thisendoftheswamp

We both enjoy putting together jigsaw puzzles, but The Squire has outdone himself. He found a box under the stairs with one of those puzzles where there’s a mystery to be solved. The picture on the box is not the picture that will be completed, but the new picture will tell you whodunit.

So not only is there no picture, but the puzzle was painted with watercolors, so everything runs together. And it’s HUGE – 23″ by 29″, so it nearly covers the card table. A thousand pieces of utter vexation. He’s been at it for close to a week now – notice I said “he” – and is about half done. I ordered two new puzzles from a place called SeriousPuzzles.com and I am dying to break one out and get started. I’m not going to spoil his fun, so I’ve wait until he gets that bloody thing completed, leave it on the table to admire for a few days, and then open a new box.

I enjoy a challenge, but Lord knows I don’t need any more frustration in my life.

My BFF called the house Thursday morning to say she’d heard Harford County had some extra vaccine, and gave us the phone number to inquire. We managed to get an appointment, changed out of our Schlepping Rags and into something that didn’t look so awful folks would want to take up a collection for us, and sallied forth.

We were given a health questionnaire to complete, had it checked by an “intake” person, and sent off toward the gymnasium. The halls are so long that they had a lady with an orange flag, which looked as if it had been borrowed from a road crew, to point us in the right direction. The clerk at the door sent us to tables, where we got “shot”. My doctor introduced herself, rolled up my sleeve, poked me, applied a Band-Aid and had me off toward another table in probably no more time than it took me to type that sentence. By the time we had registered for our second shot, we were nearing the end of the 15 minute waiting period, so we were out the door. The entire business took less than half an hour.

Quick and painless.

The Squire has a fetish. It sometimes seems as if every time that man sees a frying pan in the store he buys it. We had two sets on non-stick pans, and he came home the other day with yet another set.

He started out innocently enough with darker set in the back, which he bought at Aldi’s. Then after a few months, he stopped at some specialty shop and bought the light colored set. (Yes, Virginia, there is a smaller skillet, but it seems to be MIA right now. ) His most recent purchase is the black set. He claims the non-stick factor stops working, and he needs a new pan. I take comfort in the fact that he could have a lot worse habits, and since he does the bulk of the cooking, I really can’t complain.

Recently, he was bemoaning the fact that none of these have oven-proof handles, so he can’t make a proper frittata. He had that faraway look that usually presages a shopping trip, so I reminded him was already have skillets that will do exactly what he wants to do.

“Oh?”

We have three different sizes of cast iron skillets under the cooktop.

After dithering around for several years, I finally had the cataract removed from my right eye today.

They always tell you not to eat or drink before the surgery, but I did take a small dose of my anti-convulsant. I have restless leg syndrome, and when I had the left eye done the anesthesiologist had a hard time keeping me still. You don’t want to be dancing all over the operating table during any surgery, but especially not when they are working on your eyes, so this time I took a half a pill before I left the house..

From what I gather, it was a jolly good thing, because they told The Squire they had to give me extra “juice” anyway. When the doctor came in to give me a pre-op pep talk, I was so sleepy I didn’t respond. I do remember him opening my “good” eye and saying “peek=a=boo”, but not much else. A faint recollection of something round above my eye, and I complained later about the rock band they had in the OR; that turned out to be some sort of machine, which they agreed was very loud. My nurse had a hard time getting a decent blood oxygen reading; I have Renaud’s syndrome, and when I get cold the blood doesn’t flow into the tips of my fingers, or my toes, for that matter. The first time she fired on one of my index fingers she said it looked as if I was dead – and cooling rapidly. She had to try all ten finger before she finally managed to get a decent reading from my right thumb. I suggested a cup of hot coffee might be useful. She agreed but they don’t give patients that because of the danger of people spilling it all over themselves. Makes sense – it’s hard to drink when you are semi-reclining, and you simply cannot drive coffee with a straw!

The Squire collected me after the surgery, brought me home and fed me and then helped me up to bed, where I slept for several hours. After supper and eyedrops, I tried to work on a jigsaw puzzle while he went to the market, but between my vison and the cat deciding I needed help, that didn’t pan out too well.

There was a mosquito in the den this morning. Emphasis on WAS.

I smacked that little sucker HARD.

Honestly, with as much standing water as we have around here, ‘skeeters are a constant problem, but I certainly didn’t expect to see them when there are still patches of snow on the ground!

I wonder if humans need heart worms medicine?

. . . we have ants.

I think the wimpiest ants in the world live here. Unless it is warm and sunny they come inside. If it is raining, they want to be dry. If it is cold, they want to be warm. Not that you can really blame them, I guess, but I though wild animals are supposed to tolerate weather.

And these little creatures only show up in the bathroom. I’m not complaining, just mentioning that they almost never invade the kitchen. What is it about Bon Ami they find so alluring? They race endlessly around the edge of the wash bowl, going nowhere in a big hurry. From time to time one of them will climb the alps of Mt. Faucet, but for the most part, they stay on the counter.

I know it’s a bit fuzzy, but it is a sticker on a car window at the riots on January 6th.

Two different flags, representing two different nations, bitter enemies, but occupying the same continent. I’m sure both side believed God was on their side, but they were not ever, and because one of them not longer exists, except in the fevered memories of their descendants, “One Nation“, under the any conceivable definition. Who are thee people?

We’d managed to sail through most of the season without too much trouble, but we woke up on Thursday to this. We’d had a couple of false starts, big build-ups, and then nothing to really mention. However, this snow acted as if it meant business. It was still snowing fairly hard when I took this shot, and continued until nearly noon. We are looking from the corner of the house across the yard to toward the drive. Fortunately, I’d filled the feeders the night before, so I didn’t have to slog out there and freeze my “widdle finners”. Or my feet, as this was deeper than my boots!

Even this snow didn’t stick to the roads or walks very well. However, it was enough to bring out what we call The Vultures – hoards of blackbirds, grackles, starlings, and redwings – all eager to demolish the feeders. They will swirl in out of nowhere, light in the trees, and then drop in waves, almost as if it is raining. And then you get this: I call it The Chow Line This was taken through the den window, so it’s a bit blurry. And still snowing.

The forecast for today and tomorrow – and possibly Tuesday – is for snow, possibly as much as a foot. I filled the feeders this morning before I took my shower; by the time we got home from church is was snowing pretty hard, and The Squire refilled them. We sat in the den watching the birds.

Suddenly, this bird, which neither of us had ever seen before, sailed in and began eating. The Squire took several quick photos with his phone and we searched the Birds of Maryland site, but we couldn’t identify it, so he sent off a snap to the Maryland Ornithological Society. We were really surprised to get an answer almost immediately.

This is a yellow-headed Blackbird, and it is native to the Midwest. If you draw a line from the lower right corner of Michigan to the lower right corner of New Mexico, you have a fairly good idea of the little fellow’s Easternmost range. What he was doing this far east is anybody’s guess. These birds are also common in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, so at least he’s used to the snow.

It’s not the world’s sharpest picture, but it was taken with a cell phone, through three panes of glass, and we were fortunate to get it before he flew away.