the joys of autumn

I awoke this morning to a strange whistling sound. When I got up to investigate, it turned out that the heating system in my apartment had switched on during the night, and the bathroom radiator was the noisy culprit. I shut it off and the whistling stopped, but it was still delightfully warm when taking my morning shower. Everyone I know was well-done with summer. I have repeatedly felt thankful I am not in Texas.

Since last posting, the main bad news is that I lost my Buddy cat. It was the classic decline seen when cats go into renal failure; even though I was giving him sub-cutaneous fluids twice weekly to keep his kidneys going, his appetite gradually failed. The last week of his life, I realized an odd smell and took him to the vet, who found a large and horrid lesion in his mouth. She administered antibiotics and sent him home with high-calorie canned food, which he gobbled up that night. But the next morning I found that he had vomited it all up, and was hiding in a closet. When cats hide, they know they're dying and feel vulnerable, so I decided on the gentle death for him. All that was left was to watch him starve.

The remaining cat, Loretta, had a strange change in personality after Buddy was gone. She has transformed into a demanding lap cat who sleeps next to me at night and wakes me by chewing on my fingers. This is the same cat who hid behind the television during the first months at my old apartment. 

I am still seeing Reed, who has joined a new hunt club (aka deer lease) nearer us both. He has even purchased a deer stand that holds two people, not just one. My joke is that if this isn't true love, I don't know what is. The down side is that we haven't seen as much as each other as usual. His September week in Chattanooga was cancelled due to lack of testing materials, and last week he arrived Sunday, only to be felled by what was eventually diagnosed as food poisoning. The situation lasted all week because the food item that was making him ill was something he'd prepped to bring. He would be ill one afternoon/evening, wake up feeling better, but then after he ate the offending item he'd be ill again. It took him several days to figure this out. I was suspecting norovirus after his mid-week relapse, which is contagious for days or even weeks, so we only had one day/evening together. Sigh.

I'm liking it a lot here in Chattanooga. My only deficit: I am really bad at meeting new people. So I have joined a local book club and am searching some "meetup" sites for more opportunities. I need to make an effort.