bits of

  

It is starting to get cold at night, and that means rounding up the animals.  Cold is only about 50 degrees right now, but you can feel the bite to it, so it's still cold.  Two of our animals are getting quite old, and I worry about them both - the little sixteen year old cat Minion with hardly any meat on her bones and the old hound, Minerva, who must be eleven now.  The little cat came in (with one of the younger ones, and Charlotte, the younger dog).  But Minerva did not come in, in fact- I saw and heard her as she ran up the road bellowing at some deer or fox... and usually that means she will come barking back at the door between 2 am and 3 am, and I will get up and let her in.  I don't sleep well anyway, and I guess this all works out.  In the winter, I definitely don't sleep knowing someone is out in the freezing temperatures - I want them in and I know they'll be alive etc.

 So, I was a bit worried when Minerva did not show up in the morning.  She had not barked at the door that I had heard, and she was not curled up in the leaves by the porch where she had been before she ran off barking.  I fed the chickens, and changed all the trough and bowl waters outside, and even walked up to the mailbox and back.  I picked a good big sheaf of lespedeza, which has went to brown seed, and brought it back to the chickens.  Charlotte and Minion had both congregated by the water trough, and did a loop about the little garden area with me - but no indication of Minerva.

We got ready to go out to our  grocery shopping, and I really would have liked her in by then.  But she wasn't.  I was quite quiet while we were out, because I was hoping to see her when we got home and trying not to worry so much - but I do, I am the worrier.  We got back from our grocery shopping, and put everything away, and she finally did show up.  I was relieved - just like I had pictured myself being if I went up there before we went to the store and she had been there.  We gave her some bread and she said one of her teeth hurt.  After I tore it up into smaller bits, she ate it - and then she wanted back outside.

 I made some soup for myself, and have pulled some of the frozen cabbage out of the freezer.  Mark said his brain bounced when he asked me what I wanted with hamburger and I said maybe I could use a little bit of it in a dish with that.  I think I'll use some of my guajillio chiles with it.  I just don't digest hamburger as easily as he does - and even worse in the past few years.  We are Jack Sprat and his wife - he can't handle the grease in it, and I can handle the grease much better than I can handle the meat itself.  Give me split peas or lentils or beans or eggs for my protein - peanut butter, a big dollop of butter, mixed with a bunch of rice and some fruit or bananas - and I've got a good diet working.  

Someone who lives in Barcelona visited the other day at work - and I really had to just refrain myself because I could have went full ADHD explosion with questions and comments and I felt imposter syndrome from learning different languages - and I didn't know her, my boss did  - and it was better really that I just went back to my office.  I really am interested in Barcelona, and the Catalan language, and the areas near there Marseilles and Cote de Nice etc etc.. but the question 'why?' I can't really answer - because I saw it in a dream, and then in our driving game, and each time I see the language Catalan) it feels like I can handle it so much better than Spanish, through the French side of my brain - but I haven't had a good chance to hear it etc.  She didn't speak Catalan she spoke English, Spanish and Portuguese, or maybe I would have actually asked her a few more questions.