Trip Delay

Figuring we would be exhausted after packing the car for our drive north, we cleverly decided to do that a couple of days before, so we had a day to rest up. Pretty dang clever of us. The next day, having hung our final laundry on the line, Grant got a call. I could hear a son on the other end of the conversation explaining he’d come down with Covid. I knew it wasn’t Patten because he’d tested positive last week after attending a Miami Heat basketball game. Spent all week at home, symptom free. Sounded like Spaulding. I thought at least he and Molly were able to go on their hike at the Grand Canyon last weekend. Starting at 5:30 AM on the North Rim, they hiked with four friends down in and across, coming up out the South Rim by 8:30 that evening. He said it was so hot that they laid for an hour in the Colorado River at the bottom to cool off. 

Nope, it was Jamey, with whom we planned to spend the weekend with on our way north. He’d started feeling lousy Sunday evening but fortunately had tested negative so he and April could fly back from Portugal on Tuesday. Yes, the US still has the negative Covid test requirement for anyone coming into the country by air. Not so for those who drive in from Canada or Mexico. I assume no test for people who come by boat either, or the cruise ships would be in trouble. In any case, now he’s home, feeling even sicker and has tested positive.

What to do? We decided to delay our departure one day. After speaking to him again, we’ve decided to skip staying with them and just drive straight to Portland. Not only are we leary of catching Covid, but also the poor boy still has a fever and feels bad. Being sick is no fun. Perhaps we can see them on the way home.


Gracie, though, feels fine. Monday morning Grant took her to the vet to be spayed. She came home Tuesday with an Elizabethan collar that prevented her from licking her incision. It also prevented her from going out the cat door, and she tripped on the collar ties, no matter how many times I tried tucking them in. 


She’d wiggled out of the collar Wednesday morning and turned it into a cat toy. Or was trying to get back at the evil thing. Since she didn’t seem overly attentive to her wound, I didn’t bother putting back on. Her only complaint is the thrice daily syringes of pain medicine I attempt to put at her gum line for absorption. Easy when she’s asleep; not as fun when she's awake and aware. Just one more to go. 



Annie, of course, had to sit in the new cat carrier we got. Let’s see how enthusiastic she’ll be when it’s her turn to go to the vet.

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