WWQP Bulletin Board Chat

HI

Mayme, it looks as though you are recovering very well. Those "other repairs" must have been significant if you can't mount stairs for that length of time.

Sara, it sounds like you have just had the anniversary from hell. I once bought a house as a "tax shelter". HA! That's the last time I listened to that accountant. Interest rates were so high that we were paying 13%. On top of that, at least once a month I had to send the pay up within ten days or else .... to get the rent so I could service that debt. When they called and said that their beloved German Shepherd that they'd left with a relative had lost her home and could they take her in how could I say no despite the lease provision about no pets. What they failed to tell me was that the poor old dog was incontinent. When they moved out the carpet had to be replaced and it probably still stinks in that house and that was almost 30 years ago. Needless to say, I sold it to the first person who came down the road. I'll never be a land lady again.

It's taken a week to recover from the kid visit. When I kept lying around sleeping on the sofa and not regaining my usual low level of vigor I stopped to think about the fact that the normal level of pain in my maxillary sinuses was intensifying. Yep, I'm now on anti biotic for that and have and appointment with the ENT 5/1. My doc says the continuing irritation from allergies will cause the polyps that were reamed out in '03 to reappear. The last allergy skin test I had showed no reaction to anything but Johnson grass, whatever that is. Back then the ENT told me that there are thousands of proteins out there in the environment that can irritate but they know how to treat only about 70 of them so those are the ones they test for. Makes sense. Just my luck to have the one or ones that aren't directly treatable. I already do Clariten, Flonase, irrigation and time release Mucinex. Oh well, I'm darned glad it isn't cancer, Parkinson's, heart disease, Alzheimer's (at least I don't think I have that!) or a myriad of far worse conditions.

BGF and I are commemorating our mutual 70th birthdays (we met in kindergarten in '42) by a trip to Callaway Gardens. She's the gardening nut who on her umpteenth trip to the Biltmore Estate gardens in Asheville, took her notebook and carefully studied what was planted in proximity to which even when they weren't in bloom and she was relying on the little signs. I finally burned out there. She's flying in from Newark on 5/19 and the next day, her birthday, we will take off from here in my trusty aging SUV to Callaway which is south east of Atlanta. We will stay at one of the garden hotel facilities and wander around for 3.5 days. I am especially interested in their butterfly display. The room turned out to be a bargain as the rate includes a full buffet breakfast, fitness center, and admission to the gardens each day. All that for $64 a day for each of us. I'm really getting psyched and hope I'm feeling up to snuff by then. Due to our mutual advanced age and slowing pace we decided on the long stay so we can maintain an easy pace and have the time to see everything. We have agreed that some dim distand day we'll take one of those river cruises down the Danube but that's probably out of reach financially for both of us. Drat.

Well, we are finally returning to spring but not without damage. My holly bushes were previously covered with flowers that have been completely destroyed. So much for anticipating all those beautiful bright red berries for next Christmas. I doubt if the local strawberry crop will see the light of day and I wonder about the SC peaches.

Time to get my act together and hike up the hill with She Who Must be Obeyed. She got her summer haircut yesterday so now I will be able to spot the ticks before they've had their fill as had the two I removed earlier this week. Her monthly heart worm pill has solved the flea problem as well as intestinal worms but I have to get the topical stuff to repel the ticks. At the quilt frame yesterday I was given some country wisdom about ticks. Apparently guinea hens (what do you call a male guinea, a guinea rooster?) consider them to be a delicacy. Someone else said I don't need to get exotic, that chickens have a taste for them as well. That's what I need; a yard full of tick eating delicacies for Shadow to kill!

Jane in NC

posted by Jane in NC @ 8:27 AM