I cracked my favorite glass last night. It’s a giant glass mug that I think Peggy gave me when she was mugging me. I liked it so much because I could fill it with crushed ice and there would still be enough room for a generous amount of drink. Then I could drink the drink and crunch on the ice.
Last night I took it out of the dishwasher and directly to the refrigerator to fill it with ice. It couldn’t take the abrupt change in temperature and cracked. Dang. Where do you find giant glass mugs? HERE is a picture of me holding it, for scale.
Here are the sad, sad cracks:
About a week ago I noticed that my pond was solid green. I decided to drain most of the water out and replace it. That worked for a couple of days, but then the green came back. Thinking that an initial algae explosion may be part of the natural cycle of a new pond, I’ve decided to leave it alone for a while.
The plants I got should be helping, but it’s hard to tell. The water went green again. For a while, it looked dyed because it was such a bright green color. Then the green faded a little, but there was a thin film of scum on the surface.
The last couple of days, the pond has looked like a bubble bath. The waterfall plunges into the water and creates piles of bubbles that gather on the opposite side of the pond. Again there are chemicals that make this problem go away, but again I choose to wait it out. I’m hoping this is natural.
I have a cold right now, so when I get my sense of smell back I’ll check the water just to be sure it’s not Mr. Bubble.
More than a year ago, I had a routine blood test that told me my cholesterol was 218. The doctor threatened me with medicine, so I jogged a little and started eating ground flax seed. Four months after that, I had some blood tests as a result of my participation in a medical study. My cholesterol number was down to 212. Good for me!
I just got the results from my most recent blood test. Cholesterol number = 213. I consider that pretty good. If I can keep it to a one point increase per year, I’ll be in my fifties before I start taking the medicine. By then, my memory will be so bad, no one will notice the drug’s side effect of memory loss.
Until then, I’ll just keep eating my flax. And jogging for a week, then taking five months off. It seems to be working pretty well.
I had ants in my kitchen a while back. They were a different species than I was used to seeing, but they were easily dispatched with Terro, a wonderful poison that kills them slowly so they can take it back to the queen.
Lately, I’ve had a new species of ant in my kitchen. They are the same small size as any of the other kinds of ants that have invaded my kitchen, but they have large, blocky heads. I put Terro out as usual, and they really liked it. In fact, they cleaned it right off the counter. I put more out. They cleaned that off too. I’ve been putting Terro out for ten days and they continue to come eat it. Are they reproducing faster than they die? Are they immune to Terro? Have I bred some kind of super ant with my constant use of poison?
I cleaned off the counter last night. Maybe if I quit feeding them Terro they’ll go away.
Yesterday morning I decided to get rid of the roses that fence in my back yard. They’re stunning for two or three weeks in the spring, then look like scraggly dead sticks the rest of the year. Besides that, I dug the pond so close to them that it made it hard to get to the electric meter, and if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s an angry electric meter reader.
Cutting the rose buses out went pretty well. I bundled the clippings as I went so the stupid people at the dump wouldn’t turn me away. Digging up the roots was hard work, but not as hard as I thought. Now I just have to figure out what to replace them with. I’m thinking Upright Yews.
BEFORE
AFTER
Getting into the dump was not easy. The first time I went, I was turned away and told to come back in an hour. (That happens every other time I go.) When I came back, there was a huge line filled with people who had been told to come back in an hour. Fortunately, I was able to get rid of the rose clippings anyway.
I celebrated my victory with a haircut. I left the top a little longer this time. But I don’t think I’ll be growing it crazy-long again.
