A Day in Maggie's Life

I'm still thinking about doing a day in the life or photo every hour post for myself, but in the meantime, I thought it would be funny to do one for Maggie's life! This is from yesterday (Thursday).

A few notes to start:
*Yes, it's mainly eating and sleeping, with some bathing time. She's a cat. This is what she does.
*Cats sleep a lot, and older cats even more. Maggie is 12, according to the paperwork that came with her when I adopted her, and that's not young for a cat.
*Yes, she does eat very frequently. It's partly because she's spoiled, and partly because she has a sensitive system and is prone to throwing up, so I prefer to give her smaller amounts more often.

6:30 AM: We get up: she knows what the sound of the alarm means and hassles me immediately for breakfast. She isn't impressed that I go to the bathroom first, but in short order, she's getting her wish. I will spare you a photo of the cat eating in a dimly lit room.

7:30 AM: Still on my lap, while I finish with the newspapers and my coffee. Though she's very ready for more food as soon as I get up!

After eating, she is generally ready to be tucked into a blanket, though it can be a production getting her in while maintaining the illusion that it's all her idea. Which blanket she wants varies, but recently she has been very fond of this grey blanket on the file cabinet in Mom's room, because of course. Why be on a bed or somewhere soft, really?

Cat, implied

As she often does, she came out when I was eating lunch. Her radar for me eating is very finely tuned!

"Anything good?"

After I ate, I fed her again, and she washed her face on the lanai, as she likes to do.

Then she did some dithering about where she wanted to go, but she finally ended up back where she had been.

Two hours later, there she was again, saying, hello, food? She finished off what was left in the bowl from last time.

Where did she go from there? She was in prime "come settle me" mode.

This time, she wanted to get in the blanket on the bed, but as Mom was taking a nap under it, I threw another one on the bed for Maggie. Which she grudgingly accepted.

If you've lost count, this was her fourth nap of the day. Nice life.

An hour later, around 3, out she came again. More food? Sure. Then the blanket? No: she was in full Goldilocks mode, and nothing was quite right. But when I went back to my desk to work, along she came a few minutes later. Mom?

Tried again, nope nope nope.

Maybe more food?

Nope.

I eventually picked her up and put her under the blanket on the couch. This doesn't always work, but it's worth a try. She lasted about 45 minutes and then:

She had to wait while I wrapped up a few things, and then she allowed as how she could eat the food I put down last time. So nice of her. Shortly thereafter:

And back under a blanket.

But an hour later, she came out on the lanai and settled down next to me, on her box.

There's just nothing like a box.

My eating dinner brought her to my side, as usual.

Once I was done and had fed her, I sat down and boom, insta-lap-cat.

Later on, she moved onto the footstool for a really energetic bath.

Showing off the belly fur.

And then back on the lap.

An hour later, back to the footstool

An early-to-bed night for me meant that after feeding her again, she was right there with me. 

I call this the sideways lap.

She doesn't spend the whole night in bed with me, but comes and goes. This morning, I woke up just before the alarm went off, and she was right there, in my face, ready to start the circus again. As we often say here, good thing she's cute!

Turn That Frown Around

I promise, I am not turning into Pollyanna, but as an experiment, I want to see if I can find the bright side of a few things.

• My foot is still sore, and with my trip coming up in two weeks, that's a bit worrisome for my traveling comfort. However, I am getting to do a fun trip, and this won't stop me! I've got an ace bandage to support it, and a cane to help me balance and warn people that I'm moving more slowly, and I will get there, and I will have fun! I've started to put together "what to pack" thoughts and "what needs to be done before the trip" thoughts as well.
• Fun fact about the cane: I was at the chiropractor yesterday, just general maintenance, and of course I told her about the foot thing. She asked how I was using the cane, and when I showed her, advised me to switch it to the other hand (right foot, so left hand), which she said would help me not lean over onto that side, as that is harder on my upper back/neck. Well then! Interesting. I'll be experimenting with that.
• I seem to have jinxed the Bruins by writing about them yesterday, as they imploded spectacularly in last night's game. I did get a slight, pained laugh from Feedly this morning, though.

• See the green text under the headline? "Jeremy Swayman leads Bruins to victory"? Yeah, no, that is the opposite of what happened. Swayman was pulled from the game, even--not that it was entirely his fault. I assume the green text is AI-generated? I found where Feedly explains that "When a certain topic is trending, you'll see a bent arrow green indicator below the title of the article" but it doesn't actually say how trending is determined. And mind you, Sway did lead the Bruins to victory in the two previous games...but not this one.
• Engie, this one is for you: I put out my new toothbrushes. The whole rainbow! Because it's not like I find particular joy in any one color, it's having them all that's the fun part.

• I recently received my contact lens order in the mail, and in addition to some mildly bad puns along the way ("You can also keep an eye on the status" "Looks like your order is running a little late" "Keep an eye on your mailbox"), they included this sticker in the package. No, thank you.

There, that's a bit of positivity, anyway!

Searching for Coherent Thought

Y'all, I don't know why I feel like life is so busy lately, but whoa. Work is so demanding, expecting me to, I don't know, work all the time, and while I did get a raise recently, which is nice, the report I am working on right now is of such poor quality that I despair of them. I mean, do I honestly have to tell them, these people whose jobs require them to write, that all sentences need a verb? Apparently I do.

Between that, and the never-ending to-do list, and my sore foot*, and my upcoming trip, my brain feels a bit fried. Let's see what lighter things I can wring out of it. Hang on , this will be random.
*Better, but still tender

I was very amused by this summary after the Boston Marathon last month, which is headlined "Today's fastest Bostonians and banana"! They are of course referring to the runner who "established a new Guinness record today for the fastest Marathon fruit" because of course. The post doesn't include a photo, but does link to a story about the previous record-holder, so you can see that one, at least.

If you've ever wondered what the street-sweeper does when he runs low on water, I can tell you now, he stops at a hydrant and hooks up to it. No need to go back to the yard for more!

Hockey joke time! Game coverage will often mention "getting past" a goalie in the sense of scoring on him, but in this case, it was more literal!

(They were both fine.)

The Bruins needed overtime of game 7 to win the first round against Toronto, but they did it, giant phew. They beat Florida in game 1 on Monday night, and play again tonight. Fingers crossed! It was fun to watch them play better, I hope they can do that again.

Trader Joe's with the snacks, coming through! Be aware, these snacky clusters may be habit-forming.

Quite the dramatic storm shelf the other day! It was a relief to get through and past it, as home is under that blue sky on the horizon.

If you're not familiar with the comic strip Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, you should be. He has a way of hitting the nail on the head. I really felt this one:

Another beautiful day.

Well, that was the other day, but you know what I mean. I do get spoiled by the weather in Florida; I don't love the humidity, but being warm is my thing.

I am reminding myself that even late May in New England may not be the same. As I said to my mother, I probably won't even want to bring sleeveless shirts! Terrible. Good thing I'm excited for everyone I'm visiting, anyway.

Placeholder!

Owl I'll be back! The day got away from me.

Update to the Update

Honestly, if I didn't know that I myself enjoy reading minutia of everyday life on other people's blogs, I would question why I am writing about toothbrushes AGAIN, but here we are.

I mentioned that I was going to try the Curaprox ultra soft toothbrush, and it's a winner! I had bought a single one to try, just in case I didn't like it, so once I did, I figured I would buy more, and then it occurred to me to wonder if they had a travel one, to replace the folding brush I use that is hard as a rock. And they do!

Brush, wee toothpaste, and a few poky bits. Handy!

Of course I got the blue one.

I was looking through their brush offerings, not exactly planning to buy direct from them because honestly the brushes are a little cheaper from AZ, but a) the travel kit didn't seem to be there, and b) well.

You know how I am about rainbows.

I. Could. Not Resist. Particularly because the only sold-single one I could find on AZ was colored aqua with orange bristles, which I do not find aesthetically appealing, shall we say. As opposed to this set, which appeals to me so much that it might have been made for me.

#loveislove

Ouch

I mentioned on the cabinet write-up that I bruised my foot getting it in, and I think I've mentioned recently that it still hurts. Yesterday, I decided that I had better get it checked to make sure I didn't break anything (wasn't feeling worse but wasn't feeling better), and went to urgent care. The good news is that nothing is broken! But the doctor said I need to stay off it more than I was doing, and elevate it more; she said it would probably take a few weeks to feel better. A few weeks, ugh.

They wrapped it up and gave me a support-shoe thing to wear, and I'm sure the support is important, but it's just so awkward.

They also suggested I use a cane. Sigh. I guess it's a good thing I found a cane stand for Mom's.

Soon, there will be two...

Mom and I were both interested in what Maggie's reaction to the shoe would be, but she didn't bat an eyelash, rubbing against it just like she does against my foot all the time.

Never predictable.

I Bought a Thing, Part Two

Or would that be part three? Part one was the shell box I bought recently, but you could argue that the cabinet should have been called part two. Well, anyway, here is Another Thing I Bought!

It is, in a way, another cabinet! But much smaller. Here it is with a Coke can, for scale.

And yes, it's fully functional. I find it very satisfying.

This is the info on Galdrecraft, where I got it:

Little things make me happy.

Maggie Moments

It's about time for some Maggie photos, isn't it? Yes, I think so, too. Enjoy.