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Inspirational song: Shock the Monkey (Peter Gabriel)

Alfred needed us to prove our love tonight. We let all the cats out at sunset, when we took a little soak at the end of the day. As is their habit, the girls stayed in the yard. The boys were nowhere to be found when it was time to come in. Harvey allowed himself to be carried in from the front yard. That seems to be his latest game. But Alfred stayed missing.

We watched the Willoughbys on Netflix, figuring Alfred would be back in his own good time. Once it got to be about 10 o'clock, I stopped being amused by his absence. I went out in the alley, and started calling his name. I soon heard him answering me, from the wrong side of the neighbor's fence across the alley from us. He had no intention of jumping back, the same way he got there. He just stretched his paw through a small gap and acted like he was stuck. Mr S-P followed me out a minute later, and reached through the fence to unlatch the gate. I'm glad he did it. I was too shy to do it. Alfred snaked between our legs as we walked back to our own yard, his needs met. He was reassured we wanted him enough to rescue him. At least this time he wasn't locked in the next guy's garage for two days like he was a few years ago. Can we be done with the hiding now? Like forever?

I received a TENS unit as a gift from my mom today. We had both heard about using it as a way to disrupt pain signals for an extended time, and she was the first one actually to try it. She said she thinks it's helping, so after our conversation, she sent me one. The people who say to do it for generalized pain say to do it on a limb -- her PT said arm, the ad I saw said leg. I did neither. I'm having focused pain on my right hip, where inflammation is lighting me up from my waist to my knee. I googled electrode placement for hip pain, and gave it a go. I sat there for well over an hour, gradually increasing the intensity. I can't say for sure there was lingering relief after I removed the sticky pads, but it was sure soothing while it was running. It covered a much larger area than the one big pad I got from the back pain section of Target years ago (that I haven't seen in ages, for all that I've searched). I have hopes it will be better, for being versatile.