Kitty Update

Just checking in with an update on Meredith cat. If you missed the post describing her problem, go here. 

In addition to her trembling spells, she had also started drinking a lot and, not surprisingly, peeing a lot.

I was originally given a December 23 appointment for bloodwork but when her drinking/peeing increased last week, I called again and they fit her in the same day.

All of her bloodwork has come back fine: no diabetes, no liver or kidney problems, no thyroid issues. But her urine is very dilute and the vet is concerned about that.

So today she is having a full body x-ray to see if she might have a growth or tumour of some sort that is causing the issue. I had to take her in first thing this morning, and it could be afternoon before I get a call to retrieve her, as they have been very busy and told me they'd just be fitting her in around the other scheduled appointments as time becomes available.

I hate leaving my cats at the vet, although I know they get good care. I just feel so sorry for them, not able to be in their own familiar surroundings, and with all the other anxious pets adding to the noise and strangeness.

I do wonder, though, if waaaay inside Meredith's memory, she senses that she has been there before for some extended period of time - back before she came to live with us, when the vet had fixed her up after her accident and she spent time recuperating and waiting for a new home. I hope so, if it makes it easier on her.

Maybe I'm more anxious than she is. 

I'll update this post when I've spoken to the vet later today.

Update:  The news is not good - the x-ray showed a "calcified mass" in her chest, which is pushing her heart forward. There is nothing that can be done. As long as she is eating and seems comfortable, we will keep going forward. This is the heartbreaking part of having pets, but I try hard, very hard, to remember that giving them the best possible end-of-life care is a vital part of having a furry loved one. I don't know how long Meredith will have, but I'll try to make it the most comfortable time possible.

 

Commenting in Blogger

You may notice the next time you leave a comment that I am now using the pop-up box for comments instead of the embedded comment box.

Some folks have been having a very hard time leaving comments and they find the pop-up box works better, so I'm giving it a try.

If you want to change yours, just go to the Dashboard of your blog, click on Settings, scroll down to Comments, click on Comment Location, then choose Popup Window.

And here are a few related memes, for your amusement.

 

 

"Popped" ... "Pop-up" ... Get it? (Yep, that's a pretty tenuous connection to the post, I know)

 

 

 

Do you have any other tips to help commenters who are having difficulty commenting in Blogger?

Catching Up

Hello, my people. It has been a while. I haven't been commenting much on your blogs, but I am still reading when I can. Your posts are a welcome distraction and I thank you for that. It's also nice to keep up with everyone's lives. This post is me trying to return some of that to you.

Work and work-related things have been keeping me busy. October is always a month of deadlines at my job. And recently two of my long-time fellow workers retired, so there were gifts, etc. to sort out and a supper to attend. It was a lovely evening, but it was also heart-wrenching because our workplace is very much a close-knit group of congenial people, like a second family for most or all of us, and I will miss working with these two people very much. It feels like two more losses in my world, certainly not on the same level as losing my husband, but not inconsequential either.

Home stuff has also been occupying my mind. So many things I was going to do in the spring, then in the summer, then in the fall before the snow comes . . . are still to be done. I have to figure out things like what snow tires I need, where to buy them, and take the vehicle to the garage to have them installed. Some yard work and cleanup has to be done now or it won't get done at all until next May. Fortunately our son is helping me with a lot of things and that helps to reduce the To Do list. But there are a few things that need done to the exterior of the house and I've been putting off calling to get it started. That will have to happen this coming week.

"Mom" stuff has been about the same as usual - a daily visit for medications, a weekly grocery trip, a few medical appointments, and extended conversations to try to explain things she doesn't understand and/or remember. Her ability to cope varies from day to day. For example, now that the weather is cooler and she has the furnace turned on, she is worrying about how much oil is in the tank. Two days ago she looked at the gauge and understood that it showed her tank over half full. Today she had no idea how to figure out the amount of oil remaining and repeatedly asked about it. Finally we went to her basement and I showed her the gauge and thought she understood. By the time we went back upstairs she had forgotten again. When she gets anxious about things, she tends to make poor decisions, then blame everyone else for both the problem and the results of her decisions, and then I have to fix it, so I like to try to avoid that if possible. But there's only so much I can do. Her appointment with the geriatric doctor isn't until December, and even if by some chance she is assessed as needing to go to a nursing home, there has been a shutdown of admissions to those due to insufficient staffing levels. So we will need to muddle along the way things are for a while yet.

I've also had Lucy cat to the vet for a checkup, required before the vet would approve a refill of a medication. The vet said her lungs sound better than they had, and advised me to cut back her pills gradually until she's at the lowest dose that will control her symptoms. One of the side effects of the medication is that she wants to eat more than usual. Reducing it should help to decrease her appetite. She is quite a bit heavier than she should be, because she gets aggressive when she wants food, and I don't want to be bitten again. (The first time required antibiotics.)

Meanwhile, also on my To Do list is to make a vet appointment for Meredith cat. She has occasional spells of trembling accompanied by a sort of stupor. I had her checked last spring, but the vet at that time didn't suggest blood work and I'd like to re-visit that question. We acquired Meredith after she had been hit by a car and taken by police to the vet for care. He wasn't sure he could even save her, but he did. Then no one claimed her, and we were looking for a companion to the other cat we had at the time. She has always had occasional twitching of her facial muscles and front paws, and both the current vet and I figure she had some neurological damage that is simply progressing with age. But I'd like to rule out other illnesses. I should have requested the blood work at the spring visit and I don't really remember why I didn't, but maybe I just wasn't thinking as clearly as I should have been.

One thing I have finally accomplished is to have our second vehicle overhauled and ready to pass on to our daughter. It took four months to get one small part for a critical repair. Before I could deliver the car to her, the Service Engine light came on. Luckily all it needed was an oil change, and within the coming week the car will at last be delivered to its new home.

I am somewhat worried that my other vehicle will break down and require parts that are not immediately available. Components for new cars and replacement parts for older cars are in short supply across North America. But I can't justify having two vehicles and the attendant costs. Also, our daughter and her family, who live in a rural area, could use the convenience that having a second vehicle would bring. Her husband often takes their two little boys out for errands and it will be good for her to have a way to do some things on her own while they are busy. So I'm glad this is happening soon.

*****

How about some funnies?

 

 

This is not my Lucy, but it's the same facial expression. Also, she meows. Loudly, with a violent edge to it.

Maybe by my next post I can cross off more than "wake up".

So, how are YOU doing? What's new in your part of the planet?

Kitty Litter Update

I've found a different brand of the same type of kitty litter I used to use (which was Yesterday's News, recycled newspaper formed into pellets). The new brand is called "Fresh 4 Life" and it looks and smells very similar to my old brand. It's also cheaper, which is something that doesn't happen very often. I found it basically by accident when I went to a local pet store hoping to find old stock of Yesterday's News, or a recommendation for a new type of litter.

It is somewhat harder for me to handle, as it only comes in 30-lb bags and I am not a very big person. I was able to buy 15-lb bags of the old brand. Also, the new litter is bagged in plastic; the old brand was bagged in heavy paper, which was compostable. And after having used the new litter for a couple of weeks, I notice that it doesn't break down as easily when wet, to absorb the odour, and I'm having to change it more often. Maybe that balances out the cost saving.

But I can live with those things. The clumping clay litter was dusty and gritty and tracked badly. The clumping version of Yesterday's News was also really messy. I didn't realize how much one of my cats moseyed around until she was using this litter. It was everywhere. And every time I tried to sweep it up, it floated around quite a bit and required a second sweeping to get it all.

You can see in this photo how one trip across the floor by one of my cats left a trail behind: (actually you won't see it unless you use Control + to enlarge the photo ... or I think you can also just click on the photo to make it bigger)

(the litter box is on the white/blue puppy training pads on the right - I didn't think you wanted to see the actual litter box)

(also, do you see the guilty party unable to look me in the eye and at the same time undoubtedly wondering why the floor is so filthy)

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

 

My new cat name is Madam Bossy None-of-these because my favourite colour isn't on there.

Sadly true.

Thank you all for your kind and supportive comments on my last post. It did help to write about it, and I appreciate having you walk beside me through this time in my life.

I hope you have a good week ahead.

How It Feels

Grief, that is.

It feels like pressure, like a huge hand with me in its grip, squeezing out my breath, my tears, my energy, my motivation, my give-a-damn.

It feels like grey, like brown, like black, like mud and tar and cement shoes.

It feels like hopelessness, like the future is lost, like the past hurts, like crying. 

Crying, and crying, and crying.

Tears behind my mask at the grocery store, where I see constant reminders of foods my husband loved, of foods he was forced to eat when he could no longer swallow solids, of foods I bought to tempt his appetite but he never got to eat and they sat on kitchen shelves until they were past their expiry date and I cried as I threw them away.

Tears at work, when I see his name in a file because we worked in the same profession and some of his clients became clients of my boss after my husband's death.

Tears when I am driving and I think of the last times he drove himself before I wouldn't let him drive anymore because he was so weak he could barely walk but he had something to do at his office and he was determined to get there. We argued over that, and my heart broke to see him cry, and hear him say, "Okay, okay, it's easier to give in than to keep arguing with you", and to know it was so hard for him to give up that shred of dignity but it was not safe for him to get behind the steering wheel.

And I am selfishly glad that I could take him to the office that day because I got to see him behind his desk one last time and we sat in the sun and the silence while he worked and I was able to be his legs and take documents up and down stairs to other offices. And as he worked, I looked around and saw how he had made his office a reflection and a collection of his life: his diplomas, his pictures, his textbooks, his ornaments. He had moved into that office just one year before that and I had never been in it. And I am glad I had that time and that memory to file away.

I cry because when we got home that day, he crawled into the hospital bed that had been placed in our family room because he could no longer manage the stairs, and it turned out that it was one of the very last times he was able to walk at all. I didn't know it then, of course.

The last time for everything was only identifiable in hindsight. 

I miss him so much and as you can tell my grief has seeped out of the box it's been in, probably partly because the barriers I've put up between my mother's needs and what I am willing to do to satisfy them are now working better and partly because the arrival of fall weather has made the memories of my husband's last everything come into sharper focus and it's like living it all over again except he is not here this time around for me to comfort and take care of, nor for him to comfort me, a job I tried hard not to set on his shoulders but failed at doing sometimes.

Some days are not as bad but other days are very bad; this is one of the those and I needed to get it out.

Thank you for reading in spite of what may be going on in your own lives. We all have troubles; they are all different and they are all relative to what we've gone through before and what we understand of pain and loss and broken dreams. Never think your pain is less than anyone else's or that you have no right to feel sad or hurt. There are so many kinds of pain and they are all valid. I think this advice is equally for you and for me.

I don't want you to worry or think that I am lost or unable to cope. I have not gone to grief counselling but I have found an author online who writes about grief and his words resonate with me and make me feel I am not alone and for now that is enough. I have never felt truly comfortable with the thought of talking to a complete stranger about the things that are most important to me. I seem to be able to work things through without what I see as an invasion of my privacy as long as I can read what others have to say on the subject and identify with their thoughts and feelings and experiences.

And although I know from the page views that there may be complete strangers reading this, I know there are people also reading who I feel I know better than many people in my immediate geographic circle, and I value and appreciate your caring and support and the time you take to listen.

If you are having a bad day today, I will listen also. Drop me a line in the comments. And may we all have better days ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

What Was Lost In Editing

My initial pride at editing out so much of my last post was replaced with the realization that this is what happens every time I edit my posts -- I don't just reduce the word count while keeping the message intact; instead, I take out information I'm uncomfortable putting in, which inevitably means I take out information that is important to the whole story. 

It also means I think I've told you things I haven't, because inside my brain the information still registers as "written" even though I've deleted it, so what remains of the post doesn't make as much sense as it could have.

And finally, it means I still have half the story bottled up inside me, something I am finding hard to sustain.

So in this post I'm going to give you the edited parts, to reduce my stress and to try to give you the whole story, or as whole as I can make it.

You know what they say, there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth. In this case: my story, my mother's story, and the truth. I will try hard to be objective but please know that I realize what an impossible job that is.

My mom has always had a tendency to want control over the others in her life. She was a teacher, fer cryin' out loud. (That's an inside joke for all the families of teachers I have known). She was a good teacher, I think, but those skills don't necessarily translate to parenting or partnering. At home she wore the pants, as the saying goes. It affected all our lives. From my earliest memory, there was no marital harmony in our home. My mother finally divorced my father in the mid-1990s. She re-married a few years later, but left him within a few years. So, she has happily lived alone since 2000, by her own choice. That was also the year she moved to my town, close to where she grew up and only a short distance from me and my family.

At first she was self-sufficient, but as the years rolled past and she reached her late 70s and beyond, I and my husband began to be on call for her if she needed accompanying to appointments or little things done around her house. We were okay with that. I mention it only to show that she was becoming more dependent on us long before the dementia began.

At the same time, one of our teenagers developed a severe chronic illness which kept her bedridden for a year and needing help for years after that. Then my father had a paralyzing stroke just as our daughter left the bedridden stage of her illness, and he had to be placed in a nursing home for the last eight years of his life. I was his closest relative, both emotionally and geographically. I took care of his finances and the sale of his home, bought his clothing, did his gift shopping, attended all his medical appointments and surgeries, visited him almost daily, and helped him stay in touch with his siblings and my brother, as he could not use the telephone independently. Five years after his death, my husband developed cancer and died ten months later: ten months of worry, appointments, increasing care, and total heartbreak.

I did everything I could think of for all of them and ached for them, wishing I could relieve their burdens in some way. I do not think I am lacking in empathy. Yet I have so little empathy for my mother. It's not due to her dementia; dealing with dementia alone is difficult but it doesn't kill my compassion. My lack of empathy is due to her personality. These days, she is just more of what she always was. She talks only of herself. She is the center of every melodramatic story, with details that have changed to make her the heroine every time. She blames everyone else for any problems that arise, a long-standing habit. She has taken frugality to meanness, not with her family (which feels uncomfortably like she is trying to buy our love) but for anyone she hires or who does work for her voluntarily, such as her neighbour who shovels her snow and mows her lawn. If I were to give him money or a gift, I would be accused of meddling (and I suppose I would be) but I'm afraid that if I wait until I can repay him without Mom finding out, it might be too late. We never know how life will go.

The situation is frustrating and stressful and at the exact same time it makes me feel crappy toward myself that I don't have the compassion for her that I had for my other family members.

I do realize that part of the stress and resentment I feel toward my mother is because her needs and demands have caused me to put off processing my grief. I have had to box it up and put it away. As the seasons pass, I would like to be able to have the time and space to experience my memories and mourn my husband and everything we shared in the past and still planned for the future. Mom remembers my husband has died, but she doesn't seem to understand how much it affects my life and how I feel. She loves to tell the story of the neighbour whose husband died suddenly; there was a home reception and the guests were sitting quietly and sadly. She baked cookies and took them to the home and everyone forgot their sadness (in her words). In reality, I expect they were simply being polite.

Another part of my frustration is that I've had little to no time or energy for the rest of the people I care about, in particular my children and grandchildren. One of my little grandsons has special needs and it takes a lot of energy to be with him. I just haven't had it in me, partly because of the energy I put into Mom's care.

To add to the pile, I have left undone a great many other things that should have been looked after since my husband's death: paperwork, major house and yard maintenance, and a decision on what to do with our cottage, a place that holds especially strong memories of my husband. With my job, the daily necessities of life, and Mom's care, I haven't the time or energy to do more than deal with each thing as it gets to crisis status.

My mother had her good points, too, and I try to remember them. She worked while raising us and made sure we had good medical and dental care and a good education, things not available to everyone in our area. Her focus on herself was less evident when she was younger, and she was always willing to do her share in the community. She helped nurse her brother and her father when they were at the end of their lives. (Side note: that was her favourite sibling, and she in turn was her father's favourite -- his own words.) And my mother didn't have her own mother around from the time she was about eight years old. She says her mother left; the story I heard straight from my grandfather was that he threw his wife -- and new baby -- out. My mother's aunts helped to raise her and her siblings until my mother was old enough to take over household duties. She did not have an easy life growing up. But I saw so much of my grandfather's selfish and short-tempered behavior in my mother. Did her personality come from genes or environment? I don't know. What I do know is that I share some of those genes and they come out at times, no matter how aware I am or how hard I try to do better. So how much blame should I put on my mother's shoulders for her own behavior?

I don't know. It seems the only thing I know for sure is how stressed out I am.

Anyway . . . that's the stuff I was reluctant to publish last time. Maybe it will help fill in the blanks for you. I still don't like putting it out in a public space but I don't think I can keep it bottled up either without adding to my stress. 

 

You have no idea how many times I've wanted to use this meme.

 

Thanks for reading, kind friends. I hope I haven't fallen too low in your eyes. This is the unvarnished, dark side of me. It's not pretty, but at least -- at last -- I've tried to be honest.

 

 

 

 

Update On My Mother

The last time I wrote about my mom was here.

The boundaries I set at that time helped my feelings of stress and despair, although it took a couple of weeks to feel my body start to relax.

But slowly my mother started pushing the boundaries again. She began to call me to see if I had gotten home safely from her house. It's a two-minute drive, people. Two minutes. I resisted at first but gave in one day when she hadn't been able reach me right away and when she did she said she was about to start walking to my house. Then she asked me to call her every night instead because she didn't know how long it took me to drive home. She is not particularly anxious about it; it just made her feel more comfortable (in her words).

After a week of that, I began to feel suffocated again. I often do my shopping in the evening because there are fewer people out and about and also just because I'm a night owl. I felt I could not keep my usual routine and it was like I was seventeen again and living under her roof, being told what job I could take and that I had to call home from university every Sunday (both of these things are true).

In the meantime, I was also guilty of allowing the previous boundaries to stretch. I found myself watching the clock to see if "enough" time had gone by so I could end the nightly pill visit. My self-imposed minimum visit was 30 minutes (why? I don't know), but I felt I was doing a better job if I stayed 60 minutes or more. But no matter how long I stayed, every night she followed me out the door, onto her front steps, and continued talking until I had to literally walk away to stop her.

I am quite willing to help Mom with her needs: medication, groceries, a certain amount of socialization. But I have to keep my brain and body healthy, too.

So I told myself to stop watching the clock and start watching my feelings instead. I need to deliver her pills daily, but anything beyond that is at my discretion, or if I see she has a genuine need for more time, like replacing a battery, sewing on a button, or listening to her for a few minutes.

I also told my mother I would no longer be checking in with her, and that I wouldn't be answering the phone if she was checking in with me right after a visit, because I'm an adult and go out and about quite safely lots of times that she doesn't know about. She didn't argue the point at all, which says to me that she knew she was asking for something she didn't have the right to ask.

That brings us to her geriatric evaluation. Her family doctor advised me that she did satisfactorily in many areas, but poorly in memory and orientation. This is consistent with my observations: she often repeats what she has just asked or said, and she cannot reliably remember what day of the week, month, or season it is and does not recognize streets other than the one route to the grocery store. The memory problem results in things like forgetting to pay bills and whether she has just called me three times already to ask about something. But she is still able to take care of her basic needs like feeding herself, personal hygiene, and laundry, and she is still able to use logical arguments when discussing problems, and remembers certain new information like the eye appointment she finally agreed to have because her cataract is getting worse.

She was quite able to argue over a dental appointment she asked me to make for her. When I gave her the appointment information, she started asking how much it would be, and that she was concerned about being so close to the dentist during Covid, and that at the age of 91 she doesn't feel she will get her money's worth from dental work, and she didn't want the dentist damaging any of her teeth and making things worse, and that dentists are all just out to make money . . . (note especially that she is not equally worried about being close to the optometrist! also, she can easily afford any amount of dental work and used to have regular checkups up until her dementia began)

The interminable questions, which involved me having to contact the dental office several times as Mom repeatedly objected to the cost, wore me out and we ended up in a heated exchange. I pondered the situation for a day, and realized maybe she simply no longer wanted the bloody dental checkup because it didn't meet her expectations, cost-wise, and wasn't high on her priority list, unlike the eye appointment. When I asked if she wanted to postpone or even cancel the dental appointment "for now", she quickly agreed.

I had invested so much time and energy in getting that appointment, I couldn't see what was right in front of me - she no longer wanted it.

So what have I learned in this section of my dementia caregiver course, fellow life students?

I'll tell you what I've learned.

I am my own worst enemy sometimes, but I have to learn to be my own best friend and watch myself for signs that I've broken my own rules, and not blame my mother for that. As a people pleaser, I feel compelled to give until it hurts, but I have to learn how to not do that.

I've also learned that if I run into resistance from Mom, it's probably because there's something else going on and I need to ask questions to find out what it is instead of getting steamed up because she has just upset my plans to help her. 

And lastly, I have learned that she probably still has more capacity to make decisions than I was giving her credit for. When something is important to her, she seems able to harness more ability to think. This reminds me that the person who did her geriatric evaluation told me there is a medication that can be prescribed to help concentration and that it might help with memory issues because it increases a person's ability to focus. I'm not sure how to bring that up with my mother but all I can do is try.

I feel quite sure that any gold stars I might award myself for learning these things are completely cancelled out by raising my voice at a 91-year-old with dementia, but there it is: the brutally honest update.

May I also add that this post was twice as long and a hundred times whinier in its first few drafts. I'm glad I didn't post it before I calmed down, because it probably would have killed a few readers through boredom alone. My conscience can't take that right now.

*****

Funnies? Well, why not! The theme today is "how I'm feeling".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And.........my personal favourite today; if I were to ever get a tattoo, this is what it should say:

Thanks for reading, my friends.

Wishing you a good week, where your battles are few and your judgement  impeccable. 

Loose Ends

I left you dangling on the cat litter issue so here is an update.

Thanks to all your comments, I had a few suggestions to try. Not all brands are available near me, but I found two clumping clay litters.

The first one I bought turned out to be scented. There were so many things to read on the box, the fact that it did not expressly say "unscented" escaped me. Scents are one thing Lucy cat is sensitive to, so I tried it with Meredith cat only. She aggressively sniffed it over and over, got it up her nose and sneezed and coughed. I left it for a day, thinking she'd get used to it and stop sniffing it, hence stopping the sneezing and coughing, but that didn't happen.

So I put it in an old dishpan and set it in the closet where the dead mouse smell is still lingering. I don't like just covering up smells but I thought maybe, just maybe, the litter would absorb the odour instead. Still working on that.

In the meantime, I bought another clumping litter which I made sure was labelled "unscented". 

Meredith cat did the same thing - sniffed aggressively, sneezed, etc. Over and over. It was pretty dusty, and tracked terribly. Both cats used it once, then ignored it.

After a couple of days I surrendered and put it in the compost, which is how we are instructed to dispose of kitty litter here. Which is a whole different post; maybe some day I'll tackle that.

Then I checked into wood pellets online, because I couldn't find them locally, and read that if they are not specifically made for cats the wood can contain essential oils that are poisonous to cats. You are apparently supposed to check with the manufacturer of horse and small pet bedding pellets to make sure they've sufficiently kiln-dried the pellets to reduce the oils to an acceptable level. Since I already have enough to worry about, AND since I have zero trust in manufacturers telling me the truth, AND since I'd have to order online exclusively, I decided not to go any further with that option.

In the meantime, I was able to find more of the new style Yesterday's News litter at my local Wal-Mart. 

And because I had already spent the better part of $30 on litter I couldn't use, I have to confess -- I bought it. Because as bad as it is compared to the original pellets, I do prefer it to the clay litters. And I suspect it will be available on a long-term basis, as this is the second batch I've found at the local Wal-Mart. Hopefully our grocery store will start to carry it, too, so I can pick it up easily with my weekly groceries.

This puts me in a bit of a quandry, though.

When the manufacturer emailed me asking for my address so they could send me some coupons for the new Yesterday's News, I told them I wouldn't be buying any of it so I wouldn't need their stinkin' coupons. I did not actually say "stinkin'", but I thought it, loudly. 

I know there is no way for them to know if I'm buying their stuff or not, but I was still planning to reply to their final email to me, which was exceedingly polite and apologetic but ultimately useless.

I do believe in giving credit where credit is due, and would like them to know I at least appreciated their extreme politeness, but how can I do that without also telling the rest of the story -- which is (1) that they gave me misleading information and (2) that although the new product sucks, it doesn't suck as bad as the other products I have tried?

Which is also complicated by the fact that one of the clay litters I tried is another of their products, so that's awkward.

I'm thinking I'll take the coward's way out and just not bother writing back.

*****

I also left you dangling on the dead mouse smell in my closet. Sorry if you didn't want reminded but I don't like to leave loose ends and I'm constantly doing so.

The smell is still kind of there, but I've boarded the hole in the wall back up and along with the pan of (clean) kitty litter in there, hopefully absorbing some of the smell, maybe I can put everything back in the closet soon. I really hope so, because if the house caught fire right now and the firefighters had to get in to the room where I'm storing all the closet stuff, they'd never make it.

*****

If you're also wondering how things are with my mother, that's going to take a whole 'nother post. If you're not wondering, that's okay because it's going to be a whole 'nother post and you can just skip it.

*****

It's time for some funnies. I'm returning to photo memes, because the Charlie Berens video didn't go over awfully well with about fifty per cent of readers. I wonder if it might be partly a language problem. As I replied to some commenters, part of what I like about Berens' humour is his use of colloquialisms, which don't translate easily to other countries, even English-speaking countries. And he does talk fast and has an accent. I realize it just might be a difference of taste, as well. But I have found in the past that videos from other countries are harder for me to follow due to the accents and in-jokes, so I'm hoping that's all it was for Charlie's humour too. I do aim to please, here!

I hope these pictures translate better :)

 

 

 

And some Dear Diary cat funnies:

Aaaaaand ... bringing us back full circle ...

Have a good week, my friends.