I figured I didn’t need to do anything special today, so I ordered cat food and litter from Chewy yesterday for delivery today. The cat food was prescription only, but Chewy has all my cat’s information, so they got in touch with my vet for the prescription, without me having to do anything.

I got a notification from the company that the vet had approved a dry food prescription, though I had ordered cans, but when I called customer service, the nice human being who answered the phone reassured me that I was getting the cans. I apologized for wasting her time, and she was incredibly sweet about it, which is why I order from a faceless corporation and run the risk of having things stolen off my doorstep. Chewy is the best. They sent me a condolence card when my previous cat died, and they gave me a credit when my cat decided one flavor of canned cat food was only good for throwing up.

I settled in this morning to wait.

I live in an area that, as a realtor said today when she was showing someone the house next door, “has really come a long way.” That is to say, there isn’t as much drug dealing, there are new houses in the vacant lots, and a lot more white people have moved in since I got here twenty years ago. It’s pretty safe except for the guy who hits random houses with sticks in the middle of the night, and except for the car thieves.

But there are people who follow delivery trucks, and swoop in after the delivery is made and before the homeowner can get to it. A couple months ago or so, I got notified my Chewy order had arrived and rushed home to find an open box on my front step. The thief hadn’t taken the litter (too heavy) but had removed the jar of cat treats, only to put the jar down on a doorstep further down the street because he didn’t want it after all. I didn’t lose anything except my composure that time.

A few years back, I ordered a back yard shed from Wayfair, and it was deposited in front of the wrong damn house. That thing, even though it was resin and in a flat pack, must have weighed two hundred pounds. I dragged it home with the help of a neighbor, who refused my offer of money. I don’t think anyone would have tried to steal that. It worked out well, keeps the raccoons out of my trash cans, though it’s not so good against the rats.

FedEx gives you a delivery window, and mine today was 11:30-2:30. I knew what 11:30-2:30 meant, it meant that the order would come whenever I left the house for a few minutes. So I stayed home all day.

Therefore, the laundry is done, the dishwasher load is finished, and I cleaned the first floor. The recycling truck came, and so did the trash truck, so I brought the containers back inside. I talked to my neighbor Charlie, to the realtor showing a lady the house next door, and to my neighbor Victoria (who was waiting for the furnace repairman). I read some of my book, which is a book about the European use of notebooks (accounting, commonplace, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Linnæus, etcetera), browsed Reddit and Mastodon, read the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, solved all my NYT puzzles, and took a nap. It was sunny outside, and not as hot as yesterday, so some of the time I sat on my front step.

The delivery came at 3:00, half an hour after the predicted window, I guess because I didn’t leave the house, but now I have plenty of cat litter and Louie has his prescription weight loss food, which he hates. He threw up some of it last night, he hates it so much. Too bad, Louie. You’ll eat it and like it, because I’m not going through this again any time soon.