July was a really hard month. We lost a family friend to ALS right at the beginning. We almost lost a foster kitten. Our a/c failed during one of the worst heat waves we’ve seen in a very long time (and STILL hasn’t been fully fixed, ugh). It’s been a month of crisis, but also a month of helping. I was able to care for my friend who became a widow, driving her places, helping her organize things, etc. I’ve been nursing these three needy foster kittens through extreme illness and then rebound illness. My cousin rescued a kitten from a hoarding situation, and I’ve been helping her nurse him both through knowledge and with physical resources (supplies and such). So at least there was that – hard, but I was still able to do something. And actually, if anyone out there is reading this, she could really use help with the vet bills, which are piling in the multiple thousands at this point. We’ve set up a gofundme and we would both really appreciate any help you could provide!

Reading and Watching
My brain hasn’t really been on books. For most of the month, I read nothing, only slipping a few in at the last second again. Those last second reads brought my total to four this month, with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (the only early-month book) being my favorite. And actually, I haven’t really been focused on TV either. L and I watched some old reruns of the original Unsolved Mysteries, but mostly I’ve just had other things to focus on. I did finally watch one of the four movies that have been on my list for ages, Jurassic World Dominion. Those are such silly movies and it was nice to have an afternoon off from thinking while I watched, heh. And this past weekend, we all went to see the Barbie movie, which was…okay? I’m still digesting it.

House
There was obviously the (still unfinished) a/c crisis. Thankfully, it’s holding up okay right now, but I’m really irritated that our HVAC guy is ghosting us again and we can’t get any other company to call us back. Sigh. Then there is the pipes – did you know that pipes can burst not only if they get too cold/icy, but if they get too hot and melt? One of ours did that in mid-July, and Jason spent two weeks soldering pipes back together in his rare spare moments. But in better news, the other house thing that got done this month was that we finally painted the living room. We bought the paint and supplies for that back in the spring, but just hadn’t gotten around to it with everything else going on. We were worried especially about the cats and if they’d be curious/get into the paint, but actually, they completely ignored it and didn’t touch the drying walls at all. Whew!

The Ferals
Poor Juice. While Flo immediately went out onto the adoption floor after surgery, Juice had to wait another two weeks before his turn. (Probably because orange cats, especially orange girls, get adopted quickly, while black cats don’t.) Then, once he was out on the floor, it took a week for him to be adopted – only to be returned the next day. Boo! He’s an aggressive little guy, and that hasn’t changed. L and I actually visited him the day before his one-day adoption, and he almost immediately started biting and playing aggressively with us. Poor little dude; he’s going to need a very patient family! Other than that, we’ve been caring for Droplet, Puddles, and Smudge all month, through several bouts of illness. They’re set to return to the shelter for surgery and potential adoption later this week, provided they fully recover from their latest poop issues. I’m going to be sad to give these guys up, though. They are the sweetest batch we’ve had since the A Team back in the fall.

Health/Fitness
Happily, I had my bloodwork tested in early July, and the numbers improved even more since March. Despite my size, my health – as tested by blood, anyway – is absolutely perfect with the exception of the high inflammation markers that rheumatology is trying to work on, so far without success. I still suspect that inflammation won’t go down until the actual cause of the inflammation is discovered, just like with my teeth infections in 1998-2009. My doctor and I have settled on the lower level of Mounjaro because the next level up, while helping me to lose weight, causes a lot of nausea and fatigue. I’d rather have the level that seems to keep me steady, and potentially allow me to lose weight on my own, once it’s not 10,000 degrees outside and I can exercise again. In other good news, the insurance finally approved the Mounjaro so I no longer need to worry about the coupon code running out at the end of the year!

Favorite Photos
Other than the two planned photoshoots, I took almost zero photos this month. I’ve started to realize just how few photos I take generally during the hot months of the year, probably because I rarely leave the house! 98% of my photos were phone shots of the kittens, and the only one I’d call a favorite is the one I posted up in the Ferals section! So I have absolutely nothing to feature here for July.

Highlights of July
Given the amount of sorrow and grief and difficulties this month, there honestly weren’t a lot of really good moments, but I recorded a few.

• Jennine and Andrew’s wedding, with all of the moments that entailed
• new art for my art wall!
• Florence got adopted within a day of availability, despite there being about 70 kittens available (kitten season is in full swing!)
• absolutely beautiful copy of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
• hanging out at Knight Watch with L
• feeling ridiculously victorious at finally reaching someone to grant me a necessary permit for a client’s engagement photoshoot
• the engagement photoshoot itself!
• pinning down so many new tattoos that I want, after all the years of hesitation!
• spending time with some of my siblings that I haven’t seen in months
• an unexpected afternoon thunderstorm in late July after two months without rain
• Ladies’ Night tattoos with Stephanie
• learning that my cousin’s kitten survived his night in emergency treatment, because we really didn’t think he would make it through

Coming up in August
There might be a small upcoming road trip for L and me, and of course, near the end of the month, L returns to Canada for school. August is a month that usually manifests, weather-wise, similar temps as July but with added humidity for extra misery, so it’s no wonder it’s also a month that has historically been correlated with really bad depression on my part. Hopefully the road trip helps with that?