05-01-2023, 10:13 AM
May 1- Prologue and Departure.
Today is go day. In a little over three hours, The Queen and I will be getting in the car and driving to San Francisco to catch our flight to Dublin, via Heathrow on this leg. We did get upgraded to super deluxe premium. The only catch is we are no longer sitting together. We will do some wrangling with fellow passengers to see if they will switch with us.
Meanwhile there is Maeve. I admit to some guilt about leaving her. She is not in great shape. Her hearing is gone. She pants feverishly on the walks like there is something wrong with her lungs. Her interest in food is waning. This isn’t the best time to be leaving her because she could be leaving us. But we are going and we have a house sitter here to take care of Maeve.
The House sitter, the K-Man, arrived last night and his arrival was not greeted warmly by Maeve. This manifested itself last night by Maeve coming into our bedroom and barking first at me and then going to the other side of the bed and barking at the Queen. This used to be a nightly occurrence as Maeve would come in to discuss things with us as she came in to get water. But she has not done this in months. I blame the presence of a stranger in the house.
Another thing she hasn’t done in months, at least six, is try to get on the bed. Lately, she prefers to sleep in my office or in the mud room off the garage. Not last night. She laboriously propped her front feet on the bed and looked to the Queen to help her the rest of the way. On the one hand, it was great to have Maeve with us again. On the other hand, she leaks. For the last night, we could deal with the problem.
The problem never arose. Maeve, after a few minutes decided she wanted no part of being on the bed and started to leap off. Our bed is tall. Maeve’s joints can longer take the punishment of a leap down from that height. The Queen threw off her covers and moved quickly to help the baby. She moved too quickly and smashed her knee into the bedpost, hard enough to fill the room with the noise of knee on wood. After helping Maeve her next stop was the kitchen for the icepack.
K-Man is settling in. We did the tour of the house and showed him the four pages of notes of his chores. He is taking it all in stride and the Queen and I can’t thank him enough for this duty. Hopefully, the Queen and he are still friends when we return. The worst note in the chores list is who to call if Maeve expires or has an emergency while we are gone.
The Queen and I spent most of yesterday packing. I know I have packed too much stuff, mostly camera gear. The Queen managed to get all of her belongings in one bag, one very heavy, heavy bag.
Wheels up at 7:50. We will be in Ireland at 6:15PM, Dublin time Tuesday.
Today is go day. In a little over three hours, The Queen and I will be getting in the car and driving to San Francisco to catch our flight to Dublin, via Heathrow on this leg. We did get upgraded to super deluxe premium. The only catch is we are no longer sitting together. We will do some wrangling with fellow passengers to see if they will switch with us.
Meanwhile there is Maeve. I admit to some guilt about leaving her. She is not in great shape. Her hearing is gone. She pants feverishly on the walks like there is something wrong with her lungs. Her interest in food is waning. This isn’t the best time to be leaving her because she could be leaving us. But we are going and we have a house sitter here to take care of Maeve.
The House sitter, the K-Man, arrived last night and his arrival was not greeted warmly by Maeve. This manifested itself last night by Maeve coming into our bedroom and barking first at me and then going to the other side of the bed and barking at the Queen. This used to be a nightly occurrence as Maeve would come in to discuss things with us as she came in to get water. But she has not done this in months. I blame the presence of a stranger in the house.
Another thing she hasn’t done in months, at least six, is try to get on the bed. Lately, she prefers to sleep in my office or in the mud room off the garage. Not last night. She laboriously propped her front feet on the bed and looked to the Queen to help her the rest of the way. On the one hand, it was great to have Maeve with us again. On the other hand, she leaks. For the last night, we could deal with the problem.
The problem never arose. Maeve, after a few minutes decided she wanted no part of being on the bed and started to leap off. Our bed is tall. Maeve’s joints can longer take the punishment of a leap down from that height. The Queen threw off her covers and moved quickly to help the baby. She moved too quickly and smashed her knee into the bedpost, hard enough to fill the room with the noise of knee on wood. After helping Maeve her next stop was the kitchen for the icepack.
K-Man is settling in. We did the tour of the house and showed him the four pages of notes of his chores. He is taking it all in stride and the Queen and I can’t thank him enough for this duty. Hopefully, the Queen and he are still friends when we return. The worst note in the chores list is who to call if Maeve expires or has an emergency while we are gone.
The Queen and I spent most of yesterday packing. I know I have packed too much stuff, mostly camera gear. The Queen managed to get all of her belongings in one bag, one very heavy, heavy bag.
Wheels up at 7:50. We will be in Ireland at 6:15PM, Dublin time Tuesday.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
