Okay.
Okay, okay.
Don't you love when a letter blog starts with 'okay'? It means all is right in the world and right now all is right in my world. Not so with my husband.
"Peg, why didn't you tell them that the hit from the mower didn't have anything to do with your white flashes?"
Good question. And it's something I should have said and would've made the story that much better. So let me just say that getting hit in the face with a projectile, thrown from a lawnmower being driven by your husband, didn't have anything to do with the ensuing white flashes occurring in the eye on that side of your face — my face, thus relieving said husband from any and all guilt.
"What did you get hit with?" you wonder.
That remains unknown. We looked in the direction where I saw it go after it bounced off my cheek and there were both rocks and hunks of wood there.
"I don't think it was a rock," Mike said at the time, "or it would have broken the skin. I think it was a piece of wood."
I should have added other things too, like this: There I was, sitting on the ground holding my face and Mike, apologetic, looked my face over, then leaned down, and kissed my boo-boo. Kissing a boo-boo doesn't really help unless sweetness counts. He gets points for sweetness.
And you might have gotten a kick out of the eye exam the assistant gave me before I saw the eye doctor. "Cover your left eye and read the smallest line you can see," she said.
I could pick out some of the letters from the second line down. Then she flipped a thing over my eye that had lots of little holes in it.
"Now read the smallest line you can read."
And with the pinpoint focus, I could see much better. Then we switched to my left eye. "Uh, can you make it bigger?" I asked. She made it bigger. When I didn't say anything she made it bigger, and bigger, and bigger!
"I think it's C... T... D or maybe it's an O — do you want me to guess?" I asked.
"No," she said with a little laugh and made the letters bigger.
"P!" I said when it was so big there was only one letter on the screen. Yeah. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
If I forget part of a story, it's way okay for you to respond with a question or ask for clarification. I never omit stuff intentionally but many factors go into writing a weekly letter blog. Notes are a big one. I hardly ever jot down notes anymore, relying solely on pictures and memory instead. Maybe I should go back to making notes, huh?
Time is another factor. If I'm feeling stressed because of my looming self-imposed deadline, I tend to forget stuff.
And lastly, my stupid writing program. When I used Microsoft Works, I'd occasionally lose a letter, so I switched to Microsoft Word, which comes with its own challenges. The pictures often jump around on me and I can't make them stay where I want them. And if I'm putting in a whole series of photos, it's even worse.
"Put them in a text box," my beautiful sister suggested.
And that works when nothing else will.
But my BIGGEST problem with this program is if I forget something three or four or ten pages ago, go back and add it, it will mess up every single page after that. I'm often forced to leave it out or spend hours reworking the pages. I bet you can guess which one I choose.
So I need you guys to help me out. If I leave out a detail, and you really want to know, ask! I'd be happy to include it in my next letter blog. Take, for instance, my friend Barb in Missouri.
"What did the doctor give you? And when are you going to have the cataracts taken care of?" she asked.
Good questions, both of them. And things I should have included in my story. I already answered Barb, but now I'll tell you. There is nothing to be done for the white flashes occurring in my eye, they will fade on their own over time, so I'll just sit back and enjoy my own private light show.
When will I get them taken care of? Mike asked the doctor a very similar question. "How long do you think it will be before she has to have them taken out?"
"How much are they bothering you?" the doctor asked me.
"Not very much," was my reply.
He turned back to Mike. "The cataract in her right eye is just a baby cataract. And the one in her left eye... I'd give it three to five years."
Tuesday night, after exercise class, Miss Rosie, Judy, and I stood outside and watched this deer family. There's a buck, doe, and three fawns.
Did you know, that when the deer numbers are in balance with a high-quality habitat, that up to 20 percent of the does will bear triplets?
I knew they could have triplets, I just didn't know the numbers before I Googled it.
"How many points does the buck have?" Miss Rosie asked.
We watched for quite a while until a guy came in with a tractor and mower to mow the field the deer were feeding in.
"Peg, your hand looks a little wet there," you say.
I know, right! He peed on me.
I found her walking across my kitchen rug and had a hard time coaxing her up onto my hand. Then, when I got her to climb up on my hand, she took off and ran up my arm. I put up a roadblock so she'd turn around and go back down to my hand and she jumped ship. I had to start all over again trying to get her to climb on me. I really didn't want to risk injuring her by trying to pick her up so I kept at it until she climbed into my hand again and then I took her outside.
"Eww, Peg! That's a spider!"
Yep. It is. But isn't it a pretty spider?
"No-way no-how do the words pretty and spider EVER go together!" I hear some of you say.
"I bet she's pretty to another spider," I hear Lamar Kipp say.
Well, I think she's pretty. Unusual in the very least. I've never seen one like her before and had a hard time trying to find her name. I scrolled through page after page of spider images, loading and reloading different keywords. I found spiders that sorta looked like her but not exactly and I was tempted to call it close enough. But I've discovered that in the critter world, things of the same kind tend to look the same. For example, a Monarch butterfly looks just like any other Monarch butterfly with very little variation. A deer, is a deer, is a deer. So I kept looking. A window popped up and said I could search with a picture. Cool! I thought and uploaded my spider picture.
It looks like a hornet, came back my results.
Well, it definitely is not a hornet so I kept looking. After searching for about 45 minutes I finally stumbled on another spider that looked just like her. From there it was just one click to find her name. She's a Sergiolus Capulatus, a ground spider. She doesn't have a common name, she doesn't build a web, chasing down her prey instead, and they believe her unusual color may be an attempt to fool others into thinking she's an ant.
"Why would she want to do that?" you wonder.
Another reason would be to fool predators who may like to eat spiders, but not ants. Oh, what a wonderful world we live in, don't you think?
The goldenrod is blooming. There are several varieties of goldenrod and I think this variety is Rough-stemmed Goldenrod.
One of the ladies in my exercise class needed a ride to class one night last week. I didn't have any problem finding her house, which is a good thing for this directionally challenged gal, and after class, she gave me the nickel tour.
"Oh my gosh, Judy!" I exclaimed. "You have a truck in the weeds!"
Every place I looked I saw interesting things. "You know you're going to be in my next letter blog, right?" I told her. It's the hazard of having a writer as a friend.
"I just love your place," I told her.
"Come on in," she invited.
"Judy, it's almost 8 o'clock. I hate to leave but I don't want Mike to worry about me. You'll just have to invite me back and I'll make cookies, you can make the coffee."
"I'd like that," Judy replied.
So maybe you'll get to see more of her home in the future.
Then Jon Robinson had his birthday this past week. I made him a pumpkin roll and we took it up to him. I sang Happy Birthday in my off-key can't-carry-a-tune-in-a-bucket voice, and no one minded.
"Jon got a pedicure for his birthday," Steph told us. "His first one."
I was surprised and turned to Jon. "How did you like it?"
"Good. It was good," Jon said.
"You could get one for your birthday," I said to Mike.
"Noooope. No, no, nope," was his steadfast reply.
"I'll go with you," I volunteered. "At least for the first time."
"Nope." He didn't even consider it.
A few days later he said, "Why don't we get pedicures for our birthdays?"
Plant the seed. Sometimes that all you gotta do. That and Jon getting one didn't hurt either.
When we got to the nail place in Wysox there was a lady already getting a pedicure. Mike sat next to her and I sat on the other side. I had a guy, Mike had a girl. Mike chatted with the lady next to him, I chatted with the guy doing my pedicure. Kevin, his English name, is from Taiwan. "I have a Chinese name too," he said.
"What's your Chinese name?" I asked.
"Kaiwen," he replied and I asked him to repeat it for me a couple of times, which he did. "It's the same name in Chinese as it is in English, but I like the way Kevin sounds better."
"When did you come here."
"When I was 18."
"And how old are you now?"
"27."
"Did you come by yourself?"
"No. My father and sister came with me. My parents got divorced."
"Oh. I'm so sorry," I told him. "Do you ever get to see your mom?"
"She came for a visit last year."
"Do you miss Taiwan?"
"Sometimes. But I like it here."
We were quiet for a moment as he massaged the oils into my legs and feet. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I added an apology for being curious, but Kevin assured me he didn't mind my questions.
"No, I don't have a girlfriend." He paused. "Not that I don't want one, but with the differences in culture and the language barrier, it makes it quite difficult to meet someone."
"You should get your toenails painted hot pink," the lady next to Mike said.
"Go ahead, Mike. It's not like anyone's ever going to see them," I put in my two cents.
"There is a guy that comes in with his girlfriend and he gets all kinds of crazy colors," Kevin joined in.
"Doesn't bother me," Mike replied. "Go ahead and make them pink."
I don't know if the girl didn't understand or thought he was kidding, but he wasn't, and she didn't paint his toenails, and he didn't speak up.
I was enjoying my pedicure and the pleasant conversation going on around me. I glanced at my fingernails and they didn't look too bad. I should get a manicure too, I thought, and the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. It was only seven dollars more, and it was my birthday, so why not!
"Can I add a manicure?" I asked.
"Sure," Kevin said.
He finished my toes, I changed to the manicure station, and he got to work on my fingernails. Then I got to wondering, how much are you supposed to tip? My oldest and much-loved sister Patti came to mind. She took me for my very first pedicure and she knew about that kind of stuff. I glanced at the clock, calculated what the time would be in Arizona and knew she'd be up. I sent her a text.
"Mike and I are getting pedicures. How much do you tip?"
"Five dollars per person," she replied in practically no time. I was right, she was awake.
Then I realized I was having a manicure too. Would that change the amount you're supposed to tip? I sent Patti another text and asked.
"For a mani-pedi, it's between seven and ten dollars," Patti told me.
I was grateful for the information since I had no idea what the standard practice was. Then I wondered, would it be the same in this backward little town in the mountains of PA?
"Kevin, tell me something," I started.
"Sure."
"How much do people tip?" My question made him immediately uncomfortable.
"It depends on if they were happy with their service or not."
That was pretty much what I'd expect him to say. "I'm very happy," I told him. It wasn't until after we left that I found out Mike was not so happy with his.
"I cannot tell you how much to tip..."
Kevin was nervous and glanced at where his boss was, then he couldn't look at me as he said, "Most people... for a pedicure... about five dollar. With a manicure," he stopped painting my nail long enough to look at me and check where his boss was again. "It usually two to five dollar more."
I grinned. "Thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate you being up front with me."
I got purple nails the whole way around and managed to knick a nail before I was out of the salon. Kevin fixed it for me.
"So what was Mike's problem?" I hear you ask.
The gal that he had was a little rough as she pushed the cuticles of his toenails back.
I shopped at the Dollar Store a few doors down from the nail salon, picked up some things for Andrew's next Goodie Box, then we headed to McDonald's for lunch. Standing in line, waiting to order, was Kevin.
I said hello to him and while we waited for our orders to be filled, we chatted. "I'm very happy with the service you gave me," I told him. "Thank you for that."
He put his hands together in front of him and gave me a little bow. "You are most welcome."
"But my husband was not nearly as happy with the gal who did his."
"Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that. Why not?" he asked.
"He thought she was a little rough."
Kevin nodded. "We hear that a lot about her. She doesn't normally do pedicures, she normally do nails... ah, acrylic, that may be why she so rough." Then he felt the need to explain. "Acrylic nails are harder. But we short a person today so she had to fill in."
"Oh. Uh-huh."
"I'm sorry he had bad experience for his first time. Next time, I make sure he get other girl, the one that do pedicures all the time."
"I'll tell him."
Then Kevin's order was ready and he said, "Good-bye, have a good day," and left.
Mike and I traveled different roads this past week as we went to Burlington, to pay a bill. I hope you like the pictures.
Oh my gosh!! We have had so much rain that many roads in our area became impassable. But Mike and I are high and dry. A couple of times we went out in the rain to see how his new ditch was funneling the water into our pond. I'd say it's doing its job.
A second adult went in the other direction and stopped in another tree. Look how he has his neck stretched out!
The creek in front of the Kipps' house was swelling out of its bed and filling in the low spots of the yard.
This is what it looked like at 10 o'clock.
We went on across our single-lane open-grate bridge and I had Mike stop just on the other side. I braved the gently falling rain to get a picture of the Teasel since they were now blooming.
We stopped and visited with Lamar and Rosie for a little while.
"It looks like our Crane is almost in the water," Lamar remarked of their metal piece of yard-art.
Three hours later, when Mike and I made a trip to town, our little creek was a raging torrent.
"Rosie! Have you seen the creek?" I didn't wait for an answer — I rushed on. "Holy cow!"
Rosie laughed a little. "I know. It swept our Crane away. It's probably halfway to the ocean by now."
"Are you worried about your house flooding?" I asked.
"Not really. In 2011 it came up over the bridge, then it was up to our driveway, so as long as the bridge is dry, we should be okay."
And I saw a Great Blue Heron fishing along the shore of one of the islands that dot the river. While the picture isn't quite in focus, it's not so bad considering I had to shoot between the rails of the bridge.
Coming in on our road there was a branch hanging in our lane of travel. By the time I saw it and realized Mike didn't, we were almost upon it.
"Watchit, watchit!" I exclaim.
Mike slams on the breaks, sliding all of the groceries to the front of the Jeep, and stops just as the front end touches the hanging branches. "I was watching the road behind us," he explained. A car had been coming down the hill behind us and he was watching for it to pass our road or pull in behind us.
"I guess!"
I was a little rattled from all the action and didn't snap a picture until Mike had backed up.
I didn't say anything. A little later we had to go out again and Mike had a chance to redeem himself. No one else had moved it either but you could see where several vehicles had hit it.
This guy saw me coming and ran to the underside of the Queen Anne's Lace.
I prodded him with my finger till he came back up on top. This is a Soldier Bettle.
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