Yay! The grass is cut for the next two weeks and the pine pollen seems to be gone, so it's time for me—something I didn't do last year—to get the hose and rinse down the front porch, which is no longer brick colored, but yellowish. Alas, every single gasket on the hose and nozzle is shot, which means I got as wet as the porch in front (my capris were still damp around the waistband two days later).

We started out the week with one doctor's appointment and ended up with three: Wednesday it was James' physiotherapy followed by the rheumatologist. Dr. Salazar upped James' steroids to 7 1/2 milligrams since he's still in a lot of pain. Later we had supper from Tin Drum, which, to my sorrow, was less than sterling for me.

For years now Tin Drum's teriyaki bowl (under different names) has been my go-to treat. I would go there once a month, especially after I retired, and treat myself to lunch and racked up so many points I had lots of free meals. Over those years they made tiny tweaks to the dish (like adding a lime), but it was always okay.

This time it was disappointing. Instead of just adding a meat now, you have several choices. I got the thin-sliced beef. It was greasy, and at the same time there wasn't enough sauce to cover the rice, and they seemed to have put a little bit of pepper in the sauce (either that or it was grilled after something spicy without the grill having been wiped). It was blah instead of rah. Sigh.

Thursday was James' Procrit shot. Bruce, the nurse who practically bounces off walls, was telling us they are remodeling the Cumberland office, and they want to send nephrology, rheumatology, and a few other things, to Glenlake (and move cardiology and optometry to Cumberland), which means we would have to drive to Glenlake every two weeks for Procrit shots! Bruce is going to see if he can get permission for James to give himself the shots; we would just need to stop by Cumberland to pick up the dosage every two weeks (since the dosage is variable depending on his blood test that week). You give the shot the same way you give yourself an insulin shot, so it's something James can do.

Finally Friday James had a urology checkup. We talked with the PA instead of Dr. Jefferson, which was nice.

Saturday I exposed myself to temptation. James wanted to look for an SSD for his laptop. I have been suffering with envy watching people creating art on iPads because their stylus and art programs are so good. MicroCenter had some discount iPads, and I was very tempted. I'm also looking at new phones because I know the batteries give out after a couple of years.

But...we'll see.

Labels: chores, computers, food, health, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:00:00 PM

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The last two days have been rather painful. The pollen is making my old nose injury hurt; it's not just an irritation, but a sharp pain whenever I have the pressure of my glasses on my nose. When it gets bad enough it creeps into my right temple and makes my teeth hurt. When I come home I can place a gauze pad between the nosepieces and my nose, and that really helps the problem, but in the meantime I just have to endure it. Will be glad when pollen season is over.

Yesterday something welcome arrived in the mail: two 10-ounce containers of vegetable flakes! We used to buy vegetable flakes all the time off the spice racks at the outlet kitchen stores (Corning Revere Outlet and Kitchen Collection), then they vanished. We liked to add them to soups and other foods in order to add a little crunch and veggie goodness. For years I've been intending to search some out online, and I finally ordered the two bottles from Amazon.com. James' eyes lit up when he saw the catalog that came with them; these folks (Harmony House) also sell individual containers of dried veggie flakes, plus chunk and regular TVP.

Oy. And the grass is finally long enough that we need to have it cut. They're coming on Thursday.

Labels: food, health, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:13:00 PM

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James got to sleep in this morning, since he was headed off for an early doctor's appointment. To help him I walked Willow; it was a morning wonderland, breezy, cool, with an after-dawn chorus of birds that had to be heard to be believed. Every male bird in the neighborhood was staking his claim! On the way out of the house I noticed a very loud song coming from above, which meant there was a bird on the chimney, his voice amplified by it. Sure enough, there he was when I looked up. Next door on the ridgepole a wren was singing his little heart out, and two doors down the other way was another bird on the ridgepole as well. From across the street came the sound of a woodpecker industriously drumming.

Worked on various things during the day, and spent lunch doing a last cruise of the Borders in Austell. I was wondering what one of the clerks was going to do with himself now that he was being laid off and he was remarkably upbeat about it, despite a customer who was being negative. He was looking at it as a chance to make a career change, plus to work on his writing.

James was let out early and arrived home with supper for tonight—yay! pork fried rice from Dragon! (yes, Ivan, no peas and carrots)—and dozed off in his chair while I finished up work and listened to Radio 7. At five I logged off and put everything away and we had dinner.

Later on, when the sun was gone from the deck, we brought the birdseed we bought upstairs and refilled the can, which I had emptied this morning. There was a delightful breeze and it was so warm out that we sat out there and I brought Schuyler's cage out. It's the first time she's ever been on the deck, believe it or not, and she was wide-eyed at the big fat bumblebees hovering overhead. A couple of birds, a house finch and a brown-headed nuthatch, felt courageous enough to visit the feeder while we were out there, but Schuyler didn't seem to twig that they were real birds. She probably just thought it was another kind of "teevee"!

Finally we came in to watch Jeopardy, and put on Monday's Hawaii Five-O (was that a real science-fiction convention?), the episode of R5Sons Alaska about Clay's airplane, and Saturday's Colour Confidential (wow, what a dining room—red walls and a brushed metal silver-grey ceiling and black/silver/white trimmings; very arresting yet not overdone).

Labels: birds, books, food, television, weather, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:59:00 PM

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Took a peek at the bushes when I went out to walk Willow. Now that the sun was out front I saw clearly a few places I should have pruned, but I couldn't find the pruning shears. Stupid because I saw them just recently, surely on the day we built the shelves! It's those darn blue guys again!

I usually wait until I have five Castle episodes, which fill up a disk, to copy them off, but I wanted to do it today. There were only four, so I did those, plus transferred off the Hugh Laurie interview from last week's Tonight and part one of the wonderful Waltons Family Reunion that the Inspirational Channel showed before Thanksgiving, in what space was left on Castle disks. When I get the next Castle I can copy off the second half. It was a wonderful special, with the entire cast available; even Richard Thomas spoke from New York.

While this last was going I was cooking turkey legs and slicing and boiling Yukon Golds; we had a drumstick each and some buttered potatoes for supper, and part of another drumstick will make a sandwich for me tomorrow. Yum!

During supper we watched the Blu-Ray of Apollo 13. The picture is wonderfully sharp and the sound is extraordinary (when the Saturn 5 blasted off, even Schuyler watched!), but this has to be the most frustrating DVD I have ever encountered! You put it in and it has a loading screen, which takes forever, then you have to pick what language you want, and it goes through more fol-der-ol and the FBI warning, then you get something that asks if you want to connect to a social network (so you can do a review or leave comments), and then finally you get to the movie! Worse, we paused it so James could go get dessert (chocolate angel food cake!), and he was gone long enough for a Universal screen saver to kick in. When I hit play again, the stupid screen saver wouldn't go away! I finally had to stop it and re-start it (going through all the loading and the language and the social network crap again!) before I could get back to where I had paused. To paraphrase Tawny Madison: "Whoever programmed this DVD should die!" Failure was apparently an option on this one.

Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Good heavens, who needs 3D? The picture is so crisp you can darn near jump into it!

Labels: DVDs, movies, television, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:58:00 PM

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Our neighbor Susan told me once that if I wanted to trim the bushes at the front of the house, it would be best to do it in February when they were dormant. I meant to do it last week, but I was either busy with work, the car, or it was wet. I checked them Friday and there was no sign of new shoots, so after I had breakfast I went out with the hedge clipper and did the deed. They look terrible now—there was nothing really inside, all of it was on the edges—but they should leaf as it gets warmer.

And that's going to be soon. I went out there in a sweatsuit and a fleece vest and had to strip the vest off after fifteen minutes.

Saw the hawks wheeling about about halfway into the job, their calls of "ca-ca-ca-ca" echoing above. A few minutes earlier a woodpecker had been beating a merry tune on a tree west of the house; after that, all was silent for a while.

The bushes on the right side of the walkway are still tall. I don't mind them being tall on that side, and just trimmed them so that they are away from the front steps. But now in the front you can see St. Francis again, and the little resin animals: Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle the hedgehog (after Beatrix Potter), Cinnabar the fox (after Marguerite Henry), and Gertrude the duck (after the film of Journey to the Center of the Earth).

Now I'm dubbing off Castle episodes. At 4:30 or so I'll start the turkey so it will be ready when James gets home from work.

Labels: food, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:21:00 PM

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We loaded the truck Friday night so we didn't have to get up any earlier than necessary Saturday morning. However, James woke before the alarm, so we were early getting to Jim Miller Park and directed into the queue. So we went to Martin's to get James some breakfast, and by the time we got back there was no line at all.

You see, today was Free Electronics Recycling Day. You can always recycle electronics on County Services Parkway, but you have to pay. One day a year they take it for free, unless it's a television, which you have to pay $10 to dispose of. We had at least two years' worth of junk that had died, most of it not replaced, like James' old computer (fifteen years old), a boom box he bought used to play CDs, but the radio didn't work, my old keyfob which they told me I could just throw away, mice, keyboards, etc. We left behind the television (also from the pawn shop and fifteen years old, which just up and died during the summer) because Alice posted something on Facebook from Clark Howard's website, that Best Buy takes TVs for recycling. You have to pay $10, but they give you a $10 gift certificate.

Then we came home. Now that all that crap was out of the garage, we could rearrange. The plastic boxes that were formerly on the wire shelf that collapsed are still in a pile near the little "closet" that the water heater is in. They are in the way. By rearranging, partially with James' help and partially after he left, I was able to wheel them against the wall and still have room for the shop vac and the seeder. The wire shelf was lying edgewise on the floor, and we managed to get that up and out of the way, pinning it over the extension ladder with the bent supports that are still fastened to the wall. The bikes are parked in front of the containers and the shop vac, and the old electronics box is now up against the wall, ready to fill again, although I think we've gotten rid of any extraneous junk.

James left for work, and since I was out there, I got out the hedge clipper and trimmed the bushes in front of the house. I know this isn't the proper time of year, but when Paulo or Alex trim them, they do them nice and straight, but never clip the bits overhanging the sidewalk or crowding the stairs. So I trimmed just that. Sadly, the bushes are all stalky inside, no leaves. When February comes I need to trim them down good, cut back the front, and then the top, so you can see St. Francis better again. I used the pruning tool to get any odd branches and trimmed the larger of the two bushes next to St. Francis.

Came in, cleaned myself up, then had a peanut butter sandwich before going out. I stopped at Hobby Lobby for more light bulbs, then stopped at Lowes to look for a figure for my Christmas village. I am looking for a cheap, single figure that would not look out of place in a 1940s town, cheap especially because I intend to cut the feet off the figure. I want to put the abbreviated figure in the subway entrance, back facing outward, so it looks like it is going down the stairs to the subway. So far I have either found too many figures at too high a price, or unsuitable figures, like women in pants or Victorian-era figures. (I know women did wear pants occasionally back then, and they wore overalls to the war plants, but to me it would just not look right.) Unfortunately Lowes had very few figures, and those that were in the right time period—their It's a Wonderful Life figures and buildings—had a ceramic finish and didn't match the resin ones.

So I went on to BJs, bought gasoline, then stopped at Food Lion for groceries since I had a coupon. Then I went on home, to the odious task of unblocking "my" sink (the right-hand one) in the master bath. It gets clogged up frequently with soap scum and errant hair. This actually cleared quickly and I didn't even have to use baking soda and vinegar.

By this time it was nearly four o'clock, so I started some rice to have with soup, walked Willow and fed her, and ate supper while watching the most recent version of The 39 Steps. I read the book several years back; they've made the female lead spunky and not a shrinking violet, but I don't recall any of the other changes.

James got home a little before nine, and we spent the evening watching the latest This Old House and R5Sons Alaska, and finally accumulated Law & Order: UK.

And then Jen showed up on chat! She graduated boot camp yesterday and has the rest of the weekend to spend with family and friends (her parents and sister and brother-in-law and our friend Mike) as long as she checks in every morning and evening. So we were up very late "reunioning" and did not get to bed until after two.

Of course we read before bed, and my current book of choice was a new book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of An American Holiday. I'm constantly on the lookout for books about Thanksgiving that aren't about recipes or entertaining, as most adult books about the holiday are (kids' books have more variety: they can be about the holiday, about giving, retellings of the Pilgrims-and-Indians story, etc.), and this one came up the last time I searched. It's part of a new series of books called "Revisiting New England" on all types of subjects like regions, ethnic groups, events, etc.

I had read a few pages, then decided to stop, but before I did, I thumbed through the rest of the book and the footnotes (yes, I'm one of those people who reads footnotes). I was suddenly arrested by a URL that was familiar—familiar because it was one of my URLs. I turned back to Chapter 9 and found the author had quoted something about televised holiday parades that I said on my Thanksgiving web page! Like...wow!

So we were up after ten this morning, and shuffled around for a while before going out.

After the great Kmart/Sears merger, Kmart pretty much disappeared around here. The one near the hobby shop became a Sears appliance store. The one at Brookwood had vanished even before Kmart declared bankruptcy. The one at East Cobb is a Sears. Needless to say, neither of us have been to a Kmart in years. However, there is still one left, near where Floyd Road turns into Mableton Parkway, in Mableton, and we went to that one today, on a tip from someone in my Christmas group. While I didn't find what she mentioned, we did find some small goodies, including a heavy-duty timer we can use for the space heater in the master bath, a "tin" airplane from Country Living's line of retro metal Christmas ornaments (they also have an ocean liner, a Zeppelin, a dog on wheels, a trolley car, etc.), and...ta-da!...a figure for the Christmas village. It is a man in nondescript, 20th-century clothing carrying a toolbox. I can dry-brush a little white on his hair, to depict an older man working at a war plant.

We stopped at BJs to get gasoline for the truck, and walked about inside. This was both good and bad, because I found The Christmas Vault, a book someone on the Christmas list had mentioned last year. This is one of those volumes that has little inserts in it, like cards, letters, booklets, etc. that enhance what you have read. (There are other books in this series, on World War II, Star Trek, Star Wars, D-Day, etc.) The source material seems to have come almost entirely from the National Christmas Museum we visited last year; there's even a blurb on the final page to visit the museum. Anyway, it is sooooo cool.

Then we decided to have a treat and stopped at Borders for a small cocoa trio apiece and a slice of chocolate peppermint loaf. Finally we picked up a newspaper and came home.

So James is making breakfast for supper: buckwheat pancakes and the naturally-cured bacon we bought at the farmer's market. Yum...

[Later: Schuyler likes buckwheat pancakes!]

Labels: books, chores, electronics, food, friends, shopping, television, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:03:00 PM

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Things got kind of interesting yesterday.

As in the "Chinese" sense.

The beginning of the week was rather ordinary, finishing up orders. By the time I reached yesterday, I had three orders left, two of which I did during the day.

At 2 p.m. we had a staff meeting which I attended, like many others, via conference call.

At 3 I took a break for "leftovers day" on Amazon Vine and scored Connie Willis' sequel to Blackout and a cookbook by Christopher Kimball (from Cooks Illustrated.

About 4:45 Willow was suddenly anxious to go out. She made a mad dash for the woods in the back of the house, squatted and [sorry for the graphics] had blood in her stool.

This wasn't good.

Oh, hell. This happened back in 2005, when she had pancreatitis from having completely demolished a ham bone, grinding it to bits. We haven't given her any kind of bone since.

I called the vet and made the first appointment for this morning. James came home and when we took her out again to get a sample for the vet, it remained in the same state. Otherwise she seems in a good state of health: her gums are a normal color, she's hungry and active, drinking fine, no swelling anywhere that I can feel.

So this morning there I was, trucking across town with Willow next to me in the front, seat-belted in and doing her imitation of Camille expiring from consumption. We got to the vet and were first seen by the vet tech and then by the vet. As always, Wil was extremely anxious through the whole thing. She panted and whined, and wandered to the two doors of the exam room to try to find a way out, and when I finally sat on the little bench next to the exam table, she jumped up and down and up and down and up and down until it tired me out just to watch her.

Finally the test on the stool sample was done. She has some sort of intestinal bacteria infection that causes these symptoms. So I came home with special dog food, antibiotic for a week (and the pill pockets to put them in), and orders for her not to have any treats until the antibiotics are finished. She won't mind the special dog food, but the lack of "cookies" is going to upset her.

Still, she didn't have to stay overnight, and I hope it's just the bacteria causing the problem.

On the way home, with my nose stuffy because I'd just spent nearly 90 minutes in a enclosed room with an anxious, stress-shedding dog, I thought I'd buy myself a treat: a chocolate frosted doughnut. I hadn't had a doughnut since April. I also got a Boston Creme for James.

Dunkin Donuts always has made a lovely chocolate frosted doughnut, a light raised circle with a thin chocolate coating on top. So what a horrible disappointment to find out that they are now making them like those dreadful, disgusting Krispy Kreme things, with a sugar glaze over the whole doughnut. I despise glazes and icings. Yuck! First they quit making crullers, and now this. Ugh! Why do they have to keep adding more and more freaking sugar to everything?

I spent the rest of the afternoon teleworking. Finished the other order, and started a modification, only to discover that the vendor wanted wording that wasn't quite acceptable. Had to do another modification as well, because I mixed up two vendors with the same name.

Just as I finished, Alex, our lawn guy, showed up. Now, this afternoon when I took Willow out, I noticed her having to pick her way through the trees in the back yard. Usually in the spring I go out there and cut down the saplings that start growing, but it got so hot so quickly this year that I never had done it. So the tree area was a tangle of maple and pine saplings, fallen branches, and other general tree debris. Since there wasn't much lawn for Alex to cut—it's hardly grown at all since the last time he mowed—I asked him if he could clean out back there, get rid of the branches (including the big seven-foot branch that was tilted on the fence) and the saplings. Sure he said, and quoted me a very reasonable price. Okay, I said, when can you do it.

He and his assistant did it today. They gathered up all the branches, the assistant cut down all the saplings (oops, including two little maples I wanted to stay up; oh, well), and then they mulched them with the big lawn mower. It was all done in a little over an hour (that includes what they cut of the lawn, edging, and trimming the bushes in front of the house, too) and it's now really bare out there. But at least Willow won't be getting caught on branches like she was earlier. When we took her out later she was sorely puzzled: where were all the piles of leaves and tussocks of grass?

Crossing my fingers that the antibiotics work quickly.

Labels: books, dogs, health, pets, work, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:59:00 PM

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Tap-tap-tapped away at work today while waiting for the exterminator (he came the other day, but the gate was locked) to do the back of the house; not fancying ants in the kitchen, thank you.

I had another problem: while the Bermuda grass in the front yard has barely come out of hibernation, the fescue in the back yard looks like it's been on steroids. Some of it was almost taller than the dog. Now, I had misplaced the business card of the guy who cuts our lawn, and the phone number I had for him was wrong. I had a card for another lawn service, but when I called the number, the person only spoke Spanish.

Well, out of nowhere, Alex called wanting to know when I wanted him to cut the lawn! He even said he could come today. So I had the lawn cut. Went out there with the checkbook to wait for him to finish trimming the bushes, and in that time got caught in a cloud of pine pollen. Later, I was to regret this.

Anyway, fifteen minutes later, James arrived home. We were hoping to have dinner at Folks because we had a coupon, but wanted to avoid the Windy Hill location due to the traffic on Cobb Parkway. It looked like there was one in Mableton...oooops, maybe not. It was closed and turned into another restaurant (that was also closed).

We ended up at Giovanni's, a little Italian place we have been passing on the way to BJs (it's in a little strip shopping center off the driveway for BJs) for months. You get 15 percent off if you are a BJs member. The owner, who supervises the kitchen, is really named Giovanni and is Italian. James had the baked ziti and I had ziti and sweet Italian sausage in pomodoro sauce. It was fabulous! The sauce wasn't overly spiced, or peppery, and they had Romano cheese. Civilization!!!!!

Stopped at Borders on the way home. Woot! New Shop Smart and the April British Country Living. Found a cute-looking Christmas humor book in the bargain bin.

Once home watched most of Summer Magic on the Hallmark Movie Channel. I love this movie. Nothing really happens, just domestic drama of the most minor sort, but it makes me happy.

Just as the movie ended, the pollen took its revenge: my eyes began to swell and my nose run. And when I went to take an allergy pill I realized I hadn't taken one last night. Aieeeeeee!

Labels: books, food, television, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:28:00 PM

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Spent the day working and trying to keep the house cool. It didn't get that warm, but 75°F is a bit high for late October! Someone sent me a massive slideshow of the big snowstorm in Colorado; lots of photos of Hallowe'en decorations peeping from the snow.

I had a rush order which I managed to get done, but didn't get a confirming quote early enough to work on another one. The rush order took me almost two hours to finish because the system kept hiccuping. Urrgh. Wretched Microslop-based piece of junk.

I started work early this morning again, ate breakfast and then took my walk. This is better because by the time I do so, at least it's light. I can't wait until next week when we are back on real time again and it will be light in the morning when we need it. This isn't Leave It to Beaver land anymore: everyone rising at seven-thirty so the kids and dad can have a hearty breakfast before dad has his 20-minute drive to work and the kids their 20-minute walk to school to start at nine o'clock. A lot of the people I work with, especially the women, get up at four and five in the morning to be able to get the kids up and take them to daycare/before-school activities and beat traffic in 30-minute plus commutes, arriving at work at seven. These days we don't need light late, we need it early.

My one question: where is that guy from TruGreen? I have received calls three weeks in a row saying, "We'll be out [name of day] to aereate and reseed your fescue." This week it was supposed to be Wednesday. Still haven't seen hide nor hair of him.

Labels: time, work, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:25:00 PM

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This means I can finally wash out that empty plastic storage box in the garage without having to remember to go outside after midnight on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, so we can put the darn thing on the deck where we need it.

State Of Georgia Declares Drought Is Over

Looks like they will still have watering regulations, which is good, or everyone will be watering their damnfool lawns for hours at the time. Amazing how people water their lawns during midday when half the water evaporates in the heat!

Me, I don't intend to water a darn thing: we keep the lawn cut and neat, and we have TruGreen to keep the weeds down. The good Lord can keep the lawn watered as nature intended.

Labels: yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:18:00 PM

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James was grilling dinner tonight (we had steak and a salad) when he called me out on the deck. There in the neighbor's backyard was a cottontail rabbit.

I'm sure it could hear us talking, but it just remained there for a few minutes...



...then hopped a foot or two away as I was taking its picture...



...looked a bit wary...



...but finally settled down...



...checked out the area a bit more...



...before starting to groom itself...



...not forgetting that cute little cottontail!





* One of the running gags on Buffy the Vampire Slayer was vengeance demon Anya's fear that "the bunnies" were evil and plotting to take over the world.

Labels: animals, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:39:00 PM

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When we left last Friday the leaves were still unfurling in the trees in our backyard. It made a nice haze of green back there, but the slightly decrepit brown trailer in view at the trailer park behind us was still pretty much in view.

What a difference three days has made! It's not yet the deep green and thick cover of high summer, but those leaves certainly had a growth spurt. The trailer is beginning to disappear behind the veil.

I caught a disconsolate brown-headed nuthatch pecking at the suet this morning and immediately scooped some seed in the feeder. I was going to fill it Friday morning, squirrel or no squirrel, and just forgot. I need not worry about the birds, as there are insects galore now for them to feed on, and fresh seeds everywhere.

I decided to work at home today because my system was apparently still suffering ill effects from the weekend. Now that I have eaten my usual meal items (oatmeal, yogurt, some Chex for a little salt fix), things "down below" seem to have calmed down. It's possible everything was a combination of unfamiliar food, different water, and sun, the latter which always affects me badly. We spent some two hours wandering about downtown Helen on Friday in full sun.

I checked out what Schuyler was watching just a few minutes ago and to my surprise saw Ralph Waite appearing as a priest on Days of Our Lives. According to the IMDb, this is a regular role. Kind of a smile, as Waite is actually a man of the cloth; he was at one time a Congregational minister.

Labels: birds, sickness, television, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:29:00 PM

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Oh, I've been counting down the days this week. Finding the story about Johnnie was the highlight of Monday, since with the rain I came home nursing the sinus headache from hell. (It was a pain in the neck for others as well; I found out Tuesday that my supervisor had been out Monday because of sinus troubles.) I'm not sure how I managed the last six miles home, although I was incredibly lucky and made it home in 35 minutes. I walked the dog and then retreated to a nice soft pillow after ingesting nice solid ibuprofin tablets.

Thankfully House was calm compared to last week. An unremarkable Antiques Roadshow and a compilation Animal Cops.

Tuesday began with rain and thunder accompanied by dog barks in the wee hours of the morning, and a nice cold front coming through, but ended in surrender. The Ranitidine has been a dead loss as a sole remedy for the acid reflux. I had spent Tuesday and the last few days being utterly miserable with my esophagus burning almost constantly. I simply must have something to cut the excess acid. I took a Prilosec before Tuesday's dinner and went back to my usual dosage today, and I'm burping again but at least not in pain.

The doctor did say it might not work, but I'm bummed.

Today was frustrating. I did get some mods and some orders done, but couldn't complete one because the vendor's CCR registration (required for award) had lapsed and a quote had expired on another. On a positive note, I got all my payment authorizations finished, but only after thoroughly confusing numbers in the followup e-mails. Gah. I hate numbers.

We had the grass cut today for the first time since last fall. I ended up calling the lawn service from last year. We had considered hiring someone else, but they had given up doing lawn service. We had also considered looking into hiring the company that does the complex landscaping as well as cutting the lawns of some of the neighbors, but I couldn't catch up with the guy this morning when he came to cut the lawns. Instead I spoke to the guy who did the existing service about the problem we had last year: the riding mower.

Look, I loathe cutting lawns. On my list of things I'd rather do than cut the lawn, I'd rather have menstrual cramps or do algebra. It doesn't help that I'm allergic to everything out there. So I can't blame anyone for buying a riding mower. The trouble is that dip that is in the lawn between our house and the one next door; it holds water every time it rains and when you drive a riding mower through it, the wheels tear into the wet ground and leave mud.

So I asked if he would use the regular mower, just on that spot, and it looks as if he did. It's still muddy, especially since in the back we left the pile of leaves where it was and now it's a patch of dirt where the mower skidded last year. TruGreen will probably want to reseed it and I'll let them.

Labels: health, television, work, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:05:00 PM

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I think I've explained the back yard before. You enter and there is a high part on which the deck is situated. It is as wide as the deck (10 feet). It then dips at least a foot into a grass sward. I'm terrible at judging distances...maybe this is about ten feet wide? And then there is a stand of trees...again the distance thing...ten yards maybe? Fifteen? Bother.

We have a variety of trees out there: big old pines, a couple of maples, I think a sweet gum, a few others I can't recognize (I need a tree book and should hunt up a Golden Guide; the encyclopedia has some tree identification pictures, but not all that is in our yard). Each summer they cast their seeds and we have saplings growing up between the trees everywhere, mostly maples.

Well, I love the trees, but I don't want the ground to be crowded out by too much brush. So yearly I take the lopper back there and cut down the saplings, except for a couple that I want to keep. I daresay it would be easier to wait till the leaves fall, but then it is harder to tell which of the half-dozen saplings I want to keep and which are to go. After the leaves fall they are all just sticks.

So yesterday and Monday I went out to the yard with the lopper when I walked Willow after getting home from work and crunched from sapling to sapling, cutting them down.

Monday I did this straight from coming in, which was a bad idea. I hadn't eaten since eleven except for a banana and a low-sugar granola bar, and by the time I got in I was lightheaded. (I'd been in the bathroom half the day, which didn't help; I was probably dehydrated, too, despite all the water I drink at work, because the building is hot and dry; despite the cold outside, it was a constant 75°F in my cubicle both days.) I didn't really feel better until after James had cooked supper and we had eaten.

But the last thing I wanted to do was come home and gobble down something fattening, so yesterday before I went out, I peeled one of the yummy Granny Smiths from Ellijay and had that with a heaping teaspoon of peanut butter. (That worked better. My hands still shook when I came inside—this is normal; they've done it since I hurt my elbows back in January of 1999—but it wasn't as bad and I didn't have that awful woozy feeling.)

If I hadn't mentioned it before, Schuyler is comfortable with us in all but being finger tame. She didn't turn a hair on the way to the vet in April, or on the trip to Owensboro. Lots of nights I will push my TV tray over the sofa and put her cage on it, and she will happily watch television with us. She is fascinated by gadgets, and leaps to the bars of the cage whenever she sees my cell phone.

But she will not sit on our fingers and dislikes the hand in her cage. She's not badly frightened, it seems—if she was she would flap—but she actively avoids it...jumps, sidles, or climbs away. If I leave the hand in there long enough, she will circle around it and peck bravely at my arm as if to say "Leave now! Please!"

This wariness extends to food. She knows what food is. When I sit here teleworking and I am having breakfast, she leaps against the bars craning her little neck and staring at my meal. I have offered her oatmeal, which she bites at, but withdraws.

However, I have been giving her things she can eat for quite a long time: apple pieces, bits of Mandarin oranges, grapes, big bits of Special K, etc. She will accept them if I put them in the millet clip, but would never take them from my hand, even if it was a long piece of fruit and my fingers were two inches away from her, separated by the cage bars.

But yesterday I was standing eating the apple next to her cage and she was begging so desperately that I broke off a small slice and offered it to her. To my surprise she started nibbling on it. I know she loves apple, so I broke the bit into a smaller bit, then put my hand in the cage near her back perch where she retreats, and just held it still there.

It flummoxed her. She wanted that bit of apple so much. She paced back and forth to one side of it, then the other, climbed behind it, pecked at her swing vexedly. In the meantime I continued eating the rest of the apple while coaxing her gently. She came to the bars, begging for the parts I was eating. I just talked softly.

And finally she just went back there, sat on the perch, and nibbled on the apple piece in my hand. She would occasionally step back, then come forward, take another bite; most of the time she stayed put. I let her eat until she looked like she was getting bored with it, then withdrew the piece, not putting it in the millet clip.

I'm not sure if I should consider this a breakthrough or not, but it was certainly heartening.

Labels: birds, pets, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:18:00 AM

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...into the rain barrel. Well, when it does rain. The gentleman who installed the rain barrel says it is sure to rain Saturday since his granddaughter has planned an outdoor wedding and reception in her parents' backyard. :-)

This is a 53 gallon barrel with a cover which is fitted directly to one of the downspouts at the rear of the house. It actually solves two problems, as since the fence was put in, any rain coming through that downspout has been splashing off the fence and eroding the soil around the post. Now the overflow will go into the barrel instead.

I think it's going to take a while to get to the point where we can get water out of it; judging by the position of the bottom spigot we'll need at least 10 gallons. So no maple tree for a little while longer.

One "good" thing about the drought last year is that the yard was fairly clear of biting insects. This year with the occasional rain we have received there are mosquitoes dashing about everywhere. I don't seem to have been bitten, but boy am I itchy from having been outside. While he was installing the barrel I cleared the Independence Day decorations from the front porch, put up the summer banner, and swept the empty half of the garage. An early lunch hour indeed.

Labels: chores, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:56:00 AM

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The "in" day was yesterday, since I had to work; it wasn't as frustrating as the other day I complained about, but several things were left unfinished and how I do hate that! I also don't like being manipulated, which is basically what was happening.

After being out there moving in past midnight (meaning, of course, Willow kept giving a litany of short barks even though they were not noisy), our new neighbors were there with another load today. Wil and I took our lunchtime walk and the lady of the house waved and said hi and commented on Willow's whiskery face. As they were trotting things into the house, our lawn guy arrived. Well, the landlord hadn't been keeping up the yard of the house next door very well, so by the time the afternoon was over, Paolo had himself a new customer (actually two, since the folks two houses over also got in on the deal). And I was doubly glad I'd insisted on the fence with the wide gate, since they have a riding mower now.

After I was done with work I watched Bush Christmas, which I recorded last Christmas Eve and never got around to watching. This is the 1940s version, a charming classic tale of four resourceful Australian children and a British evacuee who go hunting horse thieves before the holiday.

James got in late and we went to Oriental Cafe for supper. I got the sesame chicken, which comes with the most meat, so now I have two small meals of sesame chicken and white rice for next week. We also stopped at Borders and I bought the first Guido Bernetti mystery since Dani has spoken so highly of them.

After the ten o'clock news was over we watched Jeopardy recorded on the DVR, and when we shut that off, Jay Leno was just finishing "Jaywalking" and announced the next guest would be Hugh Laurie! Woot! Lucky me!

(Can you record stuff off the DVR?)

This morning James' alarm clock went off at 8:45 since he had to go in to work and I realized with amazement that I'd actually managed to sleep 7 3/4 hours. I haven't done that in weeks! Amazing how much brighter the world seems when you've had enough sleep. I grabbed a SlimFast Meal Bar and had some milk and was off in a long, narrow ellipse of a route, out to East Cobb. Stopped at Trader Joe's for various staples and also bought some microwavable brown rice, plus a demi baguette and some salami slices that had "lunch" written all over them. However, I didn't get to my lunch until way later.

After a brief stop at Fuzziwigs, I went to the East Cobb Borders. Bought a WWI-set book that's been eyeing me for a while :-), and also a book I thought my mother-in-law would enjoy, and another: a social history of teenagers pre-1950 from the bargain rack.

Then I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond. We are putting together a graduation gift for Neil Butler, who leaves high school behind this year and is off to the wilds :-) of Savannah in the fall for college. We have already bought him something goofy and something he will like, and for the rest I wanted to get him things to use in the dorm. BB&B had a great sale on something he will need, plus I was able to use a $10 off $30+ purchase coupon, so I was able to get something nicer than I had originally planned. I also used a Michael's coupon to get him something else useful and picked up a little thing in Office Depot when I stopped to get a new toner cartridge for my laser printer. (We print so little that the "starter" cartridge has lasted at least three years.)

I had to stop back at Trader Joe's when I realized I had forgotten to pick up my favorite friseé and baby greens, and then stopped briefly at Hallmark for a graduation card and a mother's day trinket.

I came home through "the back" (Lower Roswell to Terrell Mill to Powers Ferry), which is shorter with less traffic and that's when I hit Michael's and Office Depot.

My last stop was at Dollar General, where I didn't find what I wanted, but did get three mystery books for a dollar each, and Food Depot for sugarless ice cream bars.

Got home well ahead of the thunderstorm which is now making Willow woof and beating a tattoo on the chimney guard, and after that nice salami and baguette sandwich, am going to watch Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.

Labels: books, friends, movies, shopping, television, weather, work, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:00:00 PM

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Not-so-exciting details here and here in Autumn Hollow.

Labels: yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:35:00 PM

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The main fence story is going into Autumn Hollow, but they are here (arrived about ten) and working busily while Willow woofs in the background (at least she isn't barking any more).

I'm glad they were able to come back so quickly. Friday night it was warm, so we had all the windows open as well as the door to the deck. Suddenly Willow set up this almighty racket and when I turned the light on in the back to see what was bothering her (I thought the squirrel had gone nuts and was on the deck in the dark), there was a guy in our backyard! He said he was looking for his dog. As I have seen a dog of the description he gave occasionally loose in the neighborhood, I was mostly inclined to believe him, but you never know. We learned at the association meeting that Kristy's house wasn't the only one that has been broken into in the past year, and it's mostly from kids cutting through the back yards (they pinpointed a couple of them as coming from the townhouses across the street).

Labels: house, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:08:00 AM

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It was raining here at lunch so I went to check the radar to see if it was raining at home (nope; 24 miles away and dry as a bone). The Weather Channel has new radar and old radar; the new radar superimposes the clouds over a scalable map that includes satellite photos. I noticed that whomever WC uses for their map still does not have our street on it, and neither does Yahoo Maps, but Google now does. We are on the map, interestingly enough, but not on the closeup satellite photo; two satellite photos are used. The one from a distance is the complex under construction; you can still see the dirt pile that was our house. But the two most close up photos still have the woods and the old junkyard there.

(It's amazing what we dig out of our backyard. As the soil wears down or when it rains, we find old cloths, metal pipe, PVC pipe, glass, what looks like part of the water pump from an old washing machine, etc.)

Labels: yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:52:00 PM

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Scott (the exterminator) has just come again. He seemed a bit ticked that the other tech had not read our invoice carefully, the one that indicates we are using "green" service. He dusted and sprayed the kitchen again, then regranulated the yard. He had warned me that because it rained the day he treated the first time, the treatment might not take. Since there's apparently no sign of any possible rain till Friday, this may work better.

He told me he found a big anthill on the right side of the house (as you face it) and they were climbing up the wall of the house. Aieee! We usually don't go that way into the back yard, so we never saw it.

I asked him if he had something to repel squirrels and he laughed. Apparently they've been getting into his bird feeder, too. He finally told his wife he was tired of feeding them. "Tell 'em to get a job." LOL.

I've also signed us up with a lawn service to keep it looking nice. They will kill the weeds, seed if needed, lime, and aerate.

We need to get new pine straw for the strip around the house and the two beds out front. Wondering if cedar chips would be better. Doesn't cedar repel insects?

Labels: insects, yard

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:21:00 PM

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