Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Don't Know

I don’t know.

“What don’t you know, Peg?” You ask.

I don’t know lots of things, but in this case I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I just don’t feel like writing today.

“Maybe you’ll be okay once you get going,” you say.

Okay! Okay! I know that’s not what you’re saying. Because I know you. Because you’ve told me before.

“You don’t have to write every week if you don’t want to,” you’ve said, and honestly, I know you mean that in the kindest of ways, but what I hear is, “I don’t want one every week.”

I know having a long and rambling letter blog show up on your doorstep every week isn’t everyone’s cup o’ sunshine. One family member (who shall remain nameless) told me so. “Once a month would be enough for me.”

Since my letters often build on each other, I didn’t know how to do that so I didn’t send any more. He never missed them because I never heard from him again.

On the flip side, enough of you enjoy our weekly gabfests that it keeps me going.

So it’s me telling myself to just start. Get in the groove. You’ll be okay. Let the words flow. And so we begin.

The scariest thing happened to us this week.

“What’s that?” I know you wanna know.

We were going down Welles Mountain when I heard a roaring sound. Before I could wonder about it too much, I blue car appears beside us in a no-passing zone. A truck towing a trailer is in the on-coming lane. In that instant I just knew we were going to be involved in an accident and I braced myself.

Michael saw the blue car about the same time I did, saw the truck, and didn’t have to think about what to do. In a split second he took evasive action, hit his brakes, and steered to the right side of the road. It was just enough. I watched as the side of the blue car skimmed past our front fender. He was coming over whether we moved or not. And I truly believe it was only by the grace of God that he didn’t hit us and got back over in the nick of time.

“I can’t believe you got pictures of it!” you say.

I didn’t. These are screen shots from the dash cam.

From the time the car appears beside us to the time it’s almost even with the truck, only one second elapsed. One second!

We could be d-e-d, dead!

Then you’d miss me!

But I guess it wasn’t yet our time.

This would be a good time to remind you that one day you’re going to wake up and be dead, too. Do you know where you’ll go after you die? You can’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to ask God to forgive you and cover you with the righteousness and perfection of our Lord and Savior Jesus because you may not have the luxury of a deathbed conversion!

We have a local man who is so convicted in his faith that he’s out there actively trying to bring souls to Christ. He’s preaching the Gospel and urging people to repent and come to Jesus now, before it’s too late.

We stopped and listened for a few minutes.

We’ve seen him a few other times, in other places, but this time happened to be on the same day as our near miss.

And just like that, my not-wanting-to-write feelings are gone!

Oh gosh! I’ve got about a ton of road pictures this week!

“Where did you go?” you ask.

We went to Liberty Corners to schedule an inspection for Big Red, then on into Towanda and Wysox and even up to Sayre to do a little shopping.

Speaking of Sayre...

There were at least a dozen straps littering the road from Wysox to Ulster. We didn’t see any before Wysox and none after Ulster. There are two in this photo alone. One you can see easily and the other is up in front of the red van we’re following.

“I think that’s Leo,” Mike said. He has a red van like this one.

The straps gave us plenty of fodder for discussion.

“How do you lose just one strap at a time?” I wondered.

“They were probably in a box and they jiggled out one at time,” Mike guessed.

That didn’t make any sense to me. “If the straps were all together in a box, wouldn’t the hooks get tangled and two or three would fall out together?” No place did we see more than one strap at a time.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “That was my guess.”

“What if he left them lying on a trailer?”

“He wouldn’t do that. I was always careful to stow my straps before I left.”

Mike was attributing his diligence to someone who may not have been as careful.

We made an effort to count them on the way home but someone was picking them up. We only saw four.

But, speaking of Sayre, do you remember the big boxes that had a big free sign on them?

“I wanna know what’s in the boxes!” my best old friend said.

Well Trish, because you wanted to know, Mike stopped.

“What’s in them!? Don’t keep me in suspense!”

Christmas ornaments! The ones on top, the most immediate ones, were all broken. I saw some a little farther down in the box that weren’t broken but I don’t need any and I wasn’t digging.

Now we know!

Speaking of digging...

If you like to “dig” for deals, this place might be for you! It’s the first time that Mike and I ever stopped here. There’s so much stuff to look at! There’s a set of ten-foot-tall iron gates that I’d like to have. I don’t need them, it’d just be cool to have them standing guard beside the driveway, even if we never closed them. I mean, after all, who wants to keep jumping out of the car to open and close the gates?

In pet news...

I was standing at the counter, making popcorn and getting the nightly treats around for the girls, when I looked at Bondi and saw something in her eye.

“What’s that?” I said and cupped Bondi’s chin in my hand. I gently pulled down on her lower lid and out pops this fat, pink, slimy worm!

“Mike!” I yelled. “I think Bondi’s got a worm in her eye!”

How do you get that out? I wondered. I had visions of getting the tweezers and... how in the world am I going to get a hold of that and not poke her eye out! Maybe I could wipe it out with a cloth?

Mike came out to the kitchen. I picked Bondi up and put her on the table for closer examination.

“How did she get a worm in her eye?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know, but look at this.” I pulled down on her lower lid, it popped up, but when I released the lid, it went away.

I looked at her other eye and that’s when I realized it wasn’t a worm after all. “It’s her bottom lid,” I said. “It’s flipped up.”

I sent a picture to Dr. Lori on Facebook and asked, “Does she need to see you?”

“It looks like Bondi has developed a cherry eye. This happens when the 3rd eyelid cartilage is weak, and it flips the 3rd eyelid inside out. This is a cosmetic problem, but does not need to be corrected unless it causes irritation, redness, or infection,” she said.

Bondi was better the next day without any intervention from me.

See! I don’t know lots of stuff.

Speaking of bugs...

I was on the patio, getting a daily dose of sunshine with Bondi, when I noticed the thermometer was covered in a white powdery dust.

“A fine, white, chalk-like residue on outdoor plastic items is most likely sun-bleached oxidation,” Copilot said.

I pulled the bottom of the thermometer out and let it drop back against the post to see if the powder fell off. What fell off, or out, I should say, was an earwig. I thunked it again and another one fell out.

How many are under there? I wondered. I went inside and got a plastic dish tub. They won’t be able to crawl up the side of that, methinks.

I took the thermometer down and there was a nest of earwigs. I brushed them into the tub and found out I was wrong. They can climb the sides of the plastic tub! I thumped it and they fell back to the bottom.

I’ll drown them, I thought and I put some water in the tub. Some of them climbed out of the water and started up the sides. I tapped the side of the tub and they fell back into the water.

I remember reading about drowning fleas. One of the things they said to do is put a little liquid soap in the water. The soap breaks the surface tension, so the fleas can’t stay on top of the water and they sink right through it. I put some soap in and sure enough. Earwigs can’t climb out either.

Now, I have to confess.

There isn’t any real reason to kill these guys, other than the fact that they look creepy. They really won’t crawl in your ear and munch their way out the other side like in that episode of Twilight Zone.

They spend their days tucked away in damp, dark places and come out at night to clean up the world of dead leaves, decaying bits of plants, fallen insects, even a little fungus if they find it. They don’t bite and they don’t spread disease, so there’s no reason to be afraid of them.

“What about those pincers?” you ask.

Those pincers on their rear ends are called cerici and they’re used for defense against other insects, mating displays, and grabbing food. They rarely pinch humans and when they do it’s more of a “hey, move” than a real bite.

And now you know.

Speaking of fleas...

Our girls have been driving us crazy with all their scratching. Scratch, scratch, scratch, day and night! We were constantly yelling at them to stop.

“But it itches,” Mike would say.

“I know. I’ll let them scratch for a minute, then they gotta stop.”

I never thought it was fleas because they wear Seresto collars that are only three months old. They’re supposed to be good for eight months and we change them twice a year.

But guess what?

It was fleas! I took a comb to them and found fleas!

Then I went on a rampage. I gathered all the pet beds and started washing them. I can only get two at a time in the washer.

“From now on we buy the kind with removable covers,” I told my handsome mountain man.

I don’t want to overwhelm our septic system so I only washed two loads a day. On the second or maybe third day of washing beds (I bet we have at least ten of them scattered all around the house) I pulled out one that was especially heavy and just plain did not wash well. It had patches of dirt and hair in random places all over it. Rather than re-wash it, I took it outside and sprayed it with the garden hose. That worked fairly well. Then I hung it over the ladder, in the sunshine, to dry.

I heard Bondi barking. She was outside raising such a ruckus! I looked out the window to see her barking at the ladder with the bed draped over it. I laughed and grabbed my camera. Raini is faster than I am, and confused about what Bondi was barking at, she dashed past me and started barking and jumping at the birds on the feeders. Silly dog. Bondi turned to watch and I caught Raini mid-jump.

I took all the cover-ups from the couches and chairs and washed them. We changed the blanket on our bed. And I vacuumed. Two days in row then every other day. And let me tell you! Vacuuming this place is a job!

I combed the girls every time I caught them scratching and crushed whatever fleas I found. I’d use my thumbnail to push them against the comb and crush them.

I applied a topical flea medicine to help the Seresto.

And finally, I got a big jug of flea and tick spray to spray on the furniture that kills fleas on contact.

Does that mean if the spray doesn’t touch them, it won’t kill them? I wondered and Googled it.

“No. The spray dries quickly and leaves behind a residue that kills the fleas when they walk through it.”

Now we both know.

All my hard work has paid off and it’s given the girls a whole new lease on life. They’re more comfortable and not constantly scratching anymore.

“Where’d the fleas come from?” you wonder.

I’m afraid that’s my fault. I tend to forget about the cats and when I checked I found out it’s been a few months since I dosed them. I applied a topical to them and I’m able to comb Tiger. He rather likes it.

But Spitfire? That shit. He let me comb him for a while then out of the blue he nailed me and made my finger bleed. I was mad! “How about a little warning next time!” I reached for him to pick him off my desk and he growled and swatted at me again. I grabbed a stack of papers from my desk and swatted him, but instead of jumping down he backed up against the monitor, back arched, ears down, fur sticking straight out, paw raised to swat me again.

“Git down!” I said and let him have it with all the fury three sheets of printer paper can deliver.

He growled and held his ground.

I swatted him again and again and kept up a flurry of swats telling him to “Git off my desk!” until he finally did.

“You’re dead to me!” I told him. He’s on his own now, that’s for sure! No more combing for him!

And let’s not even talk about Blackie! If I so much as look at him wrong, he’s gone! It makes for interesting mornings at the breakfast table though, let me tell you!

“Did you come in for breakfast this morning?” I say (because he doesn’t come in every morning), and he jumps from the table and runs into the pantry. I’ll ignore him and he’ll come back and eat his breakfast.

He’s a weird cat. Very unforgiving of me because I have to worm him and put wet stuff on his neck every month (if I don’t forget — and trust me, I’ll never forget again!). But he likes Mike and’ll sit in the recliner with him.

But back to bugs...

I happened to spot this guy outside.

That looks like a roach, I thought and stomped him.

Then I felt guilty.

What if it was only a roach look-like and not a real roach?

Then I answered myself.

Tough. Guilty by association.

I did, however, do a little research on him.

This guy is a wood cockroach. So he is a roach! But these guys aren’t the bad guys of the roach world. The ones that infest kitchens, hide in cupboards, and multiply like crazy are the German cockroaches.

Wood roaches live in leaf litter, mulch, and old logs. If the light of the house attracts them and they come inside, they won’t last long — indoor air is too dry and bright and they die quickly. They’re fast runners and terrible hiders, which is why you’ll see them sprinting across the patio like they’re late for work.

And if I see another one?

He’ll meet the same fate as this one.

This one isn’t a bug, it’s a hummingbird. But I bet you knew that. I was pleased to see him sipping nectar from the volunteer primrose I let grow. Somehow that makes it all worth it, even though I was hoping to see one of those big sphinx moths that favor the evening primrose.

In the world of art...

I added “Love” and a poem to the front of the framed watercolor I did for my friend Trish. Lettering isn’t my strong suit, especially small lettering, but I did my best with such an unforgiving medium as ink.

Trish composed a different shorter poem for the front.

A hand held gently in the tender stillness, one soft squeeze, a reminder of the bond we shared. As strength faded, love remained. One last soft squeeze and a kiss as heaven called you home.

I even added brown paper to the back to make it look fancy.

I really wanted to paint something fun but I didn’t want to spend a long time drawing it out. So I did this one. All the shapes are simple and it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t perfect.