Man, this year has been flying past. I guess I say that every year, but they seem to go by faster and faster. We're half way through 2014! Amazing.
For me, 2014 has been a good year so far. I almost hate to say that so I won't jinx myself. But I've been healthy. My folks have been relatively healthy, for their ages. My family keeps growing, with a new set of grand-twins. My house hasn't needed any more repairs since they finished in January. My cat-kids are holding their own at 16 and 18 years old. My job is going well and keeping me busy. I guess I have a lot to be grateful for.
I'm pretty much over the jet lag from Istanbul. I'm finally waking up to the alarm rather than between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning. And the airline found my luggage and delivered it to me three days after I got back, so not too bad. I had taken most of the clothes that fit me now, so I was really happy to get those back.
Friday was Fourth of July holiday so I went to east Texas and visited with my folks and my sisters and their husbands. It was really nice to see them all. So often lately I've felt like I just need to stay completely away from my sisters, who always seem to be mad at me about something. Being around them I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, afraid to say the wrong thing, or say something they'll take wrong. It's sometimes really tempting to just keep a distance. Still. I love all my family. I'm happier when things are going well between us, and things felt better last Friday. Better than they've been anyway. Maybe I've learned just to keep my mouth shut. It really doesn't pay to say what you think.
Hmmmm. This post didn't start out introspective. Not sure where that came from.
Anyway, the pictures in this post are the cat-girls and also my little pine tree, which is still growing gang busters. I also stuck a picture in of where I jury-rigged a broken branch with a garbage bag twist tie. The branch was broken at that fork, almost all the way through, and I didn't think I could do anything that would help it. but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. And that branch seems to still be growing fine, so maybe the twist tie saved it.
That's all for today.
I'm home from Istanbul. The trip was good. Travel was mostly uneventful, meaning no flight delays or complications. The airline did lose my luggage on the way back. They're still trying to locate it. Still, if I had to lose it, I'd rather lose it on the way back than on the way over. I had everything I needed while I was there. I'm making a list of contents. In case they don't locate it, they can pay me for what I lost.
Anyway, the trip. Istanbul is a pretty amazing city, and I learned a lot about it's history and geography, as well as having a great couple of meetings over there. I didn't have a lot of time for sightseeing, but I managed a 2-hour boat tour on the Bosphorus - the waterway strait that divides Istanbul (and Europe from Asia) and connects the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea. I also managed time to run around and take pictures, although I didn't end up with time to actually go into the mosques, which is a shame. Maybe next time. It takes a considerable amount of time to get from point A to point B anywhere in Istanbul, so that eats up a bunch of time.
I did learn a really fascinating thing about the Bosphorus. The water on top is fresh water and runs swiftly from the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, since the Black Sea is at a slightly higher altitude. However the water at the bottom of the Bosphorus flows in the opposite direction! And it's salty, coming from the Marmara Sea, which comes from the Aegean Sea and ultimately from the Mediterranean Sea. The two waters in the Bosphorus don't really mix. The just flow past each other in different directions and with different salt concentrations.
The first picture in this post is the Blue Mosque and the next one is Hagia Sophia or Aya Sophia as the Turkish call it. The other two pictures are taken in a courtyard of the Blue Mosque. Unfortunately, the afternoon I took the boat tour, I actually left my camera in the hotel room. I could have kicked myself.
My hotel was really nice and was situated at a great location. It was located about 3 blocks from the Istanbul Congress Center and maybe 5 blocks from Taksim Square. Taksim Square not only has the lightrail stations, it's also one end of the busiest shopping street in Istanbul. They say 3 million people a day shop there. I believe it. LOTS of people.
The two Congresses I attended were both good. The first one I helped organize, so it pretty much consumed my time the first three days I was there. I had much less responsibilities at the second Congress, which is why I could escape for some sight-seeing. I was also put in touch with young woman who did her training in the US, by a mutual colleague. She was kind enough to invite me out for dinner one evening with her Father and several people I know from the Association. It was a perfect evening - great food, great company, outstanding open-air restaurant on the Bosphorus with a wonderful view.
So overall I would have to say the trip was really good. I made some new colleagues/friends with international members of the profession, learned some new things and got a chance to visit one of the amazing places in the world that I may never have gone to without these two meetings.
Now if they could just find my luggage, it would be pretty close to a perfect trip.
I mentioned last time that I have a jay hanging around who goes to the feeder, gets one sunflower seed and carries it to the metal shelf where he opens it and eats it. He repeats this behavior over and over, occasionally stopping for a drink at the little bird bath. So the pictures in this post are of him doing this.
He clears the feeder whenever he lands on it - all the smaller birds making way for him. I've seen the smaller birds occasionally challenge the redwing blackbird for feeder rights, but never seen them challenge the jay.
I'm spending most of this weekend getting my act together for going to Istanbul on Wednesday. I've been planning my wardrobe and figuring out packing. I've already done everything as far as money, visa, notifying credit cards, upgrading phone service so it works over there, setting up the pet sitter, etc. Now I'm making myself lists of what to remember to take (camera, ipod, etc) and what to remember to do before leaving (water plants, leave note for sitter, etc). Nine days away takes more planning than 3 days, which is mostly what I've been doing lately.
Big family news. My nephew and niece-in-law had their twins yesterday morning around 2:30 am. The twins are 34 weeks, so they're early and in the NICU, but they're doing well. The little girl is breathing room air on her own pretty much. The little boy is requiring some ventilation and surfactant therapy to get his lungs to finish maturing and work well, but both are beautiful. I know, I know. Of course I would say that, but really, they are beautiful babies, which isn't surprising, given their parents. I wish I had taken some pictures of them when I visited yesterday, but I'm still so old school I never consider using my phone to take pictures. Thus this post has all blue jay pictures.
The little boy, Aiden, is just over 4 pounds, 17.5 inches long. The little girl, Addison, is 4 pounds 10 ounces, 17 inches long. How Kellie managed to have both those kids inside her is a mystery. Apparently the twins will stay in the NICU for 2-3 weeks, until they're sure they are growing and putting on weight and everything (lungs mostly) is developed enough.
Kellie and Jason are doing well. It was a c-section birth so Kellie will be moving slowly for a few days, and both were understandably sleep-deprived when I saw them yesterday. I think it's still sinking in for them. I also think it will be hard for them to have to wait the 2-3 weeks to take their babies home. They are definitely excited and proud parents though. And actually, they get to semi-rest for 2+ weeks before becoming totally sleep-deprived while caring for twins. I'm very happy for them.
Also I'm glad if they were going to have them early, they had them before I left for Istanbul, so Lynne didn't have to try to get hold of me there. Although my phone should work just fine. Still I wouldn't have gotten to see them as newborns.
Damn! I just saw a cat catch one of the sparrows. He grabbed it on the ground, took it under the shrub and immediately started eating it. I have such mixed feelings about this. My own cats are too old to catch birds, and of course I don't want my bird feeders to be a place that is a bird delicatessen for cats in the neighborhood. But quite obviously the cat is hungry - a stray neighborhood cat I haven't seen around. He immediately started eating that bird, and he's thin. Still, I know it's happened at least once before because I found a part of a wing when I was cleaning up one day a week or so ago.
I may have to move that feeder. I enjoy watching the birds up close and personal, this close to the house, but there is too much shrubbery close to it for cats to hide and pounce from. That being said, the birds are already back, but none on the ground - all jockeying for position on the feeder itself. And there are a LOT of sparrows here. Decisions, decisions. Well, the feeders will be empty while I'm gone, so maybe both the birds and cats will have moved on by the time I get back from Istanbul. The hummingbird feeder will have enough to last while I'm gone.
Anyway, that's all for today. My next post should have pictures form Istanbul.
A friend of mine called me a bird lady the other day - because I fill the feeders essentially every day and support a horde of small sparrows and finches. I suppose I should be glad she didn't call me a crazy bird lady.
Although I generally do see mostly sparrows, finches and doves, I do sometimes get some of the slightly larger birds. This redwing blackbird in the first picture comes by randomly, and I managed to get a couple shots of him. I also have a couple of bluejays that hang around and are really vocal about it when I'm out there. Jays of course, so that's to be expected. The jay in the picture in this blog has a behavior that seems to be specific to him. He flies to the feeder, takes a single sunflower seed, flies to the metal shelf I have out there, holds the seed in his claw and cracks it with his beak and eats it. I've watched him repeat this over and over and over, but haven't seen any of the other jays doing it. I also have a few brown-headed cowbirds that come by randomly.
The sun is peaking out intermittently today. There was only about a 20% chance of rain today according to the forecast, so imagine my surprise to find it actually raining this morning. It only rained about 20 minutes and I don't know that we even got a measurable amount of rain, but the lawn liked it. I'll take anything I can get, considering how dry it's been here. I'm hoping we get more tomorrow, when I think they're actually forecasting 50% chance. If you look closely at the second picture of the redwing, you can sort of see that he's wet from the rain this morning, since it was raining when I took that picture.
I refilled the hummingbird feeder this morning too. It wasn't empty. It's a big feeder and with only two little hummingbirds, it doesn't deplete very fast, but I refill it whenever I notice gunk growing in it. So they should be happy humming campers.
*laughing* Okay, maybe I am a bird lady. Going through two bird feeders full of seed every day though . . . the little guys are going to be hungry the 9 days I'm gone this month. I'm not going to ask my pet sitter to fill them. I'd prefer she stay focused on the cat-kids.
There are only two things that I haven't done now to get ready for my trip to Istanbul. One is call my credit card companies and let them know not to block my charges over there. Or to try to convince them not to block charges anyway. I did this when I went to Austria, and one of the credit card companies still blocked my charges. Frustrating.
The other thing is to plan my wardrobe, so I can begin planning my packing - what suitcases to take, how much room I'll need, etc. Everything else is done. Tickets, passport & visa, hotel confirmation, some money exchanged, international service on my phone, meeting registration confirmation. I'll probably find something else I need to do, but it's coming together nicely.
Anyway, I guess that's about all today. There's a little bird out there with a dark smudge on his breast. I wonder what he is . . .
Have I mentioned that I'm just not that fond of getting older? I have? Let me just mention it again then. Just as my knee is finally healing up, I pulled my lower back out somehow when exercising on Thursday. Yesterday when I got up it was sore and I had trouble bending, but I didn't let that stop me from my planned shopping. I still went even though driving was painful and I had to move the seat way forward so I didn't have to reach for either the wheel or pedals. I slept badly last night and this morning when I got up, there was no position that I could get into that didn't hurt. Lying down, standing, sitting, walking - nothing gave me any relief. And going between those positions - doesn't bear talking about. I nearly couldn't feed the cats.
So I took a painkiller on an empty stomach. Not my smartest move ever. At that point I was in pain, nauseated, light-headed and sweaty. I didn't think that painkiller would be that strong since it was an old one prescribed in 2003. I expected it to just have enough strength to take the edge off the pain, not to make me sick and dizzy. Maybe taking it with the INH was what caused that reaction because I usually don't have trouble with those things. Although granted I usually don't take them on an empty stomach.
Anyway, I got into my recliner with a heating pad behind my back and waited. After about an hour I felt human again. The rest of the day hasn't been too bad. I'm fairly mobile when I need to be, although I need to sit in my softest recliner when I'm sitting. No hard chairs. Plus I slept about 3 hours this afternoon, to make up for the lack of sleep last night. I'm hoping my back will let me get some mostly uninterrupted sleep tonight.
Okay, enough health complaints. As you can see from the picture, the squirrel randomly decides that the red bird feeder is his exclusive property. Little devil. He was out there a couple times today, displacing the birds. He's acquired a serious taste for sunflower seeds.
I thought I'd also post a picture of the two hanging baskets out there. The spider plant isn't thriving as well as the wandering jew, but it's slowly gaining ground and looking healthy rather than looking like a brown-tipped plant refugee from a war. The wandering jew is VERY happy out there as you can see.
The shopping I took a day off work to do yesterday was to find a cocktail dress that fits me for my up-coming trips. Plus I stopped at a bank where I can order foreign currency and ordered some Turkish Lira. I'll need it upon arrival for taxi fare and I try only to exchange money at an airport as a last resort. They usually have seriously bad exchange rates. Then I went grocery shopping. So I got all my shopping in, but did aggravate my back doing it. I was going to run some errands this morning, but that didn't happen. Oh well, they'll keep.
The cat-kids like it when I lay around the house doing not much. They tend to get more attention, more treats and get to go outside more. So they're not unhappy that I'm not very mobile today. The trick is to get them to let me read or use my computer while they're taking up my lap. I'm typing this post using one of my small travel laptops in my lap sitting in my recliner currently.
I got a free lawn fertilizing yesterday morning. While I was drinking coffee waiting for the stores to open, I let Zoe out into the back yard. Suddenly she came flying back in. I looked out there and there was a guy fertilizing my lawn. I thought - that's weird - because usually my lawn service comes on Thursday and it was Friday. So I went and looked out the front and the service truck was not from my lawn service. I opened the front door and pulled the service invoice that he had left on the door and it was for my neighbor's address! So I stopped him as he was starting a weed treatment and told him he had the wrong house. You can imagine his comments. I felt sorry for him, but he was really not paying attention. The house numbers in this neighborhood are very clearly marked.
I guess that's about all for today.
I really have nothing to blog about today, but I have a bunch of nice pictures to post so I guess I'll just ramble on about nothing.
The first picture is the male of the cardinal pair that hangs out around here. I can always tell without looking when they're out there because they're noisy. Constant chip, chip, chip. Luckily they like the sunflower seeds most so they have a tendency to stick to the red feeder that he's on, which has only sunflower seeds. This year's batch of new sparrows and finches are eating me out of house and birdseed. Several times a day they all descend in a ravenous horde and have a feeding frenzy and squabble for the six places on the feeder. Mostly it's the sparrows squabbling. The finches tend to use the feeder out on the tree, although occasionally they'll join the squabble.
Also joining the feeding frenzy on the ground under the feeders is the squirrel. This morning I caught him twice on the red feeder, trying to get the sunflower seeds out, and he didn't really run when I went out there, just moved to the satellite dish and waited to see what I would do. As soon as I went into the house he was back on the feeder. So I filled a squirt bottle with water and got after him. He fussed about that but he ran away. I had my camera battery out and charging or I would have taken a picture of him on the feeder. If that feeder's on the ground one of these days when I get home, I'll know what happened.
The little pine continues to grow strongly as you can see, but it's a little yellow-ish in areas. I'm vacillating back and forth about whether to leave it outside or bring it in, because of the yellowing. Maybe little pine trees don't like the heat we've been having. It can get really hot on that patio, and it's been windy as hell. But besides the yellowing, it's growing so well that I'm afraid to jinx it by bringing it in the house. I gave it some plant food this week, so I'll see if that helps. When we start having 100 degree temps, I probably will bring it inside, unless it perks up and looks a lot better than it does now.
I dead-headed all my roses and am waiting for them to blossom some more. These peachy colored roses are from my back yard. I have several around the yard of this variety and color and the edges of the blossom kind of curl under, giving them a fluffy look. They're pretty. They don't have as big a bloom as some of my other roses, but I like them.
The roses and the azaleas are about the only things that bloomed/are blooming this year. Well, the quince did until the ice killed the blooms. The hawthorne didn't bloom, and neither did the amaryllis, nor the crepe myrtle, nor the bottle brush. Still, I'm glad everything's green and growing, even if it didn't bloom.
The other day I had a little Carolina wren checking out my hanging basket with the wandering jew in it. I wonder if he's considering it for a nesting site. The wandering jew and the airplane plant both seem to be thriving out there in the hanging baskets, and the aloe are starting to recover from the massive sunburn they got when I first put them outside this year. It looks like everything is going to do just fine.
My cold cleared up nicely. I only coughed at night for about 4 nights and then quit coughing period. The cold was pretty much completely gone just over a week after I came down with it. That tells me I'm much healthier than last year when all my colds dragged on a good month at least. On top of that, I'm in my last month of taking INH. 25 days and counting.
I'm running for President of my national association again this year. It's funny. I ran last year and thought I had a pretty good chance of winning, but I lost. Kind of felt like just one more bad luck moment in 2013. This last Friday I just found out who I'm running against this year. I actually don't think I stand much chance of winning this year, against this person, but what the heck. If you don't try, you have no chance of winning. Plus I enjoy the association and all my friends in it, so I'll just enjoy the running and be happy either way.
I did my exercises today using a knee brace on the knee I blew out doing Zumba. It worked fine. I bought the brace yesterday because the knee is not healing. It's still fairly swollen. And I need to be able to exercise. Plus if I'm going to be able to do those hikes I like to do at all this summer, it'll be with a knee brace. Those hikes are steep, which equals really hard on the knees. So I want to get used to using one.
So that's about it for my rambling today. Later.
As usual, it didn't take long for the temperature to go into full Summer mode. It's hot today and supposed to be in the 90s all week. And of course, we've had no rain to speak of. Even though we have gotten rain a few times lately, we're still more than 7 inches below normal for this time of year. And it's been windy as hell, which just sucks what moisture there is, out of everything. After spending some time outside this morning looking at the growing things, I changed my sprinkler system to run every three days rather than every four days. I predict water restrictions this summer are going to be fierce.
So I'm complaining about the weather again. Hmmmm. How about if I complain about my health instead? I jinxed myself, I guess. I had been bragging about being cold-free since last July (which cold dragged on almost into September). But then since September and my diet changes, I haven't been sick. So I was depressed to come down with a cold this week after my trip to Washington DC. It's a nice cold too - all settled in my chest. I'm at the coughing at night stage now, which is one of my least favorite, and I've been suffering with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton, and really low energy levels. I actually slept 11 hours last night and also last Wednesday night because I took Thursday off to try to recover a little. Plus my sciatica kicked up, either from the plane ride or from babying the knee I injured doing Zumba.
And worst of all, I gained 3 pounds. *laughing* Okay, that's not worst, but still now that I'm on the mend, I need to begin exercising again, although I'll take it a little more slowly than the Zumba, which was fun but totally blew out that right knee. And anyway I can't exercise hard right now without coughing up a lung. But I can cut back on eating everything in sight, which is kinda what I've been doing. I know the old wives saying is to feed a cold, but I think I've gone overboard a bit.
I need to do some house-cleaning. Between being busy and not having much energy, the place needs some work. I'll get right on that . . . one of these days.
I had an MRI of my brain done last Monday. I've been having some minor facial numbness and the neurologist I see for my migraines wanted to rule out all the bad stuff. Which the MRI did - rule out any bad stuff. Nothing abnormal in there, and actually it's kind of nice to have written proof that I do possess a normal brain. Or just a brain, come to think of it. So the facial thing is just another in a long list of symptoms that you can just put down to "aging" and add to the list of things to learn to ignore. Gotta tell ya, not wild about this whole aging thing.
Anyway, this is a short post again today because I don't have much to blog about again. Just wanted to post the roses at the front corner of my house which are blooming nicely, and another picture of the little hummingbird.
