57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-21-15”

  4. as Chas would say, I didn’t understand any of that, except that you can close soon!!!
    Congratulations. I saved the link with the pictures and can just see you in the incredible kitchen and the master bath is wonderful.
    Just need an awning over the back porch.

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  6. Good day, and back to the doc day for some! Good evening, Jo, and back to the bed for a hood rest for you!

    It is book assignment time at bookfun.org. They have some E-books for anyone in the world. One book in paperback that I requested is The Atheist That Didn’t Exist by the Canadian Director of Ravi Zacariah Ministries. It is a book to help peole engage with atheists. Just in case anyone might be interested. You have to join the site and then join the Readers Only group to get free books for review.

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  7. A hood rest? Jo, that should be good. But I did have a hood rest in the hospital. I wore a hoodie and pulled it down over my eyes so I would not be as disturbed with the frequent visitations of staff in the night hours

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  8. Good morning all. Glad to hear that Art is on the mend. Did you get any more rain Jo? Kim, I hope you feel as much joy in buying your home as we did in selling one two weeks ago. Hi Chas.

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  10. Janice – Just want you to know that I a enjoying reading the book you sent me. Thank you for thinking of me.

    In my previous email to you, I mentioned that your sweet spirit reminds me of my friend Marlene. I think I forgot to mention that her husband’s name is Art, too.

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  11. What a cute little (squirrel) guy. 🙂

    Onward to Monday, I’m looking forward to going to an air-conditioned newsroom at least! Last night stayed in the 80s, I didn’t go to bed until almost midnight (too hot) and had the bedroom fan running on high or medium all night long. The fans in this house are surely getting a workout this month.

    And I feel punchy this morning, like I didn’t get much sleep (I don’t think I did, I recall a bit of tossing and turning). And my poor animals, they’re stuck here in their fur coats, but it is supposed to be a little cooler today and hopefully it will stay comfortable in the house until later this afternoon. I’ll leave the ceiling fan on for them (though someday that thing is going to die, I use it so much).

    Janice, glad things are looking up and there are no current hospital stays in the outlook.

    Excited for you Kim, it’s a fun time moving into a new place and one you really like at that. I know this house you’re in now hasn’t been much satisfaction for someone who enjoys decorating and entertaining. You’ll have some catching up to do once you move. Looking forward to the photos.

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  12. We are back at the docs this a.m. to see if he needs another IV. We had a giant maze of a new parking garage to navigate with no indicators as to which building we were near. Finally I decided to park by some Handicapped spaces. We had a little walk over to the closest building. It was where we needed to be! God is good! Husband said it is a bit sad that our daily commute is over to this hospital area (rather than to work).

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  13. Phooey. I spoke too soon. Although if we get any rain (much of it will probably be more inland and in the foothills), it’ll bring some relief.

    LOS ANGELES — The Southland will swelter under abnormally high temperatures for one more day today and a low-pressure system combined with a plume of sub-tropical moisture will bring showers and possibly thunderstorms starting tonight, perhaps lasting through Tuesday night, forecasters said.

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  16. Karen, I was away from the blog for the rest of the weekend, so I did not see your replies to me from Saturday’s discussion until today. My question, “Why assume the worst?” was rhetorical and not directed at anyone personally. I have always observed that you try to be even-handed in forming opinions, which is admirable in a time when fear is polarizing people’s opinions.

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  17. Donna, don’t be too quick. the Pope doesn’t want you to have air conditioning.
    From Drudge

    “A simple example [of harmful habits of consumption] is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning,” Francis writes. “The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behavior, which at times appears self-destructive.”

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/pope-francis-air-conditioning-climate-change-encyclical

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  18. The squirrel is a red squirrel, by far the smallest of our three species and not that much bigger than a chipmunk. (We may also have flying squirrels, I’m not sure, but they’re nocturnal and I’ve never seen one.) They’re hard to photograph since usually by the time you’ve seen one, it has already seen you and is fleeing. So I was happy to get this cute, curious little guy.

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  20. Chas, Michigan and parts of northern Indiana have jet-black squirrels, a color phase of gray squirrels (same species) and I think quite lovely. (I photographed some in the cemetery next to the hotel we stayed in Friday night.) But I’ve never seen the white ones.

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  21. This pope is getting to be pretty predictable. 🙂

    Prager was talking about the clock melodrama this morning, but I didn’t hear all of it.

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  22. I never realized black squirrels were gray squirrels in a different phase. We don’t see them at our home, but do have them in the area. They were plentiful in my parent’s yard. Only the gray, though. Never saw black there, but I have seen them in other places near us. The neighbor has photographed and seen albino squirrels in her yard. I have never seen one of those. I did not realize there were white squirrels either.

    See how much one can learn here? 🙂

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  26. From the NY Times:

    _________________________________

    Los Angeles rats are very different from New York rats. New York rats are the fat, mean and ugly brown rat, or Norwegian rat. Los Angeles has some Norwegian rats who came West via the railroad and can be found mostly downtown, but the dominant species here is the black rat, sometimes called the ship rat because it arrived, along with many other unpleasant things, when Europeans discovered the coastline.

    Black rats are sleek and graceful; they like to live in high places like attics and trees, to do a little traveling, though more often alone than in teeming ratty hordes. Black rats tend to have a healthy diet, eating fruits and vegetables whenever they can, which, given the state of L.A. backyards, is often. Their tails are quite long and slender. …

    __________________________________

    shudder.

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  29. I once completely freaked out a friend when I commented on a Chicago rat how big, sleek, and healthy it looked. We were safely in a car, so I had no sense at all of “Rat! Eek!” though I would have felt that way if we had been out for a walk and it had crossed in front of us. I really can’t stand the things, and I think I’d sign over my title free and clear if any of them ever moved in with me . . . but looking at it from a car, it was simply wildlife.

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  30. I’ve trapped and killed a couple of them in my house — which all led up to my seeking out a “mouser” cat, of course. Rats are very sneaky. Pre-Annie, I spent one night huddled in the bathroom when I heard a rat that had gotten in scurrying around in my bedroom closet.

    Set a trap the next day and took the dogs to spend the next 3 nights night with three different friends. I literally could not bear going back in my house. Caught & killed him the first night, the next two nights I re-set the trap but caught nothing, I just wanted to make sure a partner/mate wasn’t still inside.

    Shudder.

    Annie then brought one into the house, he died in the hall closet and I had to scoop him up. He was pretty big. Her other live “gifts” have been mice, much smaller.

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  31. Apparently fox squirrels also have a black phase, but I’ve never seen those–and those aren’t all solid black like most of the gray squirrel’s black ones are.

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  34. Jo, do you ever get the problem of decapitated geckos, which had unfortunately been on top of the door when you closed it, dropping down on you the next time you opened the door? The others warned me it would happen, but it was still a shock when it happened to me.

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  35. We have hit a little bit of a snag and may not be able to close this week. It is a real pain because we have everything lined up to switch over on Saturday, plus the end of the month is coming up and I didn’t want to pay another month’s rent. I wanted to hand the keys back to a clean house on the 30th.
    All because someone at the mortgage company gave the wrong telephone number for Mr P and sent and email telling me what was going on rather than taking the time to make a phone call.
    We got it all straight today, but now we are looking at a 4 day turn around starting tomorrow instead of today.
    I know there is a reason this happened but I am having a hard time seeing it right now because we had free movers on Saturday.

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  36. Roscuro, it sounds like someone should be warning the geckoes. . . .

    Speaking of geckoes, my “expertise” with animals once enabled some of the critters to live. Mom found a nest of baby lizards in our shed, and asked me to investigate. Since they were pale shades of black and orange, she was concerned they might be baby Gila monsters. She figured they were likely not poisonous yet, or not very poisonous, and she didn’t want to kill them if they were harmless. (None of us ever saw a Gila monster in the wild, but they are one of two poisonous lizards in the world, and spooky just to look at.) Anyway, I watched the babies come and go for a couple of days and finally determined they were simply the wrong shape–though I hadn’t ever seen geckoes before, I realized they were gecko-shaped, and thus harmless, and thus they were allowed to live.

    This was probably what I saw (gecko shown with a Gila monster): http://www.wildhorizons.com/wp/wp-content/gallery/Part%201_GilaMonsters/images/page67.html

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  37. We saw black squirrels when we visited Canada near Lake Huron. Around here we have mostly the red kind, with some grays. But I’ve not seen black ones.

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  38. Cheryl, one of the storeroom doors at the clinic had a little gecko skeleton dangling over the top… I once found a flattened gecko carcase stuck to the edge of the door where the hinges are. I discovered its presence when I put my hand on the door edge… But there were always more geckos. The first house I was in had a ‘dragon’, a gecko about a foot long and two inches thick. It would just look at you if you happened to disturb it, whereas smaller geckos always scurried away. The next house had a smaller variety, only about 8 inches long, that hid behind my food cupboard.

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  40. Many years ago when I was just a fresh faced young woman about to get married and looking for some type of job I was hired by a Laura Bush look alike. Actually since my woman is older Laura Bush looks like her. She became one of the women I admired most. Today when we were in town for our class on the Single Tax Colony I walked down to where she works. I asked her who in town was hiring that I wanted to quit doing what I was doing and was looking for something part time. She got my number and told me to let her work on it.

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  45. No, Jo, you are on your own with skinks and snakes. I will kill a spider, roach, most any bug. I can shooo most small rodents. But skinks and snakes. Don’t do that.

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  46. I’m loving this conversation about lizards, geckoes, skinks and snakes. We have salamanders and down in Grasslands NP we had short horned lizards – cute, fat little lizards, nothing like the sleek, slender speedy ones in Arizona.

    We had a great weekend with our son and his girlfriend. Managed to do some hiking, window shopping, canoeing and playing cards with them. We also sat out around the campfire and watched the northern lights. When I hugged him goodbye I whispered in his ear that he needs to marry this girl and he said “all in good time” mom! So they’re talking and planning but taking their time.

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  52. The skink went to the sink to have a drink. Quick as a wink he was a dead skink. He mistook the suds for beer, oh dear, such a dope, there was no hope for the suds were soap.

    Maybe I need to go to the hospital myself!♡

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  54. Kare, we too had short, fat horned lizards (though we generally called them “horned toads”) in Arizona. In fact, I had a couple as pets (probably illegally, though I was a child and didn’t think of such things), though they didn’t live very long. I drew them (not easy, as they have odd angles) and enjoyed them. Their favorite food is supposed to be ants, but I remember distinctly putting small ants in a box with one of them and they crawled over him (not in huge numbers or anything) and he reacted by kicking and scratching them off, as though they were stinging him.

    I also remember one day lying back on the grass with one of them on my belly, both of us just resting in the sun. I was probably 11 or 12. One of them was a brick red, and I called it Rusty. The other was a rosy pink, and I called it Rosey. I don’t remember which I had first. I also had pet crayfish, and had success with them, but after them I didn’t want any more “wild” pets. Then Mom and Dad went on a weekend away when I was about 15, and brought back half a dozen cute, tiny toads in a cardboard box for me. Half of them had died by the time they gave them to me, two others died in the next few weeks, but I had one for several weeks. One time it got out of the box and we saw it hopping down the hall. Another day it was missing and I never did find it; I rather assume it got out again and our dog ate it. I hadn’t wanted any more wild pets, but having had success with that one little one, I was sorry not to be able to keep it. The crayfish and toad were far more interesting than the guppies and other tropical fish I had periodically, and I didn’t have long-term success with the fish, either. The crayfish were probably my most successful other than the cocker spaniel that was mostly mine even though she was officially the family dog.

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  55. Cheryl, we caught crayfish and salamanders in a nearby creek. I loved finding them under rocks in the water, but I don’t think we ever took them home. We did have the little painted turtles until they stopped selling them. And when son was young we had some of those cute little crabs that lived in seashells in a terrarium.

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