Cow, Complaints, Canines, Cat

Since this was a rather stressful week. I thought I'd start with something amusing. I took this picture of a cow yesterday morning, but it was not what I was trying to photograph. I was trying to get a picture of a hot air balloon, so I drove closer to it and then went down a side road, hoping to find an interesting foreground with the balloon above it. Instead, I found cows. They looked friendly though. The balloon was not visible from my viewpoint.

Here’s the balloon, with nothing interesting to frame it. There’s a company in my area that gives balloon tours.

In case you case you missed my post about going to the ER, it was caused by several days of lightheadedness, which prompted me to go to me to urgent care. They insisted I should go to the hospital for more advanced tests, probably because they fear that any senior citizen is in mortal danger at any time. The most striking thing about the test results was that I was extremely low in sodium. Did you know that drinking a lot of water can deplete sodium? About half the water I drink is highly filtered and contains no minerals. I also drink bottled spring water which does contain minerals, but that may not be adequate in the summer. Furthermore, air pollution can make you lightheaded and short of breath, and we had several days of haze caused by a distant wildfires. I had noticed that my eyes were irritated from the smoke. 

Speaking of eyes, I went to the retina specialist yesterday for my follow-up visit. I’ve had vision problems in my left eye ever since cataract surgery in May 2024. The doctor said the druzen (which looked like a small bubble in the middle of my eye) is gone but there is now a gel coating that is clouding my vision. He said it is not thick enough for surgery yet, but we’ll keep an eye on it. 

Oh, this is supposed to be a Saturday Critters post, so I’ll turn it over to my canine in residence.

Hi, it’s Charlie! I had a pretty good week. Mom only left me in daycare one time. One day she left me with Deborah and Sadie, and I had a good time. Sadie is a fun dog except she won’t stop licking me. 

Mom took me to the state park a couple of times. One time I took off my harness in the car by chewing the strap. She had to find the extra collar because the red one was too loose to put on my leash. She keeps an extra collar and leash in the car.

The park is across the river.

We saw a dog named Lucky. It had just rained, and he jumped on my mom with his muddy feet. But he was friendly.

Today we went to Petco. I rode in the backseat with Miss Deborah. I wore a new harness. 

There were some kittens from the shelter at Petco. I wanted to adopt one, but Mom did not understand.

 That’s enough for now. You probably want to take a nap. I know I do.