Me and Betty
This is the start of day two since Natasha has gone home and before Kim returns. I can see that we have a routine and the secret seems to be to keep to that routine whenever possible. Betty has accustomed herself to sleep in the living room. I’m not sure why she prefers it to the bedroom, where she sleeps when Kim is here, but I must admit its easier for me with her in the living room. It’s interesting that Betty does a good job of behaving when there is only one person here. When it was me and Natasha, she would act out by peeing on the living room rug right in front of me. This isn’t something accidental or brought on by distress. She does it intentionally to voice her displeasure with something or other. From what I can determine, the only things she gets upset about are being denied food or being excluded from travel. When it is just the two of us, there seems nothing to be upset about. It may also be that when there is only one person with her, she isn’t about to put herself at risk by getting too annoying. It moves from petty wants to basic needs. At this point, Betty needs me.
Betty gets visited three times a day by Colleen, who is responsible for feeding, walking and medicating her. She comes at 7:30am for her morning walk and breakfast and only once done does she get her insulin shot. Betty then recovers from her morning ordeal with a long nap. Colleen is back at 1pm for her midday walk and some eye drops. That too is followed by another long afternoon nap. Betty knows no limits to her ability to nap the day away. I spend the morning during Betty’s nap tidying up the back hillside pathways. I spend the afternoon going to the nursery for some last moment plantings to make sure that the Garden Club’s visit on Friday has Casa Moonstruck Gardens shown to its best possible advantage. While there I buy one interesting large ceramic pot, one flower to put into the Mexican tiered terracotta pot, five interesting cacti/succulents, about ten miniature gnomes for my Fairy Village (I swore no people, but have relented to adding as many gnomes as possible to the fairy village tucked into the boulder crack), and a dozen bags of medium size bark mulch to spruce up some spots here and there and make everything look that much fresher for our visitors.
Betty does just fine alone for both morning and afternoon and I reward this behavior by purposefully bringing her an Arby’s chicken sandwich. I eat the bread with mayo and lettuce and feed her the chicken. Seems life a fair deal to me and to Betty, though one chicken sandwich is never enough for Betty. Come to think of it, no amount of chicken is ever enough for Betty. The weather is getting warmer, so we eat out on the deck until Colleen comes for her midday visit.
I had an early dinner engagement at the neighbors’ house so I left Betty with a turkey tendon (our preferred distraction treat since it must be taken into the living room and chewed while I slip out the door). Betty seems fine with this program and presumably Colleen will come between 5-6pm for her evening walk, dinner and insulin shot. By the time I get home at 7:30pm, Betty is getting sleepy so she and I go into the living room for some TV. Betty doesn’t really care what I put on since its getting towards her bed time. An evening nap takes her to the end of my TV viewing time and I slip into the bedroom to go to bed while Betty saws wood on the living room floor. Some time in the night, Betty usually gets the good sense to get up onto the sofa to sleep in greater comfort and there she lies when I come out at 7:30am to start the next day.
Betty seems genuinely happy to see me in the morning, happy again at lunch and pretty much ignores me in the evening unless she senses that there is some food in it for her. We have this program pretty well figured out and see no reason to alter it tomorrow or on Wednesday. Tomorrow I am destined to spread out those dozen bags of mulch wherever the spirit moves me. I suspect that will only take me the morning, so I will be looking for something to do in the afternoon. No sense in disturbing Betty’s sleep schedule, so I will find something outside the house to keep me busy. Maybe I’ll go for a motorcycle ride since I have limited preparation for my class or my expert witness work to do tomorrow. Basically, Betty and I are just killing time until Kim gets home on Thursday evening.
Wednesday will be easy enough since I have my weekly two-hour massage in the morning and I generally stay close to home in the afternoon since I head off by 5pm for my class. I know that Kim scheduled Betty for a bath and a trim from the mobile groomer and I have no clue when that is to be done, but I hope Colleen can handle it. I return by 10pm, just in time to say good night to Betty as I head off into the bedroom. Thursday I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and then a bunch of time to kill before going to the airport to pick up Kim in the evening. I think I will take Betty to the airport with me so that she can greet Kim on arrival. that will make both Kim and Betty happy.
The way the schedule for the week plays out, Kim doesn’t get a lot of time to relax on Friday since the Garden Club visits takes place on Friday morning. I suspect that our garden will be the highlight of the session, even though there are three others being toured as well. After that, I think all three of us will crash on Friday afternoon. Kim will be trying to get over her jet lag. I will be recuperating from an exhausting week of Betty watching and garden primping. Betty will be tired from putting up with me and all the changes that this week has brought her. The god news is that she will rest easy in the knowledge that Kim is back and she can get back to life as she likes it.
Betty and I seem to be adjusting to our bachelor life just fine for a few days without Kim. I don’t really like it. I’m sure Betty doesn’t really like it. But we both know that we need Kim badly in our lives to be at our best, so we allow her these times to do what she must do to put up with us the rest of the time. I have no idea if that’s a fair deal for me, Betty or Kim, but its the deal we seem to be stuck with. Me and Betty have discussed it and we have decided that we can live with it since it’s only a few days.