Progress!

I woke up with a still nagging low backache and some muscle spasms this morning, took a muscle relaxer and extra strength Tylenol and went back to bed instead of going back to work too soon. I know my body better than anyone else, having lived in it for 57 years.  I know what I should and shouldn't do. Heavy lifting, jumping up and down out of my chair every two minutes, running around chasing charts...it would have put me right back to square one.  I stayed home and continued to rest and do what I was told to do at my Monday doctor's appointment. Tonight, I am feeling better. I don't need the came to counteract the random muscle spasms that were hitting me while walking. I can get up and down out of a chair without having to stay bent over, gripping furniture until the spasms subsided and I could straighten up. Yea! Progress against this flare-up has been made! (We'll see how damaging tomorrow will be...but I'm not going to stress and worry about it tonight!)

Finished editing and proofing Sweetheart Lake in which Noah Hawthorn discovers his true love really is the girl next door.  Also, finished reading through the last print version of The Subtlety of Light and Shadow-advanced readers favorite novel so far- and...holy moly! Will need to pull it in the near future to fix all the mistakes I found this time through.  Definitely, something happens between the proofreading and the uploading of the final file. I cannot have made ALL these mistakes on my own, especially since I have read this book 6-8 times now!  I have a sneaking suspicion that it is autocorrect that is the bane of my existence at work here. It changes words, uses a similar word you may have used in the previous sentence or paragraph. Autocorrect is not smarter than I am, it just exists to make me look as dumb as it is! I HATE it!

Began reading Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman. Hmm, I am not going to stress out so much about commas anymore if this is how books are being published these days. It's a decent enough story so far. Atticus Finch has rheumatoid arthritis- I can empathize with that! Holy cow- Jem just dropped dead at some point between To Kill A Mockingbird and this book. No explanation. Am only 4 chapters into it...haven't really formed any opinions about it yet.  Just enjoying it for what it is- a dated story, revisitation of beloved characters two decades into their Mockingbird future. You can tell Harper Lee's writing improved when she wrote Mockingbird. (Not meant as a catty remark, I see it in my own writing when I go back and read my early stuff. It's like night and day. Practice does improve one's writing immensely- so does age and maturity!

Nothing so far from Portugal today. Kelly's lack of presence in the house is noticeable now. Riley-Beans has taken to sleeping on her bed, and both cats need to be in the same room that I'm in.

This is Empty the Shelters weekend- if you have room in your home for a dog or cat please adopt one (or two) this weekend and give these beautiful, loving animals a forever home. We have adopted 7 rescue/shelter cats (kittens) and every one of them has been awesome. Unfortunately I was stupidly naïve about the great outdoors and stubborn in insisting cats need to be outside hunting mice to keep the house mouse free.  I have suffered the loss of four of my sweet boys- Jason, the circus tabby who easily learned tricks, including jumping on the roof from the back deck; Fantomas, the black beauty who was fiercely protective of his home, Cooper who was young and innocent, Isador of the double paws, also young and innocent.  Revere and Riley-Beans are strictly indoor cats, and even though it wrenches my heart when they sit at the doors and windows and I can see they ache to be outdoors running free on the grass, chasing birds and butterflies, I diligently keep them indoors. I don't have mice even though they're not outside catching them left and right like my outdoor cats used to. The point is- these animals didn't ask to be born into this world. Human ignorance allowed it to happen. Human kindness and compassion can bring joy to these kittens, puppies, cats, dogs, bunnies...  Open your heart, your home and share your life with an amazing companion. You won't regret it. (And I'd like to hear your stories- rescue animals have been included in some of my stories!)

The male cardinal is serenading me from the serviceberry tree outside the den window. He is like a squirt of arterial blood when he flies across the backyard (I say this because my mother, who was a nurse and then nurse practitioner, loved cardinals.) I remember when Fantomas caught a cardinal and carried it proudly to the back door. The bird was still alive and relatively uninjured, just being lugged around upside down in the cat's mouth. I flew out the back door shouting at him to "Put that bird down! No red feathers! Put it down!"  He dropped the bird, most likely stunned by my yelling at him like a crazy woman. The cardinal got itself back onto its feet while I shooed the cat back away from it. For one brief moment my eyes met the eyes of the noble red bird, then it flew off.  His having been caught did not deter him from continuing to nest in the arbor vitaes bordering the yard. I suppose you can say he graciously forgave the young cat, and honored my efforts to rescue him by remaining in our yard where I could continue to enjoy his bright red beauty and song on a daily basis. And, in case you're wondering, Fantomas never caught another cardinal again. Every cat after him has learned the rule, "No red feathers!" I don't know how long cardinals live, but I am thinking it has to be third or fourth generation from that original cardinal.


My eyes were dilated for an eye exam late this afternoon- the screen looks too bright. Had the unhappy news that I have a cataract forming in my right eye, but that explains the fuzziness in that eye. I can live with that because it can be removed when it gets worse. I remember taking my Mom for laser surgery to remove her cataract. It was like The Eye Patch Club at that facility! Eye patches and eye drops, everyone nodding to one another in understanding, cheerful- it really did seem like a club! I took my Dad there too, after Mom was gone- nothing had changed! One day, I'll have membership in the Eye Patch Club, too.

Need to go seek a darker place where the light won't hurt my eyes....