Where has the summer gone?

You may have noticed this blog’s been fairly quiet the last few months. A lot of guest posts, and thank you, friends, for providing some content! A few excerpts and blog hops. But nothing about my life and adventures, none of my photos, nothing personal. I realize I didn’t even post about my trip to New Orleans in June and it’s now September.

Doreen, an amazing street musician. We bought all her CDs.

New Orleans was spectacular: wonderful music, great food, history, and time with some of our best friends. We visited plantations, saw the battlefield for the Battle of New Orleans (which involved a riverboat ride!), attended a Cajun and Zydeco music festival, lunched at Commander’s Palace (amazing food and 25-cent martinis), dined at K-Paul’s, went to many jazz clubs and tasted many exquisite cocktails. But I haven’t edited the photos from the trip yet, or even gone through them to cull the blurry, bad ones.

Our beloved cat Rumble was in shaky health when we headed out, but we left him in the loving care of good friends who were house- and cat-sitting. Despite their efforts, though, it was clear when we got home that he was failing. Thus started several months of doing our best to keep the big galoot comfortable and trying to reverse whatever was wrong. Our vet didn’t have a definitive diagnosis. He’d had a thyroid problem for years, but it wasn’t worse and his bloodwork wasn’t showing anything conclusive. Still, it was obvious he was failing. A huge beast, half again as long as his sister Noodle (who is not a tiny cat!), Rumble weighed more than 21 pounds in his prime. He weighed about 8 on his second-to-last vet visit. On that one, we tried subcutaneous hydration, and for a few days he perked up. Then even that stopped helping. He repeatedly turned down turkey, his favorite food.  He stopped drinking. The mighty purr that gave him his name faded. And the bloodwork taken at that last visit came back with the news that his liver seemed to be failing.

In early August, we said goodbye to our boy. RIP, Rumble. We’re glad you shared our lives. Your sister is still crying around the house looking for you, or maybe talking to your ghost. And Himself and I are sniffling occasionally when something reminds us of you.

Rumble in his full glory. We think he’d been a shoe fetishist in a past life.

All summer I’d been gloomy and unable to get out of my own way. We all figured that the cat’s illness was hitting me hard, especially since my mom’s health isn’t great and the reminder of mortality wasn’t exactly a mood-booster. But I kept getting worse. I had no energy. Nothing seemed fun. The garden and my writing suffered. When I went in for an annual physical, my doctor was quick to agree I seemed depressed. Not necessarily time to start medicating, she thought, since there had been some triggering events, but definitely we should keep an eye on how I was doing.

But she also ordered bloodwork. Turned out that I might be somewhat depressed or at least understandably “down,” I was also anemic. And guess what anemia’s symptoms include? You guessed it–lethargy, exhaustion and what feels like a bad case of the blues! A few weeks on iron supplements and I’m feeling much better. The writing’s moving forward again at last. I’m enjoying gardening and hiking. (I think I’ve hiked in the past couple of weeks more than I did the entire rest of the summer.) The summer’s gone, but I’m determined to enjoy the bountiful possibilities offered by autum in New England.

Now I just need to edit all the photos I took in New Orleans…all three hundred of them!