Single Ladies

On Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 Mr. Right and I were watching a little TV. We somehow landed on the American Music Awards show and after watching for a few minutes, we decided it just wasn't our cup of tea. Then Mr. Right went to run an errand (pick up dinner) and as he left, I said I was probably going to change the channel and he said that was A Okay with him.

Right after he left, someone called The Dream came on to introduce the next performer, Beyonce. I watched for a couple of minutes and picked up the remote control and pushed Record. When Mr. Right got home, I showed him Beyonce's performance of Single Ladies and I was more than happy to do that because it meant that I got to watch it again. Then we both watched it yet again. I loved everything about it, the song, the message, and the audacious and energetic dance. We showed that video over and over again.

Three of our daughters/daughters-in-law did the dance during Christmas week and did an amazingly respectable job of it. I saw a YouTube video of 100 dancers performing the number at Picadilly Circus in London and I saw that there was an MTV video of Beyonce performing the number; but, I've never liked another version as much as I liked the one she did at the American Music Awards show.

Then I saw Kanye West interrupt Taylor Swift's acceptance of the Best Video award at the VMA to state that Beyonce's video was better; indeed, the best music video ever. Although I thought what he did was inexcusable, I thought what he said was true. It's a great video.

Now someone's come out with a version that I love almost as much as the original performed at the 2008 AMA's. Check out this baby version for a real treat. If you haven't already seen it, you owe it to yourself to watch it now.

I Heard Some News Today, Oh Boy

Whenever I hear, see, read, or feel something that gives me chills, it's special. Chills are involuntary. I can't make them happen but when they do, I know I've just become privy to something big. And I believe it's because someone, somewhere needs me to appreciate the enormity of the news. Or maybe it's because somewhere in my subconscious it's what I needed to hear or read or see. Or maybe it's an intuition of some sort. An inner knowledge or belief in the goodness of what I've learned. Whatever. Today I got chills and another day I'll explain why. Oh and, just so you know, I even got chills when I shared my knowledge with Mr. Right. Wow!

On another note, I've written often about our many and varied bird visitors this Spring and Summer. Well last week we had another one and I'm wondering if anyone can help me identify him or her. He was really huge. I'd say at least a foot tall from the top of his head to the tip of his tail - maybe even 18 inches. Here are a couple of pictures:


Any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated. Most importantly...should I fear for my koi? He looks kind of like a predator, doesn't he?

Busy Times

I can't believe how much adjustment is required in retirement. I can't, seriously CAN'T, believe that that there's so much to do daily and that, even though I make an ever growing 'To Do' list, I've never accomplished everything on it in a single day. I like having the list though. It helps keep things from falling through the cracks and it keeps me on track. I include everything from taking my pills to making my bed. I make sure to do some laundry every day and I edit some pictures too although not as many as I used to because I found out how little time I really have. I love these days though. I'll always be grateful for every single one of them and for everything I've been able to do that I couldn't have done if I were still giving more physical effort everyday than I had to give. I just can't wait until Mr. Right joins me. We're going to have such a good time and part of the reason will be that we can travel at the drop of a hat if we want to.

I've been trying to evolve my koi husbandry skills with some degree of success. There are no longer any koi in the two tubs outside. I've moved a total of 100 of them into the goldfish pond (where there are no goldfish of course), and the last 42 were moved into the aquarium yesterday. Here they are just before they were introduced into their new home.


Cute aren't they?

I was able to add this many to the aquarium, first of all because they're so small and secondly because the numbers of the ones that had been in the aquarium seemed to be diminishing ever since we put Mr. Algae Eater back in there. So before we added the 42, we netted the fast growing algae eater and took him for a one way ride to our local tropical fish store.

I'd estimate that there are about a hundred babies in the aquarium now and I did put 100 more into the goldfish pond where I never ever see more than six at a time which is worrisome. Also worrisome is the plan is to keep the outside koi in the rather shallow goldfish pond over winter with a pond heater or two. (Mr. Right doesn't know it yet but my next big push will be to get a portable generator. Otherwise a power loss in the middle of winter could result in the loss of our entire stock of koi.)

So it goes.

And I muse about people who hate retirement because they're so bored. Could it be because they don't have koi ponds? Or maybe they don't have a computer and a blog and Wii Fit (that's a story for another day) or gardens or books or a camera or WHAT? I don't get it. I really don't but I thank God that as long as I have my faculties and can get around unaided, I don't think I'll ever be bored with retirement. It's really too splendid for words!

Poison Ivy and My Doctor

The doctor gave me a shot of cortisone and a prescription for some skin cream that I applied once. It burned at first but then it gave me sweet relief. After that, the itching was never so bad that I had to do anything. The poison ivy patches are still there but they're not angry and red anymore just kind of dry and rough. And I've never even used the cream again.

My doctor told me some interesting things though. He said the poison ivy doesn't spread. I was afraid to take a shower for fear of covering my body, from my infected neck down, in poison ivy. He explained to me that new areas erupt because once the poison ivy is in the dermis, it's going to erupt. It just takes longer in some areas than in others depending on the thickness of the epidermis in any one area.

Oh, and you get infected with poison ivy anywhere that the oil of the plant touches. If you get it on your shoe string and don't wash it thoroughly, you can keep re-infecting yourself. The same holds true for your keyboard or your steering wheel. Anywhere that the oil touches stays capable of re-infecting you until it's either worn off or washed off. Once you've touched the oil on the plant, you can deposit it anywhere that you touch until you wash your hands thoroughly. But once your skin erupts in the dreaded poison ivy rash, you can't give it to anyone else. It's your own personal poison ivy and no one else can have it.

He also told me that I wouldn't spread it by scratching it. That was a huge relief because believe me, I scratched. I was so relieved to get the image of some living entity trying to force me to scratch as I feverishly tried to resist out of my head, that that alone soothed my skin. Of course, he said you shouldn't scratch because you're tearing up your skin but you aren't making the poison ivy worse by doing so.

Now I am SO motivated to thoroughly weed my sorely neglected back fence row beds that I can hardly wait to get them done BUT I'm terrified. I have identified at least three different plants back there with 'leaves of three'. You know the old adage, 'leaves of three, let it be' right? And I'm afraid to get anywhere near them. I'll do it though. I know I will. I'll wear turtle necks and gloves and whatever else it takes but I'll get them all. I am so mad at that poison ivy.

And I don't think it knew who it was messing with.

What Next?

As our lives started to return to normal and I was breathing sighs of relief and hopefulness, there was another curve up ahead. In the grand scheme of things it probably isn't such a big deal but I can say, with all candor, it's got my undivided attention.

It's probably poison ivy. About a week ago, I went outside and weeded for a few minutes. My goal was to do a little every day.

Three days ago I had two little itchy bumps on my neck. Mr. Right thought they looked like mosquito bites but Mr. Right was Mr. Wrong this time. The next day the whole side of my neck seemed to be affected. And yesterday it had traveled to the other side of my neck and up into my cheek.

You would not believe the itching. It's so distracting that when I went to the doctor today, I could hardly follow what he was saying because I was desperate to claw at my neck and scratch it until it bled. Last night I couldn't think of anything else. When I tried not to touch it, I felt like I was battling an unseen but living entity who was determined to win some perverse test of wills that would result in my scratching my neck. And guess what. That unseen but living entity won. I couldn't have slept at all had I not given in and the most unfair part of the whole thing is that scratching helped. It was a relief!

Not to gross anybody out but here's what I'm up against:

I couldn't get a really sharp picture and I'm not sure I wanted to because, you know, all those wrinkles and all. But you get the idea, right?

Now that I think about it, this could be the answer to my prayers. It's one of the few things that could distract me from the unceasing family worries and concerns. Yesterday sixteen people were killed about a quarter of a mile from one of my Army guys. He heard and felt the explosion. If this is the answer to my prayers, then I welcome it. Because this will go away. The doctor said so. And I've got a cortisone shot and a prescription cream to help me through it. So this I can bear. This is okay. It's just a bump in the road that might help me get through the other worrisome things going on. For them, I put my faith in God. I'm not in charge and the rash will keep me from trying to be. This rash might be just what I need.

You Capture - Up Close

Beth's You Capture subject this week was even more interesting than I thought it was going to be. I thought I'd head outside and look for something different to photograph. After all, I've done flowers and fish until you can almost smell them. (Which can be good for one of them but not so much for the other.)

Anyway the first thing I came across was this:


I liked it so much that I had to include it.

Then I came to this:

And this:

But what was so interesting to me is that those were just a part of these:


And I was surprised at what they really looked like "up close".

Then I got this but I have to warn you. Don't get too close or look too long. This one is very sinister. If you come back tomorrow I'll tell you a story that might make your blood run cold. At least it did mine.

So remember this close up:


Could be part of this:

The Mysterious Musketeers

When everybody came home for my dad's funeral, one of our eagle-eyed Army guys spotted something strange in the big pond where all our biggo koi live. He kept insisting that he saw three, dark fish darting here and there that we didn't even know existed. Finally, everybody else saw them too. Two of them were about 3 inches long and one was about 5 inches long and they just didn't belong there. We had our first koi spawning at the end of June and these guys were WAYYYYY too big to be from that. Besides they were all dark colored and we didn't have more than one koi baby that was solid black among the thousands that hatched. So the odds were remote that there were three koi offspring in the big pond. But the question was what were they and how did they get there.

On June 14th, we took all 13 big koi out of the big pond and put them temporarily in the pond that housed just 3 fairly adult goldfish. After the big pond was cleaned and refilled we netted each one of the koi and put them back into the big pond. All I can figure out is that there must have been 3 goldfish youngsters in there that we didn't know about and that traveled to the big pond in the net with some of the big koi. After all, we always make that transport as quickly as possible and our focus was to not get any of the 3 white and/or red goldfish in the net. Black ones could have slipped in without our ever knowing it AND goldfish always start out dark colored and change when they get older. Koi always start out with colors.

So, they must have been goldfish and we had to catch them to make sure they didn't have those characteristic koi barbels (whiskers) before we let them loose in the wild. So here's the biggest mysterioso:

And the 3 inchers look just like him only smaller.

Unfortunately these three were all very cunning and wily and perfectly matched the pond liner which made them exceedingly difficult to catch. So we ended up completely draining the big pond, moving the big fish into the baby koi pond (formerly the goldfish pond) where they probably snacked happily on their 16 tiny offspring that we'd just put in there this week. But we caught those little buggers and although we didn't plan on cleaning the big pond, we essentially did and now it looks even better than it did.

So I took this picture of the big guys back home in the big pond. It's not a good picture of the fish because of the waves from the waterfall and the aerator but it's a picture that shows the clean, fresh water and the colors of the koi that reside there and are welcome there without those evil little interlopers (who weren't even invited to the big koi party).

And once again, at least for awhile, the fish world is turning in greased grooves.