Sadness, Working Hard, Lee (the hurricane that wasn't)

After the surprise cancer diagnosis early last week, my nephew passed away over the weekend. I received word on Thursday that my brother, sister-in-law and niece had travelled to Pittsburgh overnight (by car, my brother is not one to fly anywhere, likely a result of having spent too many years in the air in the Navy) as they had been notified that there was little time left. And Sunday morning I received word from John's brother that he had passed. (Marvelling here at how information is relayed these days - both of these updates came via Facebook Messenger.) The family is back home here in Maine now and are awaiting the body so they can plan a funeral. In the meantime, I have been working on new inventory and realized this week that it is time to shift to holiday mode as I have 4 shows in a row in Oct.-Nov. and will have little time then to create. So today I'll straighten up in the studio, put away the fall fabrics and pull out the Christmas. It will be a fun, fast and furious time for the next few weeks. We experienced little to no damage from this past weekend's brush with Lee - a couple of dead branches on the ground, lots of leaves on the ground and deck, but little rain and just a momentary blip in the power supply. Others in our town lost power for a few hours, and communities on the coast and especially Downeast had serious damage. All in all, we dodged a bullet here.

Catching up ...

Saratoga finished their meet last Monday without further drama. Not so quiet on the West Coast - 4 racetrack veterinarians have been suspended for prescribing medication without a physical exam. The four includes the vet who prescribed the Otamax (Betamethasone) cream that knocked Medina Spirit out of the winner's circle after the Derby. No one knows (or will never know) what else he prescribed for which of Baffert's horses and what the effects on those horses were. To those horses,I apologoze that your owners saw fit to entrust your care to such uncaring, greedy people. We lost Jummy Buffet last week. While I was not a Parrothead, I did appreciate his talents. Loved his wit and life philosophy. I can easily picture him up there, sailing the skies with Dan Fogelberg. And when they tire of the salt spray, they can head for the mountains and take a few runs! Slowly working on new inventory. Some things finished and a few tops done. Hard to find an uniterrupted block of time to create these days. My work for UMC continues to suck away my time and I have to work on a series of Facebook posts. But I press on when I can. Got word today that my nephew has been diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer that has taken over his brain, lungs and liver. Sad, as apparently he has just celebrated one year of sobriety. Brother and sister-in-law are devastated - you are not supposed to outlive your children. And Cookie has been dealing with her sister's dementia, the result of years of alcoholism. It's a sad world sometimes. We're in another rainy perioid this week, after some brutal heat and humidity. Looking forward to some easier more restful nights. And especially in a few days when my Nectar matress and base arrive! (Thank you RMD!)