December 21/24

From now on the days get longer.

As a sign of things to come, when I went to the Organic Farm to get my eggs I found these carrots in the refrigerator, looking sunny, looking tropical, looking delicious. It’s a pay-on-the-honor system so I weighed them in at just over a pound, left my money and fled with my loot.

My tomcat got mauled by a dog and returned home with modest little meows as if nothing was really all that wrong, but I took him to the vets’ 30 miles away and he needed sixteen stitches and after a few days at home it was obvious that his tail was broken, and it was not healing, so it had to be amputated. It’s been hairy. The situation, not the tail. The tail is no more. He was on sedatives for the last week and is finally better but not allowed to go out despite his unearthly howling. He’s upstairs here in the study watching the birds at the birdfeeder. Sleeping. Grumbling. God I hope that tail stub looks better after the hair grows out, as it is… it looks like…never mind. I refuse to take a picture of it.

It’s solstice and the sun comes through my windows in a different angle, shining through the slatted screen around my bed, it is far to the south and makes a sun-pattern like a palm-leaf of light.