The ship of state remains afloat

I learned how to use Google calendar. Really use it, on the spot, at the end of my fat finger. I can stand in front of the reception desk like any millennial and tap the phone screen into oblivion until the calendar bends to my will. Then I put the phone back in my pocket, the cane in my left hand, smile, thank the appointment giver and move away.

Laura has to next February to complete twenty four hours of community service, but what with ten days on her hands and the food bank twenty minutes away, I think that requirement may be completed in time for the expulsion hearing on Monday.

Last weekend Laura went out in the country to help a friend wind down the garden. There were potatoes to dig and kale and chard to harvest. Yum, yum. Community service that would have happened, irregardless.

But, what with the food bank twenty minutes away, I find I am slotting the rest of my life between waves. There's only one car to be had, you know, and I'm not about to be doing double driving getting Laura from one place to another.

As I've said to friends who question me, No, I have not punished her. She's sixteen, and apparently enough an adult to be considered one. I find I still tell her what lane she will need to use when she drives to the therapist, for instance. "When you go, just stay in the right lane. When you turn in, look very, very carefully to be sure there is no more traffic coming up the hill. When you leave..." 

That's surely punishment enough. When she comes home, she grins and says she used all the correct lanes.

I've had to slot in doctor visits (pre-admission testing), flu shots tomorrow, and a visit to the vet today. Poor Toby has been mizerable beyond belief, sulking, scratching his hair into great clumps on the floor.

He has an infection in each ear, which is a repeat of a couple of years ago, and, for the first time since he moved here, fleas. Such ignominy, the vet combing him and finding, for the first time in four years, flea poop! Adding insult to injury (no offense, Jan), he probably brought home the fleas from boarding with that dog, Jake, at Aunt Jan's house. Waiting his turn to see the vet today, Jake came bounding in,  wiggles and barks when he recognized Laura and Toby. Toby cannot face it, yet.

That's all the news that's fit to print. Just one day at a time, packing in community service hours and approaching the hearing Monday, at one. Three hours of packing food tomorrow, then Saturday is passing out water to runners in one of the marathons through the park. Fresh air!