Poison Ivy

Now I know why I hate yard work! It seems I have some little plants out there that are not very user-friendly. "Leaves of three, let them be..." I have poison ivy and it itches even worse than I remember from the last time it got me. It wasn't too bad the first day or two, then it got me with a vengeance!

While I was trying to rest from walking 8 miles yesterday and 7 today, I was asked to dogsit for the sweet little lemon beagle, Biskit, who was here in the spring. Her family is moving to Ohio and she was not dealing well with the moving people, so she is spending the night with me. My howlers are happy, since I did all that walking without them and now I won't have to feel guilty for not taking them today.

Tomorrow I start teaching a new class, Introduction to the Internet. Picture a room of seniors who do not know how to use the computer. Picture teaching them to use e-mail, web sites, and how to keep off unwanted porn sites. Keep in mind, they probably can't type and don't know an ISP from a URL. Start by explaining why diskettes are called "floppies" and encourage them to show the computer no fear. It will be fun!

New Rules

I wish to create some new world rules. I hope you will vote with me on these. I already had written this entry and then it just vanished before I could post it. Someone already does not agree with me!

 

Rule 1. Houses. You know how you do spring cleaning and everything is perfectly neat, clean and where it belongs? Once you do the cleaning, washing, organizing, and dragging furniture around, it should all stay that way. No new dirt, no messes.

 

Rule 2. Yards. Once you get out there and rip out those nasty, ugly weeds (including the poison ivy that found me in my yard), trim the bushes and trees, plant the pretty new flowers, spread out the ground cover, it should stay that way. New things are allowed to grow appropriately. Once it is all watered, it should stay fresh. Who wants to keep clearing out the same beds and trimming the same bushes? I am tired of dodging the wasps and bees. I am tired of having to rake and dig.

 

Rule 3. Hair. Once we decide on a new hairstyle, find a good stylist, and get it done, it should stay that way until we decide on a change. When we do want a change, we should be able to choose longer hair without having to wait for it to grow. No hairs should ever turn gray. My hair grows so fast I have a nice hair cut for about a week, then it has a new style all of its own.

 

Rule 4. Weight. Who hasn’t worked hard to get their weight back down and their muscles tight, only to have a backslide? No more of that. Get in shape, stay that way! It needs to be a rule, since if we aren’t going to do housework and yard work, well, it could be a problem.

 

Rule 5. Entries. Never again will I type out a whole entry to my journal and have it vanish into thin air without a wave or kiss goodbye. That is just not right. Getting all this code I have to delete out when I paste from Word is bad enough.

Strange Thought 2

While walking the dogs today, I had another strange thought.

Why do we say "take a dump?" Given a choice, I would leave it instead.

Bees, hornets, wasps

Hello, my name is Susan and I have an issue. I am deadly fearful of bees, wasps and hornets. I went many years without a sting and got stung last year by a territorial hornet. I wasn't even near any flowers, and he doesn't pay the property taxes, either. I was ripping some weeds out of the bushes when I felt something on my arm. It swelled up, turned very red, and had a nasty little green center in it for weeks. I had no breathing difficulties, so my main fear is, well, pain. Also, my reaction could escalate. My niece has been told she now gets 7 minutes before she has to use her epi-pen or she will die.

If anyone knows how to scare the buggers off so they won't attack me, my neighbors and I would appreciate it. I need to do some landscaping while I can still open the doors. I try to go early and late in the day when they should be sleeping, but still, I get edgy out there. I have to use sunscreen, and they probably like that stuff. I use no perfumes before I go out, and I don't take any sugary drinks outside or food, either.

Currently I start in one area, and when I see one, I move to another area. I am very polite and do not hesitate to respect their need to dominate my yard.

If one ever gets inside my clothing, you might as well get a camera. I will not hesitate to rip off everything and run.

No smoking

One of these days I need to get on the visual clues bandwagon and start putting up pictures. So far, I have only used a few of my silly hounds. Albert had one today of a yummy hunk in a Marlboro wifebeater. Albert will be doing a survey for an unmentioned tobacco company.

I hate to give away my age again here, but when I was growing up, we didn't know smoking was hazardous to our health. Our parent smoked, our friends' parents smoked, almost anyone old enough to get the funds for a pack smoked. It was a rite of passage. Grown ups smoked cigarettes. I don't know the stats, but I think about 80% of adults were smokers when I was a teenager. So, when I could get away with it, I did it too. My mom did not allow it, but told me she smoked to keep her weight down. She was skinny as a stick, and since she said being skinny was important, well, what was I supposed to think?

Of course my boyfriend smoked, too. I remember when we were first dating we would split packs. It seemed so romantic. By the time we married, we did not smoke the same brands. Brand loyalty seemed important, too.

While I was in college there was much broadcast about smoking being detrimental to one's health. Actually, it was reported to be detrimental to the health of anyone around the smoker, too. I began to worry about growing up in a household that rarely had any windows open, and had two very heavy smokers in it all the time. I developed a strong desire to quit before it was too late, but my (now ex) husband did not want to quit. It is not easy to quit smoking while living with a smoker who insists on smoking in front of you, and kissing you too. Ick.

This led to a long, long battle to completely quit. I would go several years without any cigarettes, then would start up again for some reason usually to do with stress. I did not even look at a cigarette when I was pregnant. I avoided as much contact with them as possible, although I was on bowling leagues. In fact, the night I had my daughter, 2 weeks past the due date, I bowled a 200 game, but that is a different story. I didn't want to smoke and have a child see me do it.

Eventually, I quit completely. It has been about 20 years since I even thought about doing it. My father developed emphysema and heart disease at about 65. He had planned to sell his businesses and retire, to travel. Instead, he sold it all and used much of the money for personal care until he died at age 69. My mother continued to smoke upstairs in a bedroom while my dad was dying in a hospital bed in the dining room. She had already lost sight in one eye due to a small stroke, probably caused from constricted blood vessels from smoking. 6 years after my dad died, my mom died, age 77, from lung cancer. Both were perfectly healthy other than illnesses caused from smoking.

My ex-husband had a heart attack well before he was 50. I think he still smokes, but I am not sure. He is a health professional and knows the dangers.

The saddest thing is my daughter is a social butterfly. Her friends started smoking, and she did too. She lied to me when I accused her based on the smell she came home with. She blamed it on the parents of her friends, and I tried to keep her from going to those houses. Eventually I caught her doing it, and did my best to explain to her that I was left an "orphan" probably 20 years sooner than I should have been, and that she should live long enough to know her own grandchildren. She grew up in an educational environment where she heard clearly and often that smoking kills.

What she did not understand is how she would become a drug addict. She does accept this label. She occasionally will use the patch, which I pay for. Sometimes she can go a few months without smoking. Yesterday I was leaving the local gym, and saw her coming in. She was putting a cigarette out on the way in. She could not get from the car to the building without one. That is only the second time I have ever seen her with a cigarette, and both times it broke my heart.

It's sad enough to see her run on the treadmill and then cough her guts up, saying, "Think what I could do if I didn't smoke!"

Strange Thought

I was walking the dogs earlier, and I had a strange thought. I get them now and then.

While I was walking the dogs, poor little Baby couldn't hold it any longer.  She stopped to do her business on the sidewalk in front of a little girl, about 3, who had just told me I have very cute little doggies.

I carry pretty little blue plastic bags, as I am a good neighbor. She tried so hard to hold it. I could tell. She was doing the "poop walk." I was (discreetly) laughing at the poor little hound because she could not hold her - her what? Stool, I decided.

I wanted to think, turd, but it really isn't a turd until it hits the ground, is it?

Television

I grew up in a house where the television was on every night, seven day a week, 51 weeks a year, from 7 PM to 11 PM. I was sent to bed very early, and was unable to sleep while it was still on. I still have trouble sleeping at night, even when the house is quiet.

 

When I married, my now-ex-husband watched television every night from the time he got home until he went to bed. He ate dinner in front of the television. He sometimes fell asleep in front of it, while I was in bed, trying to sleep, but unable due to the television noise.

 

I do not watch television. I mean it is in another room, on another floor in the house, and I do not turn it on at all. I was convinced to turn on CNN on 9/11, and it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it on. I do have cable, though. I had it for my daughter, and in case anyone ever came over who wanted to see it.

 

Then I started dating a man I thought was special. I told him that I don’t watch television. He said he didn’t either. I said I had heard that before. He admitted watching a few selected programs. I said that was fine, but I found it rather annoying for people to turn on the television for no reason at all but to hear the noise and to watch anything that came on. He assured me he didn’t do that. But well, he did watch a certain sports team when they were on television. That made sense too. Of course, this all ended up meaning that he only watched television when he was awake, and he actually paid extra for sports channels. If a game was broadcast some place, he watched it.

 

So we tried to find compromises. Of course, the compromise meant finding something on television I would watch, not having equal quiet time for me. I like movies, so we watched movies. I do not want to watch 3 minutes of 139 different movies per night. Eventually we decided to watch 6’ Under on HBO. I liked it. I actually love it. So when we broke up, I had to get HBO at my house. I now pay for HBO all year around to see the few episodes of 6’ Under that HBO puts out. I have never missed an episode and never will, if I can help it.

 

I changed cable companies in the spring, and I almost missed the beginning of 6’ Under for the season premier tonight. I had to rush through 300 channels because I had no idea which one was HBO. At least this time I knew how to turn the thing on. That show is incredible. It’s the only thing I have ever seen where when it is over, I am sad because I want it to keep going. So I still don’t watch television, but I do watch 6’ Under. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

 

Cookies

This is going to be unusually short for me. Well, I am short, but my journal entries never are. Today I am baking cookies.

My daughter's boyfriend's birthday is today. I bought him a much-too-practical gift, so I am supplementing with homemade cookies. He loves cookies.

So far, I have made peanut butter. I also plan to make oatmeal raisin, possibly coconut oatmeal, and also chocolate chip. If I have time, I will make more, since I want a variety and I can freeze some for later. I know someone will have ideas for other kinds of cookies for me to make!

Food

I have always been a picky eater. I don't eat cheese. I don't like the idea of eating something moldy. You can only imagine my feelings about yogurt - I am not eating something that is still alive.  I am not eating baby sheep or baby cows. Some dark green veggies taste like metals or something nasty. I think pigs are too cute. Cottage cheese looks like someone already tried to eat it once. When I eat out with my daughter, I order my meals with cheese on the side so she can have extra.

So I am not gastronomically very adventurous. I admit it. I can pick out 1/32" sized pieces of cheese out of a salad and not miss any. I can be starving and still refuse to eat a perfectly healthy meal that I know I would not like. There is a reason for this. I have learned to trust my taste. I recall once when married having dinner at an in-laws house on a holiday. I told my ex not to eat the meatballs, that they didn't taste right. He noted no one else was concerned, but he listened after trying one or two. He didn't taste anything wrong, but he trusted me. The following morning the uncle of the house called, telling us to get to the hospital if we had any symptoms, because several family members were violently ill from the meatballs. I can imagine, since I had a small reaction 24 hours after one bite. My ex suffered, but did not need hospitalization.

So if I take a bite of something and I don't like the taste, I don't eat it. I have learned, if I continue to eat something I don't like, I will pay. Violently. I have no idea why, but it is something I have just learned to accept. I refused to finish a Chinese meal a few years ago. I thought the chicken was "funny." I asked my lunch partner to try one little bite, he said it was fine, but I quit eating. I only missed two days of work from food poisoning. Once my temperature went below 100 degrees and I could stand, I went back to work. I would have gone to the hospital, but I didn't have anyone to take me. That was my only brush with real food poisoning, and I don't intend to do it again.

Nevertheless, every now and then I try to force myself to try new foods. I can now eat raw spinach. I like it. Cooked spinach looks suspect to me. It looks downright icky. I decided to try it anyway, since it is a healthy food. So I followed a recipe using fresh spinach and pasta. I added some mushrooms, hoping to kill the taste if I didn't like it. I didn't like it much, but it wasn't suspect. I had made more than I could eat, so the dogs got the leftovers.

My dogs will eat almost anything. Molly loves lipstick and will eat a candle if her dinner is late. But it turns out she doesn't like cooked spinach either. Baby wolfed her share down in one bite as usual, then hovered over Molly to get anything left behind. Molly was picking at hers, like a lady, trying to get the pasta and leave the spinach behind.

I could relate. I found myself sitting on the floor, picking pasta out of cooked spinach and feeding it to Molly, piece by piece.

Lessons

Throughout my life I have learned many lesson. All were learned the hard way. My daughter taught me many, many more. Whoever knew that it was necessary to tell a child not to use hairspray on the dog? I am including a few examples. Maybe you can relate to some.

• Don’t eat a large bowl of cherries before getting a massage.
• Don’t let your dogs learn the word “eat.”
• Don’t skip washing your hair when you expect to be home alone all day. You can count on company.
• Don’t try to explain a black eye. I had one caused by a boating accident. When asked, I learned to look down, look embarrassed, and say, “I don’t remember.” No one asked any more questions after that.
• If you want someone to talk to, put a band-aid on your forehead.
• Don’t assume you are still not allergic to poison ivy.
• Don’t assign a child to do the kitty litter. The cat will never forgive you.
• Don’t do a special favor for a man unless you want to continue to do it every day. (Not always true – but beware!)
• Don’t tell your child that something is a secret and not to tell anyone. This means either you did something wrong, or the world will soon know you did something stupid.
• If you think you left the iron/stove/whatever running, you probably didn’t, but you have to go check anyway.
• Don’t think you don’t need a spare key.
• Don’t think the pain in your shins is a sore muscle that needs to be worked harder.
• Watch what your child packs when on vacation. A child can sneak some interesting seedpods from Mexico into the luggage, and your luggage might get searched.
• Don’t cough hard and break blood vessels in your eye before having to give a speech in a class. Vampires look better.
• When an ophthalmologist does minor eye surgery, then puts on a patch, telling you to leave it on for 3 hours, she has a reason. She knows you are going on a cruise the next day, and she wants to get out of town before you see that you have (yet another) black eye.
• Don’t ignore spots that look like mosquito bites that don’t go away. I thought that cancer would be darker, like a mole.

I know I have done many other stupid things, but this is all I can remember right now. Probably I just don’t want to remember the really bad ones!

It's a hairy subject

My poor old cat, now age 16, was regularly waking me up in the middle of the night with pitiful moans. She would get continuously louder until I would answer her. Then, satisfied, she would quiet back down. I would assume her litter needed tending. Now, I am thinking she was asking me to groom her.

No one told me that old cats cannot groom themselves well. I have had cats, sometimes up to 3, for about 30 years, but none have been fortunate enough to live past age 14. This one is not a longhair version of domestic mix. I do comb her off and on, and she enjoys it, but I apparently have been neglecting my owner duties.

She crawled into my lap to lie on top of the book I was reading recently, and I noticed her fur looked very matted, especially for a short-haired cat. I also confess that I don't pet her as much as in the past as I have developed an allergy to cats. I have spent the last two weeks coaxing mats out of her fur any way I can. I comb, cut, and tease little rats out with my fingers. This is quite a delicate game. If it pulls, I get bit. Then she demands I recommence detangling her highness after bandages have been properly affixed so I don't get any blood on her fur.

Luckily for the cat I have much experience with tangles. My mother made me keep my hair short as a child. When I was about 14 and taller than my mom, I refused to cut it any more and grew it down to my bum. It stayed that long for over 20 years. I learned to patiently start with the bottom inch when combing, and work my way up.

My daughter was born with a mass of dark hair. By 20 months, her hair was down to her waist, or at least below the top of her diaper, since she really didn't show much of a waistline at that age. I spent many, many hours combing out mats, snarls, candy, gum, dirt, and who knows what else. We would sit on the sofa after a bath with her between my knees, and I would gently untangle her hair and dry it with the blow dryer. It was a nice, warm bonding time for both of us. She enjoyed having her hair stroked, and I enjoyed seeing it grow thicker and shinier through the years.

Every now and then I grow my hair long again. About 2 years ago I had a foot of hair cut off for Locks for Love, for children deprived of their hair due to medical reasons. Now I seem to be growing it longer again. To me, there is great pleasure in feeling a warm wind blow my hair around. My daughter still wears hers long, but not currently to her waist.

My cat, however, could use a nice brush cut, but no way is she letting me near her with clippers. I told her the cutout look on her sides is the current style. Please don't tell her otherwise.

Doggy days

Once again I have been AWOL. I decided to make nice and post a few pictures of my housemates, plus the one I was dogsitting for a week. I have no idea what was so exciting inside that bush, but they were there forever. I went in the house, found my camera, re-learned how to use it, and still they were there long enough to get pictures. I have not gone near that bush since. There could be alien lifeforms in there for all I know! And the sitting on the top of the sofa – what can I say? Beagles are very cat-like, although I think the “guest dog” is part cocker spaniel. (The lemon colored one was the guest.)

 

I thank everyone for the comments regarding my daughter’s brush with the thin blue line. The PR from that incident, which must have taken less than 10 minutes, was priceless to a group of 20 somethings who thought they knew everything, but are slowly learning that they don’t. That incident warmed many hearts.

 

My life has been pleasingly boring since I left my job in children’s services. Every now and then I run across something that brings it all back. I had a meeting today with my new boss, for the financial planning job, and when I got out my briefcase I found a copy of the wanted poster my alleged Munchausen’s-by-proxy client had posted around her city. She was understandably upset when I removed her children, but she reacted by putting many posters up with pictures of her kids, claiming that my department had kidnapped her children and were abusing them, complete with my name and phone number, and that of my supervisor. My supervisor was impressed. She immediately put a copy up on her wall. She said no one else ever provoked a client to do that.

 

I often had new workers shadowing me, and I took one with me on a nice, warm afternoon, driving the area around the client’s home and removing the posters from restaurants, post offices, local stores, and anywhere else we could find them. I considered it part of his learning experience. I had a dazzling array of cases that last summer, and he was always ready to go along, certain that he would never be bored. “Child home alone” and “suspicious bruises” were not on the menu for me the last six months.

 

But now, I feel I have rested and need some exciting new experiences in my life. Any suggestions?