Rough week

This was a rough week.

Early last week I helped Perrin move the final load of stuff to her new apartment. She's still in and out, coming home a couple times a week to ride the horses, but I think we are officially empty nesters. Robin got a part-time job as a cashier at Meijers 4 nights a week, so for the most part I'm home alone. If I start to blabber, you'll know why.

Then, last Tuesday, Rocky, who was 16 or 17 and diagnosed with diabetes this summer, died. (The girls, when they were like 3 and 6 picked Rocky out from a litter of barn kittens where we found Lilly. Named him Rocky because he "dropped like a rock.") It was pretty abrupt too. He was old and skinny, but seemed to be enjoying life. Then Tuesday morning when I went out to take care of the horses, he was in the front yard having, what I thought were the death rattles. He hung on until that evening, when I finally took him to the vet to have him put down.

Then Chloe, our 3 year old Siamese cross disappeared for a couple days, and when she returned she looked bad. Severely dehydrated, she spent the night at the vet getting IV fluids. Blood tests showed her liver wasn't functioning right. Two days later, she still wasn't eating on her own and had to be put down. Her loss has been particularly hard on Robin, who loved Chloe dearly.

Then this Tuesday, 3 batters into Red Rock's softball game, I went to field an infield pop-up along the third base line. Not sure what happened, but the ball missed my glove and caught me square in the face (I lost the ball in the lights - at least that's the story I'm going with). At least the infield fly rule was in effect, so the batter was out anyway, and even though the ball was still live, the base runners had the common courtesy not to advance. Broke my nose pretty good. Blood everywhere (good thing our shirts are red). Our catcher is a nurse, so I was patched up pretty well, and carted off to the e.r. - where I waited for 3 hours only to have a nurse practitioner wash the blood from my face, tape some clean gauze under my nose, and send me on my way. On the up-side, I'd rather break my nose than loose teeth. I hope this doesn't make me shy from the ball next week. The swollen face and black eyes will give me bouncer cred when I work the door at the Village Inn Saturday night.