I was bending over doing something when I noticed one of my toes was looking strange. I realized it’s cozying up to the big toe and rolling toward it. This required a consultation with my old pal A.l. which seemed to think I’m on my way to hammer toe, whereby this toe will eventually cross over the big toe. Ouch, right?

So then I did further research and reported the tendon right where the toe attaches to the foot is basically stiff and unmovable, to which A.I. advised I’m hooped. It said if that tendon’s stiff it’s too late and you can just pack it in. Have you noticed A.I. enjoys catastrophizing things?  

I’ve had a few unfortunate animal incidents. One occurred the other night when we went out and I was slow to get my shoes on, when Frieda began doing the kind of screaming bark she does when something’s very wrong. I ran around the house with my flashlight and came upon a giant racoon. Likely the same bastard that killed two of my hens in the summer.

This upset caused poor Frieda to release her anal glands so her entire hind end stunk of fish, however I was too tired to bathe the dog at that point so we all just had to cope for the night.

Today I noticed “some animal” has been digging into the dirt around the perimeter of the fence, and I can only guess it’s that pesky masked marauder. I put a heavy rock over the hole and have asked Calvin to cover the area with wire netting and then weigh that down with tons of dirt. It’s quite amazing the amount of work it is to secure chickens.

And then there’s the matter of no eggs. I haven’t had an egg in weeks, so am getting a bit annoyed at the hens. I understand the four new hens not laying given their age, but what’s with my four old chickens? They’re showered with lovely snacks like tomatoes and Swiss chard from the garden, so I’d like to see a bit more effort from them.

The final animal disaster occurred two days ago when George decided to bring in a little bird and let it go. The poor thing was flying all over the living room and into the kitchen where it finally landed right behind a small potted cactus I have on the windowsill. I grabbed a towel and awkwardly had to pick up the bird and the prickly plant, drop the plant into the sink and take the bird and towel out onto the railing. I was worried the bird had been stabbed by the cactus but after half an hour or so it flew off.

Because I had the blessed joy of being completely alone and uninterrupted over the Thanksgiving weekend, I tackled the job of painting the kitchen windowsills. I’ve learned from experience that my painting skills are very poor, so I spent a very long time carefully taping everything so that unwanted paint would be minimized.

The window beside the stove wasn’t too bad as I could kneel on the counter to tape and paint. I then moved to the window over the sink and thought huh! This could be hard given no place to kneel. I then grabbed my roll of tape and got on a chair and put one knee on the edge of the sink. As I was merrily working my way across I made the mistake of moving forward as though on a counter and then fell into the sink with that bent knee and banged my shoulder on the sill.

After icing the swollen shin, I chalked the injury up to another disfigurement and carried on.