Most of you have already seen the video of Snowball’s first night playing fetch.

Her consistency was shaky at first, but now she’s reliable.

Each night, when I tell her it’s time for bed, she runs up, and we play fetch while I read.

She likes to play with the toy on the floor for a few minutes before she brings it back to me, which gives me time to turn some pages.

The boy is disappointed that she thinks this is only bedtime behavior; she looks at us like we’re crazy when we ask her to bring a living room toy back to us.

Although she usually gets tired before I put my book down, there have been a few nights when she’s wanted to keep going longer than I could.

And there have been a few when she’s wanted to play in the middle of the night. I’ve woken up with a toy mouse in my hand more than once.

Today, I woke up with one between my collarbones. She was on my chest too; maybe she just wanted all of us to be together.

Q: Thanks for checking in with us again, Karma. Are you excited about the start of Fall?

A: It’s going to be 100 tomorrow, it’s still smokey, and some of my friends have been evacuated.

Q: Ah, it’s gonna be one of those interviews.

A: It’s 2020.

Q: What were your goals this summer?

A: Well, once it was clear what summer was going to be, I wanted to get into some good routines for myself. I wanted to try new recipes with my CSA, to take a walk every morning, to read in my hammock for a bit at the end of the work day, and to take Sundays off from school work. And I wanted to do some things on the big “to do” list, like backing up my old family photos.

Q: Did you meet your goals?

A: I tried a bunch of new recipes!

Q: What about the rest?

A: I was doing really well until the start of August. I was up to walking for almost an hour, but then my back went out. Right as two upper division online summer classes were starting. Since I give so much more feedback now, I was having trouble getting away from the computer. And then, once my back was better, the fires started.

Q: Ah, yes. And the air turned yellow and unhealthy.

A: While over 100.

Q: Yes.

A: It’s 2020. Yes. But I created an incredible marinara recipe.

Q: Do you think you’ll be able to get back into good health habits in Fall?

A: I’ll be teaching six classes.

Q: No hammock time?

A: The air is still unhealthy, but I do want to use it in between when the fires let up and the rain starts. If we get that break.

Q: Anything else happen this summer?

A: My brother and nephew got Covid, my rent went up, my hometown (with Covid-recovering family) got hit by a hurricane, and I’ve been bleeding for six out of the last eight weeks.

Q: Let’s leave the audience with sometime positive, shall we?

A: My son started grad school.

Q: And?

A: I got the cutest kitten in the world.

Q: And?

A: I survived. I survived more of this year, even though the natural and unnatural disasters make it hard to get out of bed in the morning. And while I didn’t manage to make any headway on my health or on my big list, I did manage to teach three intensive summer classes and to keep on top of them. And my fall classes are ready to go.

Q: And?

A: And I made a great marinara sauce!

The other night, I had a strange dream.

One of my healthcare specialists recommended that I join a secret upscale Davis orgy group. He said it would make me feel better.

My first response was “no. I’m so ashamed of my body. I don’t want a whole room full of people to see it.”

He talked me into joining anyway. Unfortunately, my dreamscape didn’t feature a meeting.

I’m sad about what I said about myself.

I woke up convinced I was ill, not sure if I’d somehow managed to get a bad cold or the beginning of Covid.

What a relief to discover that I’m ill because the fires are closer and the smoke is hurting my throat, eyes, and lungs!

It’s also 110F today.

(Seriously, 2020, go fuck yourself.)

Thoth is still really, really unhappy about being stuck inside. He yowls whenever one of us leaves.

And at about nine every night, he goes back and forth from the patio to the front door, crying, to let me know he wants out.

I’ve even had to show him that doors to water heaters aren’t mystical portals to the outside.

He only stops crying when I take him up to bed.

This week, though, he’s crying AND totally freaked out.

This is Thoth, watching something intently.

His every muscle is tense.

What’s he staring at?

Anubis has turned into a demigorgon.

Thoth won’t go anywhere near him, but he will stare, trying to figure out what’s happened and whether it’s catching.

After racking up almost $2000 at the vet in the last six weeks, he wasn’t getting better, so I paid for a urethra-enlarging surgery.

He has to be coned for two weeks.

And he’s basically been subjected to bottom surgery against his will.

Meanwhile, how’s blind Graymalkin?

Absolutely fine.

Graymalkin, being blind, doesn’t always know how the bathroom works. He often digs a hole in our tiny back patio space, only to stand in it while pooping outside of it.

About once a month, he misses the litter box.

And when he does, it’s spectacular.

He always manages to let loose what seems like a pint of pee, which goes all over the bathroom. He then tries to “cover” it, which means swiping at the tile floor, spreading it around even further. The pee footprints then go all over the house.

When I woke up this morning, I could smell pee, but it wasn’t my primary concern. My back was really bad yesterday. I could get out of bed, however, to discover where the smell was coming from.

Since I didn’t think I should tackle that with a bad back, I closed the bathroom door and went to put paper towels over the paw prints.

And that’s when my back locked all the way up.

Dante will get home from work soon. I wonder if he’ll want to clean up piss or take me to the doctor first.

Today is the second anniversary of adopting Graymalkin and Thoth. It’s also the second anniversary of finding out Graymalkin is blind.

He’s remarkable at adapting, so it’s hard to tell, unless you live with him long enough to see him run right into walls when he gets turned around or when you hold a toy right in front of his face and he can’t see it.

We’re not sure what caused the problem, but my medical team has theories. One of his eyeballs appears smaller than it should be, while the other is bigger. The thinking is that something happened in the womb–his little head got smushed, pushing one eyeball forward and the other back, enough to take away almost all of his sight.

What makes this fascinating, though, is that he looooooooves to have his face smushed.

Whenever he wants a nap on me, he circles my chest, unhappily, until I take his face into my hand and hold it tight. Then, he sleeps peacefully, until I need my hand for something.

Since we’re not always available to smush his face, he has discovered a spot in the living room that allows him to do with a pillow.

This is where he sleeps.

Does he snore?

Of course.

Last week was my summer vacation, the only week until Christmastime when I don’t have one or six classes running.

Here’s what I did:

• Deep cleaned the downstairs, including taking every single Simpsons piece off the shelf and dusting it.

• Appeased my neighbor, while upsetting the cats.

Several months ago, a neighbor asked me to keep Thoth inside. He sometimes poops in her garden. He’s friendly, so he likes to say hi, which is why she thinks it’s him.

I’m not saying it’s not him, but the neighbor thinks Thoth is the only cat who ever goes into her garden, which I find hard to believe. We have many strays in this neighborhood. And unlike Thoth, who approaches every human, the strays don’t like you to watch them use the toilet.

We’ve been keeping Thoth inside for over twelve hours a day, encouraging the neighbor to spray him, to use cayenne, etc.

She sent a message recently to ask if we’d walled him completely off yet. In the last three months, she hasn’t seen him, but there’s been poop in her garden once.

Once.

In three months.

So I paid hundreds of dollars last week to have a task rabbit guy come into my house and put up chicken wire around the patio fence. Thoth is like a velociraptor in Jurassic Park. He’s testing the fence, finding the weaknesses. And he has found one, which we have to fix somehow.

He’s also crying and pouting. He really loves saying hi to the neighbors, which I know cause they text me from blocks away to say he’s hanging out with him and that he’s wonderful.

He’s beloved in the neighborhood, except for that one neighbor.

• I got myself a present.

A decade ago, when I lived in a place with a yard, I had a hammock, and I loved it.

I don’t have one now. Instead, I have a few feet of dirty concrete surrounded by chicken wire.

But I bought myself a hammock, and the redwoods give a lot of shade. Lying on it with me has been the only time Thoth is happy in the last few days.

Now that home is home, the office, the classroom, the restaurant, the gym, and cat prison, there might as well be a work hammock.

• I got a Covid-test, treatment for my bursitis, and an endoscopy. The third thing took way too long, and took too much out of me, and my hand is still terribly bruised, but as least all the tests were negative.

• I judged Prized Writing essays, I answered emails, I did some last minute prep for the class that started this week.

• I watched Keith Lowell Jensen’s stand-up.

• I saw my seniors do their stand-up comedy send-off fundraiser. And felt so proud I got teary-eyed.

• I made ribs three different ways. (Chinese-spiced sticky ribs were the best.)

• I let myself have the night off from cooking on Sunday.

• I anticipated my very first CSA basket ever, from the UCD Student farm, which I picked up yesterday.

My UCD classes start a week from today. I’ve been working like crazy and will continue to do so, but I have gotten quite a bit done.

Two of my three Winter classes are graded. My two Sac City classes are all prepped for this week, and I’m caught up on that grading.

I sent my reworked syllabi to my Spring UCD courses, though I still have to build the Canvas sites and make the videos and assignments for the first couple of weeks.

I have a meeting about moving the comp exam online tomorrow. And I’m scoring Literature in Translation exams for IB this month. At some point soon, Melissa and I have to approve the last round of proofs so our textbook is available for Fall classes.

My daily “breaks” consist of cooking–trying out new recipes. So we’re eating well. I made an enchilada pie last night and pork katsu with homemade sauce the night before. (The stores are out of sugar, so my son has forbidden baking. All of our sugar must be saved for iced tea.)

Thoth loves having me home, especially in the mornings. He gets up in my lap or on the desk and pushes me with his paw. Sometimes, he moves my hand off the mouse. Sometimes, just pushes my chest back into the seat. This subtle code means he wants me to lie down on the couch (I’m allowed to have my laptop out as long as I don’t move too much.) He’s conked out on my chest right now. He probably won’t move until Dante comes home. Thoth doesn’t like being caught adoring me; he has a rep to protect.

Dante and I are aware of our luck in still having jobs. He’s checking in on a friend who’s laid off.

We’re also aware of the risks we have. He’s working retail (Target), so he’s coming in contact with more people than is advisable. I had to go into a med center this morning for my asthma medicine. My asthma makes me at risk of Covid complications, so I’m in a bind. Going to the med center itself is a bad idea, but so is letting my asthma get bad if I go without the drug (it’s not something I can give to myself, unfortunately).

My intrusive thoughts this week are less about the apocalypse and more about the possibility of being one of the casualties of this virus.

Have I thought about how I need to pack a “going to the hospital” purse, since if I do get sick, I won’t have the energy to do so when I need to? Yes.

I am trying to hold it together, so I’m refraining from tearfully apologizing in advance to my son about not being able to leave him any financial stability, and about not being able to leave an apartment purged of letters from long-ago lovers and sex toys.

I’m refraining from calling my mother to tell her that if I do die, responsibility can be traced back to everyone who voted for Trump. I’m mostly refraining because THAT’S EXACTLY THE KIND OF DEATH BED GUILT TRIP SHIT SHE WOULD PULL, and I don’t want to become my mother in what could be my last days.