Back Online

 My cocooning period is over.  I shut down for 2 days (2.5 if you count Friday afternoon, when I started).

It felt good.  I'm glad I did it.  I stayed off social media and away from the news.  For some reason, I even covered up the clocks.  I figured if I slept too late, the cats would let me know.  And I don't need a clock to tell me when to put up the chickens at night; the angle of the sun would tell me that.  I ate and drank when and what I felt like (and yes, that once included mimosas at around 3:00 a.m.  - which is quite good).  I moved back to sleeping on the couch.  Mostly I lounged - out front on my newly-refurbished lounge, next to the riot of azaleas, or down in the woods (spent a lot of time down there) or on the back deck, reading and handing peanuts to Crazy Ass Squirrel.

Perhaps I should explain the concept of "predator" to the squirrel.

The thing that I find touching (literally) is the way that when he's taking a peanut, for a moment he'll rest his paw on my finger.  Such a trusting little gesture.

In general, I just stayed very quiet.  I had two bad moments on the 30th.  One was a little after 9:00, the time that he died.  Fortunately, RedBug was snuggled up to me and he doesn't mind being hugged, so I held him and buried my face in his fur for awhile.  The other was a little after 5:00 - the time that Jeff brought me home.

While we were at Shands (and still thought Bob would survive), he had announced his intention that no matter how weak he was or how long it took, when he got home he was going to walk up the driveway.  So I had Jeff drop me off and made that walk for him.  I remember being overwhelmed at how beautiful it was, and how desperately I wanted to be home, and how even more desperately I didn't want to be coming home without him.  So at 5:00 I went down and made that walk, then sat on the bench and had a good cry.

I'm calmer now.  That weird feeling of still being in 2020 has dissipated.  I'm ready, loins girded, to face my new year.  Year 6.