hornworms, glasses, and kittens

Mornings I wake up, feed the cat, take my meds, let the dog out. Wednesday morning I went out with the dog to look for that little bastard of a tomato hornworm. This time I found it but it wasn’t much over an inch long and there was too much damage for just one so I kept looking and found two more. They’re hard to find when small because they’re the same color as the tomato plant and hide under the leaves and stems (not in focus but you get the idea).

When I went out Friday morning to remove all the damaged foliage so I can determine if there are more I found another one bigger and fatter than the ones two days ago, that’s how fast they grow. It’s a green smear now. This morning’s examination found two more of the fuckers.

Also Wednesday I moved both of the bell pepper plants, one into the empty corner of the little raised bed and the other in the pot in which I had planted a tomato that was in constant wilt no matter how often I watered it so I figured it had something wrong with it and pulled it out. Put the little pepper plant and watered it until water ran out of the holes in the bottom. Checked on it yesterday afternoon and it was wilted. WTF. Stuck my finger in and the dirt was dry as a bone. Watered until water came running out the bottom, dug in the pot some…dry as a bone. So then I did some intense deep watering and this morning it looked OK but now there are ants in the pot when before with the tomato, no ants. Can’t win for losing with that pot.

The other thing that happened this week was Thursday when I went for my pre-op for cataract surgery. I was joking with the assistant that as soon as I had had my February appointment when I complained about my left eye bothering me for months, feeling like there was some goo or something that I couldn’t rub out, the feeling went away and hadn’t bothered me for the past two months. When asked if I didn’t want to have the surgery I shrugged and said it depended on what the doctor thought. So when Priscilla came in I told her the same thing and she said let’s look. Can you read this line, can you read that line, which is sharper, this or this, etc. Then she pulled out a weird glasses frame in which you could insert different lenses, which she did, put them on me and told me to go outside and see what I could see. So, what am I looking for, focus, clarity, I asked. She just shooed me outside. So I stood outside looking around and everything seemed to be in focus and clear, close and distance. When I came in and reported she said this doesn’t happen often but you were reading two lines better today than in February so let’s get you some glasses. No cataract surgery? Not yet, come back next February. She doesn’t like to do unnecessary surgery which I appreciate.

So I went next door, picked out some frames and ordered glasses. This will be the third time in my life that I’ve been talked into getting glasses. First time was in my late 40s maybe. Wore them off and on for a while and then stopped as my vision wasn’t really that bad and I preferred drug store cheaters for up close work and reading as opposed to wearing glasses all the time. The second time I got glasses was in 2015 when I had to go in and take an eye test to get my driver’s license renewed and I failed the eye test. Two years later I lost them when the town flooded after Harvey and I was wading in thigh deep water and tripped on some unseen something and fell. My glasses had been hooked in the neck of my t-shirt, because I still never got in the habit of wearing them all the time, and when I stood up they were gone. So I went back to drug store cheaters and hoped I didn’t get stopped while driving. Three plus years ago I realized I didn’t need glasses to read in the evenings or do close work, set the cheaters aside and went and got my eyes examined telling the optometrist that I thought my eyesight had improved which he confirmed but attributed it to developing cataracts. That was January 2021 and I haven’t used glasses or cheaters since then. My eyesight is not crisp except in certain ranges but it’s not bad enough to impact my life negatively either so I imagine after I get these I will revert to wearing them when I drive or when what I’m reading or working on is a little too far away. Same as it ever was.

Yesterday afternoon after watering the garden in the back I went over to feed the wildlings a little later than usual and saw that Robin had already fed them. Then she came out with this.

Her boyfriend got a job at Tractor Supply for the summer before he returns to college in the fall and this little 5 week old kitten was abandoned in the parking lot so of course he brought it home. They already have three indoor cats, Pam's Boys and Robin’s Noodle, and the four wildling outdoor cats…Momcat, Handsome Boy, Lovey, and Twin. I told Robin they were quickly becoming the cat people of the neighborhood. Robin is adamant that the new kitten is going with the BF when he returns to school.

After nearly a week of horrible heat and humidity today is cooler and less humid.