Through a confluence of unfortunate events, I am house-sitting for Tessa this week. She has two aged poodles who make me appreciate the subtle, low-maintenance aspects of Buck's rowdy kittens and Luna.
I want to go home.
Yesterday, Tessa had a minor crisis and she needed her outside freezer cleaned out. When I talked to her and explained I had zero room to put her frozen food in her inside freezer, she asked me to take it all to her office. And then she said, "I know that makes you uncomfortable," which was only partially true. First, my anthropophobia* was in high-gear. Second, I had a phone call I was waiting for. But mostly, I'm not "uncomfortable" at her office as much as I don't suffer unpleasant fools. Frankly, my resting-bitch face was already twitching long before I found going to her office was the most reasonable solution to her frozen meat issue. However, I like Tessa. She had a problem. I don't work there. And I can fake it for ten minutes for the sake of this errand.
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My 79 year old mother was rushed to the hospital yesterday afternoon. Her face is drooping and she's having severe headaches. She tells me her tests came back negative for stroke. But they found a mass in her brain. I have zero more information and nobody to really ask. So, I wait.
Also, this time I'm the conduit for information between my brothers and myself on this particular crisis (Mom changes it up. The last time she only texted my middle brother and bypassed Squirrel and me, nor will she do a group chat). So, I'm feeding them what I know, which is in the form of screen captures of my mother's texts and sending them directly to them so they have the exact wording. We went through this with my father. But at least with Dad, some of us were nearby and we had a better source of data. This time, not so much.
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Last weekend Marty and I found a hiking trail at Millwood Lake (Arkansas), about 30 miles East of here. Sigh... there was a time I'd hike through the desert, with my biggest concerns being stepping on a snake or a cholla cactus spine. Oh yes, one time there was a mountain lion. Another time a sleeping bear. The good old days.
In this part of the world, hiking is so much more complicated. First, there's poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. It's hiding everywhere. My pal Joy is on week two of poison ivy recovery and she sounds miserable.
And if the plants don't get you, there's always the critters. In addition to the usual suspects--including mountain lions and bears--one needs to know what to do if they happen upon an alligator. Because that's a real concern in these parts.
Incidentally, the pamphlet on "alligator etiquette" didn't really evoke a sense of peace. According to this work of fiction the ranger handed me, apparently gators are "shy creatures" and are as afraid of me as I am of them. Or some such nonsense. I should also mention nowhere was it documented what I'm supposed to do if run into a situation where I 'm close enough to an alligator to need etiquette.
*A fancy name for social anxiety.
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