CASA de TERRIBLE, WHERE ARE YOU?
A few of you may have been wondering where we have been hiding. In truth, nowhere. The last couple of months and much of the summer has just been full of unusual and unexpected events. Now this will sound like a list of complaints or sob stories, but it really is not intended that way.
We had some familial deaths. Mrs.T visited the ER and then was in the hospital for several days because of a tooth. And not long after she injured Matilda who is still healing. As noted below, the Editor now has another systemic disease to contend with - not curable but fortunately treatable. Unfortunately it has had a significant impact upon his vision. And now I have: at least one ophthalmologist, probably another optometrist in addition to my regular one, two neurologists., at least one doctor that is a combination neurologist/ophthalmologist, and two 'regular' doctors. Plus some new medications and eventually some new spectacles. Attention Canadians: Let no one talk about how long you wait for medical care; this winter we will tell you all about the tooth and the eye.
So the newsletter has been in gestation for quite some time which you might detect by the several subjects it covers. Also, due to his malady, the Editor has done a perhaps less-than-stellar job. Nonetheless, enjoy these vignettes from the Muse:
No Insults Intended
It has been rather hot here. (It is the humidity -dt) Dan has refused to turn on the air conditioner. It is okay by day but at night it is awful. I was complaining to some of my lady friends and told them the only way I could stand it was to take off all my clothes and stand directly under the fan."Oh, that explains it," one said matter of factly. All of our husbands refused to turn on the air conditioners and we had thought it was because they were cheap when really they were trying to get us to undress. Silly men. (The fact is R is not fond of clothes and mostly goes without them here in the forest - she would not let me publish the photos of her feeding the fish. At the condo she dresses rather loosely. -dt)
I decided that the only way to get revenge was to buy a very long, dark, nightie of some heavy fabric sort of like A BURKA. One of those thingies the Muslim women wear. Surely I could buy one at Burkas-R-Us or something. But the more I thought of it the more I decided this was a bad idea. They really did not look very comfortable.
In fact I began to imagine a conversation.
Muslim man, "Take it off."
Muslim lady, "I'm not taking it off; that is a sin."
Muslim man, "But I'm your husband."
Muslim lady, "You just want to look at me and God will send you to 10000 hells.."
If you continue and elaborate this conversation many times you can see why Muslim men are grumpy and make bombs. (In no way should anyone think that Rebecca is besmirching or denigrating Muslims or Islam. -dt) (A lengthy comment is needed here. Shortly after Mrs.T wrote the above a heat wave came our way. The a/c has been running almost non-stop for almost two months. She still does not wear many clothes. -dt)
Hanging with the Horses
I have been horseback riding and my instructor told me there were a lot of ticks. One evening as I was reading I noticed that I was scratching inside my ear. "Oh, No!" I thought, "How did I get poison ivy in there?" Then I felt a round flat thing. Why it feels like the outside of popcorn, I thought. (Mrs. t does a lot of thinking. -dt) I do eat a lot of popcorn. When I tried to scrape it out with my fingernail it scooted away. EEE!! You guessed it. I had a tick in my ear. I put it on a piece of paper and tried to squish with my fingernail. Ticks are not very squishable. After two more efforts I thought about waking Dan for help. Dan goes to bed earlier and is not happy if I wake him. I went to the kitchen looking for something heavy and flat to squish the tick. The first thing that came to hand was the handle of a large butcher knife. SPLAT!! That tick was history. His remains were divided between the knife handle and the paper I had been carrying him on. A paper towel with some soap and water cleaned off the knife and I carefully put the paper in a plastic baggie so that on the morrow I could take them to the emergency room. "WHY?" asked my husband. "What do you mean WHY?" I asked Dan. I thought it was obvious. I wanted to take the tick's remains to the Emergency Room so they could test them for diseases. Dan finally convinced me that they would not test the remains unless and until I developed symptoms of something. However I am keeping the remains baggie just in case. I do think the laughter was inappropriate. (This had nothing to do with her toothache later. -dt)
Rebecca IS a Nervous Driver (dt)
Dan has recently had some problems with one eye, ultimately diagnosed as myasthenia gravis. Therefore I have had to do more driving than normal. This includes listening to him complain that I am either going too fast or too slow, should be in the other lane, etc. In spite of all this I have not only avoided having an accident or getting arrested but I have also refrained from hitting him on the head with a 2x4. Patience is a virtue. I taught all three of the other members of my family to drive as best as I could and now they all three want to return the compliment. My question is "What's the big hurry?" Wherever you are going will be there whenever you get there. SIGH. The truth is I don't really like driving anyway. If the police are willing to let me alone why don't you guys?
Horses Know How to Swim
But practically speaking they don't know that they know. So we took three horses - Hazel, Lena, and Jewel - to introduce them to deep water. The riders were Laura, Maddie, and Rebecca. Horses tend to be cautious. They were quite confident about going over shallow creeks. But they did not like the looks of that big pond. When you introduce a horse to something new the first thing they do is smell it. The horses smelled the pond. "Hmm smells like water," they thought. They took a little lick. "Tastes like water too, not too clean but I'm not picky," they decided. Then the horses backed away to think it over. The fact is that horses are not fast thinkers. There are some who say that I, Rebecca, am not a fast thinker either but be that as it may I do get there in time. (No comment. -dt) Now I realized that there was no way I was going to drag Jewel - who is a very large horse (Belgium -dt) - into the water if she did not want to go. So she and I went back to the bank where she munched on grass while thinking it over. Laura and Maddie spent a little while tugging on Hazel and Lena, who are much smaller, but in the end they did not go much further in the water either.
After a while I asked Jewel and she consented to go back in the water. I need to mention here that Jewel has very large hooves. Have you ever watched a first or second grader splashing through puddles making the biggest splashes she can? Well Jewel discovered that she could splash with her big feet and was having a great time. However when she got about knee high she was not splashing so much. Jewel decided to lie down and roll over in the water. This cooled her off a bit and I think confused her. She returned to the bank to eat and cogitate. Hazel and Lena skipped both the hoof splashing - they have smaller hooves - and the rolling and contented themselves with tug of wars with Laura and Maddie.
After some more thought Jewel decided to go back into the water. She started splashing her way happily through the shallow water. Then Jewel continued walking in deeper until the water was just over her tummy. She did not want to go in deeper. She did not want to go back. Hmmm(!) I think she must have decided this would cool her off; it was a hot day and it helped keep the insects from biting her bottom half. Jewel stood there gazing at me contentedly as if to say, "Yes this is cool; I'll rest here a while."
Jewel is the lead mare of Tori's herd. That means she protects them and keeps them out of trouble as well as deciding where to go eat when they are out in the field. I think that is why when Jewel went out into deeper water Lena decided it must be OK. She stopped fighting with Maddie who had been trying to pull her further out and went out a little deeper where she leaned against Jewel for emotional support. Maddie was quite pleased because now Lena was in water up to her chest since she is shorter than Jewel.
Maddie was playing with Lena who was watching her a little anxiously while leaning against Jewel. In fact Jewel, Lena, and I were all watching Maddie, who talked to Lena, patted Lena, splashed Lena, and then she hit the Jackpot! Maddie stuck her head in the water near Lena and blew bubbles. Lena bent over and peered cautiously at Maddie. Then Lena stuck her nose in the water and splashed Maddie. They did this back and forth for a few minutes much to the bemusement of Jewel and me. Then Maddie called out, "Rebecca, try this!"
I looked down at the water. It was quite muddy. I looked up at three expectant faces. Sigh! I took hold of my nose and stuck my face in the water and blew bubbles at Jewel. Jewel stuck her nose in the water and splashed at me. And we were off. I suppose the four of us blew bubbles and splashed at each other for about ten minutes. It was, to be honest, great silly fun. In the end I tired of it.
"It's time for us to go back," I told Jewel. She heaved a great sigh but did not disagree. On shore I rubbed Jewel dry and then went to change into dry clothes. A little while later we were all on our way home. A good time had been had by all.
Thanks TA for the horsing around photos:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/9151458@N07/n9Q1bV
Well, the Casa is off on the scheduled road trip to the UK. Maybe there will be some news from there.
Best wishes,
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com
