Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2009. Mattie was home between treatments and was sitting on our floor concocting bug soup! Several friends sent Mattie plastic bugs over the course of his illness. It makes sense since Mattie not only liked bugs, but we helped to explain his bone cancer to him using a bug analogy. He may have liked bugs, but he did not want them crawling inside of him. So he understood that the chemotherapy and surgeries were meant to kill those bone bugs. To this day, I have many of the larger bugs Mattie received as gifts, still in his bedroom. 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 33,936,945
• Number of people who died from the virus: 608,013

Today was the perfect storm! How Peter and I did not absolutely lose it is beyond me. Why? Because we lost Sunny for two hours. Sunny was in our backyard, which is completely fenced. A contractor went out through our backyard gate and left it OPEN! Despite us telling him the gate has to be closed because of Sunny. Literally when I saw the gate open, and Sunny did not respond to our calls, I PANICKED! Peter and I mobilized forces. He jumped in the car and went down every street in the neighborhood. I began walking down the streets that he and I walk on our daily routine. No sign of him! He wasn't responding to our calls. Peter and I spoke to neighbors and we must have looked frantic! Sunny is a rescue and the terms of his adoption is that he must be on a leash at all times in public spaces. While running around, I kept kicking myself, as I knew I should have left him DC, as the house has way too much going on in it. 

While Peter was driving around, I was calling our vet, the Fairfax County pound, I contacted our neighborhood listserv and I even did a posting on Next Door. 

Sure enough a woman on Next Door wrote to me that her neighbor saw Sunny on Miller Heights and Cranbrook. Not around the corner from where we live. It was a hot day, Sunny was without water, and to get as far as he did, it meant he crossed streets. She said that Sunny wouldn't allow her friend to approach him, and instead took off. Thankfully, he took off for home! Unlike me, he has a sense of direction, and about two hours later, we saw him poking around in our neighbor's bushes! HORRIBLE DAY and it is a miracle he is still alive. Peter just ordered a tracking collar for him, because I never want to be scared out of my mind like this again. Sunny has a microchip in his tooth, but that isn't used for tracking, just for identification!

Meanwhile at the farm..... the painters found a problem with the roof. As water is getting in over the living room window. I swear I am going bonkers with this house, and as we do one thing, 12 other things pop up. It wasn't only the painters today, but we also had the plumber back for another full day, and a contractor about putting in window wells. Given the day I had, the painting company was the recipient of my stress. As they promised me before I signed the contract that we would be given ONE team to work with us until the job was completed. Today the story changed! Now no one remembers saying this to me, and instead the house is going to be like a turnstile for different painting teams coming in each day. I lost it, and told them that was unacceptable and that if they said this upfront, I would have gone with a different company! Get the picture on today!?

These stressors remind me once again why I rented our townhouse in DC for 26 years. Whenever I had a problem, the complex's team showed up, got the job done, I had no headaches, and I did not have to pay for it either. Now I have the joy of paying for this nightmare.