tess think?  She thinks her sister should be somewhere in the yard or in the car, and she runs around a lot, then sits on the back of the living room chair staring out the window.  Very touching, very sad.  I wish I could explain it to her, but maybe she suspects something, since she saw Chances before I took her to the vet.  Tess wants my attention all the time, which I suppose is not surprising.  She's very sweet but it's hard to see her being so puzzled.  She still has her Kitty, and she likes her Kitty.

What else happened this week.  Well, must have been SOMETHING.  Yes, we had a negotiations meeting on Monday, which resulted in a declaration of impasse by labor.  The board rejected our settlement offer 3 times, so our labor relations specialist feels we'll be in good stead with a mediator.  We'll see. 

Work has been ok.  A little slow, not as interesting as it sometimes is, but I'm probably just distracted.  I had an appointment with my psychiatrist this week & told him all about Chances Are.  I told him that I no longer think of our appointments as sessions, or of him as my therapist, so it never occurred to me to call him in my time of crisis.  I think he wished I still needed him that way.  He told me basically the same thing my sister told me: take care of myself.  Don't do anything or make any decisions right now.  So I'm not.  Well, I bought myself a new pair of shoes.  That would make my friend Ralph laugh--his partner Lin and I used to go to town every Saturday and I was always buying new shoes.  I guess it's what I do when I'm not feeling great, a way to cheer myself up.  Pretty much all the shoes I buy look the same, just trail shoes.

Yesterday I went to Wilmington, and I had plenty of time to get there so I went the back way, past the house we bought and sold many years ago, then past the Jay Mountain Range.  It was all very pretty and a nice experience.  Didn't make me feel bad or sad, I just appreciated how pretty it all was.  What I did in Wilmington was weed their non-fiction collection, which, it turned out, is heavily used so we couldn't throw out much stuff.  That was both disappointing and encouraging.  Good for her to have a collection her community uses.  Not very rewarding as a weeding experience.

After that I drove to Westport because I thought I would take Chances home.  The drive was pretty but long.  An even longer drive home.  But I had a nice visit with Chances, who was happy to see me.  Tess didn't seem to smell her sister on me when I got home.  Was I disappointed or relieved?  Yes.  Mostly I was just really sad that I didn't get to take her home.  Not so much because I want her home, but more that it would mean she was improving.

This weekend I will put down the new rug I bought for my kitchen.  No small task, means unloading sets of shelves and moving things around.  But I must do it--or why did I buy the rug?  I also hope to paint a small chest in my bedroom.  My signature black.  And Saturday night I'm having dinner with friends from across the lake.  I don't know them very well but am getting to know them in recent months.  Do I want to do this?  Not particularly, but when a neighbor issues an invitation it's polite to accept.  What DO I feel like doing this weekend?  Not much.