Well, damn! I just searched FB to see you posted COVID test results last week - it doesn't show me posts from everyone, so this didn't scroll through my radar. Sorry for the belated Get Well Soon wishes! These days with RSV and Flu it's easy to imagine that there is something else going on. Did you get a dose of the antiviral medications? I hope you've had good company and therapy from the cats. Food delivered and people running errands for you?

Sinuses have been tender for over a week due to allergies (and it isn't just me, it's the rest of the local family with all of this rain and the resulting mold and fungus from the moist world). Or more likely, cedar fever (pollen from Central Texas drifting this direction).

Today is the "OMG everything has to go in the mail" realization day. But it's also the day before Pepper goes in for rather urgent surgery; a fatty mass on her tummy, first noticed last spring, has suddenly enlarged and become painful. I managed to get her in to the vet yesterday when I realized what had happened, and he agrees this can't wait until a regular dental cleaning procedure I had scheduled for next month. There's nothing like a huge vet bill at Xmas. (She's not eating as much but she is her old self in other ways; she just announced that the postal carrier is in the neighborhood.) She's on pain meds and antibiotics now and I had to convince Cookie that roughhousing isn't a good idea. They were in the back yard with me in the brisk air and Cookie took on that play posture ready to start dashing around with Pepper. We don't need a play injury.

I have a couple of the dog t-shirts (handed down from the kids and me) in the laundry; rather than wear the "Elizabethan collar" (listed on the estimate) I put a t-shirt over their head and front legs and tie a knot at the waist. It's much better for the dog and they seem to know to leave the wound alone. The cone of shame is a last resort. My favorite photo of a dog in a t-shirt is of my old pitbull Cinnamon in an "I Love NY" shirt.