She wanted to do a ritual under the trees and the full moon, at midnight. Because I'm insane, I said she could.

So I'm sitting on a park bench, with a whining, hyperactive dog, while the kid is lighting a bunch of candles, and invoking god only knows what... I kept thinking the surrounding neighbors would call the cops, and I'd have to explain. Or worse yet, some born-again would come out and try to stone her for Jesus.

As it was, except for being really irritated by Reggie and the length of time I had to sit on a wet bench, it wasn't bad.

I'm tired because I drank two cups of coffee at 10 p.m. in order to stay awake, and then I was too keyed up to sleep.

Plus, I set the alarm so I could call the vet's office this morning. My kitty, Malcolm-X, had a really swollen chin the other day. I put hot moist compresses on it, and it came to a head and broke open to drain. I wasn't sure if it would be better or not by this morning. His chin isn't swollen, and there's a scab on it. He seems to be feeling better. I'll continue with the compresses and put Polysporin on it. He's had this once before and it went the same way.

****************************************

Speaking of medical stuff, I got my blood test results in the mail. Woo-Hoo! My labs were nearly perfect! That's good for an old gal such as myself. This is the time when stuff starts going wrong. Hints about one's future health and all. The only thing that wasn't perfect is my "good cholesterol" level was 2 points too low. All I need to do is continue my exercise and that will right itself. In fact, the day before I had the blood test, I'd ditched my dance class, and went out for shrimp scampi. I'll bet if I had danced and rejected the garlic-butter sauce - my numbers would have been right-on.

At any rate, I'm happy. Plus, now, every time I get a pain - I won't automatically think it's going to be fatal.

October 11, 2003