Fall! Pumpkins! Pumpkin spice lattes! Halloween! Cooler weather?
I grew up on Long Island, New York. This is what fall looked like. It was often too cold, but always beautiful. Autumn in South Florida may be a few degrees cooler than summer – 88 instead of 95. The leaves don’t change. The palm trees keep their palm fronds and coconuts.
For most of the country, fall promises cooler weather. For us in South Florida, fall promises the worst of hurricane season, followed by slightly cooler, more temperate weather. But it’s the hurricanes that have always been the problem.
When you are sitting smack dab in the middle of most hurricane routes, you tend to spend quite a bit of time keeping an eye on things. The past few years, the storms seem to be hitting the Gulf coast rather than the Atlantic coast. Or if they are hitting the Atlantic coast, they have been problems for the states north of Florida. Maine was in the eye of Hurricane Lee just a few weeks ago! One of my good friends moved to Maine from Florida almost 20 years ago. Trust me, she never once thought about a hurricane following her there. But that is the weather we live with now. Everything we once knew? Not so much anymore.
Even more disturbing are the water shortages worldwide. There are countries shooting at each other over water rights. Iran and Afghanistan. Haiti and Santo Domingo. And then there is America, and the fight over the Colorado River. There may not have been shots fired here, but there is fighting.
Then there was this:
Book News
‘There won’t be libraries left’: how a Florida county became the book ban heartland of the US
Food News
I love the New York Times Cooking App. They have great recipes, lots of videos, people like you and me post comments, most of which are incredibly helpful, and best of all, you can ask questions of the staff and they will get back to you pretty quickly.
Freebie P.S.A. coming your way! New York Times Cooking is offering a free trial right now. Previously, the Cooking app was available to subscribers only, but for a limited time, you can access any recipe via the app at no cost. (I cannot emphasize enough how big a deal this is!) Just download the NYT Cooking app to start your free trial: iOS users can download the app here, while Android users can use this link.
Last month, I wrote about the beautiful tinned fish stores in Portugal. Now, the New York Times is writing about the beautiful tinned fish store in Times Square in New York City!
For jet lag, a hearty breakfast in the new time zone may help
Eating an early meal in the new time zone and avoiding a meal late the night before could mean two fewer days of jet lag, a mathematical model showed
Other News
A few weeks ago, we had a pretty bad scare with my cat, Loki. We’ve noticed over the past several months that he occasionally gets tremors. They only last a few seconds, and he is pretty old – he’ll be 15 on Nov. 1 (that’s 76 in human years!) But then, a few weeks ago, it got more serious. He let out this really loud, low-pitched meow, one that we rarely hear from him, but when we do, he’s usually in pain. My husband and I ran and found him lying on the floor near the litter box. He was lying in a pool of urine and couldn’t move. We crouched there with him, he looked into my eyes, and I petted his head. It felt like hours, but probably just a few minutes later, he stood up. I cleaned him up as best as I could – I didn’t want to give him additional trauma by bathing him, and he spent the next little while cleaning himself. He seemed perfectly fine after that, but it scared me badly.
Our vet was out of town (this happened over the Labor Day weekend,) but I was able to bring him in that Tuesday. He did a pretty thorough examination and didn’t find anything wrong. Heart and lungs were clear, no protrusions or growths anywhere. No weight loss. He wanted to know if he was able to see me, to focus, or if his eyes were shifting around or closed while it was happening. He said to keep an eye on him for the next month, and if it happened again to try and video it, especially his eyes, and to get a urine sample. It’s been a month, and I’ve seen a few seconds of tremors one time, and that’s it.
The vet thinks it may be a brain tumor. He said he could x-ray him, but an MRI is the best. There are two machines in South Florida, and it would cost $2000. So I asked what would happen if he did have a brain tumor – could it be surgically removed? How would that affect his quality of life? He said if it was him, he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do the x-ray, and he wouldn’t do the MRI. He wouldn’t put an old cat through the trauma of it all, especially surgery that may or may not extend his life or even help in any way. It was discouraging, but I appreciated his candor.
I love my vet; he has been practicing medicine for decades, and he really cares about his patients. He caused quite an uproar around here about twenty years ago or so. The local newspaper, The Sun-Sentinel, did a feature story on him. He said that animals, especially those that stay indoors like our cat, do not need annual exams. Then he really poured fuel on the fire; he said they don’t need annual rabies vaccines, either. He started giving his patients rabies vaccines in their tails instead of their thighs. Why? There were way too many incidents of cancer at the injection site. He didn’t want to amputate another animal’s leg. It wouldn’t be as big a loss if they got cancer in their tail.
Around that same time, the pharmaceutical companies had come out with two, three, and five-year rabies vaccines at two, three, and five times the price. Except each of those vials contained the exact same dose of the vaccine. He was furious, and he called them out. He called out every vet in town that was selling them. He said that vets insist on annual visits and vaccines for one reason only: to make money. As you can imagine, he was none too popular among his peers. He had that article blown up, and it hangs on the wall in his waiting room.
Loki is the first purebred cat we’ve ever had. I wrote the breeder and asked for his medical history. I was delighted to find out that he has real longevity in his gene pool. His dad lived to be 21, and died of pancreatitis. His mom had recently passed at 18, of old age. The breeder said she got slower and slower, slept more, and ate less. Never seemed to be in any pain, though. She also said there was no history of brain tumors in any of her cats. She shared a lot about his family, and it was all reassuring, so we are hoping for the best.
Loki is a very special cat. He is just as beautiful on the inside as on the outside. He has brought me and my family so much joy in his years with us. Most days, when I get home from work, he is sitting in the sidelight window, waiting for me. He sleeps between my husband and me during most of the night. He naps on my bed all day, hiding under it if we make too much noise and disturb him. Sometimes he lies under there with his head in my husband’s sneaker. When he’s had enough napping, he hangs out with us. He lays on the hassock with his head on my ankle, or on the arm of the oversized chair my husband prefers, cuddled up with him.
He is the world’s pickiest eater – he turns his nose up some days at the food he previously devoured. When I make a turkey, he becomes my shadow, not leaving my side until he gets his. The only times he ever seems inclined to jump on the counter is when I make a turkey or sponge cake. Yep, something about that cake just makes his nose quiver.
When my grandson comes to visit, Loki hides. Not because Jonah is rough with him; he’s actually been incredibly gentle. But as Loki has gotten older, he doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone; he just wants to get his 18-20 hours of sleep in and be left alone. That said, he occasionally would wander by, and Jonah would be so happy! When we Facetime with him, he always asks for Loki. If he’s not around, we say Jonah, where’s Loki? And he says, he’s hiding. That little boy understands.
As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe.
Thanks to The New York Times and The Washington Post for allowing me to “gift” my readers with free access to these articles, a lovely perk for subscribers.
Posted by Stacy Alesi 
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 