Haircuts

Coffee with Margie in the morning. She seldom complains about anything, but she groaned, "That haircut I got last week was the worst haircut I ever had in my life." She had it re-cut since then and is looking more like herself, though the joy she radiated last week transcended the bad haircut. During the week she went to the yarn shop, to the grocery store. "Who knew that being able to squeeze an orange and choose which one to buy could give you such a thrill?" 

After Margie, I picked up Anne, who is caring for Sammy, who is near death and was houseless for a decade. Thanks to her advocacy, Sammy has an indoor home now, a dignified place to die. She wanted to take his cat, a long-haired calico Scottish fold named Angel, to the groomer for a bath and a haircut. Angel is fifteen and has been well-loved but has never been groomed, so her hair is matted, and she is frail and has developed skin problems. We left Angel with the groomers for four hours, but they concluded after many gentle attempts that Angel needs a tranquilizer in order to be groomed. They very kindly didn't charge Anne anything for the work they did, but now Anne has to find a vet she can take Angel to, find out if Angel is strong enough to be tranquilized, and then, if so, try the grooomer again. By then Sammy will probably have died, though it's a toss-up whether he or Angel will go first. Anne and I had an emotional time together as she faced her oncoming losses of both Sammy and the elderly Angel. 

We joined Aimee Sitarz (maker of the Bronze Shoes) for a very late lunch, and then back at Aimee's place, waiting to hear from the cat groomer, Aimee played the piano in her building's basement for about an hour. Beethoven, Mozart, and Satie calmed Anne but released more tears. I didn't know till today that Aimee studied piano for fourteen years. The piano was not well-tuned and some of the keys stuck, but it was still a great blessing to hear live music for the first time in over a year.