August chitchat

[Virginia]

Well, we are expecting some heavy rain and a lot of wind during the night and tomorrow. I have 3 updates from our power company warning us about what to do. The weather man said tonight between 4 to 8 inches in this area. I don't know how one prepares other than make sure you have a flashlight handy.

I have a visitor. It is a tiny little mouse. I have only seen it one time and that was Monday night. I was reading, there was no t.v. on and it was very quite. It ran from my dining room into my living room and got behind my t.v. cabinet. I think it came in earlier in the day. I opened the door to take the trash out and didn't close the glass door good. They can come in very, very small places, but I think I left the back door too open and it must have seemed inviting.

I wish I could borrow Jingles cat for a day or two. This is the only time I have had a mouse in at least 40 years. Tuesday when my cleaners came I sent a man who drives them to get some mouse traps. I gave him $25.00 and told him to get two or three. He came back with 8. I gave him 4 of them. I had never seen traps like this. Very updated mouse traps. I had the man set them with cheese. I don't know where the mouse is so I had him put 3 downstairs and one upstairs. Tuesday within an hour or a little more I looked at the trap by my t.v. The cheese was already gone, but the trap didn't go off. I up this morning and the cheese was gone from one I had in the kitchen. Still no mouse. The cheese then disappeared from a third one I had in my office this afternoon. I haven't checked the one upstairs. I think it is so tiny that it isn't tripping the traps. It seems it can just sit there and eat the cheese and nothing happens.

Tomorrow, we are being asked not to travel, so it will be Friday before one of my brothers can come and set some regular mouse traps. In the meantime I leave a light on wherever I go. I will be glad when he/she/it is gone. I do not like mice.

Everyone have a good night. I think I might have a really lazy day tomorrow if it is as wet and bad a day as forecast.

[agate]

Virginia, it sounds as if that tropical storm is coming your way--Debby? I've been hearing about it on the news and wondering about you. I hope you'll batten down the hatches and be OK.

Too bad about the mouse! Mice can squeeze themselves into tiny spaces. Borrowing a cat to take care of the mouse might be a strategy but some cats just aren't mousers. I understand that they have to learn to hunt from their moms, and some cat moms don't teach them or aren't around for some reason.

A new type of mousetrap is on the scene but it must not be a better mousetrap if the mouse is feasting on the cheese and walking away. I've known that to happen with the old-fashioned mousetraps that I haven't seen since my childhood. Exterminators use some kind of bait, I think, if you decide to bring in an exterminator.

In the building in WA state where I lived for many years, I once saw a mouse dancing in and out of the building's front door, a very heavy glass and metal door with a weather seal along the bottom of it. There must have been only a quarter of an inch of space between that door seal and the threshold under it but that mouse was having a wonderful time going in and out of the building in a zigzag way. I wouldn't have believed it possible for a mouse to squeeze under such a small space but it had no problem.

[jingle]

Good morning, everyone. I hope you all are having a good day. Virginia, I hope you're safe and dry. I'm trying to unpack too much stuff. My precious cat would not be much help chasing anything. I think she would just stroll to me and demand I catch that mouse for her. Did you get that mouse yet? Oh, I hope so. I certainly don't want a mouse in my house. Thank goodness, the place/apartment ? I just moved into is fantastically clean - every inch is spotless. Of course, clean doesn't stop a mouse. I wonder what does.
.

[Virginia]

Hi everyone! Looks like Agate and Jingle have been associating with lazy cats. Jingle your cat seems to have you well trained. I think you are going to enjoy your new place to live.

Well, I no longer have a mouse in the house. Late last night I looked at the trap that was in my breakfast nook and much to my surprise the mouse had been caught. I think what happened was he wanted more cheese. I had noticed that there appeared to be just a small amount left in the tray that held the cheese. I guess he had to dig a little harder for this and it set the trap off.

I was in a real pickle when I went to bed because I didn't know how to get rid of it. No way was I going to touch that trap. It was too close to the mouse. So this morning I decided to somehow get the mouse, trap and all, into a shoe box. I finally managed to get that done with the help of a reacher. I was careful not to let the reacher touch the mouse, still I have it sitting on my deck so it will get rained on. The mouse in the shoebox is in a garbage bag sitting on my front porch. My yard everywhere is so deep in water I can't go to my trash can. I have to cross my deck and it is too wet and rainy now. Hopefully, except for getting the garbage bag to the trash can that is the end of the mouse story.

We have had water, water everywhere. One of my brothers has a rain gauge and since last night he got 7 inches at his house. I don't know how much I have had, but probably about the same. A tornado touched down in a close by county during the night. A school was severely damaged. One person was killed.

Over close to my area, some teenagers were out riding their bikes and decided to go exploring in a nearby creek. The water was not that deep but it was so swift that 3 of the young girls clung to a tree branch. They were rescued by the fire department using a rubber boat. It was scary. A nearby neighbor heard them screaming and told his wife to call 911. Water can rise and become swift in just a matter of minutes. The neighbor said they were no more than 50 feet from him but he couldn't reach them.

We are to get more rain this evening and tomorrow off and on.

[agate]

This is serious rain you're having there, obviously, Virginia! Hope you can stick to the high ground. It doesn't sound so good if your yard is all water.

But congratulations on snagging the mouse and disposing of it! I believe I'd have used rubber gloves for the disposal job. Now you won't need to find a Rent-a-Cat service.

jingle, I've heard that one way to cut down on mice is to plug up any holes in your house or apartment, especially holes with access to the outdoors.

Years ago I moved to a place with a mouse, and the first night there the cat was chasing it all over the apartment, including over my bed where I was trying to sleep. They kept romping over my legs in bed, so fast that I could hardly see what was going on. I don't think she ever caught the mouse but I found that there was a large hole in a closet wall--about a foot in diameter. I asked the landlord to fix that hole, and after that there were no more mice. But I did go all around the apartment putting spackling compound in the spaces between the baseboard and the floor. Sometimes a building settles and the baseboard separates from the floor, leaving just a little gap but it's big enough for a mouse.

There's no way I could do that job now. I'd have too much of a problem getting up off the floor.

[Virginia]

Agate, I do have plenty of gloves, but I couldn't bring myself to touch that trap no matter what I had on. I was actually rather proud of myself for doing it at all. Truth be told, if I had had a person that lives close to me that I felt comfortable calling I probably would have done just that.

When this place was being built I asked the builder to make sure there were no small holes into the house. Every workman since then I have cautioned them about that. I expect if I get another one I will call the exterminator. I hate to because many years ago while my husband was alive we got a mouse from when cable was put in our community. The man who came checked all over the house including the attic and told me I didn't have a mouse problem. He said the tiny hole that the cable came up through was big enough for a mouse. He said a mouse can scrooge itself up so small it can enter your house through a hole no larger than a pencil. Needless to say, I had my husband take care of that mouse and go under and around our house to check for any holes and plug them up.

You are braver than I am. If a mouse ran across my bed I would probably have a heart attack or kill myself trying to get help. As it is, I feel somewhat like a pioneer woman.

We had something like 6 or 7 tornado watches and warnings today. It might be more because I finally turned it off so I could cook and eat supper. The last I heard there is to be rain on and off all night and into tomorrow before it clears up.

I hope everyone has a good evening. Since I live in the East my evening is closer to be over than those of you in the West or Northwest.

[agate]

Virginia, I think the exterminator was absolutely right about what a mouse is capable of. In case you missed this:

In the building in WA state where I lived for many years, I once saw a mouse dancing in and out of the building's front door, a very heavy glass and metal door with a weather seal along the bottom of it. There must have been only a quarter of an inch of space between that door seal and the threshold under it but that mouse was having a wonderful time going in and out of the building in a zigzag way. I wouldn't have believed it possible for a mouse to squeeze under such a small space but it had no problem.

As for being brave, I almost did have a heart attack. I had no idea what was happening at first as it was dark and I had just moved in and didn't know where anything was. Maybe it was lucky that I never did get much of a look at that mouse. The whole chase was lightning-fast.

You are braver than I am. If a mouse ran across my bed I would probably have a heart attack or kill myself trying to get help. As it is, I feel somewhat like a pioneer woman.

[Virginia]

I don't know how much rain we had, but much of my yard is still standing in water. I know we had a lot. The weather forecast on my phone says we have a 50 percent chance of getting more tomorrow. Last night between 9 and 10 o'clock we had a thunder storm, bringing with it more rain which was heavy and lasted quite awhile.

My family is due to get together tomorrow for several of us who have had birthdays in the past several months. We have two nieces and their husbands coming from out of town. I think there will be 14 of us. This is the first time we will have been together since June. I hope it is not too emotional for some of us.

I haven't seen Tim lately. I hope all is well with him.

Hope all you are enjoying your weekend.

[Prot]

I hope Tim is alright and not suffering any bad consequences from all his dental problems.

Thanks for your concern but compared to you having a fall ,Agate's outage, and Jingle's stressful move- a bit of hurt from a wobbly tooth is much ado about nothing. It's surprising what's difficult to eat- in no particular order-grapes, mushrooms, watermelon chunks, ham pieces, and prawns.


My somewhat limited patience is being tested waiting for a report from a professional genealogist re 2 ancestral lines I asked him to research. It's been a 4 month wait so far for one and a 2 month wait for the other.

I was annoyed with the report from the independent psychiatrist(re negligence claim) which he did after a video talk with my daughter and me. But I've calmed down a bit now. He thinks with a bit of CBT combined with physio I'll soon be taking long walks outside unaided. The reality? I can take about 50 smallish steps unaided indoors where there are things to hold onto/prop myself against if needed. Outside in a wide open space with much more uneven ground, compared to indoors, that's a hugely different kettle of fish! I could at a large push do 25 metres there and 25 metres back outdoors unaided, which would get me precisely nowhere.

[agate]

Tim, being able to walk only short distances some of the time is a tricky situation to be in. People don't make allowances for your limitations but you still have those limitations. It's too bad you were given false hope by a medical provider. I wish that wouldn't happen.

My ophthalmologist tried to tell me that with cataract surgery I would no longer need to wear glasses. I expressed total disbelief when I heard that, and he did back off after taking a closer look at my record. It's that kind of promise that really shouldn't be made. I don't know why doctors think they have a crystal ball anyway.

I remember how difficult grapes are to eat with a tooth problem going on! Is the tooth loose or painful or both?

Virginia, that must be your belated birthday celebration that is among those being observed, or no? I hope that will go smoothly and be enjoyable.

How is the skylight doing in all of the rain you've had? Is there any leakage?

[Prot]

It's loose and painful if anything too cold or too hot touches it.

[Virginia]

Tim, sorry you are having problems with that lose, wobbly and worse of all painful tooth.

I agree with Agate about the doctor who made the "stupid" comment about you almost walking normally. Has he ever evaluated you in person, and watched you walk? When I was first diagnosed with MS, I had already reached a point that I couldn't walk far, in fact a very short distance. However while walking that short distance I was able to "look good". In other words, I wasn't yet wobbling. I had people, and even doctors, tell me that I looked like I could walk fine. I wanted to look fine, but I didn't care for anyone telling me I could do something that I knew was impossible for me. It is very frustrating. So glad your daughter is there to help you through these calls.

Agate, we were able to get together for " birthdays" today. It was nice to see everyone together again. My brother had requested that we not bring up Grayson's name. (my nephew that died) The reason he asked that we not is because his daughter's 3 year son has had a really hard time. He loved his Uncle Grayson and Grayson was crazy about him. They had face timed most every day. When he and his 1 year old brother got tired their Dad took them home. At that time, we did talk and my brother and his wife shared with us some of the things that people, mostly in the golfing world, are doing to honor Grayson. Much of it I knew but the others didn't. I did get to see some emails and long texts from people that I had not seen. I saw a long one from Jake Owens who is a country music singer who was a friend of Grayson's. He sang at my nephew's funeral. I was glad to see all 3 of my nieces and their husbands. It was the first time since the funeral.

All in all, it was a good day.

[Prot]

Thank you,Virginia.The assessment was to see how I am mentally/psychologically. Unfortunately he did the all too common,modern day, thing of believing that supposed 'expertise' in one area qualifies you to comment on another area.Expanding on what I previously said. Apparently I’ve got an adjustment disorder. In which case so does my sister who has very much the same fears that I do after her knee/hip op. She’s always been a far more confident person than me. The 'adjustment disorder has supposedly hindered my participation in rehabilitation. At best it’s an inaccurate interpretation of the facts. At worst an outright lie. My biggest problem has not been a reluctance to do what’s needed, but the same kind of ‘forgetting to do’ that had me switched from oral psychiatric meds to depot. I’ve set up a 9 am and 9 pm reminders with Alexa re doing the current exercises. That’s something I wouldn’t have done if reluctant to participate in the rehabilitation.

I have good and not so good days pain wise.Getting the balance right between being too sedentary or upright for too long isn’t easy. The mixed messages don’t help. On one hand I’m supposedly not doing enough. On the other hand I’m told to use the stroller more.

The pdoc’s ‘solution’ ? Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT),
supplemented by consultation with a physiotherapy expert to assess
the suitability of a rehabilitation program. I’m not and never will be a great believer in CBT. And as for a rehabilitation program I’m already doing all that I’ve been advised to do. The pdoc believes with the above I’ll achieve ‘full recovery’ . The reality as opposed to the unhelpful ‘pie in the sky’ thinking? 32 months on, having done what’s required as best I can, I could probably manage 35 metres one way and 35 metres back unaided outside? There is absolutely no way based on the facts available I’ll be going out on my own for long walks. Even pre the falls I wasn’t up to doing long walks. Several quite expensive sessions with an osteopath didn’t make a noticeable difference.

My balance, which has never been good, has worsened with age.Ditto my coordination.

I've just been reading about Grayson. He was very talented. Potentially on the cusp of achieving great things golfing wise. I believe not enough is done to protect the mental well being of those involved in sports at a professional level.

[agate]

Tim, that must be true about people at the professional level in sports. I've been aware of news about professional athletes who had to withdraw from their participation because of mental health issues that were probably related to the stress involved (Simone Biles was one not so long ago). Too much is expected of them, and they probably don't want to let people down even though nobody is perfect and they can't please everyone all the time or always turn in a stellar performance.

Getting the balance right between being too sedentary or upright for too long isn’t easy.

That describes my situation too. I never know what I can get away with. Today there was an oven-cleaning job I needed to do but didn't feel up to doing even though I wasn't intending to do the whole stove just now--only the oven. I pared the job down even more and ended up giving it what used to be called a lick and a promise. That was this morning, and I still have baking soda residue to wipe away inside the oven but tomorrow is another day.

A lot of jobs don't really have to be done at one fell swoop. It's nice when that can happen and then you can look at the finished job with pride but you can do that on another day too.

[Virginia]

First of all I want to thank Tim for reading up on Grayson. Yes he was on the cusp, but actually had already had some good wins and placed high up in many others. He was dearly loved by many, not perfect by any means, but he had done so much for people down on their luck. He especially loved children. Maybe he felt comfortable with them.

Agate, you are right about a lot being expected of athletes. In golf there is another thing that plays into it. They are not playing as a team. When they walk off the golf course they are not surrounded by teammates. They are friends with many of their fellow golfers, but the bottom line is they are competitors. My brother once again last night made it clear how good the golfing world has been to his family. The Commissioner has been steadfast and so many golfers have personally reached out to them. I am unable to watch golf right now, but I still love hearing about them.

Tim, I am dealing with exactly what you are talking about when it comes to overdoing. I try not to go out two days in a row, and since I went yesterday I would have loved not to go today. I had a rx ready for me to pick up and I needed to go by the bank. So I went and knowing I couldn't go a third day for sure, I kept going and went to the grocery store. I am totally wiped out tonight after trying to get around in the grocery store and coming home and unloading the groceries. Thankfully, I had leftovers from the restaurant last night. I already know I will stay in bed half a day tomorrow and still feel rotten. Still, I am glad it is done.

It is next to impossible to get this right. I have read that people with most neurological conditions can not rest up or come back as quickly as other people. I looked at my calendar and found that I have a few days coming up that I can hopefully recuperate. If I had not had this little period of time, I would have had to make other arrangements and I don't know what that would be. It is one of the hardest things to deal with, so I understand what you are saying.

[agate]

There's just nobody who is "there" for a golfer like Grayson when it comes to sharing experiences while playing the game, is there? I've often wondered how situations like that can possibly work. You hear about lawyers who are competing in the courtroom and yet they are friends otherwise. I've never understood how that could work at all.

And a golfer is so completely on exhibit if there's an audience at all. Being on display and all alone for your big moment each time you play would be difficult, it seems to me.

[Prot]

It is next to impossible to get this right. I have read that people with most neurological conditions can not rest up or come back as quickly as other people. I looked at my calendar and found that I have a few days coming up that I can hopefully recuperate. If I had not had this little period of time, I would have had to make other arrangements and I don't know what that would be. It is one of the hardest things to deal with, so I understand what you are saying.

I can't guarantee anywhere near consistency, from one day to the next, as to what I'll manage to achieve/do. That applies both cognitively,physically, and psychologically. It's not any one thing by itself that causes such inconsistency, but the complex interplay of different things on different days.