Distracted

Finally, summer has come to the Pacific Northwest. I just got back from the garden, where I picked a quart of ripe strawberries and seven raspberries. I see the first rounds of spinach and bok choy have finally gone to seed, so we'll be pulling them up and giving them to the neighbors' chickens - we're feeding them this week in exchange for about eight eggs a day.

I had a long list of things to do today, accompanied by the satisfaction that I really could do the most important things first and wait until another day for the rest. I have a vague awareness that my former colleagues are working in their cubicles 14 miles from here, looking out the windows - if they have one - and wishing they weren't working. I'm looking out my own window and thinking I'll go sit in my Adirondack chair as soon as I finish this blog entry. I'd like to think I'll read, but I'm a bit distracted today.

We took our designer cat Larisa to the vet this morning. She stopped eating while we were in San Antonio for four days last week. No fever, no blockage. Vet says she may have been on a hunger strike and then, when we got home, her appetite-stimulating chemical or enzyme didn't start up again. So they're feeding her from a syringe this afternoon, to kick start her appetite, while running blood and urine lab tests to check for anything else that might be going on.

Larisa has a hard time when we're traveling. She's a Siberian Forest cat, hypoallergenic, a former breeding queen from a cattery in Oregon. My husband Art is allergic to most cats, but not to her, so we bought her last year after her last pregnancy ended in the miscarriage of a single kitten and she had to be spayed. I've wanted a cat for five years, since my sweetheart Muffin died. I asked the breeder if Larisa would do okay while we travel, and he said yes. So far, we've been on four trips ranging from four days to two weeks. Larisa doesn't like it. We've asked someone to come in and keep her company in the evenings, but even that didn't help this time.

So now, as I wait for the lab results, I wonder what the next steps might be. The vet says we can have her medicated with an antidepressant and an appetite stimulant when we travel, but that seems unnatural and heartless to me, for some reason. Calling the breeder has gone through my mind. "Would you like to have Larisa back? She's miserable when we're gone, and I'm afraid she might starve if the trip were three weeks long - like our planned October trip to Italy."

When we brought Larisa home last summer, it was 62 days before she would let us touch her. She's a sensitive girl and I want the best for her. Even if it's not the best for me.

Maybe she just has a virus. I hope so.