But Then Again...We Pause in Everyday Ramblings

This is not a great picture but what I love is the color of the roses. I took this Thursday walking up in the West Hills with one of my students. She had a very attractive mask and we both kept ours on the whole walk. I was the first person she had spent more than oh say 20 minutes with since lockdown three months ago. She did have a couple of friends stop by and say hi in an RV on the way to visit a new grandson.

She has been depressed and a bit overwrought and I have been gently nudging her to be a little more connected and she started taking my online classes for the first time about a month ago. She keeps her camera off so this is the first time I have actually seen her in all this time. She wanted me to show her “The Castle House” which I pointed out to her during the holidays from below when she walked me part of the way home from class.

Her pace was a bit fast for me, she is used to powering her way up hills on her own as a mood modification technique and I was able to get her to slow down enough for me to sustain the walk and also enjoy her curious company. This walking with new people thing is an adjustment.

I am walking with Charity tomorrow and am looking forward to that. But Charity doesn’t like up and we did a lot of up. We did find the castle house but we also walked by a very expensive (at least to me) home that had recently almost completely burned. The whole roof was caved in.

As an empath and retired nurse my student was fretting about those who might have been hurt but I looked it up yesterday. The fire was three weeks ago, there were two people in the over 4,000 square feet home built 15 years ago and they managed to get to a neighbor without injury. The older gentleman owner said he must have forgotten to turn the barbeque off on the deck when he went to bed. It took 70 firefighters to get it out and not damage surrounding property.

We saw some great views and some old friends of mine including a big handsome stone lion; and one unusual and absolutely gorgeous French garden full of lupines, roses and delphiniums.

I think I might go back on my own or take Mrs. Sherlock up there next week when we are going to have a hot spell after we get through this current gloom and rain.

Diego is doing better but we had a hard day Wednesday. After I wrote my last post he was throwing up what was left in his stomach but the delivery with the elimination diet food came. I got the anti-nausea medicine down him but then frustratingly some hours later he threw up again.

Since then though, for two days he hasn’t thrown up and is much much calmer. I need to figure out how to get the probiotic down him because he (and Carlo as well) has settled into only eating the dry elimination diet food. The wet flood is gloppy and they are not amused. The anti-nausea med is much smaller and I can get him to swallow that with boss lady determination and patience. I only have a couple of those left.

There is always a challenge. I know from a spiritual point of view it is useful to be grateful for one’s challenges as they give us an opportunity to practice the virtues but…

There is a lot of soothing calming thinking going on around here.

We were set in my county to go to Phase 1 opening yesterday but Thursday evening our Governor pulled back and said hold on…the Covid-19 case counts are higher now here than they have ever been.

Yes we are testing more, and yes there have been super-spreader workplace outbreaks but the deal is the percent of positive cases is going up. We are still under 3% and so there are states that are in worse shape but still this is hard on everyone.

I heard that in the UK they didn’t actually deploy the “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters during the war. The slogan was created along with two others, the posters printed but the public hated the sentiment and they were never used.

With all that is going on, it is an intense challenge to keep calm.

But for Diego’s sake I am gong to make the effort until we can find out what he is allergic to and bring cheerful cat energy back into his world.

Last updated June 13, 2020