Chill of Summer

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've posted here. And Summer is halfway over and I still feel the cold inside. The truth is, it's been a somewhat colder summer all around. The weather is milder--we usually have temps in the 100s by this time and this year most days are in the 80s, which is actually nice, if strange. And the financial climate is definitely chilly. Most summers we have done well enough to keep more than afloat and have a few2 nice things, but this year we just can't seem to quite get our heads above water. I received one of those "when are you going to deposit money?" calls from the bank this morning, in fact. They think we're overdrawn quite a bit. (I thought we were overdrawn some, but not that much).

There's also been the chill of grief. Two weeks ago--can it be that already?--we lost one of our dear cats, Gwion Bach. From the evidence, he was torn off our screened back porch where he was resting in the sun by the cat door by a pair of roving dogs (we didn't see that part but surmised it from the damage to the porch). They then proceeded to toss him in the air like a rag doll, snapping his spine. We chased the dogs off, but it was too late. He passed over not long after.

Since then we've sealed up the cat door and kept all our cats inside. Since the cat door is sealed they can go out on the porch. This seems to satisfy all but Luna, who first threw fits of meowing and then peed all over everything in the house and now has settled down into a sort of grey funk, much like the one her human mother continues to experience.

I am cold inside.

I just wrote a whole paragraph and deleted it.

From the smell of it, one of the cats has peed in my office and I have yet to find where.