Copa, I have been around reading at least daily, just haven't been posting for the most part. I'm hanging in there.
Extremely concerned about the direction our country is headed in and have put on my activist's hat again, so have been devoting a lot of time to that.
Cats are holding up. Thomas is getting old. (he is 13). A few months ago, he was diagnosed with a slight heart murmur/enlarged heart, and inflammatory lung disease. So far he is not on medications for the lung disease as those could compromise his heart, but I'm sure, if things do get worse, we'll start on that high-wire act. As of now, he coughs some, and sometimes gets wheezy or short of breath. He is a happy cat still and by no means on his last legs.
Squeaky is, well, Squeaky. She is 9-10 yrs old and very healthy other than a bladder infection we had some trouble getting rid of. Luckily, it didn't damage her kidneys, though was hard on her kidneys. She is slowing down a bit, has finally gained enough weight to be at a normal weight, and has given up on sleeping in light fixtures.
My mother and I maintain our usual difficult relationship. I blow off a lot of things due to her age (82) and she blows off a lot of things due to my being her daughter. I could wish she'd sit on her lips more often, but that is due to her having favored my younger sister from the get go combined with a lot of other factors that won't get resolved "this time around" (and I don't believe in reincarnation.) that date back to our respective youths.
We muddle along, both of us trying to keep up appearances. I occasionally try to bring up an issue; she makes the expected excuses, and I, as is expected of me, accept them. It's something that I've accepted will never be resolved. It saddens me, and I wish it could be different.
I am estranged from my sister over an old chain of events with my dad that apparently devastated her, but had no effect on me because I neither witnessed them, nor experienced them.
As a result, I do not view my dad at all in the same way my sister does, and she cannot accept that, though I accept that the events she describes happened to her, and they turned my views and feelings upside down.
So with all that, I'm lonely. I always knew this would happen as my in real life friends were all much older than I am and as one would expect, they have now passed on. Nearly all of my family is dead and gone, and I don't have much in the way of closeness with the little of my family is lest, other than one uncle and aunt, and their son.
I am also experiencing physical deterioration in terms of ability to get around and do things, as well as pain, and that is upsetting (arthritis), so there's the fear of winding up in a "home", eventually, etc.
Goodness...you wanted a quick update and I wrote a novel...a depressing one. Sorry.