Tonight I learned that if you put the kitten's medicine in canned catfood, inside a cat crate, with the door shut, (on accounta the kitten is busy playing on the floor with a Q-tip) the dog can still eat it!

Hidden Memory

I opened the mattress topper we'd purchased for the spare bedroom's double bed at my sister's house.

I'd slept alone on the bed for a week at a time amending the too firm mattress with the comforter under the fitted sheet (helped only a little).
After one long night following a plane ride jammed into the last row in seats with obnoxious head rests and no ability to recline, we gave in and got this 'bread and butter' present because the comforter wasn't big enough for two people.
Grateful to find the washable cotton cover in it's own little bag, I got that into the washing machine to wash out the 'sizing'.
Even before we read the inserted "Product Disclaimer" (also translated honestly into Spainish "Renuncia de Responsabilidad") we planned to open and air-out the unwashable foam pad.
I tore off the 3 strips of tape over plastic pallet wrap, unfolded the compressed pad, grabbed my camera phone to record the tiny handprints as their memories quickly faded away.
The image of many people surrounding the pad, smushing/folding/smushing it all at once and someone else wrapping it QUICK! before it could get away lingers in MY memory.

Cellphone Made Me Feel Like a Fool TWICE!

The screen went blank on Bond's third phone in a year. I'd run his first through the wash. The second one we found at the bottom of the pallet wood-scrap barrel was unreliable, probably why it wound up in the barrel without a Sim card, but with a charged battery (so we knew it worked). We found it a charger at Amazon for 3 cents plus shipping. #2 was also out-dated so we replaced it.

A blank screen made phone #3 almost useless; he could use speed dial or answer it. But If Bond missed a call he couldn't see who'd called and couldn't call them back. And forget about texts. But he'd never been able to turn off predictive text and refused to use that anyway. Most annoying was that he couldn't turn off the daily 6 AM alarm! He'd leave phone #3 in a far away room when he wanted to sleep in.

Phone #4 arrived via UPS on Friday. I unpacked it and put the battery in to charge the necessary (but very short) 4 1/2 hours. The other phone was still at work so I couldn't install the Sim card until later.

While Bond cooked our chicken dinner I read him the instructions and moved the Sim card. After a short break for a cocktail and chicken livers on toast, I returned to the instructions to learn how to turn the phone on. Instructions said to press and hold the "soft key". As I studied them, I noticed that the keys looked suspiciously smudged. I couldn't find one that looked like the picture so I pressed and held down the "disconnect" key and it started up, greeted me with "Hell-o Moto" and then told me there was no Sim card. At first I thought I'd installed the card wrong. Then I realized I'd picked up phone #3, FOOLISH ME! I changed to the other phone and continued the set up, including calling it with my phone and, later, calling my mom on speakerphone for a lovely family chat.

It wasn't until the next day I realized THE SCREEN WORKED! Bond had tried everything to make the phone work, EXCEPT taking out the battery.

I can predict the future.

I woke up this morning at 5:30. Thought it was too early to get up until I calculated (because I fell asleep on the new PBS Brit-drama) that I'd had about 7 hours of sleep. Worried a bit about the winds from the predicted ice storm bringing down the dead pine next to the house and then dragged myself out of bed because "this may be my only chance to get a hot cup of coffee before the power goes out." As I counted to five, filling the electric pot with just the minimum 2 cups of cold water, the power went out. RATS! too late!
SO DARK! Not even one tiny l.e.d. to guide me back to bed where we stayed comfortably snoozing until noon, too lazy to get up and start a fire in the wood stove in the next room. It probably helped us sleep to know we have 2 wood stoves and plenty of fuel to keep us warm in case the power stays out for days.

Pollywog Update

 

6 weeks later and a bit bigger.  I’ve been adding about 4 gallons of water a day when it doesn’t rain.  I let the water sit 24 hours to evaporate the chlorine, so it won’t kill whatever the little guys eat.

Too many choices?

Is this an example of why we need clear rules, or just dinner time in a tiny Southern town?

Change of Plans; pollywog sighted!

I'd talked myself in to believing the spring frogs' eggs laid in winter, and tadpoles could not have possibly survived the snow and freezing weather and had given the "OK" to drain the low spot in the driveway.

In fact I'd even started to lower the ground and had sent some water down hill yesterday.

This afternoon I spotted a pollywog!

8 more weeks of impassable driveway until they leave the water. AND I'd better set up the MegaCatch mosquito trap so we don't get eaten up by any skeeters that the pollywogs don't get.

Pollywog is just to the right of the floating blossom. I could tell what it is by how it swam away to hide under the leaves. That may be another one at the top and center on the sweetgum leaf.

I believe these are Copes Grey tree frogs because their parents sound sorta like this
http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/anurans/hylchr.AU