Wimped out

OK - I wimped out on my trip back from seeing Katherine, et al in Virginia. My AA flight from DCA to DFW was about 3 hours 40 minutes and every minute was marred by two children in 8 DEF (I was in 10 A) talking, laughing, screeching, shrieking, sobbing and playing games at top volume. I should have called the flight attendant at the beginning of the flight ans asked her to ask the children and their adult companion (who never said shhhh or shush or "use your inside voices") to calm them down.

I wondered if perhaps they were hard of hearing and needed to converse at decibels beyond normal speech.

I even put on my defensive CD player earphones and listened to the end of "The Shape Shifter" - Tony Hillerman (highly recommended) and still couldn't block out the sounds of these two demons. At one time they played some sort of game that utilized slapping the tray tables at intervals. I couldn't have been the only wimp in the front of the plane! And they were close enough to First Class to be heard as well.

Next time I won't be so nice....

PS seeing Katherine, Andy and Margaret was delightful! They are moving to within babysitting and cousin range - woo hoo!

This week

This week hasn't been so great. Mary's devoted dog Kieran is gone. He had a great send-off, but will always be missed. He was a one-woman dog.

Also, Jerome (both Jerome and Kieran were named by Mary....) who was our volunteer cat. He showed up with a loud voice in 1992 and demanded to be our cat. We walked him all over the neighborhood (he would follow) to find his lost home, but he was determined to be our cat. He'd already been neutered and declawed in the front, which may have precipitated his departure from his earlier home.
About a month ago, he attacked and jumped on the back of an annoying, barking dog who dared to invade his space! And he did it twice as the idiots who were walking the dog came back "to teach the dog a lesson"!

Jerome had been ailing and losing weight for some time and the last week or so refused food and water. After several attempted interventions, I decided that I couldn't bear for Jerome to just starve himself to death.

Thanks to Janie Hodges, DVM, who treats all of us like family.

In other bad news, my older brother has been diagnosed with lung cancer - no fair for someone who quit smoking in 1987! It's early days, but here's hoping it's caught early and easily treatable.