Rapture of the Deep

It was very warm again today, record-breaking for March 19 here. I think my car said 83˚ at one point? I drove to the bookstore that’s closing, bought three books, and wished the owner fun times in his retirement. I then drove to the library, but it was closed for staff training. Walking downtown in this heat was odd – lots of cannabis in the air, and the usual scruffy homeless folks were still in their winter clothes.

Then I drove home and saw that Hiram’s house, the one that had all those troubles and where most of my cats were born, has been marked as a construction site. The next-door neighbor told me a contractor has bought it and plans to tear down the existing house next month, then build a new one. Blitzen won’t like that; I think she still considers that to be her home. It’s also a good place for my outdoor friends to hide from Bad Cat. (Incidentally, Theo showed up today, looking reasonably okay – I hadn’t seen him in about a week.)

Then I got to read outside until it became cool, with no risk of mosquitos! Tomorrow it should be just in the 60s, then 50s for Saturday.

Emma, by Jane Austen. I decided to reread this before reading a related fan fiction mystery that I learned about recently from my mother-in-law. It turns out it has been quite a while since I’d last read it, since Emma is not one of my favorites. Some things I appreciated this time that I’d forgotten: how warm and sparkling Jane Fairfax’s true personality is, and how very nuanced Frank Churchill’s conversations with Emma were, before she knew his secret. I had also forgotten that Emma was clearly retaining some of her ongoing not-wonderful biases, but that will just give Mr Knightley more room to continue influencing her for the better.

So, as I mentioned, Parker reappeared on Thursday. He’s now here regularly and has been eating fine. He’d disappeared around March 2, which is also the last time we’d seen Bad Cat. (J had in fact made a movie of Bad Cat coming after Azalyn that day, right before he rushed outside to rescue her.) However – when sitting outside with Parker on Saturday, I gradually realized that he is in fact significantly injured. Parker had had the top layer of skin torn off his inner right thigh, up to his stomach, and there was something of an open wound going on, too, which I’m reasonably sure is a ruptured abscess. Fortunately, even though I can’t pick him up and flip him over to look, he’s feeling good enough that he’ll do his usual socializing with me, which involves lying down about three feet from me and rolling around on his back, which gives me a good view.

I’d heard a cat fight around the day he disappeared, and I’m going to assume that the fight was with Bad Cat because of the timing and the fact that Bad Cat seems to be lying low (or being kept indoors) since then.

I wondered about taking Parker to the vet. He’s nowhere near tame enough to visit our neighborhood vet, but in theory if I could trap him (and not one of his siblings too) we could take him to the emergency vet in Springfield. At least he could get an antibiotic shot and have the wound cleaned. I ordered a trap online.

I also started asking the Google AI about the situation. It had a strong bias toward insisting I take him to the vet, so eventually I rephrased my query to be about a wild animal. It concluded that the three risks were septicemia, predation, and starvation. I’m not worried about predation or starvation for Parker, and it thought by 12 days the risk of septicemia was pretty low. Here’s yesterday’s version of my query: “if a 10 lb wild animal has skin pulled off its leg and a ruptured abscess but is eating normally two weeks later, what is the percentage likelihood that it will develop septicemia?” The short version of its answer: “The likelihood of the animal developing septicemia at this stage is estimated to be less than 5%, as its ability to eat normally and survive for two weeks indicates its immune system has successfully localized the infection.”

So when J got home, I got him to ask Claude. ( this is long )

Of course, if Parker starts feeling worse, he’ll go back into hiding and I’ll probably never see him again. We’ll reassess in a few days.

We had another afternoon symphony concert today, starting earlier than I could get myself anywhere, but I arrived at intermission, which was fine by me. In the first half they had something about iron foundries, which surely involved clanging, and then an accordion (!) concerto, which I’m sure was interesting, but I didn’t miss it. The second half had Schubert’s “unfinished symphony” and the Romeo and Juliet overture by Tchaikovsky. I wore a mask and sat more than arm’s length away from anyone else.

My cold symptoms weren’t as bad today, and I wasn’t as tired, so I also went to the library and the further supermarket on my way home, in case my energy is lower tomorrow. Unfortunately, my dishwasher broke this weekend, so I’ll have to wash dishes by hand and arrange for a repair-person. Also it looks like Parker would benefit from a visit to a vet, if I can figure out how to do that.

Meanwhile, with meals today I’ve been watching the latest of the Hannah Swensen mysteries on the Hallmark Mysteries channel. It’s frustratingly bad – the body was discovered around Minute 22 (including the minutes for the commercials) and as of Minute 49 nobody has even mentioned the word “motive” or speculated on who might have wanted to kill her. The argument she had with her friend at Minute 12, witnessed by our heroine, has been entirely ignored. I wish the script had been written by a professional, rather than the actress who plays the heroine…

There’s an aggressive cat that’s joined the neighborhood as of last summer; we’re calling it “Bad Cat.” It’s attractive – a long-haired tabby with a distinctive white patch at the very end of its tail – but it’s also mean. We think it lives on the far side of J’s house, because we started noticing it in his yard first, but as of about a month ago it started harassing my outdoor cats, and I’ve seen it in my backyard numerous times. We’ve seen it chasing Azalyn, in J’s yard, and Oberon starts growling whenever it’s near my front door. Poor Oberon is missing a patch of fur on his side, where there were also two big puncture marks – it seems to be healing up okay. Bad Cat is our best explanation for that injury.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was worried because neither Theo nor Parker had been around for several days, and I posted here. I now think Bad Cat is the reason why. I did see them both on the day after I posted about it, but then Parker disappeared again. Theo was gone the last several days but turned up today, very hungry. I’ve heard some fighting outside my bedroom window, and that’s Theo’s territory, with Parker’s nearby. Maybe Parker has given up on eating at my house? I miss him. Blitzen is still regularly here; she usually sits on top of a post or my old car, which would keep her safe.

J’s best idea was to trap Bad Cat and learn if he has a microchip, so we could talk to his owner. I think that since Bad Cat has been outside at night and in rainy weather, its owner probably doesn’t much care, and that contacting them would be pointless.

Last night it took quite a long time to fall asleep, even aside from the time change – I’d had something of a headache from even before the Delgani concert, and my sinuses were so unhappy with me lying on either side that I had to prop my head up for a while. But! At some point in the night it started to rain, and that cleared out the pollen. I got a full night’s sleep, and today I got a surprising amount done. Even now I still feel much better than I usually do this time of night, in terms of breathing and headache. And while I was out and about doing my errands, it only sprinkled a very slight bit. So it was perfect.

This afternoon I watched a livestreamed conversation between Rebecca Solnit and Bill McKibben, about her new book and her reputation as someone who helps people feel hopeful yet still realistic. I’m in the middle of the book, and it was fun to listen to the two of them talk. The event was sponsored by an organization called Third Act (thirdact.org), for Americans over age 60 who are working to support the climate and our democracy. I’ll be reading more about them soon, I’m sure.

The Black Wolf, by Louise Penny. Inspector Gamache #20. This book, a direct sequel to The Grey Wolf, had all the usual characters and features of the other Inspector Gamache books – less time in Three Pines than some, so less time with our cozy favorites, but more thrilling developments in the halls of power. I quite enjoyed it and read it all in two evenings, which was just about perfect. Penny kept us waiting to find out who the real “Black Wolf” was until the final pages.

Today’s weather forecast was that it would reach 63˚F and there would be some sunshine in the afternoon. Well! Instead it got at least as warm as 72˚! J went on a bike ride to the river and back, something he wouldn’t normally venture until at least April. On the way back, he stopped at the high school volleyball court – which apparently has very, very good quality sand – and played volleyball for an hour with some law students.

I then walked down to the park to meet him. I heard finches, crows, and the ever-present and ever-noisy flickers on the way there, and chickadees after I arrived. Several people had their dogs off-leash on the path but fortunately had good control over them anyway. It was so early that the magnolia at the end of the street was still in bud.

In unrelated but very welcome news – DG’s friend R is conscious again, and breathing on her own. He hopes to visit her in the next few days, although Seaside is a three-hour drive from here.