What Does My Phone Know That I Don't?

This weekend I will be attending an organization business meeting in the Lake of the Ozarks area. I was trying to figure out what to pack, so I opened my weather app in my condo in Kirkwood, MO to find out.

For some reason my phone had a different idea of where I was standing.

Does it have old information cached, or does it really want to go back to Hawaii? (For what it's worth, this is the first time I've had the issue. And some of the locations it picked up I have no recollection of searching for. For others, the search would have been a couple of years ago.)

Yet Another Reason Why I Like Condo Living

Yesterday Hubby Tony and I noticed some large bees lazily buzzing around outside my office window. This morning I was putting my suit and towel out on the deck to dry after a water class at the gym. I looked up, noticed a series of holes in the wood window header, and realized we probably had carpenter bees. 

But instead of quarterbacking the problem like we would have if we were homeowners, all I had to do is snap a photo and send it off to the condo management office. They responded, saying they would have a pest control company look into it. 

Just like that the issue was out of our court.

Five years ago:John Wayne's Five Rules to Remember in Life

Dried Grapes

There is a 'day' for everything! Today it was raisin's turn

Cultures have been dehydrating grapes for centuries, but National Raisin Day has been celebrated since 1909. The event was promoted by growers of California, which produces all of the raisins in the United States. 

The ironic thing is that just before I learned about Raisin Day I had gone to the pantry and grabbed a handful of them to snack on. I find that when I'm craving something sweet sometimes they will do the trick.

Sometimes.

Five years ago today: Amazing Occasions

Not Yet Approachable

Tomorrow will be two weeks since our foster cat Pimento came to live at our house. Unfortunately, he hasn't made much progress toward integrating himself into the family.

Every morning the food bowl is empty and the litter box is full. He still spends the day burrowed under the daybed spread. His previous foster parent had told us he was on the shy side when he first arrived at her house, so Hubby Tony and I aren't completely surprised by his actions, but I am looking forward to the day when Pimento is more than just a faceless lump. 

During the last email communication with his previous foster parent she suggested we try a Feliway diffuser, which plugs into an outlet in the office and emits a feline pheromone that is supposed to be calming. The internet was full of positive reviews for the product, but Pimento must not have read the reviews because it doesn't seem to have had much effect.

Stockvault

Organize And Prioritize

I try to keep things straightened around the house, but today I was tackling yet more clutter that had managed to accumulate since my last reorganization. As I sorted the stuff into piles to keep, recycle, and toss there were some I thought about keeping 'just in case' I needed them down the line.

Then I remembered some wisdom I learned from The Minimalists, who promote a lifestyle without stuff. They have what they call the 20/20 Rule-two questions to ask yourself when you are tempted to hang onto something. The first question is “Could I replace the item for less than $20?” The second is “Could I replace it in less than 20 minutes?” If the answer to the questions is “yes,” you can afford to get rid of the thing.

So out went the glass tart pans I got from a free box at a garage sale, some florist vases, handful of plastic utensils from carry out meals, a nice plastic storage bag with a zipper from a set of sheets, and stack of boxes I've been stockpiling just in case I need to mail something.

I felt good about the clean spaces in my kitchen, dining room, and office. Will that keep me from accumulating more things to take the place of the ones I got rid of? Probably not, but I can try.

Five years ago: The Joys Of Modern Air Travel (NOT)

Benumbed

The last time I went to the dentist for a routine six-month cleaning she examined my teeth and gums and suggested I schedule a deep cleaning, which involved going below the gum line to remove additional plaque. The procedure is done on one half of the mouth at a time, so I scheduled two appointments-one for the right side and one for the left side. The first appointment was today. 

I didn't realize until I got there that the procedure involved local anesthesia. I guessed that's why there were two appointments; in addition to possible discomfort it wouldn't be a good thing to have both sides of my mouth numb at the same time.

After a little chit chat in the procedure room the dentist and assistant got to work--topical gel where the needle would go, then anesthesia injections in both the top and bottom inside cheek. It didn't take long for both to take effect.

The procedure started with an ultrasonic scaler, followed by a water spray, and then a manual scaler. The assistant wielded the suction tube as needed. Thanks to the numbing none of it hurt, but it was humorous. My lips were so numb that when the assistant asked me to close my mouth so she could suction out water I had to manually move my lower right lip with my hand.

On the way out of the treatment room I asked the dentist how long until things were back to normal. She said the effects of anesthesia typically lasted between two to five hours. On the way home I stopped by Starbucks to treat myself to an iced espresso drink and had trouble making my lips and tongue work to tell the barista my order.

Back at home, I realized that there was no way I could drink without dribbling coffee down the front of my shirt. I got out a straw, but could only use it on the left side of my mouth and if I used my fingers to close my lip around it.

As it got closer to dinner time with only a slight reduction in numbness I took to the internet to see if there were any methods to make the issue go away faster. I learned that I could massage my lips and cheeks, wiggle my jaw, and move my tongue so I spent the next ten minutes massaging and wiggling as fast as I could. 

I don't know if it was psychological or an actual effect of the movement, but shortly before it was time to eat I realized the numbness was almost all the way gone. That meant I was able to eat dinner normally.

I have a second appointment next week for the second side of my mouth. Now that I've been through the process once I'll be able to plan a little better.

It's Not You, It's My Computer

For the past few days, there are a couple of blogs in my reader that all of a sudden won't let me access them. Instead, I get an error message that says something about a secure connection failure and data authenticity failure. (For what it's worth, that error message went so far over my head it could have been written in Ancient Greek.)

I normally use the Firefox browser, but I also have the problem with Safari. The suggestions I found on the internet were no help. So the moral of the story is that if I normally comment on your posts and you haven't seen me lately it's not that I don't want to. It's that I can't.

I hope like so many of the internet issues I've encountered I hope this one will go away soon.

Five years ago today: Did You Know?

Doing My "Smell" Part

Less than a week after I signed up for a Parkinson's Disease smell test the materials were delivered via a UPS bubble envelope. Inside that envelope there was a page with directions as well as a sealed standard envelope. That envelope had everything I needed to complete the test-an identification code, four test booklets, and a sharpened pencil.

The test instructions were easy to follow. Starting with the first book I was to use the tip of the pencil to scratch the sample on each page, smell it, then fill in the circle that corresponded to one of the four scent answers. If what I thought I smelled wasn't one of the choices I was to pick the closest answer, and if I couldn't smell anything I should guess.

Each book took five minutes to get through. However, I found that by the time a book was finished my nose needed an additional five minute break. When all the books were completed I entered the answers online. After I finished entering the information the website thanked me for my time and said I could discard the test. My tiny part of the research was finished.

Five years ago today: Happy Easter 2019

Settling In

Debra at She Who Seeks left a comment asking what our foster cat's name was. I can't believe I didn't formally introduce Pimento (which is the moniker given to him by the shelter) !

It's now been three days since Pimento left his last foster home and came to ours. The first thing Hubby Tony and I did when we set the cage in the office was to open the door. Pimento spent the rest of the day hugging its far back wall. At bedtime we closed the office door. During the night we heard some noises from the room. The next morning the water and food bowls had been tipped over and the cage was empty.

There weren't too many places an adult cat could go. The room has a day bed with a trundle underneath it, and we found Pimento hiding in a six-inch gap behind the trundle. He spent the rest of Wednesday and the daylight hours on Thursday there. Each morning there was evidence that he had eaten/drank/used the litter box.

If I'm quiet maybe they won't find me

Not only did he officially set up shop behind the trundle bed, somehow he managed to move the hefty metal frame three additional inches from the wall so the hidey hole was a little bigger.

Yesterday morning Tony left for the weekend. When I went to bed last night I left the office door open. This morning Pimento wasn't in his cage or the spot behind the bed. I walked around the condo looking for him in obvious places, then not so obvious places. When I checked out the office a third time I noticed a lump on the bed. Guess what the lump was?

Found you!

I Thought It Was Pretty Thoughtful

The other day I received an email with the subject line of Avoid Unwanted Mother’s Day Emails. It went on to say that the company understood that Mother's Day can be difficult for some people, and if I didn't want to receive any marketing messages related to the day I could opt out by clicking on a link.

I have no problem with quickly deleting messages that don't apply to me but I guess not everyone is, and a topic could be a trigger.

Five years ago today: To Put It Another Way...