Recovering From Tdap

Tdap is the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis vaccination that I got on Thursday. I felt fine Friday other than a sore arm (it's still sore) but Friday evening I began to feel very achy. I felt that way all day today too but it's beginning to go away. So although I did do four loads of laundry and cleaned out all the grime under the glass pane of the kitchen table I lay low and watched the rest of Lord of the Rings.

I decided to try making sun tea despite the 75 degree partly cloudy day...

... but partly cloudy also means partly sunny and it turned out OK.

I found the culprit who's been snacking on my basil and she had to go. I picked the basil leaf off and took it with the caterpillar on it down to the yard. I call the caterpillar a she because anyone who likes basil must have good taste. :-)  Then again a female would never have continued eating with all that doodoo on her table.

I discovered four tomato blossoms on one of my plants!

I cannot wait to taste my first summer tomato.

When I came back inside it was obviously nap time, so I curled up on the couch and watched good triumph over evil with Tippy on my lap. Not a bad way to spend an achy day.

Elevator-Butt Syndrome

I have a cat with "elevator-butt syndrome," a condition that is fairly common generally (we've all seen cats - Tippy is a good example - who raise their rear ends when you're petting them and love to have their backs scratched back there) but a problem when the elevating occurs while urinating in the litter box. The end result is a small quantity in the box and a significant quantity outside the box. Yuk.

Cute little Lupe has elevator-butt syndrome as described above. I used to have two standard-sized rectangular boxes side by side but this allowed the liquid to get on the edges, on the wall, and on the floor under the boxes. What a mess to clean up every day. So now I have this corner box with slightly higher edges:

To the right of the box you can see the damage to the floor and the molding from her earlier activities. I may see if a thorough soaking with bleach spray will get rid of that.

The box has made big difference. If I put too much litter in it she can stand high enough to squirt over the edge, so I keep the level low and just add small quantities more frequently. I also am trying to "train" her to keep her rear-end down. She loves to make contributions to the box while I'm scooping, so I just place my arm across the top edge and as she pees and her hind-end begins to go up my arm stops her from raising any higher.

I'm glad I'm using my college education for such lofty purposes. :-)

Loop-i-Loo, I Love You

I'm not sure why but Lupe is often not blogged about, maybe because she never causes any problems (other than elevator butt-syndrome which I'll blog about later.) She shies away from the camera which doesn't help, but I'm just here to say that she is one of our dearest cats.

Lupe is silly (which may be why we call her Loop-i-Loo), funny, and good-hearted, and although she sometimes stalks and chases Banu it's all in good fun. She has some very silly habits, like rabbit-kicking anything that's horizontal (videos below), and some very loving habits, like waiting for us in the dining room at the end of the day so she can accompany us upstairs for a major love session. She waits for Saeed to come out of the shower and meows at him until he sits in the chair and allows her to jump up into his lap. When sitting on our laps she'll sometimes reach up to our faces and gently stroke them until we bend down to kiss her. She is so amazing.

In these two pictures she's attacking the cat scratch pole that used to go from floor to ceiling. She pulled herself along the bottom of the pole while lying on her back, scooting across the carpet.

Of course when I turned on the camera she stopped.


This particular roll got off easy!


She attacks and rabbit kicks the carpeted stairs daily. Of course she stopped when I whipped out the camera.


If "elevator-butt syndrome" sounds too good to miss check back tomorrow.

Planting A Mini-Garden

It was such a beautiful day again yesterday and I couldn't resist getting my hands dirty. We did our weekend shopping and I came home with four new babies...

... two tomato plants, one basil (which was actually four), and one mint.

Planted, watered, and ready to grow.

Chappu watched for a while from the sunroom.

Our neighbor's dog, Bailey, watched from her yard too.

Before I knew it she was up on the deck, swishing her tail and giving me kisses.

On her way back home she stopped to look up at me and say goodbye, tail still swishing. Bye Bailey, thanks for visiting!

Car Wash: Dirty v.s.. Messy

That Garden of Eden is a major draw back for those of us without garages. We had three very dirty cars when we started and three very clean but messy cars when we finished.

The Camry before washing: dirty and messy.

Saeed's powerwasher did a great job on it. Although we usually use it to clean the siding on the house it has a gentle setting specifically for washing cars.

The "white" car (Corolla) is much older and the finish is much less shiny. The dirt seeps into the finish...

... like this. Yuk.

The power washer did a great job but I also went behind Saeed with some good old fashioned elbow grease.

This morning? HA! The mess has returned but the surface is clean. A speedy drive down the street and all that will fly away.

Mess, but no more little black spots.

The Camry is also messy but it is so clean. (For safety reasons I blotted the license number... was that stupid? Probably.) In back you can see the gray truck which usually looks worse than the white car. We washed it too and I was amazed at how nice the finish still is.

We've agreed to do this every weekend. It won't be so much work if we do it more frequently like my brother-in-law whose cars you can eat off of. It's just hard, when you have a precious 48 hours off of work, to prioritize cleaning a vehicle that soon looks dirty again. We'll try.

Oh, and btw, the azaleas are all perky again:

 

The Garden Of Eden

Saturday mornings are my favorite time. The weekend stretches before me and I wake up early to welcome in the day. First of course is food for the kitties, but then I throw open all windows and doors to let in the fresh air. Frosty has a new window to look out since the screen was placed in the window behind Saeed's computer (thank you Saeed joon.) It was raining very gently this morning and there's nothing more enticing than a lush, green yard full of beauty. (reminder: click on pics to enlarge)

Frosty enjoys his new window which opens to the front yard.

Frosty looking out of his 'old' window in the sun room.

Two, three days ago these azaleas were at their peak. Now they're too tired to hold their heads up due to the weight of the rain drops.

I just want to rub that soft petal with the water on it on my cheek. It seems that it may have the power to smooth out the wrinkles on my face.

The eastern redbud in front of the weeping willow.

I do have an issue with Mother Nature though. To my human way of thinking, bright fuchsia flowers don't belong on the same branch with the burgundy leaves. Fuchsia = spring. Burgundy = autumn. She's telling me I need to back off, that my human preferences are faulty and silly.

I love the way the delicate arms of the forsythia arch gracefully over the ground. I'm happy that Saeed doesn't prune it into the manicured square bushes our neighbors do. Our forsythia is wild and free.

Like the azaleas these flowers will soon be done showing off.

I have always had a thing for these delicate periwinkle flowers.

The young, bright green upstart ivy leaves probably don't listen to the wisdom of last year's experienced, dark green leaves. Tsk, tsk, ... youth.

OK yeah, so, it's a weed. I don't care. It's beautiful. And the center purple grooves are full of water.

Another 'weed' pic - grubs for the meat eating birds. The Garden of Eden must be fed. You probably won't want to click on this one to enlarge it!

These bright leaves are just as stunning as any flower.

A wood nymph must have painted green accents on these yellow leaves.

So much for Saeed cutting down that fig tree last year! Ha ha!

We may or may not be eating lots of figs this summer. Between the worms (see upper right) and the squirrels, who love to eat the figs when there's not enough rain, we may get half. But we are happy to share.

See in both drops (above and below) the sharply focused background. Amazing.

What is it magnifying? The luscious ground cover.

These dogwood blossoms are also on their way out, having peaked a couple of days ago.

Their beauty is not obvious against our white house so let's go inside...

This is what I see through our bedroom window. It's like being outside.

Even through the screen the blossoms are amazing.

The branches are covered with what I guess is a moss. It too is beautiful.

If I look down to the left I can see our neighbor's dogwood as well.

This fly sat next to me outside the window by my computer for 20 minutes while I uploaded my photographs to this blog. She took a bath for 18 of those 20 minutes, rubbing her legs against each other, the bottom side of her wings, and her head. That is one clean fly!! Look at her cute little two-toed feet.

Hope you enjoyed your tour of my paradise.

Addendum: and now, at 1 pm, the sun is out. Perfect.