May your coffee be strong and your Tuesday be short

I woke up at 7:30 a.m. this morning.
While I was taking my morning pills, the birds were going berserk on my porch.
I checked, and they were out of seed, so I went out and filled up all five feeders.
Usually, I only fill up the two window feeders, but those birds seemed awfully hungry this morning.

I came in, grabbed some cat food for the stray—he was waiting for me on the mower.
We're running a bit low on food, and I probably shouldn't be feeding him as often as I do, but he's come to depend on me.
I don't want to think of him going hungry, because the people in this neighborhood are jerks to cats.

I came in, washed up, and checked on my patient portal.
Well, darn.
I've gained back those five pounds I had lost—ice cream and frappés are my Kryptonite.
We're also eating fast food way more than we should be.
But—my cholesterol has gone down by sixteen points, and my good cholesterol has increased.
Baby Doc said it was still too high, but I went to Professor Google, and my levels are now considered borderline not high.
I'll take it.
I'll keep on with the plant-based diet.
I've discovered—well, I've known for a long time—that I have a sensitivity to dairy.
Not just ice cream, but milk and cheese.
I'm miserable when I eat dairy, so maybe I've finally learned my lesson, will avoid all dairy, and that weight will start heading down again.

Cowboy and Badger were up by 10 a.m.

Cowboy was complaining that my cats were giving him allergy-like symptoms, and the house was too dark and dusty.
Well, he’s the one who tinted the windows, so of course it’s dark.
It’s like living in a cave—you step outside and have to blink, blink, blink when the sun hits your face.
As for the dust, I don’t see it. 
I run the Roomba all the time now.
We’ve got mold on the bathroom ceiling, mold on several windows, and Cowboy never feels like doing home maintenance.
I’d say it’s the mold making us all feel bad, not the dust or my cats.
We can’t air the house out. 
My grandmother aired hers out regularly.
I’ve got no back door screen, and most of the windows don’t have screens either.
We moved in back in ’97, and I’ve been complaining ever since that we need screens.
He never gets around to it.
I can’t air out a house without screens—bugs get in, cats get out.
Badger and I managed to open two screened windows in the living room, and the one in my bedroom.
Then we had to yell for Heron to open the kitchen windows—they were stuck in the frame.
No screens there, but we didn’t open them far enough for a cat to escape. Just enough to let air in—and bugs.
The fresh air felt good. I’d almost swear it made the house smell better.

Cowboy cleaned my Roomba today—I mean, he cleaned it.
Badger looked at it, looked at it again, and yelled, “What did Daddy do to Roberta?”
Meryl Sweep has never looked so good, and she's purring as she roams the house.

After cleaning Meryl, Cowboy had to go out and vacuum water out of the red car.
The best he can figure, the windshield is leaking. 
I don't know what you do about that.

Badger retreated back to her bedroom.

I had been cleaning all morning.
I'd got the living room back together, the laundry room clean, a load of clothes going, the kitchen cleaned up, and the bathroom cleaned.
So, I went out to the she shed and laid down to watch a bit of TV and relax a bit.
It's nice out there right now—we're not having typical June temperatures, so it's not miserable hot.

I came inside for dinner—Badger made spaghetti.

After Cowboy went to work—and Heron—we gave Duffy his de-wormer.
The vet said to do it for five days, the instructions on the packet said three.
I think we've decided to only give him one dose. 
He does not have worms.
Then we took his bowl out to the yard and gave it a good cleaning with the water hose.
Badger came in, cleaned the litter boxes, and took a quick shower.

Right on time—it's about the same every day, around 4:30 p.m.—the sky darkened, thunder rumbled, and the rain began.
Today, it was mostly just thunder and rain, nothing big.
But it's rained off and on all evening.
Badger headed to her room, and I played on the computer.

We tried she shed sitting around 7:30 p.m., but the thunder got really loud, so we headed back inside.
We just had us a TV-watching, computer-playing kind of evening.
We probably could have taken a little walk, but since the last time we had a way-too-close call with lightning, we pretty much stay in if it looks the least bit stormy.

Let's get off of here—I found a new series of books to read.
Amazon Prime has a TV series loosely based off these books; I watched it back in the winter.
I can't wait to get into the books.