Things to Think About

Good morning!

That's my big kalanchoe, up there. It is very tall, way taller than the Yazzybel.
It was given to me as a very small plant by my friend Elaine, who's a wonderful gardener.

That line coming down the left side of the photo is not coming from the kalanchoe; it is coming up from the "reed orchid" and probably eventually got a gorgeous fuschia colored multiple flower head on it. It's an epidendrum, and that is what the flower looks like. Mine are not orange, however. I got that picture from the web. I have true lipstick red ones, and fuschia ones, and one treasured white one which I am trying to keep going.  The fuschia ones are from my friend Frances, who has given me many plants also.  That is the good thing about gardeners; they are very unselfish with their plant progeny.

What I am most thinking about right now is our trip.  We shall have a house-sitter, who has been here a number of times before. His wife used to do it but I don't think she could put up with my slapdash housekeeping.  I like the husband fine, and so do the dogs.

And speaking of dogs, he just may not have any dogs to watch this year.  Both dogs are coughing a lot.  They  have that trachea condition that little dogs get, and they have it badly. The vet is not hopeful.  Birdy is the worst, and as soon as I observe that her quality of life is not worth it, we shall have to say goodbye to her.  Listy coughs too, though.  But I hate to put Birdy down and then have to have Listy try to  get used to single life AND have us gone at the same time, so we are trying to keep old Birdy going.  I notice that my tussin/DM cough syrup seems to do her some good and lets her get some rest.  I put a drop of it in a little cup, add a little water, suck it up with plastic dropper, and zappo!  Down the hatch.  About a tenth of it!!  It seems to calm her down, for when she cannot breathe she gets panicky and gets worse.  As an asthmatic for my entire childhood, I know what it's like. She is at the "whatever works" stage of her life, I guess.

So, we have to get the house cleared out. Got rid of eight bags of "stuffe" last week, and am going for eight more this week as I can.  In the meantime, making boxes and bags of stuff to take to my kids who will never never come to see us and collect it for themselves.  We have three bedrooms, so we always put our private stuff into one of them and lock it away while we are gone.  One trip, we forgot to lock it and left the door open, LOL>  I always wonder if it is a good idea to lock a room, secret files or not.  If there were an emergency, there it would all go in a fire or whatever. Will, poof.  Health directives, poof.  Letters of old, poof. Jewelry, poof.  Decisions, decisions.

And then there's OUR health. Theo is recuperating from the blows to the face he took last weekend when he fell.  He seems to be doing OK. In the meantime, I have my general wooziness and vertigo to contend with.  We need a daughter! Living with us!!  Not gonna happen. So we continue to weed out, creep around, go to the store (our only exercise), and eat as well as possible.  I think being eighty finally caught up to me. I don't know what Taterton's excuse is!!  YAZZYBEL