week of overdue cutups

How else can I describe this week -- one of cutups and fixes? Medical interventions? Bothersome annoyances? All of the above. One after the next. Two jaw implants today, eye lens change on Wednesday. Plenty of prescribed pills to pop for pain, though I never pop them because I think they're either for sissies or people who have real problems. I don't consider implants and my eye surgery real problems, unless one of them gets messed up yet again and I wont be able to see at all out one eye, and even then, arguably I will be fine. One functional eye will qualify me to drive!

In other words, this is a day of jaw pain and tiredness. But, the animals are oblivious to my (inconsequential) suffering and so I feed them and then tell them to enjoy the good weather because it is about to change.

(the pinks of Salvia and Gaura)

(the purple of Asters, Phlox, and Calaminta)

(one of the Bresse girls always lands in the corn bin when I open it...)

(I was wrong: that was't the last lily standing...)

Breakfast, after the surgery, of the light kind. I think I'm supposed to eat just mush today, but I'm never good at following such silly instructions, thinking of course that I know better. 

I'm not allowed to drive in the morning so Ed shuttles me back and forth for the predawn appointment, but by afternoon I'm deemed safe for the roads so I go and pick up Snowdrop as usual, though secretly I am hoping she will be on the self sufficient side, because feelings of playfulness are incompatible with morning cutups. In other words, I'm a little zonked.

We do read some of her favorite books together and then I feel that guilt: how can we not be outside on what has to be the last of our warmer autumn days? A completely gorgeous day, with plenty of sunshine?

Neither of us have boundless energy. Nonetheless, we drive over to the Arboretum. It's not peak season for the leaves (yet), but it's close enough and, too, it's certainly peak season for the weather. 

Snowdrop and I have come here in October since she was a babe. For the trees. For the grateful nod to the colors of Fall. [Only later do I discover that she and I were here six years ago also on October 10th, also with the cow from the Dairy Expo. Coincidentally, this cow is with her today as well, albeit waiting in the car.]

(Back then, just one and a half years old...)

(Today)

An incredible moment of beauty. All around us.

I want to do a selfie, of the two of us, but my camera is bulky and I can't get a good pic. I feel the girl's pitying glance. Just use your iPhone, gaga. Now why didn't I think of that... 

Both Ed and I zonked out way earlier than what I would consider normal. I'm still woozy after the jaw cracking surgery, he's still sleepy after being in woken what had to be the middle of the night for him (to be my designated driver). 

A sweet sleep, beginning on the couch, in the middle of a movie, to be continued upstairs, under the light of the Hunter's Moon. Well, a day old by now, but still bright and so very beautiful.