Ah, the Mysteries of the Electronic Age

Here I am again!

What, you didn't miss me?  Five entire days without an internet connection? And all because of a lightning storm that crashed one TV, one router box, one pool pump, and, as it turned out, one ethernet card on my desktop computer.  So I am connecting now with my Macbook and I can't see the keys because I am typing in the dark.  Why am I in the dark? Because in the light, the glass door attracts bugs outside while the cat BC makes like a pogo stick, jumping straight up and then falling down Kerthunk! over and over again, trying to catch the bugs on the other side of the glass.

You know what?  I'm going back to sleep.

Later:

We are puppy sitting again today, fortunately they will be in the garage in crates, because the owners have a family emergency to go to.  We will probably let them in the kitchen later when we are all awake and breakfasted.  God they are noisy!  I can hear them upstairs and on the other side of the house.  Meanwhile Raven (the black Newf) is off to the vet for her checkup after all her problems.  She even had to wear an e-collar for  couple of weeks so she wouldn't lick or chew on the sores, which are finally all healed up.  Her appetite is back and she is playing with the other Newf.  Hopefully this visit will be cheap, maybe even free?  Not likely.

It is pouring outside, even though the weather said it would be overcast but no rain.  I heard thunder around 1 a.m. and got up to listen, and check the weather channel radar and I thought maybe I had imagined it.  But no, when I woke up this morning it was pouring all over my new summer furniture cushions.  I won't make that mistake again.  It is just that the cushions are hard to wrangle back into their storage box.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "The cops never think it's as funny as you do."

Monsoon, anyone?

It wasn't even supposed to rain today, but at 1 pm the sky opened up and along with lightning and thunder made us think about a boat.  There is a river in the back by the barn, going away from the barn which is good.

Our neighbors across from us asked us to keep an eye on their beagle pups (Max and Ruby) while the family went to an amusement park in Ohio.  They were fine in the morning, but with the storm, they were shivering, howling and shaking as the water slopped through the pen and on into the dog house.  We brought them inside here and put them in the kitchen with gates from our own puppy days on either side.  They were pretty scared, (they are only 7 weeks old) but now that they are dry and the worst of the storm is gone, they are sacked out on the towels we put down.  Dog towels, I hasten to add; that is the life cycle of towels in the household, first people towels, then when they get tatty they become dog towels and when they are really shredded they go to the barn as horse towels where they never return.  I'll take a photo (success) if I can do it without waking them up.  They are very noisy, and they are noisy any time they are awake, it seems.

I have been preoccupied the last week or so.  Both my primary care physician and my surgeon retired as of July1st.  I got in to see the regular doctor before he left to get all my scripts refilled; and I switched my appointments with the surgeon to another doctor in the same practice group.  Now as long as my oncologist, dermatologist, dentist, and psychiatrist keep working I should be OK again.

In addition to changing doctors, I have had to switch my meds around.  I had been taking Aleve every day, first thing in the morning, because it helped my bum knee a lot.  But  it is not without side effects, and so I am taking another NSAID which is not as effective.  Drat.

I somehow got into some poison ivy a few days ago.  I think it was from handling DH's grubby work jeans that he wore while mowing, since I have radar senses when it comes to the poison ivy plant itself.  It grows everywhere here, vines climbing a few of the black locust trees on the edge of our property; the vines have aerial roots that keep the vine alive even if it is cut off at the base.  Some of those vines are as big around as a man's forearm.  The only way to clear it now is to cut down the trees and haul them away.  Couldn't run the risk of burning the trees because inhaling the smoke from an ivy fire could give you a nasty anaphylaxis reaction.  Not good.

We were going to go out to dinner tonight, but I feel very tired for some reason, and with the puppies here until the owners get home, it is better to wait for some other night.  My knitting project was nearly done when I dropped 12 stitches on the end and they ran into "ladders".  Now the entire thing is unraveled and I will have to try again.   It is just as well; when I was unraveling, I found several other mistakes, where I dropped single stitches when binding off.  I'm going to knit a little looser this time.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "I'm not a psychiatrist; I'm just an expert at being confused."

Happy Fourth of July!

Bumper sticker for the day :  "Support a cause:  stop plate tectonics"

Wordless Wednesday

Well, wordless except for the bumper sticker of the day:  "The good thing about small cars is that you can fit twice as many into a traffic jam."

Planted out

This is one end of the dining room showing the plants at the windows where the bird feeders can be seen outside.  As you might guess, getting into this china cabinet is not very easy.  Right in the center, on the top shelf of the black stand, is a pot with two cacti, they look like cucumbers with an attitude.  They take the prize for continuous growth; some of the others are from my mom, who passed in 1999, but they have been re-started and re-re-started from cuttings as the original plants get too leggy or too straggly and the original  plant gets pitched once the cuttings are growing.

Bumper sticker for the day, "Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation."