2020 Life Logs, Day 309: Keeping Busy
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2020
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Warmer; High 65, Low 56 Degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
My lifelong solution to stressful situations has always been to keep busy. So, that’s what I did today. Watching this election play out is enough to make anyone half crazy, but I avoided thinking about it today. First, I had to get up and get Shadow ready to go to the Vet to be neutered. When Mark and I were doing self-sufficient farming, I always hated it when baby lambs were born and a few weeks later we were supposed to lop off their little tails. Couldn’t do it. So, our lambs always had long tails. I have put off getting Shadow neutered for six months for the same reason. I just can’t stand the thought of putting him through this sort of thing. But finally I decided to proceed with Shadow. More on that coming up.
This is how my day proceeded. I dropped Shadow off at the Vet’s office and went to Heather and Jed’s to pick up my leaf blower. I returned home and worked off my nervous election and puppy surgery energy by mowing and bagging leaves and then using the leaf blower to clean up the area. I think I could have continued to clean up every leaf in the wooded area around my house, but it was time to go pick up Ollie after school and then pick up Shadow. Ollie and I went to Petco to try and buy a special inflatable collar for Shadow to keep him from licking his incision, but they had none. I should have thought of this sooner, but I had been told that Shadow would come home with a cone to take care of this. Then this afternoon, someone from the Vet’s office called to ask if I had a collar. I told her I thought they were providing this, but she then told me that here are other types of inflatable collars that some dogs prefer. I had no idea.
As we found out at Petco, evidently these collars are hard to find these days. But Ollie and I were able to buy a new toy for Shadow, a Yedi. I dropped Ollie off, picked up Shadow, and I have spent the evening holding Shadow without the cone on to keep him from licking the incision. When I couldn’t do this, I put on the cone. He really HATES it. He seems disoriented as he can’t see and just stands in the middle of the floor. We’ll figure this out or I will figure out how to make a more comfortable collar for him. The good news is that he is eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom normally. Hopefully he will heal quickly and we get back to normal. In the meantime, I am really going to miss my walking partner.
I’ll spend tomorrow either sitting and holding Shadow or putting that cone on him and going out to do more yard work. I really do have to keep myself busy so I don’t obsess over this election. I watched Trump’s press conference on Fox News tonight and it put me over the edge. I just cannot believe he is willing to trash our democracy through his outright lies about the election process in this country. What a devastating situation for this country and our precious democracy. No matter who wins this election, we have a hard road forward.
