Y'all are great

Thanks, everyone, for the kind thoughts and prayers.

Things have to get better, so they will. I'm choosing to not stress out about things too vigorously. That would be easy enough. I'm also choosing to deal with it - because mentally checking out would also be easy. Life, with all it's good and hard parts, goes on and I choose to exist in it all.

Good-bye Judah-kitty

My Judah-kitty died this morning very suddenly. He seemed to be doing okay last night and even this morning as I loaded the boys up to spend a day at the office with me while my apartment was being well sprayed for pests. When we got to the office he was having difficulty breathing and it went downhill from there. He kept trying to jump up on my desk and moving around to find a comfortable spot. We were on the way to the emergency vet but he didn't make it.

He came to me 3 or 4 years old after being passed from home to home for a few months. His original owners were moving and couldn't keep him. They were going to drop him and their other cat at the shelter but someone else said they would take him. Two weeks later he was in another home. A tiny no-animals-allowed apartment with a woman who has asthma and allergies. And then he came to live with me for 10 or so years. He was a good kitty. In his younger days he would entertain the masses with him amazing acrobatics. In his older days he was content to sit near me and occasionally let me rub his soft belly.

He was my first grown-up fur baby. My sweet boy. I'll miss him lots and lots.

And the hits just keep on comin'

Hi.
It's just not a great time right now.
Work is getting busy and my living situation is getting really unfortunate.
No, I can't move now.
Pray for my sanity.
XO ~H

This Summer

I've promised myself more of a Chicago summer this year. There are tons of free concerts downtown, even if the city did eliminate the major movies in the park. I can only wait around for so long, waiting for other folks to clear their schedules. So I've gone by myself. I load up my little grass mat, my bag of goodies, and hop on the train. It's kind of nice to not have to meet up with other folks or make corporate decisions about when to leave. I have the freedom to come and go as I please. And I can hang about and take pictures when I want to, not worrying about the folks I'm with.

Just go ahead and thank me

My nose is peeling. And my forehead. Have you ever burned your scalp? Bad enough that it blistered and then oozed? And then you spent the next two days picking ooze crust out of your hair? That dang altitude got me. I don't believe I've ever had a sunburn blister before.

So my nose is peeling and I'm obsessively picking at it. That's what I do. You should thank me though that I did not, as I was initially inclined, take a picture of some of the skin I peeled off. A fairly large nose piece, full of pore holes.

Instead more pretty pictures from the recent trip.
It doesn't get more southwestern than this.Admittedly, this isnt' the prettiest picture, it's just amusing. Sheep riding is hilarious.

Oh, hey

I'm back home. I'm happy to be home. I wish I lived in New Mexico though. New Mexico remains top on my list of places to live. It's just a gorgeous area steeped in history and culture.
A former roommate came for a few days as well and that was great. It made the trip feel more like vacation than a trip I felt like I needed to take to check in on the parents. We hiked and fished. We road a train to nowhere and listened to music and got sunburns. We watched part of a rodeo. We saw an old friend and enjoyed frybread. (She had never had frybread! How is this possible?). I took lots of pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.Mmm... camera flare.