I saw a critter in my yard yesterday around 7:30 a.m. At first I thought it was an immature coyote, but later I wondered if it was a fox.

Thing is, I have seen coyotes, red foxes and gray foxes in my yard before, and they are mostly a solid color.

This animal was mottled gray and white with a small amount of brown in its muzzle. It had a long snout and thin legs.

It trotted through the backyard and then paused for a moment in the brushy shelter of my yard perimeter as it gazed upon the large expanse of my neighbor's lawn. It decided to backtrack and this time went around the other side of my house toward the front yard and paused again to scratch under a large white pine. Then it continued down toward the brushy undergrowth near the road, where I lost sight of it.

Today would have been my mother's 82nd birthday. I took my lunch break, bought some flowers and went to the cemetery with them. It made me sad to do this (and I will do it again on Mother's Day, to be sure) but I had a thought that most likely no one else will visit her grave. So I do feel duty-bound to do so.

I approached another gallery where my mother had shown a lot of work, to see if they' be interested in exhibiting her work again, but they turned me down, mainly becus they are no longer doing shows as they're somewhat costly, they have little room and they don't find most people come into a frame shop looking for art.

It's okay...I have 3 shows with the Richter Center this year (the non-juried show, the in memoriam show and the solo show), and I got the go-ahead from another gallery to bring a few more small items after some others sold.

I have another business trip scheduled next week for Massachusetts. There and back in a day. Hate it, but it's only once a quarter, and this time I don't have a full day of meetings scheduled (only 3) so I won't have to leave here til 7 a.m. and I can head home hopefully by 3-4 pm.

Probate progress: Once I filed the inventory of assets, the probate court automatically placed legal notices in my local hometown paper. I only knew they had done that becus I got a bill from the paper, which I paid.

Now, today, I got a bill from a 2nd paper, although this time they didn't provide a tear sheet. I had to call them becus if you're gonna send a bill to someone for an ad they didn't place, you should really send a tear sheet as proof. Now I'm wondering just how many papers the court placed legal notices in. I hope that's the last one.

Anyway, the date of the legal notice in the paper starts the clock ticking on a 5-month period during which time I wait for any further creditors to send me final bills. I'm fairly sure I still need to pay 3 creditors for medical bills, including the local hospital, as well as the accountant who is now in process of preparing the CT estate tax return, along with regular IRS and CT tax returns.

After the 5 month period is up in July, I can then file the next document with the court listing all those creditors I paid. I believe they will then compare the earlier inventory of assets I filed, showing mom's total assets, subtract the total I paid creditors, and make sure that's what I claim I have left to distribute to heirs.