lavendertook

I'm feeling lonely and unmotivated even though I have so much to do. All I really want to do these days when home is to sit and read novels beside purring cats. I don't give myself enough permission to just do that. Tuxie is sleeping next to me--he's gotten to be my constant snoozy lefthand fuzzy attachment whenever I sit the past year since Saki died, and I am lucky to have him and appreciate what good company he is. He and Moo are very good and easy companions. Except I worry because they sleep too much even for cats and I worry if I should be doing more to try to get them a little more active. It's been a couple of years since either climbed the cat trees at all and they jump up on very little. But my perceptions of how active cats should be may be skewed by having grown up with siamese cats who tend to be a little more active, and these guys are 10 and 11 years old. Do ya'll worry about your pet parenting? Gotta learn to let go of what I can't control and solve (snoozy cats gonna snooze), and be easy on me and give me some love.

I cancelled going to a scifi meet up luncheon in DC this afternoon due to the excessive heat today and expensive parking. And I have so much clean up to do around the house--the more I get done the happier I will feel so I'm going to concentrate on that. One pile at a time. Go through papers. Throw things out--make my habitat something I can feel good in--and when I accomplish that, get back to making and studying and creating. I feel so boring.

July and August so far have been mega-hot, which is extra hard because of the anti-cancer med I'm on and will be for 2 more years, then I hope will be better--yes. And it's been a time filled with Trumphobia, which has felt like the nightmare where you are running but are getting slower and slower as if you're going through molasses and IT's getting closer--I know so many of us are sharing the same nightmare feeling. But that has been easing up the past weeks with the polls. Nate Silver's blog is my Happy Place. It's been a tough month on so many of my friends.

I can't wait until late September when walks will become a joy again. Just a couple more weeks. Spring and autumn, those are my seasons.

I had the yearly thyroid ultrasound on Thursday, and will see the endocrinologist in 2 weeks with hopes that my thyroid nodules have not grown. We've been monitoring this for 2 years and so far so good. Doctors visits make me nervous since the breast precancer diagnosis--I hope I can go back to them being routine sooner than later. My spirits are more down than up, but this is a year of grief and recovery from health problems, trauma, and family losses. Next year will be better, right?

I saw my first monarch butterfly of the season yesterday by the lake. I went back last night and looked up my Verid entries. Remember Verid the monarch and the adventures she took me on? If you didn't know me in 2012, you might like these pics and stories. I still have good caterpillar and chrysalis pics of her I never uploaded. I will have to download them from the back up drive sometime and post.

I listen to NPR radio a lot. The weekend NPR shows that used to delight or interest me make me more often anxious the last couple of years. Is it me (a glass of water makes you anxious, child), or the stories they are telling? Anyone else having this problem? Will talk about the couple of movies and books I've enjoyed lately in another post.

OK, off to get Things Done. I hope this weekend is treating you all well. *hugs my flist*

I thought I'd post a belated happy birthday greeting to verangel with pics of another lovely Ver- below. Happy birthday, sweetie!



Thursday, Oct 4th was the last day I saw Verid and Pro, and I'm pretty sure it was them, as I mentioned in a previous post, and will detail below. So that is the lovely Verid above on that day, just posing to give us a brilliant final farewell. The following 6 pics are also of her on that day.

( Memories of monarchs and milder weather below . . . )

In which I may have rescued Verid a second time . . .

This is a true story, and I don't blame you if you don't believe it, because I hardly believe it, but it's what happened and I do have a witness. And to whoever came up with this plot obstacle to put me up against, a big SCREW YOU, because it is terribly, terribly contrived. Stop stretching credibility just to torture me, ' kay?

So on Sunday, A., a relative I've never gotten to spend one-on-one time with before, came to visit me and was such delightful company, my throat was sore all yesterday from chatting so much. I took her out to Ithilien Greenbelt Lake in the afternoon to walk around it, and hoped maybe we'd chance to see Verid or PR Officer along the way.

As we were walking the path, we approached a family walking ahead of us, a woman and man and 3 or 4 small children. I didn't completely register it at the time, but they were all carrying butterfly nets. No, really! And a little boy in the middle of the path was carrying one of those expensive mesh butterfly cages half the size of my dollar store hamper that I mentioned in the last post. As we got closer, and I strained to see, much to my horror, there was a monarch butterfly inside. I walked much faster to catch up to them and could see it was indeed a female monarch AND IT COULD VERY WELL BE VERID! Oh boy.

( In Henneth Annun on Greenbelt Lake continues below . . .  )

( Read more... )

So if it's claudia603's birthday, why isn't she here to pet me?

( Saki pics and more celebrating Claudia's birthday . . . )

Mission Control, T-minus less than 1 day to launch. Day 13. All systems go and darkening on schedule.



If not tomorrow, then I expect the monarch butterfly to hatch Thursday morning at latest. He'll be a crumpled thing with tiny wings and he will need to hang upside down and flap for a couple of hours to get the juices out of his swollen abdomen and into his wings.

They take 10-14 days to hatch, and cooler weather and being a last generation monarch pushes it to the longer side of the gestation. The last generation of monarchs are those born in late August/September, like this guy. The first 3 or 4 batches of monarchs hatched between March and late summer last only a couple of weeks to mate, lay eggs, and then die. But the fall brood could last 6 to 9 months because they fly south for the winter to hang out in Mexico in a particular fir tree, if they are east of the Rockies. A few make it to the Caribbean. Monarchs west of the Rockies go to hang out in eucalyptus trees along the southern California coast. Then they all head north in March or April to do the mate and die thing because the milkweed that the caterpillars eat doesn't grow down where the butterflies hang out for the winter.

This has been your Wednesday Bio Factoid.

I'm so sorry I'm so behind in replying to comments. Time keeps running out on me and I figure you'd rather me post things and comment on your entries first, so I'm doing that and hope to get back to replying as I can.

( More pics of Day 13 of Monarch Chrysalis below . . .  )