The Desert Mermaid

Cattitude and I got up at 5:45 so he could pill Kaja, preparatory to her dental surgery. Both the pilling and the medical care went well, and she is on soft food only for 10-14 days. Therefore Molly is too, and we have to give them different treats than the usual dental Greenies. (Kaja will also be getting anti-inflammatories for a couple of days, and gabapentin for five.)

I got email from my brother about Mom's estate. He has done the necessary formwork so Vanguard can give us the money from her account there, where we are co-beneficiaries. His share is already in his account existing account. I tried setting an account up online, which apparently failed at the last minute, so I called and got a helpful person to walk me through the process again, step by step. I had gotten far enough earlier to create security questions, including some that I can actually remember my answers to, and haven't used repeatedly elsewhere. Separately, I need to talk to someone at Amalgamated Bank about the account there, a joint account with both our names on it. I hope they'll let me, as co-owner, close the account and transfer the money elsewhere, rather than sending them a copy of the death certificate, getting the account just in my name, and then closing it.

Mark also said he's thinking of going to London next month to sort through Mom's belongings, photos, and paperwork. So he wants to know whether I'm going as well, and if so, what dates worth for me. (Putting this here so I'm less likely to forget to talk to Cattitude and Adrian and then write back to Mark.)

My right knee is healing, and stretching worked significantly better than yesterday. I even did a few carefully selected PT exercises this afternoon.

I can do more things standing up, and walking around the apartment is easier. However, I seem to have been leaning too much on the other leg, because my left knee started to hurt earlier. Not badly, but enough that I am putting the cane aside for the moment.

update Monday, 6/9: my knees feel mostly OK today. I am still being careful about walking a lot or standing too long. I just got the mail, figuring the two steps down to the mailboxes would be a useful check of how I'm doing. It was doable, but did hurt a little; I'm glad I decided not to go out. (The sidewalk is down another half dozen stairs, which are a bit more difficult than the ones inside, but the main thing is that this way I only had to climb back up two stairs.)

I heard from the GI doctor's office this morning, and have an appointment Friday at 10:30, which will be telemedicine. I hope my knees will be feeling a lot better by then, but if she had wanted to see me in person, I would have called a lyft and taken the quad cane with me just in case.

Since my last reading post:

Nobody Cares, by H. J. Breedlove. This one is good, but dark: it's dedicated this to Black Lives Matter, and fairly early on I got to the first mention of Missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. It's also book 3 in the Talkeetna series, with further developments in the friendship-turning-romance of Dace and Paul.

The Disappearing Spoon, by Dan Kean: a history of the periodic table, with a bit about each of the currently-known elements and the people, or groups of people who discovered them. Someone recommended this after I mentioned liking Consider the Fork, but the two books have almost nothing in common.

The Electricity of Every Living Thing, by Katherine May: a memoir, about walking and what happens after the writer hears a radio program about Asperger's and thinks "but that's me." (I don't remember where I saw this recommended

Return to Gone-Away, by Elizabeth Enright: read-aloud, and a reread of a book I read years ago. Sweet, a family's low-key adventures in an obscure corner of upstate New York. As the title implies, this is a sequel; read Gone-Away Lake first.

Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken, by Daniel Pinkwater, a short picture book that we read aloud after Adrian and I realized Cattitude hadn't read it before. Conversation in three languages, with translations (and transliterations) for the Yiddish and Spanish. Not Pinkwater's best, but fun.

Thimble Summer, by Elizabeth Enright, because I enjoyed rereading the Gone-Away Lake books. Several months of a girl's life with her family on a farm. The plot and adventures are relatively low-key. I liked it, and am glad I got it from the library.

Also, it looks as though I didn't post about the summer reading thing here. It started June 1, and the bingo card has a mix of kinds of books, like books in translation, published this year, or with an indigenous author; some squares with things like "read outside" and "recommend a book"; and some that go further afield, like "learn a word in a new language" and "try a new recipe." Plus the ever-popular "book with a green cover." (OK, last year it was "book with a red cover.") I do a lot of my reading on a black-and-white kindle, so I don't know what color the covers might be. Therefore, I walked into a library yesterday, looked at their summer reading suggestions, and grabbed a book with a green cover.

My GI doctor says the celiac test is negative. This is both unsurprising and a relief: the doctor ordered the test because of comorbidities, not because there were any signs of celiac, but celiac is common enough in people with collagenous colitis that it was worth checking.

I do still need to contact her office tomorrow and ask about that follow-up appointment.