I’m too tired to post tonight. Got started on everything too late. Busy day. Saved a baby possum. Will write this up in the morning. Am typing this now to remind myself to write the rest in the morning. Right now, a pillow calls my name.
Sleep is a troubled thing at the moment…it really only works for me when it’s like the sleep of the dead. There are so many times when I go to sleep after 1 AM and then STILL wake up around 4 or 5, wide awake. This is not good for me…I know it…but it seems to continue.
Yesterday. Sigh. I didn’t manage it well, and yet there were things about it that clued me in to what makes me feel better…like, apparently, saving baby animals. Doesn’t everyone feel better after saving a baby animal? Yesterday morning, I looked out and saw something swimming in the pool…
Yes, it looks like a drowned rat possum. Because it is.
Yes, I know they bite and carry disease (hell, so do humans), but I’ve never had an issue with them. I did find its sibling in the pool last week, though, and it was not a good thing. So I left it out there for a little while to see if mom was around somewhere. And then I went out and dried it off, because it was shivering and not moving. And then I put it up in the bushes, so it was away from the pool and hidden from the hawks who hang out here. And I waited some more. And my mom hormones kicked in (are they hormones?) and I went out and it hadn’t moved in 20 minutes and it was still shivering.
Dammit. I need to go to school and Project Wildlife doesn’t open until 9.
So he (she?) went to school with me. In a cat carrier. See? He looks much better dry.
I fed him apple and gave him water and eventually he recovered enough to poop all over the towel and bare his teeth at us when we would check up on him. Yes, I think possums are adorable (I know, I’m weird). I don’t have issues with rats or snakes either, but spiders? Yeek. I’m fascinated by them, but inordinately creeped out as well.
Around 8th period, my two kids showed up (because I texted them and told them they had to) and took him to Project Wildlife, where hopefully they will get him ready for release back into the wild. They come to my pool to drink and fall in. I used to have a fountain that helped a little with that, but the fountain doesn’t work any more…and you can’t leave standing water out with West Nile and the mosquitoes around here. Anyway. It was my good deed for the day, and the interesting thing is that it made me feel better.
So maybe I need to fit some volunteer work in this summer (except some will die or need to be euthanized and then I will be sad, OR I will bring a huge number of homeless animals home with me.). Things to consider. I know if I start fostering animals, my SIL will come slap me with wet noodles…she already thinks I have animal hoarder tendencies (I’m down to 3.5 animals…not bad!).
I did finally make it to the gym and meditated and all that. And then started ironing late again. I really wasn’t very focused last night. I was tired and unmotivated. I know it’s OK to be both of those things, but it just seems like such a waste of time sometimes. I need to be productive or I feel more awful than normal. I know some of that is being a workaholic, but I think being productive holds the depression off a bit as well…counteracts the hormones that are zigzagging through my system. At the end of the day, if I can say, “I accomplished THIS,” and THIS is not just eating three meals and not killing anyone, then I’m doing OK. I need to be doing OK.
Anyway. I didn’t iron much, that’s for sure. I quit the night before because I had to make a decision about her hair: gray or white. She’s definitely menopausal, aging, so what direction do I go with that? I finally decided on white with black, mostly because I think of this quilt as directly autobiographical, and I’m going white, not gray. Plus I liked the idea of the two lighter fabrics having words and computer code in them…it’s supremely relevant.
If I ever have to explain this quilt at an exhibit, I will probably lose it. Or someone else will have to read the statement while I stand there crying. Good stuff! Or more likely at the moment, it won’t get in anywhere.
Another shot of the in-process fabrics. I tried to straighten them up last night because they were getting out of control.
I finished the lungs too. I think I’m officially done with the main figure and moving into all the crap floating around her now.
I have a parent meeting this morning, so I need to leave…but here’s another pitiful picture of the possum…
Yeah, there was no way I could just leave him out there like that. I saved ONE baby yesterday. That was my accomplishment.
Kathy Nida 
Bless you. You did a good thing. I hope possum will go on, live a good life, and devour plenty of snails.
Re: mosquitos and West Nile, I chunk a portion of a small pool tablet in the bird/wildlife water container. I suppose I should be concerned about the concentration of chlorine and whether it will harm the creatures, but I figure that in a suburban wasteland, it’s good to get any water for drinking or bathing at all. Anyhow – as long as I keep an eye on it and chunk in a bit more tablet every two or three weeks, no mosquitos. So far the robins and raccoons haven’t complained about the faint chlorine smell.
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