Where in the world is Catherine? Or words to that effect

[catherineldf]

My week has included the following:

• Lingering ear infection and exhaustion, which seems to be finally clearing up
  
• Having a well-loved, expensive and hard to replace earring yanked out of my ear and into the trash when  I threw out a bag of cat litter. I retrieved it but between the maggots and cat poop, less fun than you might imagine. But hey, I got the earring back undamaged and my ear lobe survived.
  
• Kitty meltdowns, brought by on by presence of evil neighbor kitty in the yard and Jana's absence (she gets back from book binding vacation today! Huzzah!). Shu went ballistic and attacked the vacuum cleaner for the first time ever on Saturday. It was very....exciting. And right after the earring incident.
  
• My mother is not doing well. In the latest round of excitement, she's decided that she hates the place she's at and is refusing food, thus necessitating that we do lots of extra errands for her and pick up yet more food which was perfectly fine last month but is suddenly not good enough. She's at that unpleasant in-between stage where she sort of knows a bit of what's going on, but can't remember basic things or function unsupervised, and is refusing meds and not cooperating with staff or me, but is not quite at the full on memory care/nursing home level. I have a meeting in a couple of weeks with a social worker to start the Elderly Waiver process and get an assessment. Wish us all luck surviving until then.
  
• I went to a fine reading by Michael Merriam on Saturday night, followed by a pleasant evening of Crossbones with my friend Matt. And Sunday was lovely (apart from a lingering migraine). I got some writing done and had a bunch of folks over to watch Dumas film adaptations of dubious merit while eating my homemade chili and cornbread and other yummies. Then Matt and I caught Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found cute and entertaining, though I think Gamora could have been more effective as a character and could have done without the gendered insults. But hey, she was conscious and functioning and contributing to the plot throughout the movie (unfortunately unusual), plus it passes the Bechdel Test, so worth checking out.
  
• The rest of this week is day job and dealing with last of ear infection and Mom anxiety and finishing/subbing a story and starting on the groundwork for new project. Getting really excited about it. I'll announce it as soon as I work out a couple more details.
  
• Coming up: MN Fringe Festival, yet more Mom stuff and novel revisions. And stuff and more stuff.