6:30 p.m.-
EZ was squeezed
into the vet at 3:20 today, thanks to a fleabag cancellation. She's been suffering
a cellulitous infection for the past few months--yelping for no reason when,
I suspect, too big a yawn catches her by surprise and her jaws can't open
wide enough to accommodate it. Four weeks of Clavamox isn't having any affect,
so the vet ordered a trio of drugs in hopes that whatever bacteria is raging
in there will finally be overruled.
"Give her one
week. If we don't see dramatic improvement I'll surgically drain it and do
cultures to find out exactly what we're up against."
I've spent the day
dithering whether to come to the office or not. The Weather Channel keeps
warning of possible fun weather, by which I mean lightning and thunder and
hard pounding showers. But that's only fun when we're inside and watching
it through my living room window, or safely parked in the car overlooking
open farm fields for maximum view. The radar shows shadows of rain moving
through, but they've showed that since morning and all we got was light dew.
So, to hell with
what might be. It might not too. And wouldn't it be embarrassing to have passed
up a chance to play in the office, scared away by life's maybe, could be,
should not.
So here we are with
a thermos of fresh coffee and a briefcase of work. The clouds are interspersed
and high and I see no dark glowering menace plotting commotion in the west.
I rented Monster's Ball earlier for later tonight, but Billy Bob may just
have to wait until more certain inclement. (It was excellent, but "Leticia's"
was lame and poorly explained.)
My son gave a blueberry
shrub for Father's Day, not as daunting or unwieldy as that at first sounds.
It was purchased in three-inch square cardboard, about twelve inches long.
Inside is a plastic bag containing a baby blueberry cutting swaddled in dark
peat. And still alive. A courteous thing. His thought matched mine: to plant
it in the blueberry patch near Sonbeam's Secret Channel deep inside my summer
office, where it can stay rooted no matter where I may move.
6:53-
It's been planted.
The boat marigolds--we
now have three, doing fine. Two new ones planted from seed ten days ago are
an inch-and-a-half high. The original is six inches tall and giving good example
to the new juveniles how to do what I want.
I searched out sunflower
progress and found only one tiny seedling, subdued by tall grass. The water
level is twelve inches higher than when last we were here. Sunflower seeds
were planted on the highest ground around, but it's still floodplain and subject
to flooding if the water gets much higher.
Lying across a seat
is the .22 rifle, brought back from a trip to the Minnesota cabin earlier
in the week. It's still in its original Marlin cardboard box with a silhouette
logo of a cowboy riding the back of a baby moose or dwarf camel. The rifle
and box of shells (only twelve used) were purchased on impulse at a Holiday
gas station fifteen years ago. And I don't know why. It's been stored in basements
high out of children's reach in shadowy rafters for years, and once elicited
appall from my age eight son when, I rediscovered it there and showed it to
him.
It is with me tonight
for a purpose.