Summer finally came

It finally got above 60 degrees here in Portland. In fact, it jumped up to over 100 degrees on Saturday. Now, it's only a balmy, and much more agreeable 85 degrees.

And, look!

I have achieved peas! The slugs do not like the heat.

Weird Events

A couple of odd things have happened recently.

1) Mick had a freezer guy working for him this summer named Hector. Hector was an okay worker, but a bit laid back for the busy ice cream season. He also didn't seem to handle Mick's blunt management style very well. When business got really busy, and the stress was high, he couldn't handle it anymore and quit. That was fine, because Mick really needed someone faster in the freezer. The odd part of this story is that a day or two after Hector quit, he stabbed a woman in the neck. I found out because I was watching the local news while doing yoga. I looked up at the TV from a downward dog and there was Hector's mug shot! I'm glad he quit. It's a little scary to know that we had a person who is capable of stabbing someone working for us.

2) The other morning, I drove mentaljr to the warehouse to open it up, so that Mick could get a few more minutes of rest. I left my house at 8:45 AM and returned at 9:15 AM. During that time, someone egged our cars! It was weird. Someone hit the green van that belongs to our coffee shop, Mick's big truck, and (oddly) the spot where my car would have been if I hadn't been driving it to open the warehouse. None of our neighbors was hit, so I don't think it was a random egging. I wonder who is so mad at us that they want to egg our cars. Very strange.

Husband Daycare

I thought this was very silly.

Back Among the Living

Wow, that last cold was a doozie. I have been out of commission since last Wednesday. Well, I wasn't in bed that whole time, but I wasn't able to think properly, so I only did "easy" jobs. I was not able to do school work. That is really frustrating since I'm never going to finish school if I don't do the work!

Last night I woke up briefly in the night to the realization that I could actually breathe through both of my nostrils at the same time. It was a miracle. I am hoping that there is not another cold waiting to grab me and that I am actually on the mend. I know that my neti pot helped quite a bit. I have been using it up to three times a day.

I hate being sick. Well, at least I didn't have a man cold.

Moving Sickness

Mick and I are planning to sell our house, so we need to get it in better shape. Given that we have big dogs and have had several children living in the house over the years, there's quite a bit of work to do. There were painting and dry wall patching jobs that needed doing, so I tackled those last weekend. I took several days off of work as well. I painted and patched like a banshee. I was so exhausted at the end of each day and could barely drag myself out of bed at the late hour of 8:00 AM (I'm usually an early riser).

On Saturday, I began to feel as if I had a cold. I had a sore throat and runny nose. It wasn't too bad, though. On Wednesday morning, I felt better and was pretty happy. However, in the afternoon, I started to feel really tired and my nose was runny. I had been working on a task for 2 hours and suddenly couldn't remember why I was doing it. I figured at that point I should go home early, since I clearly wasn't making any progress anyway.

This morning I woke up with a very stuffy nose and a cough. Argh. How is it possible that I have two colds back to back. Normally, I am pretty healthy. I must have worn myself out painting.

The Great Beer Experiment

Just in case you are unfamiliar with Oregon slugs, let me show you a couple examples of them. This one here was about 6 inches long and, as you can see, very icky and slimy. Also, it has snake-like qualities that make it even more unlikeable.

This one was about 4 inches long. However, it was really fat, so it could have just been bunched up when I saw it and really much longer. It was also extremely icky and slimy.

I wouldn't necessarily have anything against slugs, except that they eat all my plants. I usually put out margarine containers with beer in them and the slugs crawl in and die. However, we have had an unusually (even for Portland) wet and cold spring, so the slugs have been more active than usual. They have been eating everything. As I mentioned in my last post, I was having trouble killing the slugs with cheap beer and hypothesized that they were beer snobs like everyone else in Oregon. I embarked on an experiment.

This is a picture of my garden, with a lonely, defenseless zucchini seedling in it. On the left, there is a margarine container with Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale. On the right, the container holds the cheap beer. Which will the slugs like better? Even more importantly, will they like the Mirror Pond enough to not kill the seedling?

The next morning, I examined the containers. The above picture is the cheap beer. We see that only one slug preferred the inferior beer.

The container with Mirror Pond attracted three slugs, and also more bugs. This experiment would tend to support the hypothesis that slugs are beer snobs. Unfortunately, the seedling did not survive and was eaten to a stump. Sigh.

Even the slugs in Oregon are beer snobs

This year I got around to planting my vegetable garden early. Usually, I don't get around to it until mid-June, but this year, I was at it in early May! Because I was so early, I figured I could start with seeds. When I get going late, I usually buy started plants so that I can get some yield before fall (we haven't got the longest growing season here).

I planted my seeds and about 1 week later, I saw the sprouts. I was so excited. I found some beer that I had and put it out in the garden in old margarine containers to catch slugs. It was a nice beer - Bachelor Bitter by Deschutes, if you're interested. I felt bad "wasting" the beer on the slugs, but it's what I had and I certainly wanted to protect my plants. Those slugs love to eat baby plants.

My beer catchers were successful. I had slugs-a-plenty in the cups every day. Then, I ran out of the beer, so I went to the store. I didn't want to spend good money on good beer just to get some slugs drunk, so I bought some cheap stuff. I put it out in the cups and DANG IT! The slugs don't like it. They are eating my plants and largely ignoring the beer. Some of the slugs like it - mostly the small, young ones, but the big, old ones know better. Argh.

Perhaps I'll conduct a formal experiment to see if indeed slugs in Oregon are beer snobs. You are welcome to send me grant money for this experiment. All funds will be used to buy beer :) Ha ha!

Save Fatty

Ummm. Yes. Kitty is still fat. He weighed in at 16.2 lbs this morning.

More Confessions of a Budding Consipiracy Theorist

This morning, I heard on the news that Hillary Clinton would concede the race to Barack Obama tonight. I cried. I really did. I honestly believe that Hillary is a better candidate and am so proud of her for fighting on in the face of everyone saying the race was over time and time again.

About 1 hour later, I got to work and checked CNN. CNN reported that Hillary's people said that the AP report that she would concede was false. It took hours for the other news sources to pick up on this. For hours they were reporting on her concession.

Terry McAuliffe said that if Obama got the required number of delegates that Hillary would probably concede at that point. I can't believe how many news stories said "when" Obama gets the required number of delegates... not "if." They've already decided this for us long ago. Geraldine Ferraro sums it all up nicely.

Lactobacilli

A daily milk drink containing the probiotic Lactobacillus casei Shirota (LcS) may modulate the immune response to grass pollen, and help hay fever sufferers, suggests a new study.

I am not sure if kefir contains LcS, but I have noticed that my allergies are much better than they have been in previous years. I still have symptoms, but they are not as bad.