Bear World

[cranefly]

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, the Craneflys head for Bear World.  I think it's part of Yellowstone National Park.  More importantly, it's in the sweet spot of the total solar eclipse.

Lady Cranefly's older brother lives in Pocatello, an hour and a half from Bear World.  We'll be rendezvousing with him at his place, along with Lady Cranefly's younger brother and old sister from Washington State and a workmate.  Sort of a reunion.  We intend to get to Bear World maybe a day early, because the traffic could be insane.  All we have there is a chunk of ground to camp on.  Not certain what facilities will be available.

The bears in that area are reputed to be docile.  But they have a tendency to loom.  I'm hoping they don't loom over me during the eclipse.

[Drunk Monk]

Yeti & I spent a lot of time in SF soma. Plenty of bears there.

[cranefly]

Do the SF soma bears loom?

Or do they jut?

[cranefly]

A change in plans.

Our cat Halvah just suffered a ruptured cornea.

Our vet has told us to call a pet ophthalmologist early tomorrow and get her in for emergency surgery.

It's not clear what we'll do after that.  It's possible I'll send Lady Cranefly on her way to Bear World while I stay home and watch over Halvah.

[Drunk Monk]

How the heck did that happen?

I will totally accept Mercury in retrograde as an answer.

Hoping the best for your kitty.

[cranefly]

Negligence on our part.  Halvah has always been prone to a virus in the left eye.  Well, it's a combination virus and bacterial infection.  We give her vitamins to boost her immune system, which helps control it.  But we weren't regular enough giving her vitamins, and it got worse recently.  As a remedy, we had to give her three meds in the eye twice a day, and it seemed to be improving.  But when we were dropping her off at the vet for boarding during our trip, the vet did a check-up of the eye, and the rupture occurred then.  He was fearing it might happen.

So now it gets much more complicated...

Sigh.  Time to give her the eye meds.  Then we'll call the opth in the morning.

[cranefly]

Halvah is now at the vet ophthalmologist, about to go under the knife.  The surgeon will be trying to take a graft of healthy cornea tissue in the periphery and use it to plug the central hole.  If all goes well, we'll be bringing her home later in the day.

But she'll be in a cone for two weeks, and will need meds on a very regular around-the-clock schedule that vet lodging does not offer.  The ophthalmologist said it might be possible to throw money at the the vet to get the extra lodging attention.  But considering what this is costing, and the cost of work on Lady Cranefly's car (in the shop), I'm thinking one of us needs to stay home and take care of her there.  I'm volunteering.


The ophthalmologist said that our lapses in giving her vitamins did not lead to this; the eye has had a longstanding problem for years, with the cornea tissue getting ever thinner, and eventually it was going to become problematic.  This is the time.

It's possible the eye could have been treated earlier in some other way to avoid this, but we didn't know that.

[cranefly]

Well, last I heard (poor cell reception), Lady Cranefly was at Bear World with friends and relatives.  A bit of a circus atmosphere, with some big campers and people with real instrumentation.  But her brother Mitch stayed home with a terrible toothache, trying to get into a dentist.  I think he has to survive until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here in Mountain View, I had the cops called on me.

[Greg]

Don't bury the lede!

[cranefly]

Well, at least I didn't pull that "Want to know what happens next?  Stay tuned for the next chapter" crap.

So I'm doing my morning workout in the breezeway between house and studio.  I do Tai Chi a couple times, then a lot of Xingyi, and I'm just finishing up Ha Say Fu Panther, surrounded by crescents because the eclipse is edging on maximum.

Suddenly the gate flies open and our neighbor Dave across the street barges in to see me.  The adjacent neighbor lady Marion knew Lady Cranefly and I were headed out for the eclipse, so when she heard me working out, she notified Dave, whose wife was even then standing out on the sidewalk on her cell talking to the police.  I explained the sudden change in plans, thanked them for their watchfulness, and all was peacefully resolved.

Then Dave and the neighbor lady each let me take turns with their glasses, since I didn't have any.  Very nice.  So it all worked out great.

Sorry for making this sound so apocalyptic.  But I live a very simple life, and little things look big.

[Drunk Monk]

Well, at least I didn't pull that "Want to know what happens next?  Stay tuned for the next chapter" crap.

Hey man.  Of all the DOOM brothers, you've read more than your share of Chinese classics too.  You know it works.  It's worked for centuries.  CENTURIES!

Which reminds me, gotta get back to those tales...