While the cat’s away the mice will play.

(But first, speaking of cats, let me tell you about my first day of pet sitting. I love this cat, I’ve played with this cat for years. Cat emerged after I’d been there an hour, I made eye contact, cat hissed at me. We’ve made up since then, but it was rocky at the start.)

Back to Gary, it would seem if I leave the house overnight he comforts himself with shopping. I didn’t snoop; the phone told on him. A message announced, “Gary, that Celestron telescope is on sale for $500 off.”

“We already have a telescope,” I said to the phone. “I mean, not one so pricey that you could knock $500 — wait — what is he doing?”

Then I snooped. Amazon Prime showed me all the fancy telescopes he recently viewed. That’s fine. None have been purchased. But he hasn’t even looked ONCE through my “birthday present” telescope and he’s already planning to level up.

More willful hijinks: the basement Alexa documented that he asked for the current time at 4 pm and 7 pm. My last words as I left were, “And please, don’t try to assemble the metal shelves in the basement on your own.” Yes, I hear it too, what else could the man do but assemble the shelves after a remark like that?

Of course the last thing I checked was the credit card app, and he had indeed bought that new telescope just moments earlier.

I can only assume he is spending money to fill the hole in his heart because we will not be in the same house again for four more days.

This month Gary went through an endoscopy. The nurse had to bellow at him to wake up, and Gary rolled over, blinked his eyes, smiled for the first time in months (!), and said, “I feel GREAT.”

And he did feel great for about a day. Then his stress soared back to its usual four-alarm fire level and now he’s suffering as much as before, if not more.

The preliminary report said his upper GI tract looked unremarkable, so that’s great. After some time spent on his four biopsies they found that everything they had biopsied was perfectly fine. No celiac diseaese, no ulcers, yes, a wee polyp but no cancer, and nothing to explain his heartburn and rash.

Now all that’s left is to go through the CAT scan in the middle of next month to see the middle of his digestion, and then he’ll have a diagnosis of “nothing is wrong with you.”

I am borderline relieved. Tne list of possibilities is now down to 1) long COVID that will cause a rash in the susceptible, or 2) Crohn’s disease hiding in the last place they look, or 3) really, nothing. It looks worse than it is, Mr. Schmidt, try not to worry about it.

Gary saw my photos from the astronomy park and decided we needed a beginner telescope, and then, as he does, he went ALL IN and spent more money on the accessories that he did on the telescope.

You may ask: does it have a thing where you say “Jupiter” and it pivots to Jupiter?

No, but it has a mount for your phone. The phone app shows you a live view of what planets and stars your scope is pointed at, and superimposed on the stars is a red arrow pointing to where Jupiter is. You point the scope up, down, to the left, and when the arrow turns to a red dot you’ve got Jupiter visible in the eyepiece.

He also bought a special chair that makes the crouching / viewing experience more comfortable.

It kept him occupied all day. Supposed to be clear tonight.