Foraging for life

We're all foragers, all trying to keep ourselves alive.

I came to that conclusion after I took Brix to a routine veterinary appointment and the vet thought she detected a heart murmur, the kind that surfaces in middle age. She persistently listened, tried again and again to hear something not easy to hear, and called in a colleague for another opinion.

The second veterinarian was less concerned, but by that time I was flipping out in full panic mode. A year ago an eight-year old distant cousin of Brix's died almost instantly from a heart attack. Brix will be seven in August.

In the end, the decision was made to wait a short while, take another listen and possibly x-ray and have a sonogram.

Suddenly saddened, I came home and watched the chickens valiantly cheeping their way through their longer run, seemingly thrilled to be outdoors in the cool of the morning.

I went to lunch with friends I don't see nearly often enough and we caught up with each other's lives. Three hens we were, clucking around the table with the news from our own runs.

I browsed in an independent bookstore and then was off to Juvenile Hall and facilitated the girls' group - young chicks who have gone astray and are (hopefully) finding their ways back.

The good news is that yesterday's elections went well. I'm guessing some people are mightily unhappy but I think everyone and everything that I voted for actually won or passed. Amazing!

The world is still spinning, we didn't fall off during the night although if the Gulf oil spill doesn't stop greasing the axle things may start to totter.

Have you ever read WAR AND PEACE? Do you know anyone who actually has read the whole, entire 1450 pages? I read the first 35 today to put things in perspective. The foraging has been going on for a very long time.

Some days I simply worry too much and need to take another walk, you know, raise the serotonin levels a bit. So I did!