A Meow From the Past

I'm not packed, but I'm pre-packed. I have all my stuff laid out on the dining room table so I can at least see it all in one place. I just have to get it all into a bag. I am doing my best to pack light and in fact I've seriously considered not taking my big camera. I'm using my phone more and more nowadays and I'm pretty happy with the results. But I also know that would mean no close-ups of birds or insects without my big zoom lens, and less satisfactory landscapes with the telescoping effect of the phone lens.

So, yeah, I'll probably take the big camera, even though it's a freaking boat anchor.

I am not, however, taking my creaky old computer. I can use Dave's. And I'm going to limit myself to one pair of shoes. I may squeeze in my sandals if I have room.

Mrs. Kravitz wanted to borrow my hedge trimmer the other day, so I opened up the garden shed to get it and noticed this little footprint in the concrete. I don't know how I've never seen it before. Someone's pet, ages ago. A cat, I think.

It reminds me of the dog footprints in the floor of the my old apartment building in New York. Pets, immortalized!

Our own pet is seeming less and less immortal. She's been positively crazy the last few days. She's become very hesitant about eating food from her bowl -- she wants us to hand-feed her. She seems hungry and she eats readily, but only when we hold the bowl or (as Dave discovered) elevate it and sit with her. We think it has something to do with her arthritis and the position of her head when she bends down, but then, she bends to sniff on the sidewalk with no hesitation at all. So who knows.

And then last night she got up in the middle of the night and came out to the couch. I have no idea why. I gave her half a paracetamol with some leftover chicken, thinking she might be achy, but the obvious possibility is that she has some anxiety because she can tell we're about to travel.

I feel terrible leaving her for two weeks. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

Our sage is blooming. This is one of the patio plants I had to put up on a chair to keep it away from slugs and snails, and it worked well enough that we got a flower. I'm calling that a victory!

Yesterday Mr. Russia pressure-washed the front steps and the parking area in front of our house (half of which belongs to the neighbor). He rented a pressure-washer and asked again to use our hose and water supply, and we said yes, but I forgot how much of a project it is. Like last time, he was out there for hours, cutting and trimming vegetation and blasting away every speck of stray sediment. Now we can perform surgery on our front steps, if necessary.

I will be posting late (possibly very late) tomorrow, coming to you (insha'allah) from Buenos Aires!

(Top photo: Hollyhocks in Hanwell on Wednesday.)