Ups and Downs

This past weekend was really one of ups and downs, good and bad. I think I'm glad it's over. Or at least I WOULD be if I didn't have to go to work and could stay home and play instead.

Thursday night, we discovered our older cat had some kind of sore on the side of her head/neck but she wouldn't stay still long enough for us to check it out. Friday night, we had a better chance and found she had some type of weeping, oozy sore. Saturday morning, she went to the vet, who suspected she had been bitten by another animal--presumably a cat (hopefully not OUR other cat!)--and she has two abcesses. She's not too happy at being kept in the house. She's even less happy that I have to shove antibiotics down her throat twice a day. Yeah, I'm not too happy about that one either, since she chomped down on my fingers pretty good a couple times last night. Did you know that cats have sharp teeth?!

Friday night we went to see a play at a terrific local theater owned by Timothy Busfield (30-Something/West Wing/Studio 60) and his brother Buck. One of the partners at my office couldn't use his tickets, so my husband and I benefitted. The play was very enjoyable. Unfortunately, the handicapped parking was full, so we had to park a block and a half away and negotiate my husband's wheelchair around potholes in the dark. Although my husband called the theater the day before about handicapped seating, we ended up being seated in the way when the actors and props were entering and exiting, so they had to shift us around a bit. We're just starting to adjust to the whole wheelchair thing, and it's not very easy.

Saturday I cleaned house. Definitely a "down." What more can I say?!

Saturday night we went out to a great dinner with friends at PF Chang's. After dinner we visited Starbucks and then Barnes & Noble. Most definitely one of the "up" parts of the weekend. My husband had been feeling pretty down, and the evening cheered him up. Spending time with friends is great, isn't it?

And why had my husband been feeling so down? Well, Sunday we had to have one of our dogs put to sleep. It was sad for both of us but more so for him. Ashley had arthritis in her knees and had been getting progressively worse despite our attempts to try things like glucosamine. Most recently, she had started to lose bowel control due to the pain and her inability to get up and down. When my husband made the appointment for our cat on Saturday, he also made an appointment for Ashley on Sunday. We've known it was coming and were somewhat prepared, but what I realized in the last week or so was that my husband, with his muscular dystrophy and his own trouble getting around, had been identifying with the poor dog, so there was a whole lot of psychological stuff going on there besides losing a dog, poor guy!

Sunday afternoon I sewed and my husband watched some football, but neither of us was content or settled in what we were doing. I decided I needed to get out of the house for awhile and invited him to come along, but he elected to stay home. A couple hours in Michael's improved my mood and stimulated my creativity a bit--well, that and stopping to pick up a latte at Starbucks and dinner at El Pollo Loco on the way home!--so by evening, I was feeling more positive. My husband seemed to be doing a little better too. Now that Ashley's deteriorating heath and the problems we had to face have been resolved, I think he'll be able to move on--this has been a huge worry for him for the last few months.

Last night, I was ready to go back to sewing and I got the second mini put together--that's a photo at the top. I still have a bunch of those fence rail style blocks littering my sewing table, so I'll tackle them tonight. And I'm already looking forward to next weekend, which I hope will be much less stressful!