Lessons learned in the past week:

1) Even the most recalcitrant feline will ingest their medications willingly–if the pill is wrapped in salmon flavored wet cat food. So much easier than aiming a dispenser down a throat while the cat hacks and claws.

2) Jennifer’s Body was neither scary nor titillating. From the marketing and packaging, one of those seemed to be the objective. However, I really liked the camera work and shot composition. Particularly how the director handled filming in woods and fields at night.

3) I’m ready for Fall. Doubly true since the forecast for the first week of September includes 5 days in a row of near ninety degree temperatures.

4) Friday at 5pm is not the time best time for splicing cables, especially when standing on a six foot ladder. Got a bit aggressive with the scissors. The side of my first finger paid the price.

5) I like this newly remodeled Dunkin Donuts.

Always nice when a longstanding problem inches closer to resolution. And tomorrow a little technical issue at work that snowballed into a big crisis collides against the mighty wall that is a new sweet piece of technology and stops piling into my knees.

Or at least changes course.

Enough tech babble. Someone please tell these two cats to stop pretending they don’t like each other. Charade over Ms. Abra and Mr. Oedipus.

As the last horizons of summer beckoned, and the faculty began their annual march back to campus, getting a jump on the weekend not only seemed like a good idea, it seemed urgent. And I listened to experience.

On Monday high alert status ensues, a seven week long period where the nights and weekends after work are not really my own. In place of dreams, technical problems from the days before brawl for their slice of what’s left of my subconscious mind. This era of heightened awareness concludes the first weekend of October, when the students disembark for an all school trip. Shortly thereafter, breathing during the day gets a lot easier. Check that: There’s actually time for breathing.

Before the insanity begins though, there was the day off. After sleeping in, and checking the Internets, I grabbed the CamelBak and hit the trail.

For various reasons, haven’t hiked much this summer. More importantly, my last round trip through these particular woods was nearly three years ago. Over the past ten years, probably covered the eight mile loop three dozen times. Good thing, too.

While the trail was exactly the same after all this time–albeit even more impacted thanks to erosion, a dry summer, and increased foot traffic–the blazes looked different. Different not in the sense that there were less markers in new places, but just as profound. My eyes tried to reconcile the all new color schema.

While not terribly dependent on blazes, when it’s been a few years and you just know blue intersects orange, only now white crosses pink ( and green/white ), it does cause the odd double take. Especially towards the end, long after killing the last shard of beef jerky.

Changes aside, a very good loop. I’m going to make it a point to get at least one long hike a week between now and Halloween. Perhaps into early winter if the weather prove mild. Thoughts just come much easier in the woods, particularly the creative sort of thoughts. That’s an important lesson to rediscover.

Particularly when things get crazy.

Late last week, Electra, one of the founding members of the Cat Army, exhibited some very disturbing symptoms that necessitated a midnight run to an emergency vet. Of her fourteen years, thus far she has has only had one real medical situation–eleven years ago. And I’ve been pleasantly spoiled by her good health and pointy nose in my ear every morning since.

For the first time she didn’t wake me up in the morning, wasn’t scratching the door when I returned from work. She sat in the middle of the hallway meowing like the wounded still stranded on the battlefield. Usually when a cat’s behavior changes drastically, something is wrong; they make their discomfort known. That’s what I learned during her last disaster.

Fortunately a nearby 24/7 animal hospital diagnosed her quickly and began a course of antibiotics. Instead of having to administer–read lose fingers to biting–tiny pills down a very agile and recalcitrant cat’s throat three times a day, science delivered its second miracle of the night.

A single injection that delivered bacteria zapping goodness for ten days. It cost three times as much as the pills. And I didn’t care.

Because my cat. Got. Better.