SAID THE CAT: February Non-Stop

Whew! February just isn't quitting. Maybe it gets hyperstimulated because it wants to have as much stuff crammed into it as its neighbors January and March. Makes it hard for me to retrieve the threads of all that is going on.

The various pictures in my library and some posted by others is giving me plenty to think about and to share. First, there is Keoni's Iowa story--literally--in Burlington's The Hawk Eye article, "Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra Brings Love and Warm Breezes to Town". His name appears about halfway down the article.

As an aside, it's great seeing a smaller town newspaper thriving in the mega-media shift going on in our electronic world.

Sandy drove up to attend the concert in Iowa from the St. Louis area and Jeanenne and Larry drove up, too.

Sandy shared some photos and video...

This one flips sideways for about a half-minute, or so, then settles back to horizontal.

...and Keoni had some time with his Missouri aunts and uncle...

Jeanenne, Keoni, Sandy, and Larry.

Here's a good place to go out of the general timeline...when Sandy was home again she drew this...

Back to Iowa: Keoni had a loaner car for visiting the area schools giving music demos and talks for students. He stopped for a little site-seeing here and there...

He has more about his Iowa adventures on Facebook.

While the Iowa adventures were going on we had a very sodden snowfall that bowed trees and power lines. When it began, it was evening and a very strange light made the outdoors sort of glow...

This is at 8 p.m. No, it isn't edited. It snowed on all night. It was my good fortune that it was also about 34 degrees so never piled up against the house foundation which requires some shoveling; instead, there was a six-inch melted border all along the foundation.

The lilac bush in the side yard.

Much of the remainder of the time was spent gathering information and filling out forms for possible senior housing. Akin to doing taxes five times in one year, it gobbled up just over two weeks and another day to go over the results with the housing coordinator so she can clear away all doubt for all time that I am an honest, bill-paying, upstanding citizen who hasn't had and won't have wild parties or run a meth lab in the bathroom.

Then, I really did do my taxes.

***

There was sad news from Wendy that barn kitty Patches had died. She was one of the three that came with the property when Wendy and John bought it. Wendy thinks Patches was already old at that time. That just leaves Toby as the sole cat resident at the barn. Wendy said he showed signs of missing Patches and sent this forlorn picture of him.

A call came from California and I learned from the daughter of my old friend Gene that she had died. We all knew that Gene's dementia was taking her from us yet it still was particularly sad news. She was a long-lasting, very good friend who had accomplished a great deal in her life coming from a rural, one-room, Missouri schoolhouse to a Chief Nursing Administrator of multi-facility elder care homes while raising three children by herself. She was lovingly cared for by her daughter who said she had red roses she was so fond of by her bedside when she died. Later, that same afternoon I was given a red rose at a store where I stopped in on my way to Ash Wednesday service at church.