Bathroom Blues

Well, phooey.

The bathroom project is delayed, according to Mr. Construction Guy. He's running late on his current project and will not be able to start on mine until Oct. 13. And even that sounds tentative. What with Molly & Alexandra coming on Oct. 20, this should be interesting. He said we could maybe switch the order of doing things--floor and plumbing first, fixtures next, walls and ceiling last--so that we aren't too inconvenienced while they are here, and hope to finish up by the time I leave around the first of November. Sigh.

In the meantime, this gives me more time to clean up and post auctions and generally get things whipped into shape around here. Although, I think I'd rather sit on my behind and knit than do more decluttering and cleaning. I'd rather do almost anything besides more of that, come to think of it.

Bill called this morning and it was great to hear his voice. His boss, the Chief Engineer, told him that he was going to contact the home office and tell them to give Bill a promotion, to make him either a 1st Assistant or Chief Engineer. That's always nice to hear. He is almost half-done with his time on the ship now, and he can start counting off the days on the "downhill" side of his tour. I miss him, but there's no point in dwelling on it. He's working and we're thankful for that.

So, on with my day. It's pretty gloomy out there this morning, and I'm hoping for rain. My stuffy nose this morning says I might even get that wish.

Get a bigger calculator

Trust my brother to check the math from yesterday's post. 85 billion, divided by 200 million is $425 not $425,000. Rats. That's not even a monthly grocery bill. No wonder I flunked math so many times. I need a calculator that doesn't say "E" (as in "eeeeeeeee, that number is too high!") when we get into billions. Sorry to get y'all excited.

Echo seems a little better each day, although she doesn't seem to want to let me out of her sight. I think I made the right decision to stay home this weekend--she would have been in a stressed tizzy if she were being boarded at the vet's.

Today is another clean-up day. It seems that everyday is a clean-up day. Not my favorite thing, but I want to be ready when the bathroom project begins, hopefully Wednesday.

Echo & Economics

The dog may just pull herself out of this. The liver function numbers were not encouraging yesterday (up again), but her behavior is returning to normal and that tells me she is feeling better, no matter what the numbers say.

I got an interesting email yesterday. Here's the gist of it:

Just looking at the $85 Billion bailout of AIG, there are maybe 200,000,000 adults (18 years and above) in the US? Divide that into $85,000,000,000 and each of us gets $425,000. We'll even pay taxes on it, say 35%? That leaves $276,250 per adult or $552,500 per couple. Everyone could pay off their mortgage and debts, solving the liquidity problem. Or start a business, fueling the economy again. Or kids could pay off their college loans or parents could pay cash for their kids' college education. Or we could pay our parents' health care bills and buy health insurance for ourselves, solving the health care "crisis." Then the government could break up AIG and sell off all the assets for whatever it could get. After all, by giving the money to us, they're getting $29.75 Billion back right away in taxes. Plus whatever they get for the AIG paper holdings and physical real estate.

Boy, was this ever preaching to the choir. I say, do the same for everyone else who wants or needs a bailout. Auto companies want $50 Billion? That's another $250,000 per adult, minus $87,500 going back to the government in taxes, per person. Sell off all their factories to whoever wants to pool their windfalls (the employees?) and run them more efficiently. Let the new people make cars. Or not. Sell off the real estate and equipment and let everyone buy Toyotas and Kias. They do anyway.

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac? Dissolve them too. Give everyone in America their slice, minus taxes, of what it will cost to bail them out, and now, EVERYONE can pay off their mortgage, whether they were qualified for it or not. No one gets thrown out of their house. All those empty houses can be bought by whomever wants to take the investment risk of owning them in the long term. For cash. All those hurricane-damaged or destroyed houses can be rebuilt and the Gulf cleaned up. Let the people decide if they want to spend their bonus on that, or build somewhere else. Why do we have to rebuild all those fabulous houses on stilts at the water's edge in Galveston? (Only to have them knocked down again next season, or next?)

My brother says since we're just going to print money to get ourselves out of this, why not just print more so he doesn't have to work. I agree. If we're going to do this, let's just go whole hog.

I remember my dad trying to explain inflation to me once. His example was the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920s, and he used the memorable phrase, "it took a wheelbarrow-full of Deutche Marks to buy a loaf of bread." I fear that is the road we are on.

I hate them all in Washington, with the fire of a thousand suns.

Hoping for good news

Today, I'm cautiously optimistic. Echo has been eating a little of the treats I've been preparing for her--a bit of scrambled egg, a bite or two of poached chicken breast. I've been sneaking the liver-support vitamins into the food--sometimes it fools her, other times she spits them out and I have to get tough and stuff them down her throat. Then she spits them out again. We do this over and over, trying to choke down four lousy tablets.

She actually went on a short walk up the backside of the mountain this morning with me. This is an excellent sign. Yesterday, she just moped in the yard, and whined to be let back into the house--not normal behavior for my outdoor girl at all. She wasn't all that perky today, but she went and stayed with me, sniffed everything and got a little exercise. I'm going to count that as progress.

Tomorrow, we'll get new liver function numbers, to see if she's getting better or worse. I'm staying in town this weekend and keeping my fingers crossed.

Echo Watch

Echo continues to decline. The vet believes that she is in full-blown liver failure, and there's not much we can do except support her with vitamins and hope for the best.

Dr. Skelding is going to do another liver function test on Friday morning, to see if the enzymes are on the way up or down. Either way, I think my trip to Indiana is off. If she dies this weekend, I don't want her to be alone in a strange place. Even if her liver starts working again, I'm not sure I want to put her through the stress of being boarded for the weekend. She's been my pal and my companion for many years, and my duty and desire is to be with her, no matter what the outcome.

I am once again in that place of preparing myself for the bad news, while continuing to hope for good news.

Vet, Round Four

Echo and I are off to the dog-doc again this morning.

She continues her lethargic behavior, and has now added spitting out all her pills to her repetoire. Oh, she looks apologetic about it, but she even refuses to take the pills wrapped in soft cheese, rolling the nuggets around, swallowing the cheese and ejecting the pills and capsules. I am at my wit's end.

Between her scratching and biting herself to distraction, it seems as though all I ever say to her is "Echo, STOP IT!"

I have to keep reminding myself that she is at least 11 years old (we think), and she may not recover from whatever is ailing her. We can't get the constant scratching under control without steroids, and we can't give her steroids without compromising her immune system, while she's still fighting the infection in her leg. And, she has a suspicious lump under the skin near her ankle, which may actually be the root cause of all of this. That's what the vet is going to check out today.

All I can do is wait and see. I am already steeling myself for bad news.

Beets

I have had the weirdest craving lately for pickled beets.

Beets were not normal food in our household when I was growing up. In our house, dinner was almost always accompanied by a fresh, green salad, but there was nary a beet to be seen. I don't think beets were considered kid-food, though I'm sure little Russian children eat borscht and are happy about it. I think it must be a textural issue, kind of mushy and slimy to a child's palate.

I think I first encountered the common use of beets in New Zealand and Australia, where they came standard on every sandwich and hamburger. Even if you were careful to specify "NO BEETS," your food would come with a big fat purple slice on it anyway. At the time, I thought this was weird in the extreme. Now, I think it's a brilliant idea to put a slice of beet on a sandwich. (Hamburgers also came normally with lettuce, cheese, pickles, tomato, peppers and a whole fried egg, in addition to the requisite slab of what they called beet-root. It had to be nibbled sideways, because there was just no fitting it in your mouth upright).

Then I discovered pickled baby beets one summer in Illinois, introduced to me by my mother-in-law, as a side dish on the dinner table. They were crisp and wonderful, and from then on, every salad bar that featured beets had a guaranteed taker in me.

And now, I can't get enough of them. I have jars stashed in the fridge, and spares in the pantry. Every night I make a salad of spinach and greens, leftover veggies and a piece of chicken or fish, and plenty of tasty little beets.

I'm picky about it though. At Yoder's Market or at the Farmer's Market in town, I stare into the murky purple-juice depths of each jar, making sure I'm buying whole tiny beets, not cut-up chunks of older, tougher beets.

I am such a foodie-dork.

Fall Feelings

It must be the change in weather the past few days. The nights are getting cooler, the days are warm but not suffocating, and the light is getting that peculiar "thin" feeling, like a fragile veil laid over the morning sky. I'm sleeping later, no longer up in the dead-dark just before dawn.

This year has been one heck of a process. How apropos that it all happened in September, that this time of the year is my retrospective milestone, my anniversary and my mental "new year." As a child and later as what seemed like perpetual college studentdom, the new year always started in September, not January.

I feel as if I've turned a corner, flipped an attitude, effected what the jargonists lately call a "sea change." Suddenly, I've stopped obsessing so much. My waking thoughts rarely include dwelling on what was and what's been lost, or even about the future and what it might bring. I truly feel as though I am "living in the now," and that now doesn't ponder so tediously about my body, my bionic breasts, or cancer.

I think most of the change is due to the fact that I can now do most anything I want physically, without pain. Oh, occasionally I'll bump into something with my chest (and bounce back, alarmingly!), or feel a twinge underneath, or catch a glimpse in a mirror, but for the most part it's all fading into the past. It's almost like...it's over?

I still take my handfuls of vitamins and supplements and anti-cancer drugs. That's a thrice-daily reminder. I have to massage everyday to keep my bowsprit from seizing up into "Iron Woman." But that big mental-amnesia bandage has done its job. Time has healed most of the physical and mental wounds, just like Mom said it would.

****************
On a practical note, my Mr. Mow-man, Keith, came to do the yard yesterday and provided the muscle to remove the new toilet from the back of my car. Hooray! I don't have to drive to Lexington with a giant KOHLER box in the back! Thank you Keith!

Jam! New Knitting Projects!

I tackled the bags of blackberries yesterday afternoon, turning 10 quarts of berries into 1 pint and 6 half-pints of jam. I've never done this before, so it was an experiment:




All I have to say is WOW, there sure are a lot of seeds in those little suckers. I cooked them down and put them through a food mill with a fine screen. Then I poured that puree through a finer sieve. I ended up with 9 cups of somewhat-less seedy pulp and about 70 pounds of discarded seedy-pyuck. I wouldn't call it Seedless Blackberry Jam, but it's the best I could do. Think of it as added fiber in your diet.


So here's how you do it: 9 cups of blackberry puree + 6 cups sugar. Boil forever. Boil some more. Keep stirring. Wait until it reduces by about a third and starts to jell. Ladle into jars and process 15 minutes in a water bath. Clean purple juice off every surface in the kitchen. Put 70 pounds of seeds and pulp in the composter. Clean more purple juice off the stove. Put paper towels on shopping list, as you just used every last one in the house.

Last night, with purple-stained fingers, I started playing with some of the exotic yarns I bought last week:

This is to be a fancy shawl/wrap for daughter Juli. Her wedding dress is red and sleeveless and fabulous, but as a mother, I look at the picture, think about how cold and rainy it's going to be in Seattle on December 21, and think "That girl needs a sweater!" Since I do not yet have the requisite knitting skills to knit said sweater, a shawl is what she will get.

Last week at knitting, Andrea loaned me one of her knitting books and last night I saw this:

I simply MUST knit this aviator cap for son Alex! This is classed as "Intermediate," of which I am nowhere near being, but I must try. I have the perfect yarns and the perfect recipient. And he too lives in cold, rainy Seattle. Brilliant!

Just what I need right now, more projects!

Dog-Leg Blues, Continued

I may have to get a job, just to pay for Echo's vet bills.

Yesterday Echo got her inoculations up-to-date, but her leg continues to be swollen and infected. Now she is on 3 herbal medications, Benadryl (for the scratching allergies), and a hefty daily dose (700 mg) of doxycycline. If the swelling doesn't disappear in another week, Dr. Skelding will have to open it up again and see what there is to see. There is a lump in her leg, sort of where her "ankle" is, and that may have to be removed. Sigh.

My creativity is being challenged as to what I can mix these herbal powders with, so she will still eat her food. Since I've been cleaning out the old freezers, I've tried ice-crystalled chicken stock, freezer-burned beef stew and ancient broccoli-cheese hot pockets. So far, she's reluctantly eating the medicine-laced leftovers mixed in with her kibble, shooting me baleful looks from the kitchen. She's not eating with enthusiasm, that's for sure.

My clean-up mania continues. I need to rearrange everything in the basement so the construction fellows can access the plumbing and electrical for the bathroom project. I need to start emptying out the bathroom drawers and cubbyholes of stuff, and removing the old cedar planks from the walls. The weeds are taking over what's left of the garden. I have eleventy-billion bags of frozen blackberries that need to be turned into jam. I still have one more old freezer to empty into the newbie. The laundry is piling up. I need a haircut. I have to decide on faucets and lighting fixtures.

Obviously, I have no time for a job. Echo will just have to get better and stop racking up the vet charges.

Happiness is a Cold Freezer!

After much sweating and pushing, groaning and shoving, backing their giant delivery truck down my treacherous driveway, the Lowes' boys have delivered to me...a freezer!

Isn't it gorgeous? It's almost a shame to fill it up with frozen stuff. But fill it I will, getting rid of the two smaller energy-hogs down in the basement, and giving me instant access to frozen food in the kitchen. Its companion, the equally beautiful all-refrigerator, is still being manufactured in Canada. It will arrive "someday," in the fullness of time.

In the meantime, getting around the kitchen is a bit of a squeeze with the despised side-by-side still taking up way too much room for the minuscule space inside. Eventually, that behemoth will go to a new home. My construction guy who is going to renovate the bathroom will take the current tub and the current fridge as partial payment for his services. Problem solved!

I levelled it, washed out the nasty plastic smell, plugged it in and stuck a thermometer in it. Two hours later, zero degrees!

I am so happy.

One-Year Anniversary, Big Whoop

As much as I've tried to put it out of my mind, I can't help but note that today is my one-year anniversary of being diagnosed with breast cancer. In one way, it's one of those anniversaries that I don't want to remark upon, like my dad's death or 9/11. I wish I could forget it. I wish the day could just slip by unnoticed and uncommemorated.

Conversely, it is a milestone of sorts. A year ago today, (known in my head as The Day The Earth Stood Still), I thought all my chips were being cashed in. A year ago today, I couldn't even imagine that I would be here now, healthy and relatively happy again, somewhat damaged but not daunted or defeated. That's a victory of sorts.

So perhaps today is a time to reflect on just how fortunate I am; what I've gained and not what I perceive I have lost. Most of all, I feel lucky to be blessed with an optimistic approach to life. My glass is usually three-quarters full, even without conscious effort, or constant vigilance. I've been blessed with a year of loyal and caring friends, new and old, who buoyed me through the darkest, scariest times. My husband Bill has been steadfast and true, brutally honest at times, but standing right by my side through some really disgusting procedures, and managing to see me through loving eyes in spite of it all.

Life is good. I think I'll just let today pass by concentrating on that thought.

Migraine Blues

I spent yesterday afternoon and last night curled in a fetal position with a pillow wrapped around my head. I don't get bad headaches often, thankfully. But I am worthless when I do.

Today is better, with no painful or vision-disturbing after-effects. I wonder about headaches. What exactly is there to hurt? What triggers them? Why the psychedelic, flashing-lights side show? It's a big ol' mystery to my little brain.

Maybe it was the trip to Walmart after knitting. I was just there to pick up water and bread. I was shocked to see double rows of cars lined around the parking lot, waiting for gas (which had increased 35 cents since the day before). I didn't join the parade, but maybe all those idling vehicles gassed me as I drove by and sent my poor head into a spin? No telling.

Knitting Day!

I do so look forward to Friday mornings, when I can gather up the week's yarn projects, throw them in a bag and go share a few hours with my knitting buddies!

Someone always has something interesting to show, and I always learn a new trick or two. Last week, Dot was doing seed stitch, something I don't particularly like because it requires you to be constantly throwing the yarn strand back and forth. That's when we noticed for the first time that Dot doesn't knit like us! She knits in "Continental Style," holding the yarn in her left hand, rather than the right, and knits in a very fast, smooth way without all the motion in the right hand that the rest of us do.

She explained that when she first came to class and learned to knit again after a 30-year vacation, it all seemed so awkward to her. After struggling for a few hours, her hands suddenly "remembered" the way her grandmother had taught her those many years before, and it all came back. She tried mightily to teach us her automatic muscle-memory style, and we tried mightily to imitate her. But it's going to take a lot of practice to learn this new way until it clicks for me. If it ever does. Trying to re-train the brain to do a muscle skill in a different way is a major challenge.

I liken it to playing the piano--if I flub a section and stop, most times I can't pick up right where I left off; I have to go back to the beginning. It's as if my fingers know it unconsciously, while my brain is coasting along in neutral.

We do so many tasks automatically--brushing our teeth, tying our shoes. We forget that these skills had to be learned with painstaking effort. One mental-exercise book I read actually suggested that we take these automatic tasks and consciously try to do them differently. The first time I tried to brush my teeth with my left hand, I ended up with toothpaste all over my chin!

So today, I will start a knit-stitch only project (with my new yarn!) and attempt to practice Dot's new technique. In the long run, it will be easier and save hand motions. In the short term, I know it's going to frustrate me to the point of exasperation. But it's good to have a challenge, and it's good to have friends to share it with.

Taking a Moment to Remember

Like the day President Kennedy was assassinated, everyone remembers where they were seven years ago this morning.

Bill was at anchor in New York Harbor, under the Verazzano Narrows Bridge, watching the smoke from the towers. He called me on a borrowed cell phone to tell me, "We're at war, I just don't know with whom."

In the days that followed this despicable attack, countless stories of courage and heroism surfaced. It was intensely personal for me: While flipping through the channels a few nights later, I heard a familiar voice. When I clicked back to Larry King's show, there was a friend of mine from college, someone I hadn't seen in 25 years. Mike Hingson and I were co-workers at the campus radio station in Irvine, California. He was working in the WTC when the first plane hit the other tower, and they were told to stay put. But Mike's seeing-eye dog knew better, and by her behavior, convinced Mike and his colleagues that they needed to evacuate. That dog led Mike and his friends down 80 flights of stairs, and they survived.

To my dismay, it seems to me that Americans have forgotten that day. Maybe they just want to forget, because the spectre of living with the fact that fanatics want to kill us all is just too horrible to contemplate. Today we will remember Shankesville, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center "tragedies." Tomorrow, everyone will go back to their normal lives, and forget that these were willful atrocities. But we must not ever forget that those responsible for 9/11/2001 continue to live only for the opportunity to make it happen again.

Uh-Oh...Pam discovers Hobby Lobby

I went a little nuts today after my doctor's appointment cleared me for action. MaryAnn had given me directions on how to find Hobby Lobby, and yes, regrettably, I found it.

I wandered around in a yarn-daze for about an hour before making my purchasing decisions:

I think the biggest problem is that everything was "on sale." Imagine my horror when the cash register tape read $524.30. I made the cashier go back and check every line, and apparently her fingers spasmed at some point and punched in 111 skeins at $3.99. Some sale, right? Once we got that deleted, the bill was back to the realm of a trip to the grocery store, rather than resembling my last doctor's bill.

Then it was on to Home Depot where I bought 2 bathroom sinks, a medicine cabinet and a toilet, in preparation for the bathroom remodel.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get all this plumbing paraphernalia OUT of my car. Or, I can always just drive around with it in the back, until my contractor shows up in a couple of weeks with a couple of burly helpers to unload it.

Big Booming Night, Rain Dancing Morning

The lightning last night looked like a strobe in the backyard when I took Echo out for her last pit stop. Thunder reverberated through the hills in between the scattered staccato flashes of what Bill calls "heat lightning." And this morning, we were greeted with the welcome sound of rain pattering on the roof and pouring down the gutter spouts.

Though the drought this year has not been as bad as last year, it's been bad enough. On my walk down by the pond yesterday, everything is shrivelled and dry. The pears that I was so looking forward to are no longer on the trees and the wild black cherries are nothing but hard pits on stems, drying up right on the branches.

The pond is now referred to as "the puddle," about half its normal size. Even though I've been through this before, it's unnerving to see it shrink from its banks daily.

Hopefully, it will continue to rain through the day and give us the water we so desperately need. We could use about three weeks of steady precipitation before I would worry about building an ark.

Just another beautiful day out there...

The sun is shining. The dog is recovering. Not much else going on here on the mountaintop.

The Couch-Dog Returns

I awoke this morning to find Echo sleeping on the sofa instead of the floor where she's been hanging out for the past 3 days. I know most people wouldn't be pleased to find their animal sacked out on the furniture (with her head on a pillow, no less), but I am thrilled. This is progress!

I don't see much improvement in the swelling of her leg yet, but the vet assures me that continuing the mega-antibiotics and some exercise will cure that eventually. It's such a relief to have my girl coming back to her normal behaviors. She even came up the stairs to the loft this morning, to be with me while I tap away on the computer.

She and I will climb the mountain out back today, for some much-needed physical activity for both of us. I haven't exercised since I got sick last week, and though I can't say that I miss it, I feel the lack of it in my range of motion. Doing some huff-and-puff up the hill is a necessary evil.

I actually know people who love to exercise. I'm not one of them. I hate being hot and sweaty, I hate breathing hard, and ritualized physical exertion bores me to the max. But I love those post-exercise endorphins. It's like the old joke about the guy hitting himself in the head with a hammer--why does he do it? Because it feels so good when he stops. That's me and exercise. It feels good when it's finally over. Getting myself to the starting line is the tricky part. As long as I make it a disciplined part of each day (like brushing my teeth), I can psyche myself into it. But miss a day, and I go completely torpid again.

Now that I have my dog back, I have an excuse to motivate myself again. I'm doing it for her, I can tell my rebellious self.

The nursing profession is safe from me...

There must be something I'm just not getting with this syringe thing.

After yesterday's mishap (stabbed twice in the fingers, just trying to get the protective sleeve off the needle, lots of blood and lots of ouch), I decided to look at this calmly and logically. There must be an easy way to expose the needle, right? We see nurses do it in the office all the time--pop off the cap, shoot you up. No problem.

After looking, turning, looking again, I finally gave up on the notion that I could finesse this thing. Out came the needle-nose pliers and crescent wrench:

There! Nursing, handywoman's style. Just think if you were in the doc's office and the nurse had to bring out these tools to give you your injection! You'd run screaming from the room. Luckily, Echo is a good girl (and has the brain the size of a walnut), so she didn't mind the lengths I had to go to, just to get her medicine into the dang syringe. Giving the actual injection is easy.

She's doing a little better today, though nowhere near her normal self. She goes outside briefly to do her business. She's eating a little kibble. She's gotten rebellious about taking the big antibiotic capsules, rolling them around in her mouth and spitting them out on the floor. This is where a bit of grated cheese comes in real handy. Making cheeseballs with clindamycin tucked inside go right down her gullet without protest. Then she lies down on the floor again:

But so far, I'm thinking I'm running at about a "D" average on the nursing competency exam.

Poor Old Echo

Something was really wrong with Echo yesterday morning. She was very lethargic, panting constantly and stumbling when she walked. That was what really got to me--she walked everywhere; instead of running, she plodded. And she was whining and groaning, just lying on the floor. This was not my dog.

I got on the phone and started phoning to find a vet. The last time I took her in to see her regular vet, I swore I'd never go back to that office. But I had neglected to establish a relationship with a new one in the interrim.

A vet hospital on the west side of town said "bring her right in." When we got there, I noticed she was leaving spots of blood on the tile floor from her left hind foot. That's when I saw for the first time how swollen her whole foot and leg were, about three times the size of her right hind leg.

Dr. Skelding explained that she either had a laceration or a foreign object in her paw, and what we were seeing was a massive infection. I left Echo with them, to be anesthetized and have her wound opened up and flushed out. They also gave her IV antibiotics, bandaged her up tightly so the swelling pressure could be eased, and duct-taped a Walmart bag around the whole thing to keep it dry.

So this is my dog last night, post-surgery:

She's on pain-killers and 3 different types of antibiotics, one of which has to be injected. By me.
I only stabbed myself with the needle twice this morning, and managed to get all of the drug into her instead of me. I feel downright triumphant. Another skill learned! (Though not yet perfected--I'm hoping to avoid sticking myself with the needle tomorrow).

I have to think it's only that I've been so sick myself that I didn't notice her leg before it got to a crisis point. I'm feeling very guilty as a pet-parent.

Projects

I had a successful shopping trip yesterday.

Once again, I purchased another refrigerator-freezer combo. The freezer will be here on the 13th. The refrigerator will be here someday far in the future, date to be determined; at least it's ordered, so someone in Canada knows they need to make one for me. If it's not here by the time I leave for the west coast, it will be here when we get home in January.

I also had the opportunity to become educated in the mysteries of plumbing fixtures--tubs, toilets and sinks. I mean, how often do you buy a toilet? Do you even know a good one from a better one? So now I know what I am looking at and what I am looking for. I have succumbed to the idea that yes, every house needs a tub, and I even found one at a reasonable price that I liked. I did not get into the complexities of faucets, spouts and handles--I'll save that for another day when I have more energy. At least I know enough at this point to devise a budget for the bathroom project and I started tentatively picking out the pieces I'm going to need.

Today is clean-up day at the rental houses. Ray left a little bit of a last-minute mess when he went home to California, so I will go over and make sure everything is in good shape there.

And then there is knitting group tomorrow--something I always look forward to. So life goes on.

A Wasted Five Days...

I'm always surprised when I get sick with a cold. Thankfully, it happens so rarely; I usually catch one upper respiratory infection every 1-3 years. But it seems that a cold lasts 5-7 days, no matter what you do, no matter what drastic measures are employed. Today is day five, and the vector of infection is finally dissipating. I can't really say that the soup, the juice, the sudaphedrine, the lemon drops, the Zicam, the steam or the six naps a day did anything to hasten the eventual end. You just have to wait it out.

So here it is, five days since I was first felled by this beast. Five days of lying on the couch, watching hurricanes and political shenanigans. I feel pretty normal, just a little stuffiness and drippiness hanging on. Today will be a light activity day, even though I'm chomping at the bit to shake out of the boredom that has suffused my existence for almost a week.

Maybe I can cut down to just two naps today.

Quick Onion Soup For Sickies

Thinly slice two medium to large onions and place them in a dry, cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Cook until onions begin to soften and turn brown, stirring and turning, for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle onions with 1 Tablespoon of sugar and continue to stir until onions are a deep brown. Dump onions into a saucepan.

Pour 1/4 cup of red wine into skillet and scrape up all the browned bits. Dump over onions.

Add 2 or 3 cans of beef broth, chicken broth, or a combination of both to the saucepan, and heat to a simmer. Add 1 Tablespoon of brown gravy mix or au jus mix and stir until dissolved.

Dice 1 slice of swiss cheese into small bits, about 1/4" square. Dump into eating bowl. Pour or ladle hot soup over cheese.

Sip slowly, inhaling onion fumes and sighing deeply. Take a nap when finished.

I can breathe again!

I awoke this morning with a novel talent, one that I had forgotten in the last three days--I can breathe through my nose! I think I truly am on the mend now, the awful cold receding into the past. I still don't have any energy, but that will come with one more day of rest. Yes, it's boring, but necessary. Maybe tomorrow will bring back normalcy at last.

Hot, hot, hot

So much for wishful thinking. I thought I'd be over this cold today, or well on my way to feeling normal again. But I had a restless night, and my fever is back this morning, and my voice is gone too. Bill called early this morning and almost hung up, thinking he had a wrong number. No, just croaky Pam.

I guess I'm stuck here in the land of sickness for a bit longer. What a way to spend the holiday!