Our puppy went to the groomer today. The groomer said he did splendidly, and was easy to work with. She did a really good job with him, and studied the photos and literature I gave her on Cesky terriers. She did a really good job on his beard today. His fur is turning more and more platinum. He started out as completely black as a newborn.
He has been so happy and relaxed since we got him home. I guess he liked all the attention and cossetting and brushing. It was a spa day for him. I have never been to a spa. I have never had a massage or a pedicure or manicure. I don’t know how I would react having someone so close and personal.
Kyrill told me that he was so handsome now that I should sign him up on a dating site so he could get a girlfriend. I told him that wasn’t going to happen. He gets neutered next week.
Have you ever been to a spa?What do you think it would be like to go to one of those spas in Baden-Baden, Germany? How would you describe yourself on a dating site?
Twice a year I take all my bedding off my bed – quilt, pillows, shams, allergy covers, dust ruffle – give it a thorough hot water wash and a long hot dry before putting it all back together again. This is part of my allergy abatement policy. I struggled for years before my adult-onset allergies were diagnosed and even 25 years later, I remember how miserable I was. So I take my allergy precautions pretty seriously.
The sheets get changed every Saturday in addition to my twice-a-year routine and as I was choosing which sheets tro use, I decided it was a good time to organize the linen cabinet. I discovered that all of YA’s sheets (yes, we have separate sheets; I like patterns, she likes solids) were all messed up with bottom sheets on different shelves than the matching top sheets.
When I asked her about it, I got the rolled eyes and a comment that she has only used bottom sheets for years and why was I just noticing it now. Then I asked about WHY no top sheet and she said that it’s a waste to get two sheets dirty instead of one and recommended I look it up. Apparently it’s a trend; you can even purchase just a bottom fitted sheet instead of an entire set.
If you don’t want to get a top sheet dirty, then aren’t you worried about getting your blanket, duvet, quilt dirty? Seems way easier to me to wash a top sheet than a duvet cover or quilt. Just one more thing about which I am clearly behind the times.
To add insult to injury, I like to put the top sheet pattern down so that when I get into the bed, I have pattern on all sides. Based on what I see online, I’m in the majority on this (it is apparently controversial), although I was dismayed in my online search to see Bedding 101 by Martha Stewart in which she walks the reader through how to make a bed. Seriously?
So what about you? One sheet or two? Pattern side up or down? Need help from Martha making your bed?
Husband had a dental filling on Monday. He came home, mouth and lips still numb from the anesthetic, and ate a slice of bread and laid down to take a nap.
I came home at 5:00 pm, and was shocked to see Husband’s lower lip. I exclaimed “You look like you were in a fight! What happened?” His lip was terribly swollen. He didn’t know what I was talking about at first, as his face was still numb from the dentist. Closer inspection revealed a gash on the inside of his lip, suggesting that he had bit his lip while eating the slice of his homemade sourdough loaf, and didn’t feel it because of the anesthesia. We iced it, and by yesterday it was much reduced although still red and sore looking.
One of my coworkers told the story of her husband the day before their wedding deciding to eliminate a hornets’ nest and getting stung on the eyelid, causing his eye to swell shut and turn all sorts of lurid colors.
Got any fat lip or black eye stories? Ever given anyone a black eye or a fat lip?
Yesterday the Fargo Forum reported that bar patrons in Maddock, ND, who were in the Maddock Bar the night of September 6 needed to be aware that they may have been exposed to rabies. It seems a rather intoxicated woman came into the bar holding a racoon she had rescued days earlier from the side of the road. She was asked to leave the bar, but not before she walked all around the bar showing people her racoon. The racoon was reportedly injured when she found it, and she had nursed it back to health and was keeping it as a pet. It is illegal to keep racoons or skunks as pets here due to the threat of rabies. They are still looking for the woman and her racoon. The bar employees say they are going to dress up as racoons for Halloween,
When I was about 6 years old, I tried lifting a friend’s rather fat beagle into my father’s fishing boat that was stored along side the garage. The beagle was not amused, and bit me on my face. It was just a nip, but my mother was panicked about it. The beagle’s owners refused to lock the dog up the required number of days to see if it was rabid, so I had to have a series of rabies shots. I got the shots under my shoulder blades. It was painful. I wouldn’t want to go through that again. The beagle wasn’t rabid, by the way, and he and I remained friends.
Know any good bar jokes? What animals would you like to see in bars? What are your experiences with rabies or rabies shots?
My dad was a big baby about getting sick. Luckily he didn’t get sick often – mostly when my mom would just be recovering from something. Right about the time she was feeling a bit better, he would come down with whatever bug had afflicted her. My sister and I had always joked about it but then it got really funny the summer before my junior year when he caught my mom’s “persistent stomach flu” and it turned out she was actually pregnant.
That old trope about women marrying men like their fathers hit a little too close to home with my second was-band. He was pathetic and unbelievably whiny when he was ill – to the point that I was usually out of patience within the first 24 hours. Me!
With these shining examples, I’ve pretty much always kept my sicknesses to myself. Since my doctors figured out my adult-onset allergies, I’ve actually been quite healthy for the last 20 years, including managing to get through pandemic so far without contracting any of the variants. Then last week I came down with a cold (yep, just a cold; I’ve tested twice). It’s the first time I’ve had a cold in at least 10 years.
Being retired, I didn’t need to call in sick so except for an occasional “stuck with a summer cold” text, I was pretty much just laying low. As the weekend approached, I realized I might have a couple of conflicts that didn’t jive well with having a bad cold. First was my other book club that was scheduled at my house on Saturday morning. One of the members is a little fragile; didn’t want to her to catch the cold and honestly I wasn’t up to cooking and getting the place picked up. On Friday morning I contacted everybody and re-scheduled. Was still hoping to attend Steve’s celebration in person – tripled masked and standing in the back of the room. Saturday morning I was still too symptomatic so switched to the virtual celebration.
It made me feel a little silly, bowing out of commitments I had made, just because of a cold, and I worried a bit that I was blowing my cold out of proportion, acting like my dad or my was-band. But if pandemic has done anything good, it’s made me realize that I really shouldn’t drag my contagious germs around and expose innocent folks, even if it’s “just a cold”. And I did put on a dressy shirt and earrings for the virtual!
Guess I have a couple more days of laying low and looking up silly sick memes.
How do you take care of yourself when you’re sick?
Our puppy is an avid chewer, and we get him faux rawhide treats to satisfy his cravings. Rawhide is hard to digest, and the fake stuff is described in one site as made from “Human grade food ingredients that are nutritious, highly digestible and completely healthy for your dog”.
As I perused a new bag of chews, I noticed in rather large letters these words: Not for human consumption. These were flat and thin chews about 4 X 6 inches in size. There is certainly nothing about them that made me want to start chewing on them. Are there people who would actually think it was ok to chew on these things? Are people that ignorant? Have parents given them to their teething infants? What would make a company put something like that on their products? I just don’t know what to think!
What are some perplexing and unnecessary warnings you have seen on products? What foods do you think are not for human consumption?
I have lumbar scoliosis, along with years of cruddy posture. I even slump when I drive. I had physical therapy several years ago, which really helped my lower back pain. Like many, I stopped doing my exercises after the pain went away.
A few months ago I started to have chronic sciatica in both legs, and got a referral for more physical therapy. My new therapist assessed the situation and told me that she was surprised I could even walk, since all the muscles in my lower back and hips that ought to hold me upright weren’t doing their job, and the hip flexor muscles in the front of my body were doing it instead. Sitting at a desk all day in a bad chair only made things worse. (The ergo guy at work ordered a really good office chair with great lumbar support for me last month, so that problem is solved.)
I am currently in a lot of pain all over my back and legs since, as my physical therapist told, all my muscles are mad at me as we are doing exercises to get the back muscles to do their job and the front muscles to do their job. I am also being very mindful of my posture, even when I drive, and that has also stirred up some muscle pushback. All of this has reminded me of the Pushmepullyou from Dr. Doolittle.
My mother constantly harrased me about my posture. Ok mom, you were right! I should have listened! I don’t remember ever liking the Dr. Doolittle books much. I found the writing kind of stuffy, but the plot was fun. I appreciate the tug of war concept with the Pushmepullyou. My hips can relate.
What animals would you like to talk to? Ever had physical therapy? What did you parents tell you that you should have listened to but didn’t.
I was quite amused yesterday on my way to work to see our insurance agent presumably driving to his office. He was riding a motorcycle. HE WASN’T WEARING A HELMET!
It seems to me that being an insurance agent means you exemplify caution and careful living. I remember the conversation we had together with our son when he got his driver’s license, and our agent told him to never hesitate to phone him any time, night or day, if he had been drinking and needed a ride home. Well, I wonder what he says to young motorcycle drivers he insures about helmets?
Our agent goes to our church and has a lovely tenor voice and sings with us in the choir. I can hardly wait to tease him about this.
What do you like to tease people about? What irony have you noticed this week? Any stories about insurance agents or companies?
Two weeks plus post-surgery and putting socks on is still kind of a process. Picking black raspberries was harder than I expected, too. But I’m getting there.
Last Monday the two corners of CRP got planted to a ‘pheasant habitat’ blend of wildflowers and grasses. And we got three loads of crushed rock delivered for the farmyard. One dumped in a pile for use as needed and the other two spread on the road.
We have a brush pile of sticks collected from the yard since December, and we’ve been meaning to burn it all spring. Several times Kelly has said “This would be a good night to burn the brush pile” and then we fall asleep on the couch.
But the other night we were out there ready to do it! Aaaand there’s a duck nesting under it. Sigh.
A few years ago, we started a pile of sticks on fire and there was a good blaze going before a chicken came running out from under it. So, we look before we light it now. The duck only has three eggs… not sure they’re even fertilized. But the fire is still on hold.
I’m delivering straw this weekend with my friend Paul, and we’re going out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a Winona Address…and it’s a great drive on lonely gravel roads and hills and valleys and S-turns and I have a printed map because there is no cell phone reception down in there. I love going there.
Crops are looking good. Two weeks ago, I had a photo of Kelly on July 4 and the corn was up to her waist. In 10 days, it’s doubled in height.
Soybeans are up to her knees.
I’ve talked about 15” rows vs. 30” rows and how we like the crops to canopy to help prevent weeds growing. Compare these photos: first is the neighbors 30” rows and second is my 15” rows.
Growing degree units are 1384, 94 above normal for my area. The hot weather coming helps, but the plant actually shuts down above 86 degrees, so we don’t actually gain GDU’s after that.
See this corn plant growing in the middle of the soybeans.
That’s called ‘volunteer corn’ and it can be a problem in soybeans. Because we use crop rotation, usually a bean field this year was corn last year. If a storm or disease knocked down the stalk of corn, depending how much it’s fallen over, it can make picking it up at harvest that much harder. A lot of ears may fall to the ground and grow voluntarily in the field next year. Hence the term, volunteer corn. It doesn’t generally reach maturity with full ears, but depending on the amount, it’s competing with the soybean crop and it can be a problem at harvest.
Kelly let the little chicks out to run at large. Padawan and I took down the fence and they’re enjoying all the room. Of course, a new pecking order will need to be established eventually between the old hens and the new ones.
A friend of mine in town had given me some chickens a few years ago and was ready for more, so I took two of the laying hens and one of the younger chicks to her. At her place, the two laying hens went to her outdoor run and settled right in. The younger one made a break for it. Out the coop door, through the garden (The entire backyard is garden) into her garage, out the big door, across the street, and under the neighbor’s car. Two adults and my young Padawan in pursuit. Padawan really does not have much interest in the chickens, so the last thing he wanted to do was chase this one up the street. Eventually, the young chick reversed its course: back into the garage, back into the garden, in and around all the plants, and eventually, got stuck in a narrow spot between a retaining wall and a fence. Was captured, and returned to its new home. I really wanted a photo of all this, but I had left my phone in the truck. Use your imagination. Remember, the backyard is all garden so they’re dodging all that too. It was as funny as you imagine.
USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND GO OFF THE BEATEN TRACK. SAY WHAT YOU WANT HERE.
While I was gone in Minnesota earlier this month, my colleagues on the Youth and Family Team decided I needed a new lanyard for the electronic card that opens some of our office doors. They got me the one you see in the header photo.
It looks quite nice, and is quite comfortable to wear, but there is a slight problem with it. It poses a safety issue. The beads on the lanyard are set on a strong, thin wire, and there is no catch on it that will release if the lanyard is pulled hard enough. That means someone could strangle me with it. Being strangled is something one needs to prepare for when working in a mental health facility. All the lanyards issued by our administration have safety release catches on them just for that reason.
I am not worried my colleagues have it in for me, but I thought they would have been more safety aware. We have safety in-services quite regularly. I suppose this is one of those situations I could write about to an advice. columnist “Are my coworkers trying kill me?”
Have you ever written to an advice columnist? Which ones do you like to read? Have you ever felt someone had it in for you?
Trail Baboon 