Up in the Clouds

And now I am indistinguishable from a person at Home Depot swooning over the potted azaleas. I bought a heavy-duty wheelbarrow, to be delivered tomorrow, which just seemed like something a serious gardener (weeder) should have. I also bought a jumbo-size container of Green Gobbler, a small metal trash can with a lid specifically for cat poop, and the extension cord I will need for my garage-ready freezer. (What is a garage-ready freezer? One that is meant to withstand ambient temperatures from very cold to very hot.)

My parents had a chest freezer in the garage that was completely crammed with stuff, including about 15 different kinds of flour. My mother liked to have every possible thing for the activity of interest: every kind of flour, markers in every tip width and every color … my mind is kind of going blank as I try to remember, but anyway, that freezer was dauntingly full. You had to dig for whatever you wanted out of it. It is gone now. I announced to my sister that I would not be having a chest freezer in the garage. She smirked when I announced that I am now shopping for a chest freezer for the garage. 

This is because Arbor Farms does not stock the three-pound bag of Stalhbush organic frozen blueberries, but will be happy to do a special order, but only of a case, which in this instance is six bags. So the new chest freezer in the garage will be for 18 pounds of frozen blueberries, mainly. 

Nightly, I scoop the poop and pee clumps out of two litter boxes and clean the areas where the litter boxes are located. In San Francisco, each night I dropped a bag with cat poop in it down the trash chute outside. Here I had been putting the bag in the giant trash bin in my driveway, which sits in the sun, so when the lid was opened, the smell was pretty overwhelming: gently toasted cat poop (I think you can get more for it if you call it sun-dried). I brought the trash bin into the garage, which will probably help, as it shouldn’t get so warm there, but my sister suggested having a little metal trash bin with a lid just for this purpose, and I think that will be even better. I can transfer the contents of the little metal trash can to the giant trash bin before I put the latter at the curb each Sunday.

Today the fellow who periodically does heavier or more time-consuming yard work came over with his crew. They spent a few hours and got a lot done. I had been waiting for the tree guy to come; he ended up coming today, as well, with one other person. The main thing they did was to start the process of taking out two dying hawthorns. I really like the tree guy and also his crew member. The latter has an exceedingly still, alert air about him. He once pointed out to me a bird’s nest I would never have spotted that was about six inches from my eyeballs. He seems very grounded, not missing the smallest thing, but at the same time, there is something very light and airy about him, as if, should you turn your back on him for a moment, you might turn around again to find that he had drifted up into the clouds.

Not to Do

Last Tuesday was packing day in San Francisco. I assumed I would be up until four in the morning, but it went surprisingly quickly, affording nearly seven hours of sleep before the next morning, even with having to encase a lot of cat-related things in bubble wrap. The vet tech came over that evening to give Marvin squirts of compounded gabapentin and trazodone. He foamed at the mouth afterward but did not vomit. The vet tech said she had put the doses far enough back in his mouth that little should be re-emerging even with the hypersalivation. I was able to do Duckworth’s medication myself. Both cats appeared obviously woozy soon after.

The next morning, the vet tech came back and gave Marvin another dose of each medication. She said that was the most medication she’d ever given one cat at one time; it was what Marvin’s vet said to do: 300 mg of gabapentin plus 50 mg of trazodone. Arranging to have the vet tech come was the most important thing I did in regard to getting the cats to Michigan, except for paying (a fortune) for the cat transport professional. He arrived in due time—I liked him—and got both cats into their harnesses and carriers without difficulty; he put an AirTag on each harness. He wrapped the cushions in the carriers with disposable pee pads, and used cable ties to make sure all zippers were secure.

We took a cab to the airport, arriving a bit later than planned because the first cab driver went to the airport instead of coming to my place. I went through the scanner while the cat transport professional waited outside the scanner with the cats in their carriers. When two personnel were available, they came to get the cats, and my co-traveler went through the scanner himself, and then we all went into a little room where one cat was taken out of his carrier so the carrier itself could be scanned. The cat transport professional emphasized that the cats should be removed from their carriers one at a time. The cats themselves were not scanned, which suggests an obvious and dreadful security vulnerability. The cat transport professional had to hang onto Marvin tightly while the employee temporarily left with Marvin’s carrier; Marvin put a couple new holes in the cat transport man’s t-shirt, but it generally went fine in that both cats ended up back in their carriers, and off we went to the Sky Club. 

The transport people are members; this was my first time being permitted to enter, as a plus-one. One floor up was a lovely airy space encased in glass with a bounteous buffet and selection of drinks, all free. Free food! One of my many favorite things. Plus someone brought over little bags of crunchy treats for the cats. I was just enjoying an unseemly amount of extremely greasy pork when we discovered that we’d been upgraded into not the same row with each other, so we went to talk to the person at the desk in the Sky Club, who concluded that we would have to speak with someone at the gate, so off we went to straighten that out. Goodbye, Sky Club!

We ended up in the same row, with an empty middle seat between us: perfect. The cats were nearly silent the whole time; there were maybe three or four little meows: “Does anyone remember I exist?” I thought there would be loud yowling all the way across the country, so that was great.

I read the last three issues of Decibel magazine, and then we landed at DTW. Though it was well past her bedtime, my sister kindly met us at the house. She had set up a bathroom apiece for the cats. She, I, the cat transport professional and his wife and a cat went into the first bathroom—where the cat immediately discovered a hole I had not noticed; this house is full of weird holes. Off to the next bathroom, which is hole free, but also windowless and not very large; not really a nice place for a cat to spend a whole night. The cats seemed perfectly calm, so we let them look around part of the house. They also seemed fine with each other at first, but then Marvin began to hiss repeatedly, so he spent that night and the next night in the long hallway in the center of the house. I let Duckworth have the run of the house (or did I leave him in the tiny bathroom the first night? Can’t remember) and could not see any sign the next morning that he had touched anything.

It was Wednesday evening when we got here. I had to get up Thursday after only about three hours’ sleep, for a series of appointments. A new water heater was installed. The guy showed me how to drain it. I think my father did this monthly; I plan to do it quarterly. Next, annual inspection of the boiler, which provides part of the heat for the house. Next, a third arborist to look at the silver maple. I think he might end up being the person, as he used the words “old school,” and it sounded like he planned to destroy less of the yard than the previous two arborists.

On Friday, a well-known local plumber came to look at a leaky faucet in the basement laundry room and at the kitchen sink faucet, which I’d like to replace with one that my Multipure filter will connect with in an easier and more aesthetically pleasing manner. This fellow quoted nearly $700 for installing a faucet—if the customer supplies the faucet. I soon got a quote from another plumber for less than a third of that. (My father said that the well-known local plumber once screwed something up at my childhood home, but that they are probably fine for basic operations. I had to call them a couple of years ago for a slow drain here. They fixed it, but since then, I pre-emptively use Green Gobbler, which seems to work well.)

On Saturday, my sister and I went over to Home Depot and I picked out a gorgeous new faucet for the laundry room sink, and a hose to use for draining the hot water heater. She and I have fundamentally different approaches to many things, one being that she enjoys figuring things out herself while I enjoy paying someone else to figure things out, and another being that, in a store, she likes to find the needed item on her own while I like to ask a store employee for help, so she is the person striding off resolutely, soon to disappear around a corner, and I am the person shrieking “Help!” at the nearest person who appears to be wearing a uniform.

Accordingly, I was having a long conversation with an employee about various things, including where the thing was that we needed, when my sister came back and said, “I found it!”

We were planning to put together one of the cats’ new towers, but were out of steam after going to Home Depot, so we deferred that to Sunday. I had ordered two towers from Mau; my sister paid for half the total, as a catwarming present. On Sunday she put one of them together while I stayed out of the way. It is a stunning thing, quite beautiful as cat towers go, taller than I am. Then we sat down to enjoy the sight of the cats frolicking on it, and waited and waited and waited. Finally, my sister had to go home for dinner. Later in the evening, Marvin was spotted in one of the four faux rattan baskets.

This morning a junk removal company came to provide a quote for removing undesired items. There is only one spigot providing water for the yard, so my father had a system of garden hoses snaking around the property, just as he had extension cords strung around the house because many rooms have not enough electrical outlets. For the same reason in both cases, which is the finished basement, which makes plumbing or electrical work very expensive, there will never be more spigots outside and there will never be more electrical outlets inside, unless, regarding the latter, I break down and pay for metal boxes to be stuck on the exterior of the walls. It is not so much the money as the way it would look. As for the water in the yard, my sister suggested that one could cause someone to bore a hole underground to a place where a second spigot would come in handy; I added it to my to-do list. I would love not to have a massive I’m-never-actually-going-to-do-this list, but it’s genetic; I have that list and will always have it.

We used a couple of our father’s hoses to water some new grass earlier this year. (Results: so-so.) I retained those proven good hoses, but today gathered up the rest and put them in the pile for the junk people. They probably work fine and I could practically hear my father yelling from above, “What are you doing? Those are perfectly good!”, but after having lain outside untouched for at least four years, they are not inspiring-looking objects and I don’t know if they will ever be used again.

Next, I drove today to Dearborn to have lunch with a friend, one of the women who took care of our mother when she was in memory care. This was one of the private caregivers, not one of the facility employees. We met at The Great Commoner, on Michigan Ave. It was delightful getting caught up, and the food was delicious. Shortly before I arrived there, a warning light came on for low tire pressure. After I got back to the car after lunch, I used the new little gizmo to pump it up. It took ten minutes or less. I was very glad I had tested this thing in the driveway and written down detailed instructions.

It was a beautiful day. It feels good to be here. Before I bought the house, on trash day, I would pretend I was a person taking her bin out to the curb. Now I am an actual person taking her bin out to the curb. My sister was worried that the cats would not have a good hiding place, but they found three right away: Underneath a chest of drawers in the living room, underneath the couch, and alongside the upholstered chair, underneath the slipcover my mother made.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, I let both cats have the run of the house (except they cannot go in my bedroom, my bathroom, the office or the spare bedroom) and all was well in the morning except for Marvin unrolling the paper towel in the kitchen. After I was up, he knocked down a single shelf, easily replaced, and they also knocked over my favorite lamp and broke it; I think it can probably be repaired.

On the whole, they seem notably calmer here. In San Francisco, they often pestered me relentlessly when I was eating, trying to get at the food or leap onto my lap even if there was already a plate of toast there. It was annoying and stressful. They are not doing that here at all. They have become the kind of cats where you theoretically understand yourself to have cats, but don’t see them all the time. They also used to greet me at the door every time I entered my apartment, but are not doing that here. I of course did not object to that, but it’s nice not to have all activities happening in the same tiny space, where someone coming in the door would be a completely unignorable event. 

Maybe they are calmer because I am calmer. That is in part because the giant decision finally feels done. It is also because I am far, far from my neighbors in San Francisco, and I think because this place in general is way more low key. The room I sleep in here feels like a sanctuary. I never bother to open the curtain because it’s not also my living room, office, library and yoga studio. My mother made the curtain. A bit of light comes through it, so when I step in there in the day, it’s pleasantly dim, and thanks to the HEPA air filter that runs all the time in there on its lowest setting, the air feels wonderfully fresh. When I go in there at night, I turn on the overhead light, which is not very light—no overhead light in this house is; I plan to address that—but then I turn on the bedside lamp, and the immediate warm glow always reminds me of my mother, who made things cheerful and bright and colorful. It’s like she is there for a split second when the light comes on and the room is suddenly pleasant and cozy and the colors become vivid.

It is also nice to have my parents’ things here and there but not everywhere. It’s nice to use my father’s yellow bowl for my strawberries in the morning and my own blue and white bowl for matcha.

After I got back from Dearborn this afternoon, I met online with the renovations people. They have moved the start date up three weeks, which is great, so we are now working on selecting materials and items. There are six doors to be picked out, among other things.

The guy said the door to the screen porch outside the front door will freely swing open or shut, or could certainly be locked shut from the inside, but I explained that neither will do. The entire impetus for working with the renovations people was to install that screen porch, and the number one purpose of it is to prevent a cat that gets out the front door from getting into the street, so it can’t be possible for the cat just to nose the door open. But the number two purpose of the screen porch is to have a place to set deliveries so that they are invisible or less visible to passersby, not that there are many, so it can’t be that the door is latched shut from the inside such that someone from the outside can’t open it. We will need a door that securely latches shut, but isn’t unopenable from the outside; this should not be a problem.

It now seems perfectly clear that coming here was the right decision. The idea of stuffing the cats full of medication, forcing them back into their carriers and flying them back to their little apartment now seems ludicrous. While San Francisco is absolutely a wonderland, so is this place. Every place is, if one looks around. It feels incredibly luxurious to have a whole room for nothing but sleeping, and another whole room for nothing but sitting in front of a computer. But then there is also a yard! And some other rooms! And a car to drive up and down in! I didn’t really feel cooped up before, but now I feel space all around, and it feels good.

Particularly Stiff

Last Friday I went to the graduation of this past year’s CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) students in the meditation room of the hospital where I was employed until quite recently. (So far I have not regretted the decision to leave.) It has been years since I’ve been to a CPE graduation, though there is one every year, but this group was special, and I also didn’t want to miss the chance to be with the Spiritual Care team. I was trying to figure out what made this group so great and I think it’s because, of the four students, two were people that everyone automatically and immediately loves. That is an excellent percentage. 

Before the formal part of the program, we had lunch together and several people ad hoc told me what they appreciate about me. An array of stellar qualities was mentioned. I felt seen and loved. Then one person whose first language is not English warmly told me that what he likes about me is that I’m “stiff—very stiff.” Also, I’m a “perfectionist” who insists that “the chair be in the right spot.” (I swear I never said anything about a chair.) I asked, “Are these compliments??” I think everyone in the room was getting quite a kick out of this, but I knew he meant every word to convey love and admiration, and I sincerely thanked him.

Between my co-workers telling what they like about me and the graduation itself, the room was overflowing with love and good vibes.

Afterward, I walked all the way back home. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon.

The next day, Tom and I went in a Zipcar to the house of a relative of his for a Labor Day weekend gathering in Sacramento. We detoured a bit to pick up one of Tom’s brothers. The playlist I had made for the drive was Electric Light Orchestra and Average White Band, music from when Tom and I were in junior high. Tom’s brother was still in the shower, so I got out of the car—it was hot—and I danced in the street like a Las Vegas stripper, all by myself, to “Work To Do.” I danced like no one was watching, or like everyone was, knowing it was possibly my last chance to dance like that on a stunningly hot late summer day in the middle of the street in Sacramento. 

The gathering was wonderful. We sat around, we ate, we chatted; some people got in the swimming pool. I told people that I am moving to Michigan on Wednesday but added that they might hardly notice the difference; I am already planning to be in that exact same beautiful house for Thanksgiving. Thanks to Tom’s family, I have attended countless lovely gatherings and been to many gorgeous places over the nearly 30 years: Sacramento, The Sea Ranch, Mill Valley, San Rafael, a succession of very nice retirement communities. I remember a wonderful birthday party for Tom’s mother’s husband, whom I loved so much, on a searingly hot day near Santa Rosa.

Saturday evening, we gave Tom’s brother a ride back home under the dazzling purple evening sky.

Yesterday Tom and I made a last trip, for now, to Orphan Andy’s for lunch. The cute server was there, but a different server came to take our order. Oh, well. However, he then got called away and was detained elsewhere long enough that the cute server ended up taking our orders after all. After I said that I wanted a turkey melt, onion rings, and a huge amount of butter on the side, he said, in the tone of voice someone would use if they were squinting a little, “I know you.”

He brought the butter right away, in the kind of thing a cup of soup is served in. I began daintily eating it with a fork, as no spoon had been provided. After a while, he passed by, murmuring, “You’re going to spoil your lunch,” and he set down a second cup of butter. (I think I could have finished both, but I was also getting a little worried that I might vomit when I got near the bottom of the second cup of butter. I said to Tom that I hoped I was not going to barf and he said he hoped the same thing.)

Twice I saw the cute server do a charming thing: A table evidently would ask if he could take a photo, meaning a photo of them at this well-known Castro restaurant, and he would take the phone, walk over into a flattering beam of light and pretend that they had asked him for a selfie. So toward the end of our lunch, I told him we would like a selfie of him. (More me than Tom, I would say.) He said he was just pretending to take selfies of himself and he said he actually feels awkward taking them, so he handed me back the phone and I took several photos of him, so now I have several completely adorable pictures of the cute server! A very wonderful last-time-for-now outing to Orphan Andy’s.

Today, by going over there with two heavy boxes, I discovered something that may be of interest to others, as well: The post office is not open on Labor Day. (And nor is P. O. Plus.) Oh, well. It is another gorgeous afternoon, a nice day for two boxes to enjoy a pleasant cab ride to the post office and back.

I still can’t believe that I might be leaving San Francisco, but my mood is one of equanimity: The fickle finger of fate has spoken, as it were; with its knuckly gyrations, its pointing this way and that, somehow the day of departure has nearly arrived. 

Rwake!

I did get together with my friend at Papalote yesterday; she treated me to lunch since it was also a goodbye lunch. I saw a fellow in there with an inscrutable band logo on the back of his hoodie. After I studied it for a few moments, I realized it said Rwake. All excited, I said, “Rwake?”, thus giving myself away. A more confident metalhead would have said, “Rwake!” The fellow plucked the earbuds out of his ears, studied the 64-year old lady in sensible shoes who had addressed him, and said, “You’ve heard Rwake?”

Well, yes, I have, as their 2025 album was among Decibel magazine’s top 40 albums of last year, and in fact, among the top five. It didn’t super grab me, but it wasn’t work to listen to it, either. The man in Papalote said it is one of his big regrets that he missed a certain show of theirs. Given their elevated position in the top-40 list, he may get another chance. As he left, he waved his hand and I realized too late that he must have been flashing devil’s horns. I’ll be ready next time!

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Lost

I have been yawing back and forth between feeling like I’ve been remanded to the gulag and having some excitement about moving to Michigan, with the former being the majority of the experience because that is my natural temperament.

However, at the moment I am feeling pretty excited about the move. I am kind of noodling along, at one moment thinking of doing this, and at another moment thinking of doing that. If there is sufficient momentum, then the next step happens, and so I actually now have an appointment at the Michigan Secretary of State office to get a Michigan REAL ID and driver’s license. I have been there a few times now and have found them to be wonderfully efficient. I love Jocelyn Benson. I think she is running for governor. She has my vote. I also hope to be registered to vote in time to vote for the United States senator from Michigan.

I went through a pre-registration process, including identifying the two documents I will bring to establish my residency. It turns out I would have a pretty hard time establishing my California residency if I had to, despite being here for 44 years, since I don’t have a car or a mortgage. Fortunately, I put the DTE bill in my name quite a while ago; that will be one of the documents. And the car registration / title will hopefully be the other. I see that the registration itself has my Michigan address on it, but I have to take a look at the title. If that has my San Francisco address on it, I’ll have some additional steps before I can get the new ID.

If the title does have the Michigan address on it, then Michigan has a slight problem in their process—don’t tell them I said this—given that the only thing I had to show them to register the car was a DTE bill, meaning that, really, you ultimately only need a DTE bill to prove residency as long as you go to the trouble of registering a car; this works better if you have a car.

Thinking about the car’s title made me think about the house’s title. Do I have that somewhere? Is it like a car’s pink slip, where if I leave it in plain sight and someone else walks off with it, they now own the house? I don’t recall anyone handing me a handsome embossed document with touches of gold leaf on it. Seems like after you put that big of a crater in your 401(k), you should get something like that.

I guess this is as good a time as any to mention, regarding my Deadguy-athon, that not only did they produce only two albums in the course of 30 years, the first is 30 minutes long, and last year’s is 36 minutes long. That was extremely thoughtful of them.

Pursuant to my move to the Midwest, I am letting various supplies dwindle. At this point, I likely will not use up 96 rolls of toilet paper or even two entire containers of toasted sesame oil. I put one of the latter in the lobby and it disappeared right away.

I also now actively hope I get there with both cats, whereas I had often half hoped that the inability to achieve this would prevent me from having to move at all. After spending quite a bit of money in the past few weeks on medication that will never get used—not enough to buy a yacht, but enough for a pretty nice rowboat, I would think—I am hoping the vet tech will be able to medicate Marvin, and I am also thinking of other means of ensuring that we all get there, such as asking Tom if he thinks this will happen. He said he does think that. That pretty much guarantees it, then, though I also asked my friend whose prayers always come true to pray for this. I ask her to pray for something for me only once in a great while; I don’t want to abuse my privileges nor drain her supply of cosmic good luck. Regarding our move, I went ahead and asked her, and she seemed amenable, though she also texted, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” which had a slightly ominous ring to it. In the context of traveling with cats, what does that mean? (I hope it does not mean I will end up in Michigan with more than two cats.)

I lately came upon someone’s notion that there are people who say yes, who are rewarded by the adventures they get to have, and people who say no, who are rewarded by feeling a sense of safety; I don’t think the person was saying one was better than the other, but that it depends on people’s psychological makeup. I’m definitely a no person, which is why all these giant yesses have been so hard.

There are a lot of people who don’t even know I’m moving, the process has been so riddled with chaos. A coherent process would have been: Make decision. Then tell people. Accordingly, I just mentioned next week’s move to the friend I’m having lunch with tomorrow and got back a texted “Whaaaat?????!”

I forwarded my note to my work team to a very early chaplaincy mentor and soon received an email with her best wishes for good luck in the future, as if this was the end of our relationship, but since a whole lot of connections these days are maintained by text and / or email and / or Zoom and / or phone, anyway, it kinds of seems to me it hardly matters where you live, except for that small (in my case) handful of relationships where you do need to meet up in person now and then.

So I wrote back saying I hoped that we will still keep in touch and emphasizing that I was not saying goodbye. My letter to my team mentions weeding, and it turns out that this friend also finds weeding therapeutic, so we are at the moment having a very engrossing exchange via email all about weeding and gardening. On her recommendation, I ordered another couple of weeding tools. She said you do not need to use Roundup; Wirecutter in The New York Times had lately averred that you do. She said that she weeds all winter and for a second, I thought, “I’m going to do that, too!” Then I realized my friend can weed all winter because she lives near Seattle. I will not be weeding all winter in Ypsilanti. That’s when I’m going to sit on my sister’s couch and read the many unread novels that have been patiently waiting for me to get to them.

My weeding friend suggested that I volunteer at a community garden and / or join a gardening club. She said I will learn a lot and will enjoy hanging around the kinds of people who do these things. She also said to be careful of my hands (and back and knees ... ). This was a good reminder. My hands are increasingly arthritic, with various knuckles taking turns having painful flare-ups that so far abate after a bit. I actually had been wondering how all the snipping was going to affect my hands, so I will now look into how an aging weeder takes care of her hands as well as the rest of her body. My mother had a fantastic wheeled thing you can sit on while gardening, but it is gone now. Maybe I will end up getting one.

So I am excited about weeding and about all the lovely Midwesterners I am going to meet at the community garden and / or in the gardening club, and about my new weeding tools that are coming, and also about doing some cycling there, though I have not decided whether to ship my one bicycle there now, or ship it later, or just buy a bicycle there, or buy an e-bike. One way or the other, I will need a rack for the car, so I have been discussing this with a knowledgeable friend. There are also two houses on my little block that have lately changed hands, plus one more than is maybe on the market now or will be soon; I am excited about going to welcome all my new neighbors. Maybe I will join a rowboating club! (Say its name: Lake Ontario.)

ROTM

Marvin did meet with the animal communicator yesterday, via Zoom. He remained in a carrier under the bed the whole time, but this did not impede the flow of conversation. I have no idea what actually happened for him, but I found it weirdly relaxing to sit at my desk and listen to the animal communicator’s side of the discussion, and it was also oddly touching to hear what Marvin was (or wasn’t) saying.

After that, I went online to order a new iPhone. My current one is a 13 Mini, which I love a lot for its little size, but the screen is increasingly unresponsive. I set out to order a new phone a couple of months ago, but, nearing the final step, got an error saying that Apple could not find my phone number at Verizon. I called Apple and they said I would have to discuss the problem with Verizon. (Which is not what they should have said. I’ll tell you what they should have said.)

Since, like any rational human being, I would rather eat a razor blade than call Verizon, I waited until yesterday to see if the problem had magically resolved itself, but it hadn’t. I knew Apple would again say to call Verizon, so I didn’t bother calling them and just called Verizon, and had the usual enraging experience of being asked, “Would you like to talk about your shoes or would you like to talk about the Knicks?” If the answer doesn’t happen to be either of those, you soon hear, “Sorry you’re having problems. Goodbye,” and it ends the call, as opposed to saying, “I’ll connect you with someone who can help.”

It’s possible to hear the latter, but it takes a lot of hit and miss, and of course I am irate by the time I’m talking to a person. The people who are in that role at Verizon must encounter a spectacular amount of verbal abuse; I’m sorry to say I was pretty unpleasant with the person I spoke with yesterday. He said the problem is that I have a prepaid plan and that what I’d need to do is go to a Verizon store and get a contract, if I understood correctly. (Which is not what he should have said. I’ll tell you what he should have said.)

I actually did not know that I had a prepaid plan, and was waspishly adamant that I do not have a prepaid plan. Here’s what I have: a prepaid plan. (Which is likely the best thing to have at Verizon, costwise. With taxes and fees, my monthly bill is less than $42, with more data than I can possibly use.)

I then called Apple to say that Verizon had not solved the problem of my number not being findable at Verizon vis a vis the purchase of a new iPhone. The salesperson set out to place the order for me, and was stopped at the same place by the same error. While I was on hold, I discovered that the problem is having a prepaid plan, regardless of carrier, and that the workaround is to not choose a carrier and to indicate that you will do that later. So when I called Apple a couple of months ago, they should have just told me that, and ditto the fellow at Verizon yesterday, rather than saying I’d need to go get a contract. It is true that if I had a contract, Apple would presumably have been able to find my phone number at Verizon, but that’s the long, most expensive and wholly unnecessary way around.

The Apple salesperson placed the order yesterday evening. He asked if a delivery window of 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today would be fine. I said I really didn’t need for it to arrive at that particular time, but that that would be fine.

I got an email saying the order was being processed; I saw that my landline was listed, so this morning, I called to update that with my cell phone number, since they had said they were going to email and text a PIN for the delivery. The automated assistant answered. I emphatically expressed my preference not to speak with an automated assistant, and a human being updated my phone number.

A bit later, I got an email saying that the delivery was unable to be completed and therefore my order had been canceled.

This was shortly after I was getting ready to do today’s medication testing for Marvin. I discovered that Wedgewood had sent me an orange-colored syringe, which made it completely impossible to tell how much medication was in the syringe! Also, if there is or isn’t an air bubble? Can’t tell. I called them and had a completely unhelpful conversation with a pharmacist. He said the reason the syringes are orange is that the medication is light sensitive. Quite understandable that the bottle itself would be orange, which it is, but the medication is only going to be in the syringe for 30 seconds. Not long enough for light to have any effect on it, as far as I can tell.

I was therefore already quite disgruntled when I called Apple to see why they’d canceled my order just after collecting the money for it. This time I said, “Go fuck yourself, automated assistant,” and was soon speaking with a salesperson, who, like many persons at Apple, has a Southern accent.

She explained that you should never agree to the first possible delivery window, because if the driver shows up late or doesn’t show up and it appears they can’t deliver during the specified window, Apple will indeed cancel your order. I totally didn’t care exactly when this item arrived, but I’m sure there are many people who care strongly enough to cancel their phone order and switch to Android for good measure, so I guess Apple is just beating them to it.

Somehow, the saleslady mentioned that her husband is on a fishing trip today but had called her three times. She said she asked him where his brother is. Her husband said his brother was taking a nap, so the saleslady joked to her husband, “So I guess you just want to bother me.” I said it sounded like he missed her and just wanted to hear her voice. I asked how long they’d been married, assuming it must be no longer than two weeks, but she said that their youngest is 29, or something like that.

Then she told me, in detail and at great length, the story of their courtship, which began before either of them was a teenager. I was in tears by the end of her story, and also worried that Apple was going to fire her once they heard the recording of this call, so I made a point of thanking her in detail for every element of customer service and making it clear that I was utterly delighted by this conversation, which I was. It made my day. (By the way, she said the secret of a relationship that lasts this long with the affection still alive and well is being willing to discuss difficulties. She said too many people want to run away when something goes wrong, but they will have the exact same problems in their next relationship. She said it’s not easy to do, but is what is necessary.)

As for the medication, fortunately, I had a clear syringe from Chewy and was able to offer Marvin a tiny amount of fish-flavored liquid gabapentin mixed with tuna juice, which he more or less ate most of, but not all, so that test failed, as have most of the previous tests, so I have arranged for a vet tech to come the morning we travel and the evening before, to give him two squirts of liquid medication on both occasions: gabapentin and trazodone.

It’s been a very big day in metal in these parts. I course have been listening to Decibel magazine’s top 40 albums of 2025, as published in their January, 2026, issue. There have been some hard slogs—I really hate Blackbraid—and some pleasant surprises: I thought I would hate Castle Rat, and I don’t know that I will ever listen to them again, but their album gave me goosebumps at moments.

Up until the final (top) three albums, the time-to-pleasure ratio was pretty far off. With honorable mention to NyreDolk (#38!—practically at the bottom) and Species (#21), the only band I fell completely in love with was Morbikon (#33, also pretty close to the bottom), who fortunately have just two albums, so I didn’t have a huge amount to work through. I have listened to their two albums many, many times, with great pleasure.

I think I was not posting regularly last fall, so did I mention that I was Decibel’s READER OF THE MONTH, in October, 2025? I was! By far the deepest honor of my life. I know I have mentioned great honors a few times very recently, but really, being Decibel’s ROTM was truly the most exciting and satisfying thing that ever happened to me.

Number three on Decibel’s top 40 list was the latest from Paradise Lost, one of my favorite bands. I assumed I would love the new album, but it’s actually going to take some getting used to. I am not far enough into my Paradise Lost-athon. An “-athon,” in my lexicon, is when you listen to every studio album of a given band in chronological order. However, one thing has a way of spiraling off in another direction, so I am in the middle of -athons for Paradise Lost, King’s X, Carcass, and Cathedral, and actually have not even quite finished my Darkthrone-athon.

With Paradise Lost, I began with Shades of God, which I loved immediately. I went back to their first album after a while, and to this day, have not gotten past Draconian Times. It’s a ways from that to the latest—more than 30 years and a bunch of albums. As with many metal bands, the guitar solos can sound so far out of the pocket—completely outside the entire outfit, possibly—that you wonder if the guy is soloing over a different song than everyone else in the band is playing.

For a prime example—and I am not dissing this song; I completely love this song, including for its guitar solo—try “Caesar’s Palace” by Morbid Angel.

When it comes to Paradise Lost, it happens routinely and is actually kind of heartwarming. You can clearly see the thought bubble over that one guy’s head: “I don’t care if the rest of these blokes are in the key of C. I’m in the key of F sharp, right on.”

Yesterday, on to the album that was the runner up: The Spin, by Messa, an Italian band. Their name means “mass,” in the sense of the religious ritual. I don’t know how often I’ll listen to the whole album, but at moments, it completely stunned me.

And so today, the big winner! The band: Deadguy. The album: Near-Death Travel Services. Per the review, their genre is a mix of metal and hardcore. In 31 years, they have produced precisely two albums; the -athon is 50 percent complete already! For such obnoxious music—perfectly consonant with my mood today—it’s surprisingly catchy. Kinda perfect. They deserved to win.

The review says this is the finest comeback album since Carcass’s Surgical Steel, which once upon a time was also Decibel’s record of the year. I happen to already love Carcass (who have produced only eight albums, depending on how you count) and am well into that -athon, but had not gotten to Surgical Steel, so I leaped ahead to that today, and also set out to find the answer to a question that had been perplexing me for some months.

Now, when it comes to guitar solos, Carcass’s do not fall into that previously described category. They are delectably, deliciously, perfectly, heartbreakingly in the pocket. Now hear this: “Buried Dreams.” It has never in my entire life been the case that a guitar solo was the first thing I liked about a band, but the guitar solos were the first thing I liked about Carcass, in “Buried Dreams.” I heard it / them, and I vaguely thought, “That’s rather pretty. I’d like to hear that again.” I have heard the song many times since then, and still practically black out when I hear that solo—or solos.

Carcass has at times, but not always, had two lead guitarists at the same time; the vocalist plays the bass. There’s a drummer. So the question that had perplexed me was who was playing that solo; it did sound like two people taking turns, but was it? There is one guitarist that has been in Carcass every year it’s been active: Bill Steer. Look him up. He is darling. But in that song, while Bill Steer plays the first part of the guitar solo, which is wonderful, I established today, by watching a live version of the song, that it is Michael Arnott who plays the second part, which is the part that nearly makes me fall on the floor every single time I hear it.

As for Surgical Steel, it is thoroughly excellent. Like the Deadguy album, very heavy and also very catchy.

I walked over to the vet’s office to pick up some clear oral syringes for the vet tech to use—is this plan really going to work? It was a gorgeous day, the kind of day on which I keep thinking, “I can’t believe I’m going to leave this best place on earth.”

Leaving my job has landed like a psychic ton of bricks, despite it being my choice and despite my having been thinking about it for some time. It is shocking to have something so big and important suddenly gone. It feels like a lesson about the impermanence of other large things, such as my good health and life itself, and even the somewhat lesser but still pretty big thing of my rent-controlled Mission District apartment. The message seems to be: Don’t hold on. You cannot. Let go. Let go. Let go.

But I’m not sure how “Let go” applies to my apartment. Does it mean to let go of the apartment itself, or to not to cling to the money it would take to pay my rent for however long? Perhaps for a year; I imagine I would know by then if I had made a giant mistake.

Five-Year Peer Review

This morning was the meeting of the committee for the peer review required by the Association of Professional Chaplains every five years after board certification. This was my first one, and it was wonderful. I had worked with two of the committee members in the past and am friends with the third, all board-certified chaplains. I briefly felt overcome with sorrow when the meeting began, given the announcement I had to make. I cried. 

It turned out to be wonderful timing, to be held by this lovely and skilled group of human beings at this time of transition. The chairwoman did a wonderful job, as did the scribe. I felt loved, seen and encouraged. As it happens, one committee member is also leaving their job in order to move back to the small town they came from, to be of service to their aging parents. I could hardly have heard anything more bolstering today: I am not alone.

I have been in a group of chaplains or aspiring chaplains countless times over the last ten years. It is always a great experience, and one I may have been having for the very last time today, or not. It is great even if there is a conflict to discuss or if difficult emotions are arising.

Today the question of what I am willing to let go of at this time of a new chapter beginning arose. Until very recently, the answer to that has been: not one dadgum thing, but I see that won’t work, and I now am thinking that I will in fact let go of my apartment. It just does not make sense to have a budget item that large for a place I will visit only now and then, and I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life figuring out which toilet paper is currently on sale.

I spoke with Carol-Joy about how much time I can spend at her place without straining our friendship. She said she will discuss with her husband, but also mentioned that sometimes they just stay at a hotel right across 101 and turn their house over to a guest, or sometimes put a guest up at the hotel. I looked up the price, and if I’m just going to stay there for three or four nights a few times a year, it is quite doable.

So I think I will now start trying to find movers, and get some quotes and figure out if it makes sense to move my stuff or just ship a collection of boxes and give everything else away.

Sayadaw U Tejaniya says if you are observing the doings of the mind, body and emotions with curiosity, and not under the sway of grasping or aversion, there is nothing you need to think about.

Medication testing for Marvin continues: liquid this, powder that, fish flavor the other, in bacon paste, mixed with tuna water; I ordered two more things today and should be able to open my own cat medication store soon.

To be on the safe side, I made an appointment with an animal communicator after hearing a rather astonishing report about her abilities. Fortunately, I’m still in Northern California where everyone knows someone who knows an animal communicator. That might not be the case in Ypsilanti. (This one lives near Seattle. Those are the best ones.) 

I also am in discussion with a vet tech about having her come over the evening before the flight and the morning of, to assist with medication if needed. I have no doubt that I can get everything into Duckworth with ease, and I think I can get some of Marvin’s meds into him, and maybe all, but I would not want to find out otherwise at the last moment. 

Thrilling Young Spring Chicken

I was actually able to give Marvin 100 mg of gabapentin before taking him over to his vet on Monday afternoon by putting it in sticky bacon-flavored paste. He is not able to separate this stuff from the pill inside as easily. His vet poked the vomited-up specimens and immediately pronounced them to be a foreign substance of some sort. Further mashing revealed that they were segments of a substantial brown shoelace that I did not recognize. Tom has disavowed any knowledge of this item. One of the paid cat sitters has often mentioned the cats enjoying playing with his hoodie string; maybe one of the cats took it out of his hoodie entirely and it accidentally got left behind in the apartment.

I told Marvin’s vet the traveling vet’s idea re acepromazine, which she did not endorse, as expected. She clearly recognized the name of the other vet but did an admirable job of maintaining her poker face.

We discussed how to medicate Marvin for travel and she confirmed that his chip is scanning properly, so Duckworth’s presumably is, too. The cat transport people don’t rely on chips. The one traveling with us will bring along two AirTags. Marvin’s vet is hopeful that he will take his medication more readily now that he doesn’t have a big shoelace inside him, which was probably making him feel nauseous.

On Tuesday I called my boss to say I needed to quit my job, though I again couldn’t quite make the words come out of my mouth. I said several times, “I don’t want to!” Finally, he gently said, “How about this: I accept your resignation, but it’s not official until I get your letter of resignation.” We agreed on that. I started by writing a letter to my team. Once I had that drafted to my satisfaction, I wrote a simple resignation note, and then I sent both.

I did not actually use the word “retire” and was a bit taken aback when I soon got a note from one of my co-workers sending good wishes on the occasion of my retirement. Isn’t a retiree a forgotten old fart with nothing more to contribute? I’m not retired! I’m a thrilling young spring chicken!

Here is the note I sent my team:

Dear Completely Remarkable Spiritual Care Team,

Thank you so much for the pleasure of getting to serve alongside you for these almost-nine years—thank you for your kindness and love, and thank you for the moments of humor and connection. Achieving board certification as a chaplain is the accomplishment in all my life of which I am most proud, and being permitted to serve as a hospital chaplain has been the most profound honor in my life.

The decision to let this chapter end—years earlier than I had planned—has been agonizing indeed, not least because of the difficulty of saying goodbye to this remarkable group. I still find the hospital to be a place of wonder and mystery; I still find conversations with patients and their loved ones extremely satisfying and meaningful; I still feel it is an incredible privilege to get to be present for those moments of deepest difficulty and deepest letting go, and all the moments in between.

Unfortunately, and while I would do it the exact same way if it were April of 2022 once again, I very greatly over-functioned in the care of my parents and now find myself fundamentally depleted in a way I have not yet figured out how to fix; maybe it is not fixable, but I have decided to prioritize simplicity and rest and space.

(I have bought my parents’ house in Michigan and have discovered the joy of pulling weeds! I’m going to pull some weeds!)

A million thank-yous to [my boss] for his unwavering support and generosity—for making it so I didn’t have to worry about my job or livelihood over a period that turned out to be so much longer than I could possibly have imagined the day my father went to the ED not feeling well.

And I am struggling to figure out how I will get along without [our Healing Harpist!] to gently murmur, “I’m not sure I would send that email … .”

I will miss every single one of you, and I hope you will say hello whenever the spirit moves you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

With love and with best wishes for each of you always,
Bugwalk

It does feel strange. Because I worked only two days a week, I assumed that my career would easily be sustainable until I was 70, and I always felt that I was just beginning. How is it already the end?

Since I may not have many further occasions to mention it, let me say that I completed (in September, 2017) what is regarded as the most rigorous CPE program on the West Coast, and in my cohort of 15 students, I was the only one to get a job as a hospital chaplain right away. I felt incredibly proud and honored, and I still do.

Today I got up after about seven hours of sleep to continue to fiddle with Marvin’s medications, calling his vet and calling the pharmacy and emailing the traveling vet. Marvin took his Prozac in the bacon paste, and then I also gave him a 50-mg gabapentin capsule to see if he would take a second pill in a row in the bacon paste, and he did.

Then I went to meet Carol-Joy, who had driven down from Novato, and we went to Plain Jane for breakfast followed by card playing at my place. I asked if she could give me a ride up to Market St. to get some cans of tuna to see if Marvin will take powdered medication in tuna juice; if not, hopefully he will take a compounded fish-flavored medication mixed with tuna juice. Whereas before I was all, “Whole Foods,” now I’m all “Safeway!” (Rainbow does not sell animal flesh for human consumption; they do sell meat, fowl and fish pet food.)

Oddly, while I was in Safeway picking out cans of tuna, a long-ago chaplaincy mentor of mine from San Francisco General Hospital called just to say hello.

If You Can’t Say Something Negative, Don’t Say Anything at All

Whereas months ago I often was going to bed after midnight, even as late as 2 a.m., I have managed to ratchet that back to approximately 11 p.m., and was hopeful that I would get a decent amount of sleep Friday night, pursuant to working on Saturday for the first time since early July.

I retired at 9 a.m. and lay awake until 11 p.m., as expected, but then was also awake at midnight, and 1 a.m. and so forth. It seemed as if I had been asleep for ten minutes when the alarm went off at 4:55 a.m.

I just remembered that Friday, the day before work day, was a very horrible day, thanks to Marvin and his new medication-refusal protocol. I ended up getting way behind schedule and therefore in a giant rush. I had meant to take a comprehensive shower before seeing my ob/gyn for an annual exam, but it ended up being just a quick rinse, and I had meant to ride my bike over there but ended up in a cab and in a mega rage.

Fortunately, it turns out that being in a mega rage is excellent for one’s blood pressure. Mine was 100/48. I shudder to think how low it might have been had I stayed calm.

I of course went off to work as scheduled on Saturday and I made it through the day and generally enjoyed it, but did not feel rested on Sunday morning even after sleeping for a good, long time. If excellent self-care, including top-notch sleep hygiene, is the goal, I must let go of this job. I missed so much sleep during my parents’ illnesses, I feel it is imperative not to mess around with sleep from now on, particularly since one of my parents did have dementia.

Yesterday (Sunday), I changed the filter in my Multipure water filter and ended up running out of time to go grocery shopping, but it appeared that I would be able to do that today, which is not ideal, but it’s okay. I would like to have had a nice salad for breakfast this morning. (As it turned out, no grocery shopping today, either.)

I emailed the cat transport person to let him know I am unable to reliably get medication into Marvin and that his vet has suggested something that didn’t work in the past (which is not even due to arrive until Wednesday). I asked what the latest go-no go day would be, and he suggested September 4. He added, “Sounds like we have a lot of great irons in the fire!” Irritating. When Lisa M. and I spoke on the phone yesterday evening, I told her it’s not that I’m totally opposed to positive thinking; I am opposed to a complete disconnection from reality. I pictured myself on the plane with this fellow saying, “Listen, sonny, if you can’t say something negative, just don’t say anything at all.”

Sayadaw U Tejaniya writes that curiosity about what is happening in our mind is itself a form of wisdom. Yesterday I was sitting at my computer and observing my thoughts. SUT doesn’t necessarily advocate noting; in fact, he says it is not necessary, but in my weakened mental health condition, I think it’s probably helpful. “Gloomy thought.” “Gloomy prediction.” 

Howie sometimes quotes the Hafiz poem “You Carry All the Ingredients.” 

It starts:
You carry all the ingredients
to turn your life into a nightmare—
Don’t mix them!

It ends:
You carry all the ingredients within
to turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix them!

I have had many opportunities in recent months to observe the exceedingly short time from “What if this happens?” to “I’m just going to kill myself.” It’s about two seconds.

So I was observing my thoughts as I sat at the computer yesterday and could easily see how negative and destructive they were, and I could feel agitation churning in my body, and I could feel how unpleasant that is, and I shot down into that dark place, anyway.

The solutions are so simple; it’s the willingness to employ them that can be so elusive. Reflecting on the matter later, I concluded that I should have paused when I could feel agitation building in my body and should have turned to a simple practice of observing and noting.

As Howie points out, once you notice you are holding your breath, you don’t have to try to convince yourself to start again. It happens by itself once you make the observation. I definitely perceive that once I consciously note, “Gloomy thought,” I don’t have to try to have a cheery thought. The current of energy shifts by itself, not necessarily to ebullient joy, a state I am very familiar with, though not very much lately, but at least the sudden descent into the darkest of moods is halted. Well, I guess that depends, as just noting gloomy thoughts was not sufficient yesterday. They were too persistent, and I did not or could not marshal the will to pause; since I did not think of that until later, I am actually hopeful that I am on the right track.

I went to bed last night shortly after 10 p.m. and was awakened by the sound of a cat vomiting at about 7:30 a.m. I leapt out of bed to try to see which cat it was: Marvin, who had thrown up two horrible little black tubes. One of them looked like a hairball but was much firmer, and the other looked like a, let’s see, horrible black tube. Blood from their bad fight two weeks ago? Marvin has been eating his food, though, now that I think about it, more slowly than usual, and of course we suddenly have this giant problem with medication.

I almost just stayed up at that point, but (good for me!) got back in bed to see if I might sleep a bit more, which I did. In fact, I couldn’t get up when the alarm went off and hit the snooze button for an additional hour, which is to say that it basically took two days to recover from one day of work, in addition to getting almost no sleep before going to work. My body seems to have just made up its mind that it does not sleep before a work day.

Before I fell soundly back to sleep this morning, with Duckworth sitting on the pillow right next to my head, when I noted a gloomy thought, I turned to a simple survey of the input at the various sense doors, a practice I was finding very powerful a year or so ago, but drifted away from. I see … I smell … I hear … I taste … I feel in my body … .

I was going to take each cat to the vet separately, one today and one next week, to confirm that their chips are working properly, but since I probably can’t give Marvin the gabapentin he needs regardless of which of them goes to the vet, I was going to cancel today’s appointment, but now of course will take him over there this afternoon with or without gabapentin, and with the specimens in a Ziploc bag.

The cat transport people have a home-visit vet they work with, so I met with her today online to get her ideas. I sent her photos of what Marvin threw up and she said one does look like it could be blood. Maybe food has somehow been passing around it because it’s kind of skinny. As for travel by air, she is concerned that even the highest dose of gabapentin will not be enough to both get Marvin into his carrier and have him remain sufficiently sedated until we land at DTW, so she proposes to use acepromazine, which is forbidden by airlines, which she proposes we will neglect to mention to them. Great. To her credit, she did say I should run this by Marvin’s own vet. 

The traveling vet is available to come over and give meds on travel day and fortunately doesn’t think doing some sedation for a night or two before traveling provides any benefit, so at least I would not have to pay for three visits.

I asked what happens if he has a, what’s that word, opposite reaction to the medication; that’s not the word, but you know what I mean. She said she has not known that to happen, but agreed that we could give it to him a week before travel day to see how it goes. 

However, when I spoke with my sister, she said the trouble is that something weird can happen with that medication in the context of the changed air pressure. Giving it to him in the comfort of his own living room is a different thing. The internet is uniformly opposed to using this stuff for air travel, and I’m pretty sure Marvin’s vet is not going to endorse this plan. I think I am going to have to pay the traveling vet to come over on September 9 and insert Marvin’s Prozac plus 200 mg of gabapentin into him and we’ll have to hope for the best, or I’ll have to decide not to risk that and just stay here and wait for the neighbors to burn both of our buildings down. (I think things will someday be fine in that building. I think the odds of my building literally burning down are low. But I also think things are going to get worse next door before they get better.)

While talking to my sister, I felt that agitation arising in my body, but this time, I said, “I guess that’s enough for now,” and got off the phone.

Paradoxical! That was the word. 

Insurmountable Problem!

On Sunday evening, Lisa M. and I had our usual excellent weekly telephone conversation. We talk about doings in our own lives, politics, books, the current state of society. On Monday I had a mammogram, the most painful of my entire life, though I had to agree with the merrily chuckling technician that a good, clear image is the most important thing.

I spoke with my boss about my idea of being here for two weeks every couple of months and working twice a week during those two weeks and he said that is fine, though now I’m trying to figure out: If you live in two places, how does that work with your taxes? Which is your residence? What about health care? What about identification? What about voting? Does my employer in San Francisco care if my address is in Michigan?

As mentioned here not long ago, I was remembering myself telling Carol-Joy in the past year how much I hate San Francisco: How crowded it is, how you’re taking your life in your hands riding a bicycle along Valencia St., how horrible this weird bubble full of rich people is. Now, of course, it is the most supremely beautiful place there is. I went to P.O. Plus on Castro St. this afternoon to get a couple of small boxes to mail unread novels to Michigan in: something to look forward to there, as I sort of feel that I am being banished from the magic palace. 

Then I tried to decide whether to go home and have a healthy dinner or go again to Orphan Andy’s, which I really oughtn’t (I told myself), as I went to Plain Jane last Friday, Orphan Andy’s on Saturday, and to Henry’s Hunan on Church St. Monday evening for dinner with a friend. That’s a lot of eating out, but once I even ask myself a question like that, it’s already a lost cause, and all the more so now that this might be the last time I have a turkey melt at Orphan Andy’s, so I had that, with onion rings and a side of butter, but I compromised by not requesting an extra-large side of butter. (The cute server was not there.)

On Tuesday I went to see my wonderful chiropractor and reported on how ceasing to take calcium and magnesium erased my vestibular symptoms. I am now taking vitamin D, oregano oil, and BroccoMax, and the symptoms are back maybe five percent, but that is a reasonable trade-off. I asked if I should bother to do my vestibular exercises and at first he said no, but then he said if they have no effect on me, I don’t need to do them, but if they make me feel dizzy or nauseous—I forget which—then they are worth doing. I think they do, a little.

Also on Tuesday, the unpleasant smell that drifts from the bathroom window of my counterpart in the next building suddenly became much stronger; plus there seemed to be some fellow in her bathroom having a drug-induced episode of some sort. I called Tom to see if he smelled it and of course he said everything smelled fine to him, but then, most unusually for him, he reported that he had tried sticking his nose out of his bathroom window, above mine, and now he smelled it.

I am developing a theory that most people arrive in San Francisco with enough money to be here, a sufficient amount of mental health and, ideally, no drug problem, but if things don’t work out, or maybe it is just due to staying in one place long enough, here they are years later in poor mental health and / or with a drug problem and / or not enough money. There are so many people here who are so abundantly well resourced in every regard and so, so many who are not. 

I decided the time had come to complain about the horrendous stench and called the owner of the building next door. I did feel bad about doing it, as his problems are nearly endless, but this was starting to seem unreasonable. I ran into him on the street later and he said he had run into the tenant in question, who explained that she is vaping something whose name is three letters. As of yesterday evening, I concluded I am simply going to have to keep my bathroom window shut, but as of this afternoon, I concluded that I am simply going to have to put up with the foul emanation; it gets really stuffy in that sector of this little apartment without the breeze.

This morning, Marvin carefully ate the Pill Pocket in which his fluoxetine (Prozac) capsule was nestled and spit out the latter. I got out another pill and tried burying it under a mound of Nulo Lickable Treat; same result. I eventually lost my temper—he did not seem to take offense—and got the pill into him using a pill shooter. At least twice in the past when I have used a pill shooter, within a minute or so he has vomited thirteen-plus times, no doubt throwing up the medication, but since I can’t be one hundred percent positive of that, I just let it go for that day. Today I could see he was spitting out the whole capsule, and somehow got the pill far enough into the side of his face that he didn’t spit it out, but not so far in that it triggered his gag reflex.

But this is worrisome, because on the day he travels by air a couple of weeks from now, he will have to take his usual Prozac and also two 100-mg gabapentin pills, whether tablet (smaller but he might taste the medication) or capsule (can’t taste the medication, but it’s larger).

My first impulse was to email the cat transport person and also text my sister to announce an insurmountable problem, my favorite thing to announce, but I decided to try to think of some solutions first. Maybe 5 mg of Prozac instead of 7.5 would be enough, in which case he could take the tiny half-tablet Duckworth takes; I called their vet to ask. Then I looked around online for some alternatives to the Feline Greenies Pill Pockets and ordered three, paying for overnight delivery. For quite a while, Marvin loved the bacon-flavored Tomlyn Pill-Masker, until one day he suddenly hated it. (Oddly, that was the only edible item I’ve ever known Duckworth to refuse.)

I realized I had likely caused unnecessary problems by trying four or five times in a row to give Marvin his pill, not to mention by getting angry, so a bit later, using the same saucers I use for their medication, I called out to see if they would like a treat—they know the word—and gave them each a Pill Pocket on their usual saucer. They both ate it.

Last Wednesday, while I was still in Ypsilanti, on packing night, my other sister texted to say that she could see detailed tracking information for the box I’d sent her, but that the check for her share of the house proceeds, which I had sent via certified mail on Monday, had gone into a black hole that same day. That was a bit worrisome. We had an absolutely civil exchange that went on for a day or two, and the check did turn up. In the course of that, I signed up for text updates on the mailed check and also for Informed Delivery, which provides a photograph of each piece of mail that will soon be delivered (not magazines, it appears).

At first I didn’t like it. Opening the mailbox and seeing if there is mail inside can afford a small bit of pleasurable surprise. But then I got to thinking about being away from here for two months. What if something important actually turns up? My cat sitters have been bringing in the mail for nearly four and a half years. I am going to ask Tom if he can do this, and I planned to leave him some mailing envelopes in case anything urgent-looking arrived, but then I realized that, thanks to Informed Delivery, I will know! In that case, I can ask Tom to open the envelope and send me a photograph of the contents. Kind of cosmic that the thing I signed up for due to a seemingly random occurrence—my sister’s check going temporarily astray—soon proved to be precisely the thing I needed.