Halloween is the best holiday of the year. We only get the kids from across the street, but it's always fun anyway. If I had any excuse, like school or work, I'd be costumed and wandering around. Maybe next year I'll dress up for grocery shopping!
In honor of Halloween, I'll post a video that I shot this past Tuesday. The starlings are migrating and there had to be thousands of them passing through. By the time I grabbed the camera, most of them were already gone, so you can imagine the sight it was! The sky over the backyard looked and sounded like a scene from The Birds! That was one of my favorite Hitchcock movies and is, imho, underrated in his oeuvre.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Pumpkin carving
The Peas and I bought ourselves some pumpkins and spent a couple hours carving them. Theirs came out great and look really cool with lights inside. Mine is so-so and needs more work. We had a gorgeous day for sitting out on the deck and sawing away. Let me add that I will never, ever try to carve or cut a pumpkin with a knife again. I invested less than $6 in a keyhole saw from Home Depot and it was totally worth it — like a hot knife through butter!
When I was taking the Peas home, a cruiser came flying up behind me on Broadway. He was right on my bumper, maybe six feet away from the back of my car. No lights, no sirens, and I'm doing maybe 35 mph. If I had hit my brakes, he would have been in the back seat.
Anyway, I figured he needed to get around me, so as soon as I got around a bend in the road, I pulled over to the right, and didn't the sob pull into a driveway just behind where I pulled over. Typical a*hole cop, thinking he IS the law instead of realizing he is there to enforce the law - and OBEY it as well. If anyone drove up behind him like that, you can be sure they would have been ticketed, if not arrested.
Lucky for me the Peas were with me, because had I been alone, I would have turned around and pulled into that driveway to rip him a new one. I probably would have gotten my ass kicked.
When I was taking the Peas home, a cruiser came flying up behind me on Broadway. He was right on my bumper, maybe six feet away from the back of my car. No lights, no sirens, and I'm doing maybe 35 mph. If I had hit my brakes, he would have been in the back seat.
Anyway, I figured he needed to get around me, so as soon as I got around a bend in the road, I pulled over to the right, and didn't the sob pull into a driveway just behind where I pulled over. Typical a*hole cop, thinking he IS the law instead of realizing he is there to enforce the law - and OBEY it as well. If anyone drove up behind him like that, you can be sure they would have been ticketed, if not arrested.
Lucky for me the Peas were with me, because had I been alone, I would have turned around and pulled into that driveway to rip him a new one. I probably would have gotten my ass kicked.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Happy birthday, PopPop!
Even though he still can't remember what a blog is and has never seen this one, we'll wish PopPop a Happy Birthday here anyway. Eighty years old today! It just doesn't seem possible. He's pretty spry, though slowing down little by little. He still putters around the yard, hitting golf balls and retrieving them, tending the garden and picking raspberries — he's out raking leaves right now. Little One has taken over for Eve as PopPop's constant companion.DamCat is making a lasagna and the gang will be here for dinner. I'm making a loaf of bread. We'll see how that turns out, we know the lasagna will be delicious.
Once their computer is fixed, we'll have a personalized happy birthday song from the B&R label, which I'll add here asap!
Friday, October 24, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Cornea from Hell
Where do I start. The beginning was so long ago and the ending is not in sight.
On Sept 19th, a busy Friday, our Mr B was hit like a bolt of lightning in his left eye. Pain, Pain Pain. The local emergency room cannot take an eye patient on a weekend, so unless you drive directly to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, you are out of luck until Monday. Yep, our Doctors spend weekends up in the Palm Beaches and are no where to be found on weekends.
Back to the story. He "pained" it out for the weekend since the owner was going out of town the following Wednesday for 10 days or so, and it was a busy weekend, and she would be gone yet again the following day on a motorcycle excursion with the boyfriend and not available until Sunday afternoon, after her oldest son's Memorial at the Restaurant. Her oldest son was a police officer died tragically — very sad for this woman. She has been through the ringer so to speak. Anyway, of course he worked, as he always does, which might not have been the correct thing to do with an eye injury! He is driven and never has a sick day, until now.
Come Tuesday when the Doc could finally see him, he was prescribed med's for a bacterial infection, which is the normal course of action I guess. The pain got so severe Mr B thought he was dying. After day after day of driving to KW to the Doc's to let him see if there was any improvement, and none appeared, it became worse. A trip to Miami was in order.
We are lucky that Bascom Palmer, the best Eye Center in the country, is in Miami, so off we went. I wish I had bitch pills for him because he was miserable!!! They cultured, scanned, scraped, probed, and sent him home with new med's made in their lab, and new instructions for his Doc. Two days later… Nope, not working, and Mr B in such severe pain his brain was exploding. Oh, did I mention that he had to put these Rx drops in his eye every single hour of every single day??? Yup Yup.... we just don't sleep. Period!!! He'd scream when I'd put the Rx in, HELLO... it's not working!!!!
Okay, his Doc said, I'll call Bascom Palmer to see if the cultures are in. Well, it was a fungus, not a bacteria, and they advised to send him directly to them because it was more serious and his regular Doc didn't have the instruments that were needed. Since none of us had had sleep, driving to Miami right then and there was not an option… no one could keep their good eyes open long enough! We opted to leave at 3am that morning to arrive when the Doc's at B & P did at 7am. Polly was the driver since I had to continue to work — bullshit assness but I had to. Gosh Love her, she is awesome. B&P have had us ever since, every three days. We are all EYE Pals now.
Bottom line. I know you want it. It takes approx. 2 months to clear this fungus from the center of his cornea and it was completely set in by the time they figured out what it was. It is slow growing, but without the proper course of action can delve deep into the cornea so drastic action was taken. So with that said, last week it finally started to show some improvement, which continues for the next three days. Drops went from hourly to every two, to every three, and today they said every four. These drops can do damage themselves, but he needs them and the only reason they are backing them down is because they do harm when used for this length of time. For those of you Clinically inclined, they are Rx made at the hospital and must be kept refrigerated and only stay fresh for a week. Named: Amphotericin — not the type B, but plain straight Amphotericin which I cannot find any info on, and they gave no paper with it stating side effects and such. Still, it's much better than the killer Natacyn 15ml that he had at 238.00 for a tiny tiny thimble dropper. He hated that anyway, it was like glue!!
He is also on antibiotics eye drops four times a day — Polymyxin B/TMP 10 ml which they also make up there at the hospital, but I think we'd be able to get it anywhere.
Now for you contact lens wearers… B&L contact lens products had problems with just this same fungus awhile back, but Mr B uses ReNu products. Ill have to find out what he had in the Kitchen at the restaurant to use as his refresh drops, for cleansing his eyes from smoke etc. as he worked.The smoke alarm was actually taken off the ceiling due to smoke alarm sounding off many times and disrupting customers. It's an open air kitchen with fans blowing this way and that, so anything could have gotten into his eye, and I do mean anything. This Mold can come from anything, we have come to find out, not just yeast mold from bread which was what he initially thought, but from anything! With all the hurricane winds blowing our way this summer and the steady breezes, who knows!!! I do know this — protective goggles would not have prevented it, but would have only incubated it and made it even worse. He wears his bi-focals at work, but also switches out to lenses due to sweat, etc. He had a new pair in at the time, but when you're dealing with fungus, it attaches and doesn't let up, I guess. I feel for anyone in the same position. Many countries with hurricane aftermath are experiencing this same problem with patients. And it's also a problem with contact lens extended overnight users that use B&L product for moisture add. Anyway.
After we clear up this fungus, and possibly as soon as next week (!!!!), a cornea specialist will evaluate him next week in Miami to see if it was indeed a tiny cut or just something that got under his contact and had it's way dead center of his eye. The scarring on his cornea is extensive, but we'll see what the specialist says. Mr B can see light and about nothing else right now. He has only 10% vision in his left eye, cannot make out anything other than to say "that's a blob", and nothing else — milk bottle effect.
If we get the all-clear on the fungus, they'll start a Steroid drop to try to heal the scarring. They feel after a month or two of steroid drops they will know the full extent of the damage to the cornea. Most likely, they say, a cornea transplant would be done, but they will not commit to anything right now.
So we drive every three days to Miami, leaving at 3am and back at 4pm. It's a long day. Thank goodness for our good-hearted daughter Miss P, she is a dream!!!!! She can drive in a hurricane safely, she has Thursday off and will finish work Wed night at 11:30pm, go home sleep for a couple hours, then get up at 2am to drive here to drive us to Miami, and then have the night off of work. Mr. L has been fine with it all, he sleeps at a friend's house the night we leave so he can get to school. It's all working out.
Okay then, heard enough??? Questions? Just ask — I have more exacting information if you want it. Mr. B's pain has lessened, thank goodness… tonight we'll sleep!!! WOW — We have four hours!!! We may never wake up!!!
It's all so serious and interesting and eye threatening… scary stuff, but Cornea implants are the norm these days, so I'm sure it will be all good and the outcome will be what we are hoping for.
On Sept 19th, a busy Friday, our Mr B was hit like a bolt of lightning in his left eye. Pain, Pain Pain. The local emergency room cannot take an eye patient on a weekend, so unless you drive directly to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, you are out of luck until Monday. Yep, our Doctors spend weekends up in the Palm Beaches and are no where to be found on weekends.
Back to the story. He "pained" it out for the weekend since the owner was going out of town the following Wednesday for 10 days or so, and it was a busy weekend, and she would be gone yet again the following day on a motorcycle excursion with the boyfriend and not available until Sunday afternoon, after her oldest son's Memorial at the Restaurant. Her oldest son was a police officer died tragically — very sad for this woman. She has been through the ringer so to speak. Anyway, of course he worked, as he always does, which might not have been the correct thing to do with an eye injury! He is driven and never has a sick day, until now.
Come Tuesday when the Doc could finally see him, he was prescribed med's for a bacterial infection, which is the normal course of action I guess. The pain got so severe Mr B thought he was dying. After day after day of driving to KW to the Doc's to let him see if there was any improvement, and none appeared, it became worse. A trip to Miami was in order.
We are lucky that Bascom Palmer, the best Eye Center in the country, is in Miami, so off we went. I wish I had bitch pills for him because he was miserable!!! They cultured, scanned, scraped, probed, and sent him home with new med's made in their lab, and new instructions for his Doc. Two days later… Nope, not working, and Mr B in such severe pain his brain was exploding. Oh, did I mention that he had to put these Rx drops in his eye every single hour of every single day??? Yup Yup.... we just don't sleep. Period!!! He'd scream when I'd put the Rx in, HELLO... it's not working!!!!
Okay, his Doc said, I'll call Bascom Palmer to see if the cultures are in. Well, it was a fungus, not a bacteria, and they advised to send him directly to them because it was more serious and his regular Doc didn't have the instruments that were needed. Since none of us had had sleep, driving to Miami right then and there was not an option… no one could keep their good eyes open long enough! We opted to leave at 3am that morning to arrive when the Doc's at B & P did at 7am. Polly was the driver since I had to continue to work — bullshit assness but I had to. Gosh Love her, she is awesome. B&P have had us ever since, every three days. We are all EYE Pals now.
Bottom line. I know you want it. It takes approx. 2 months to clear this fungus from the center of his cornea and it was completely set in by the time they figured out what it was. It is slow growing, but without the proper course of action can delve deep into the cornea so drastic action was taken. So with that said, last week it finally started to show some improvement, which continues for the next three days. Drops went from hourly to every two, to every three, and today they said every four. These drops can do damage themselves, but he needs them and the only reason they are backing them down is because they do harm when used for this length of time. For those of you Clinically inclined, they are Rx made at the hospital and must be kept refrigerated and only stay fresh for a week. Named: Amphotericin — not the type B, but plain straight Amphotericin which I cannot find any info on, and they gave no paper with it stating side effects and such. Still, it's much better than the killer Natacyn 15ml that he had at 238.00 for a tiny tiny thimble dropper. He hated that anyway, it was like glue!!
He is also on antibiotics eye drops four times a day — Polymyxin B/TMP 10 ml which they also make up there at the hospital, but I think we'd be able to get it anywhere.
Now for you contact lens wearers… B&L contact lens products had problems with just this same fungus awhile back, but Mr B uses ReNu products. Ill have to find out what he had in the Kitchen at the restaurant to use as his refresh drops, for cleansing his eyes from smoke etc. as he worked.The smoke alarm was actually taken off the ceiling due to smoke alarm sounding off many times and disrupting customers. It's an open air kitchen with fans blowing this way and that, so anything could have gotten into his eye, and I do mean anything. This Mold can come from anything, we have come to find out, not just yeast mold from bread which was what he initially thought, but from anything! With all the hurricane winds blowing our way this summer and the steady breezes, who knows!!! I do know this — protective goggles would not have prevented it, but would have only incubated it and made it even worse. He wears his bi-focals at work, but also switches out to lenses due to sweat, etc. He had a new pair in at the time, but when you're dealing with fungus, it attaches and doesn't let up, I guess. I feel for anyone in the same position. Many countries with hurricane aftermath are experiencing this same problem with patients. And it's also a problem with contact lens extended overnight users that use B&L product for moisture add. Anyway.
After we clear up this fungus, and possibly as soon as next week (!!!!), a cornea specialist will evaluate him next week in Miami to see if it was indeed a tiny cut or just something that got under his contact and had it's way dead center of his eye. The scarring on his cornea is extensive, but we'll see what the specialist says. Mr B can see light and about nothing else right now. He has only 10% vision in his left eye, cannot make out anything other than to say "that's a blob", and nothing else — milk bottle effect.
If we get the all-clear on the fungus, they'll start a Steroid drop to try to heal the scarring. They feel after a month or two of steroid drops they will know the full extent of the damage to the cornea. Most likely, they say, a cornea transplant would be done, but they will not commit to anything right now.
So we drive every three days to Miami, leaving at 3am and back at 4pm. It's a long day. Thank goodness for our good-hearted daughter Miss P, she is a dream!!!!! She can drive in a hurricane safely, she has Thursday off and will finish work Wed night at 11:30pm, go home sleep for a couple hours, then get up at 2am to drive here to drive us to Miami, and then have the night off of work. Mr. L has been fine with it all, he sleeps at a friend's house the night we leave so he can get to school. It's all working out.
Okay then, heard enough??? Questions? Just ask — I have more exacting information if you want it. Mr. B's pain has lessened, thank goodness… tonight we'll sleep!!! WOW — We have four hours!!! We may never wake up!!!
It's all so serious and interesting and eye threatening… scary stuff, but Cornea implants are the norm these days, so I'm sure it will be all good and the outcome will be what we are hoping for.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Blender Defender
Back when I had sixteen cats (came with the job), I had to get creative to keep cats off the kitchen counters. I found that giving three of them pills when they were on the counter was enough. They were vitamin pills, so no harm done, but you know how much cats like having a pill shoved down their throat. The three must have passed the word along to the rest, because my cats wouldn't jump up on a kitchen counter even if the yummiest food on earth was up there.
That was my solution. Squirtguns work too. The key is to get the cat to associate getting on the kitchen counters (or whatever behavior) with something they really dislike. Yelling at them doesn't work, cats are smart enough to know that they can do whatever they want if they wait until you aren't there.
For those who prefer a gadget, there is the Blender Defender. Effective, and a lot more entertaining for the human, and has the added benefit of not getting scratched when the kitteh tries to escape getting the pill. Check out the videos!
That was my solution. Squirtguns work too. The key is to get the cat to associate getting on the kitchen counters (or whatever behavior) with something they really dislike. Yelling at them doesn't work, cats are smart enough to know that they can do whatever they want if they wait until you aren't there.
For those who prefer a gadget, there is the Blender Defender. Effective, and a lot more entertaining for the human, and has the added benefit of not getting scratched when the kitteh tries to escape getting the pill. Check out the videos!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Swan Lake
Key Dear sent me this link. I thought I'd take a stab at embedding a flash video that didn't have an embed tag. It seems to be ok, but just in case, the direct link is http://www.sonnyradio.com/swanlake_0001.swf
What wonderful choreography! Makes me wish Cirque du Soleil would do Swan Lake.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Wasting water
I need to teach my cats how to flush the toilet.
As soon as I teach them how to use the toilet.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Fall colors
Autumn is here. The leaves are starting to turn and this weekend is traditionally the highpoint for local color. Peak color hasn't arrived here yet, but in Vermont and NH it is gorgeous. We've had just the right weather the past month to get excellent color — enough rain with enough cold and you get a beautiful fall. Maybe I'll take a drive one day this week and take some photos.Our turkeys reappeared at long last. We have seen the single tom, but the group hasn't been through in quite a while, maybe close to 18 months. It was good to see them.
Monday is Columbus Day, so a lot of people have the day off. Schools are closed. I think MA and Arizona, of all places, are the only states where Columbus Day is an official holiday.
The Sox won 2-0 last night in the first game of the ALCS. We've had a terrible year playing in Tampa and many people expected us to lose these first two games, but we pulled it out. Philly is up two games to none over LA. Boo hoo for Manny. He did hit a home run in their game yesterday, and jogged around the bases with his finger in the air. Of course, he doesn't mean his team is number one, he means HE is number one. Nobody except Dam Cat's brother misses him. While the Sox have kept quiet on the subject, I'd bet the whole team is delighted he's gone.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Queenee and PopPop
55 years today — Happy Anniversary, Queenee and PopPop! PopPop is peeling apples so the Queen can make a pie for him.
I'm terrible at remembering anniversaries. I know I missed DamCat and Deacon's this year, which was August 29 (happy belated anniversary, you two!). Queenee reminded me about Key Dear and Mr. B's, which I had forgotten last year. And both are at the end of their respective months, you'd think I could remember one, which would remind me of the other. Leaking brain, leaking brain…
Autumn has set in here, the temperature is in the mid-fifties to mid-sixties most days now. We had a lot of rain this past week, but are looking forward to several gorgeous days. Sweater weather has arrived!
I'm terrible at remembering anniversaries. I know I missed DamCat and Deacon's this year, which was August 29 (happy belated anniversary, you two!). Queenee reminded me about Key Dear and Mr. B's, which I had forgotten last year. And both are at the end of their respective months, you'd think I could remember one, which would remind me of the other. Leaking brain, leaking brain…
Autumn has set in here, the temperature is in the mid-fifties to mid-sixties most days now. We had a lot of rain this past week, but are looking forward to several gorgeous days. Sweater weather has arrived!
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