Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Mowed the lawn. Overdue - as it always seems to be this summer, I just can't get on top of it when it rains so much. And I'm so tired/burnt out all the time. So it feels good to have done something.

I guess I also did a Tesco order for tomorrow -- we needed more milk for Gary (yes he's got his own milk, there are five kinds of milk in this house for the three humans and one dog in it) and peanut butter and a few other things, but it hadn't been that long since our last grocery order so I also flung some fun stuff in the virtual basket too, like ice cream now that I can believe that summer weather might come back.

I read a third of How Infrastructure Works, a book I originally put on my library hold list intending to see if it'd make a good present for D, my beloved infrastructure nerd. When I told him I'd done this, probably six months ago, he said he'd considered buying it for me as well. Aww. It does seem to be a good book!

And I did a lot of Gary management (this is the reason I stayed home and am not camping this weekend). He's had a sad day. He woke us both up at like three in the morning, and that takes some doing once MB has taken off her hearing aid! I was already with him and had turned the light on and had done the things that usually snap him out of his barking fits -- sometimes he's explicitly asking for help, the rest of the time whatever he's angry/scared about he can be distracted from by the presence of his humans.

I felt very helpless and disoriented when me going to him and talking to him and all the usual stuff didn't work. I'm kinda the nuclear option when it comes to the dog; if I can't soothe him/pick him up/etc, it's likely that no one can. So on these rare occasions where I can't do anything for him, it feels not just heartbreaking but a little eerie, like having a familiar path suddenly disappear and leave me stranded in lonely darkness. And this feeling is not made worse by the blood-sugar-crash hours of the night...

I very glad I didn't leave MB to deal with Gary this weekend on her own. He's behaved but he's still a lot of work right now, through no fault of his own.