Boo!!

Our boss let us out early this afternoon so we could go home and prepare for the trick-or-treaters. Apparently the radio commentators were full of concern that there is now so much traffic leaving DC at the end of the day that people would not get home in time to be there when the little goblins came calling. Quel horror!!

Anyway, we don't get trick or treaters in this neighborhood, for some reason. On the way home, though, I did pass throngs of lovely students, some still in uniform, from the Visitation School (plus a few boyfriends) calling at the embassies on Massachusetts Avenue. Many were in costume (a willowy tiger wearing a ruffled housecoat stood out, as did Hansel, one of the boyfriends, and Gretel).

The Lazy Gardener posted George's prize-winning pumpkin from last year on her blog today, so I dug through iPhoto and found the scariest thing I have, taken last month at the peace march. They're still out there, too!! Beware!!!

Mystery Letter

Periodically, now that I'm not on hiatus any more, I'm going to post selected emails to persons unknown to most of you. It saves wear and tear on my computer keys if I get more mileage out of my typing. Here goes:

You know, you have no need to apologize to anyone, least of all a computer tech. That's how they earn their $$. I toil on here with a stupid dialup connection and am settling for the bare minimum of competence, whereas you are very skillful and artistic with your blog, and I am much impressed.

We do NOT have any heat yet, but we do have a whole condo full of lawyers and other very smart people who are amazed and incensed that we again have MICE!!! They scream, "We had mice LAST YEAR, too!!!" Sweet jaysus.....we have grown so far from living in harmony with nature. Anyway, they are somewhat mollified this evening now that poison has been introduced to the INSIDE of the condo instead of just to the rat boxes outside. I seem to be the only one who is NOT upset by the mice but who IS upset by their bringing that effing poison inside!!! I need to move to my own house, where I can have all the mice i want. Don and I used to feed them when we lived in our first house in Bismarck, and the upstairs apartment was vacant. We'd be sitting downstairs watching TV and eating popcorn, and pretty soon, little mice would creep under the living room door from the hallway. We'd toss a kernel of popcorn or two into the dark corner by the door, and pretty soon one mouse'd be sitting up gnawing away on it. They DO come inside when it gets cold.

Yes, nanowrimo starts THURSDAY of this week. I updated my writer profile today to show that i am 70, not 69, and that i entered and won nanowrimo in 2006. blogger x is on year 5 or 6!!! mercy! and i think she published one of the year's labors herself, sort of. Wot a good idea! Maybe I'll publish that stinker from last year, too. It's mystery novel. maybe i can write one this year that will be even worse!! "Stinker II, the Sequel"

Hail to the Redskins!

On Saturday this past weekend in Frederick, MD, the Maryland School for the Deaf Orioles played the California School for the Deaf Eagles of Fremont, CA. The score??

MSD Orioles 66
CSD Eagles 0


(MSD students celebrating something. Photo from http://www.msd.edu/)


I'm very happy to report that our dear Redskins did BETTER THAN the CSD Eagles yesterday!!! They actually scored some points on their opponent (the Boston Patriots)!! The score??

Patriots 52
Redskins 7

(Photos, etc.: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/redskins/index.html?nid=roll_redskins)

Except, I have a deal with the PTB (Powers That Be). If I DON'T WATCH THE GAME, the Redskins will win. Ahem. I kept my part of the bargain.

Unsolicited Medical Testimony

(l to r: My pharmacy, featuring CardioRenew & favorite old mug)

OK...here's how I handle various ailments. Works for me!

Sore throat/bronchitis

When I lived in the Midwest, I had pneumonia about 5-6 times, and I do everything I can to keep a sore throat from escalating.

1) At the very first hint of a sore throat, I count back 17.5 hours (or multiples thereof...like 35 hours). If I can think of something that upset me about that time, I go into the upset and experience it again--feel it! Then, if I have some around, I add one envelope of Emergen-C to a personal-size bottle of Gator Ade or the like and drink it down. Usually, this will be all I need to kill the sore throat before it gets its hooks into me.

2) If it's too late--I forget or am too busy to do #1--and the sore throat takes hold, I DON'T GO TO WORK. No sense spreading it to everyone else. I stay home and gargle with warm salt water. That will usually stop it from hurting for a period of time. When it starts to hurt again, I gargle again and keep doing this until the pain's gone.

3) However, if it's a major bug, and I can feel it creeping down into my chest, I mix a batch of the following:
Into my favorite coffee mug (this is very important, somehow...I am not one for possessions, but a few crockery gifts have been with me for a long time, and they have taken on spirchal powers), I squeeze one lemon (or half), press 1 clove (or 2) of garlic, add a good squirt or two of honey (I like Trader Joe's mesquite honey), and pour in boiling water. (My ex-husband used to like to add whiskey to this, but if I'm sick, whiskey only makes me sicker...it hustles a sore throat straight down into my chest.) I stir it up and drink it. I do this several times a day. Kept myself alive with this during a bad bout of bronchitis in MN once when it was too cold and I was too sick to get out to a doctor. My friend Kimela drove over from St. Paul with a bag of lemons and a couple bulbs of garlic and told me about this. It worked! The coup de grace was when my brother's neighbor Jean brought over a pot of homemade chicken soup and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I was healed! Never underestimate the power of homemade soup and cookies.

Clogged arteries

I got three stents a couple of years ago when my coronary arteries were so blocked I couldn't even walk the six blocks to Barnes & Noble without having to stop to rest every other block.

If you have read anything about stents, you probably know that the majority of them fill up again, and they have to be redone...and when they run out of artery space to put in new ones, they have to do the whole bypass thing.

Well, sure enough, some time after I got the stents, the pain and breathlessness started coming back. I got online and googled for a nonsurgical cure. And I discovered CardioRenew. Been taking it ever since, and my arteries, last anyone looked, not only had NO evidence of occlusion, I didn't even have any scars from the stent procedures! And I could perform on the hamster wheel at 150% of what would be expected for someone my age with NO PAIN or breathlessness. CardioRenew is just EDTA...a simple amino acid, safe enough to be used as a preservative in babyfood. It doesn't react with any other medications, and the price of a year's supply (including shipping) has doubled since I got my stents, but it's still in the low 3 figures!!!

Of course, everyone needs to follow their own lights in all of this, but that's my point.

Now....if I could only lose 30 pounds!!!!

Welcome to Red Nose!

Xtreme English has a new blog fave, Red Nose, which originates in the DC metropolitan area. The following is ad copy:

For the best in fun commentary, come to the City of Satan (as I-kissed-George-W-Bush John McCain calls it)!!

The blogger, Bozoette, has been a real clown--a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Clown College--and she loves and writes about the innermost secret of clown humor: everyday life (plus the wins and losses of our semi-beloved bumblers, the Redskins).

Her current post includes a Love List that includes, but is not limited to, the following entries:

•Macaroni and cheese - homemade, out of a box, from the cafeteria; I don't care. I love it.
•Hot chocolate with whipped cream.
•Coffee with whipped cream.
•Oh heck, whipped cream.
•Mojitos that do not taste like Scope.
•Tres Leches cake.

Is this our kinda person or wot??? She joins Xtreme English's list of authentic original blog peeps. Speaking of whom, Mad Cabby is out of the hospital (if you can believe Pastor Joe) and mending (ditto), and Peggy has quit throwing out imperfectly good chocolate chip cookies to the chickens over there in Scotland.

Red Nose was kind enough to review Xtreme English in As Time Goes By's recent post, Getting to Know the Elderblogger's List. Just scroll waaay down.