I Need a Mulligan

Inspirational song: Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)

I'm wishing I had never gotten out of bed today. I don't feel like I got anything right. Today was the luncheon in honor of a person I absolutely adore, but I just did not want to be in a crowd of people today. Not even a crowd of people I really like. It was just so tiring keeping the mask in place today, pretending that I was in a good mood and up to conversation. I wore out halfway through, and needed to find a quiet place to sit and regroup. I had to stop and buy dog food on the way home, and more rope to finish my blanket chest renovation, and even holding it all together in Walmart was more effort than it was worth. I couldn't wait to get home and take the fake face off.

The kitten and I went back for her weekly visit. No good news there, either. For all that she begged me not to take her, that she didn't want the stinky glop all over her, we found out that the last test was positive. So back to the dip she went. I felt so bad, watching her shiver on the way home. She forgave me quickly, as she does every week, and she cuddled with me once she was dry enough. But just now I wronged her in a more sudden, painful way. I was reaching for the big black cat, to give her amoxicillin, and the kitten dove under my feet. I was wearing big, clunky shoes, and I stepped fully on her upper body. She shrieked, and ran off. I spent fifteen minutes trying to get her to come out from under a chair. She wanted nothing to do with me. When she finally approached me, she smacked me in the face, and I let her. I deserved it.

The one thing that went right today was getting a handful of good photos from the luncheon. It was at a gorgeous house, right on the water (don't ask me exactly what water--I'm a little unclear on whether it was the river itself or a waterway that feeds it). The woman whose home it was said that they have all kinds of wildlife, like dolphins and alligators, popping up all the time. One group of people went walking along the bank and saw a big gator, and the man in the group got a great photo. I went later, by myself right before I went home, but I didn't see the gator. I was on the steps of a dock, and heard a lot of splashing and rustling in some reeds, so I didn't go too close while I was down there alone. Probably the only decision I got right today.