Day 259: on hope and hunting

The Hope comes from one of the phone calls I managed to make today, to the office of the Queen Mother's doctor. It had been two weeks since I had put in a request to get a letter from them to see if I could get mom onto the Working Disabled program. I had expected a "sorry, no can do" from the office; instead, they were going to remind the doctor to write the letter and let me know when it was done!

The possibility yet exists that I can bring a positive end to this - which would be really nice, since the State of California is no longer paying the Queen Mother's Medicare Part B, and they will be going back to taking it out of her Social Security payment. In theory, this would qualify her for the deluxe version of Medi-Cal, until the state started paying her Part B again. Then her Social Security payment would be over the limit, and she would be booted out. So the Part B would once again be taken out of her monthly payment, ad nauseum. Getting her enrolled in the Working Disabled program would get her out of the revolving door and get her the deluxe version of Medi-Cal without worrying about her income. So, keep your fingers crossed, y'all.

The Hunting part comes from our (too) industrious boy, Inkblot, who seems to be bound and determined to teach his poor starving parents to hunt, or at least provide nutritious meals for them. First he brings home a lizard, which made a beeline for the writing desk and promply hid behind it. Fortunately, I was able to coax it out from hiding with the extendable rod portion of a broken cat toy, and Himself boxed it up. I then took it around the corner, well away from our home, and released it. Save for missing a tail, it appeared to be just fine. 

When we came home from our meetings tonight, we discovered the second critter he had brought in: an adult mourning dove. I went to bag it up, thinking it was dead, but lo - not only was it alive, it could still fly, which it did straight into the bathroom mirror when Himself tried to gather it up! I grabbed an old shoebox, and Himself wrapped it up in a small towel and put it in the box. It is currently safe and secure on top of the dryer in the washer/dryer alcove, which has a door that can be closed. The cats might smell the dove, but they have no idea where it is. The Humane Society is going to stop by to pick it up tomorrow morning. We were planning to get up a bit early anyway to drive down to Scripps La Jolla for a Cardiac Rehab (workout) session.

I found myself a bit more shaken up than I expected I would be, with the dove still alive and injured. I smudged the bathroom with a bit of white sage (after checking to make sure the smoke wouldn't be toxic to the cats; it's not) due to the smell, and started to feel better. Maybe I needed to smudge myself as well!

I was going to say that it was an unremarkable day, critter corraling aside, but that was before I remembered the husky dog that was wandering around on a busy road as we came home from Wal-Mart with a bag full of cat food. Fortunately, two gentlemen in front of us managed to guide the husky out of the way of the traffic. They were calling the number on the dog's collar to see if they could get in touch with its owner. Himself had called the non-emergency police line, and they had gotten in touch with Highway Patrol to send someone out. As the dog was on Eastbound 78, technically he was on a highway. 

Then there was the heavy mist/drizzle in San Diego this evening. It's the Summer Solstice in these parts, and it's basically raining. What der Flerbdy-Flooben?! The skies are scheduled to clear up next week, and we might actually have Summer-like temperatures again. We will see if we have our "July Fry" as usual this year.

Okay, now I'm done. For real. I'm going to help the Queen Mother into bed, then hit the hay myself.