I had a strange dream last night where Ben was sick and I managed to save him. With the nonsensical logic of dreams, this involved digging through an old cash register drawer, in the back of a van, for tiny little blue granules, and then finding him laying in a burning brazier (with Angus, of course) and coaxing him out.

It doesn’t take much to get at the psychology there–this is the first major illness that one of my cats has had that didn’t ultimately prove terminal. It seems like they’re healthy as hell, except for occasional bladder infections, and then they get something that takes them out. (Loki made it until ten, which is a good run for a cat with uncontrollable diabetes, and Athena’s got to be closing in on twelve now, and so far as I know is still fine, so it’s not like they didn’t generally have full lives, it was just that when they went…they went.) That Ben’s fine is a combination of A) dumb luck that his disease was fixable and B) accessible cash flow. (Six hundred dollars for surgery would have been an unthinkable sum in my college days–that was two months rent!–but now I can drop it, and even though I wince a lot–it’s nearly a month’s rent NOW!–it’s not a crippling financial blow.)

I think my subconscious was secretly convinced that Ben was going to be like Gato and Loki, and is pretty relieved.

In other news, the second Pest Bob moved last night to be closer to its buddy. Not quite as shocking the second time. The diatom bloom is well underway, and it looks like the tank is dusted with nutmeg. (This is good at this stage–it’s the first algae growth, and necessary for tank cycling. At other times, it’s a bad thing.) I located a second wee Snail Bob. 

The weather is warm and glorious today, and I am going to put on gloves, spray myself down with bug spray, and go lay out the main flower bed that I’m inflicting on Kevin’s yard.