A goat...

I have this basket that I use to carry things up and down the stairs.  Well, I use it in the morning and the evening.  It is a basket that a woman used to bring me muffins.  It is, to my recollection, the only time someone did something like that.  She wrapped the handle in GREEN ribbon imprinted with the message "all things grow with love."  When I started having trouble carting my stuff about in the mornings and the evenings, especially the medical stuff, I started using the basket.  I don't really think about it, other than glances at the handle warms the cockles of my heart.

I don't think about the basket when it comes to Amos.
I should have.

Wednesday, when I fetched my prescriptions, I left the benzonatate downstairs, because I had filled days in my medication containers that did not have the medication.  Once I filled them, I put the bottle in my basket and forgot to take it out when I got upstairs.  The bottle had slipped beneath the slippers and the scrunchie and the blinders so I just didn't see it.

I am not sure how Amos did.  But he did.  I know that he did because of what I found.

SIGH.

The cap is gone.  Completely.  There were some orange bits along with a pile of the generic Tesselon Perles.  Thankfully, once counted, I was only one short of those pills, used to quiet the cough that starts my cough variant asthma.  I am hopeful that it is somewhere on the floor that I cannot see, but I am not really worried if Amos ate it.  What it mostly does is numb the tissue of my throat to stop the coughing.  It certainly didn't kill him.

Strangely, Amos didn't vomit on the bedroom floor last night.  Usually, when he is being a goat, he vomits all the inedible bits rather conveniently on the floor.  I expected a mess but did not get one.  Small blessings.

Amos is not a chewer.  I mean, he has four different chew bones (3 downstairs and 1 upstairs), which he gnaws on quite a bit.  But he doesn't chew on slippers and such.  Well, he is rather partial to a gentle gnaw on the zippers of my hoodies if I leave then lying on the foot of the bed.  The point is that what Amos does do is pick out tasty treats from things set on the floor.

I know this.  I know this because I have to tell women to put their purses up on the deacon's bench if I spot them lying on the floor.  And I know this because Amos is wont to pluck electrical tape from tool bags.  Amos loves choosing chew bones from tool bags.

He's a goat.

This early evening, my neighbor took me to work on the stockings I am planning for my parents.  We had gone out earlier, but my blood pressure tanked and I ended up lying down in my car with my feet up in the air as my pacemaker calmed down.  I had been standing too much.  I am thankful I did not faint in Menard's.  I did miss two things on my list, though.

My neighbor drove my car home and I guzzled Gatorade form the kitchen floor.  After resting and salting and hydrating, I went out again.  The second trip was more protective, with many things on my list.  And a frosty on the way home, consumed fully because of a very, very, very slow train.

When I arrive home, Amos goes nuts.  Starting about a year ago, nothing would do but I had to pick him up and hold him for a few moments before even finishing walking in the door.  If not, Amos would jump and jump and jump and jump until I did.  It is as if Amos needs reassurance that I am actually home.

Tonight, when I arrived home, I held Amos and then tried to carry the shopping bags inside.  He wasn't done with me, however, so I held Amos whilst carrying the shopping bags inside.  Then I set him back down.  I was having a cold spell, so I went straight upstairs and turn on the shower.  I thought I would blanche myself a bit to try and turn my feet from blue.  Amos, though, was not done being reassured of my presence.  He's always attentive as I shower, oft peering over the side of the tub to check if I am still okay.  But that wasn't enough.  He wasn't done with being assured of my presence.  So, he clambered over the side of the tub and joined me!  I learned my lesson.  Stay with Amos until he feels assured then get on with things.

A goat.
A clingy goat.