Monday, July 18, 2022

Good morning, good news

First, the early morning doctor visit,  medical bulletin: the leak has healed, so the leak healing drops can be discontinued, yay. no more eye events till August, yay again. 

And a final medical bulletin, so engrossing, after a lot of trouble with the shoulder, pain aggravated by the tables and beds in surgery and recovery, not designed fot my dodgy neck and the skin so tender to the touch even clothes hurt, I realized that, as I ran out of aloe gel, not a problem. 

Enter the trusty kitchen aloe plant

Which I use all the time for minor burns from cooking. I can trust it to be effective on sore skin. And a pain reliever. Certainly Advil and Tylenol have done nothing, heat and ice helped, aloe gel better but I was running out of supplies.

So last night and this morning I bust open a stem and smoothed the gel on. I think I'm going with this. It's helping. Fresh is better than the jar.

Meanwhile back on the patio, finally buds. Actual marigolds appearing


And Gary's butterfly bush started, weeks late, and two monarchs appeared immediately. I wonder if there's a butterfly newsletter or something.


The volunteer tomato is flowering


Aditha tells me it's from her cherry tomato plant. It's growing in a very unpromising spot, lousy soil, shade, but seems unconcerned.

And in case you wondered, after my recent Pollan reading on the effect of various substances on the brain, we're not alone


I wonder if they enjoyed the change of pace.

Yesterday's movie was a rerun of



Which I've seen a couple of times, and will again. I never fail to sob along in the iconic scene where Eleanor finds Edward is not married after all,  despite the fake news. 

Alan Rickman, of blessed memory, as Colonel Brandon, Hugh Grant as Edward, Emma Thompson as Eleanor and scriptwriter, Oscar level, Gemma Jones, oh, everyone's excellent. Hugh Laurie as Charlotte's long suffering husband, everyone's a star in their own right, and I guess they would jump at the chance of an Ang Lee production.

Anyway if you've seen it you know all this , if not, it's you have a treat to come. 

Meanwhile I'm about to embark on


It was her teview of The Buddha in the Attic, that got me to tead it so I thought I'd read her own current work. When I get into it, I'll let you know how it goes.

This is after



Comfort rereading, despite being set in the London blitz (!)

And the evening audiobook, when I'm too too tired to read


Yesterday a couple of granddogs visited next door, Chase the golden retriever and Joey the Heinz terrier mix. So the book went along with the theme. 

Happy day everyone. Find something to enjoy. Brits, your heatwave will pass, it will.



14 comments:

  1. Yes, I saw "Sense and Sensibility" many years ago and enjoyed it a lot. What a stellar cast! And I like how you described Alan Rickman as "of blessed memory" -- he was a favourite actor of mine too and I miss seeing him in movies.

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  2. I'm surprised that spiders would be affected by recreational drugs. They don't even have nerves, do they? I can't remember if I've seen "Sense and Sensibility" -- Emma Thompson won a screenplay Oscar for it, I believe.

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  3. Yay! Happy Healing!
    Good news is exponentially better than it felt pre-pandemic.

    Okay, spider webs, there is concern a stronger mind altering drug looks to be the better design structure choice than a beloved cup of coffee.

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  4. I had seen that bit about the spiders. It really surprised me that caffeine produced the most erratic web. Glad the eye is improving and you are getting relief from your shoulder. Amazing that raw nature does the best job. Well, not really. Nature is the source of it all anyway.

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  5. I am so happy you have healed well and that the aloe is helping your shoulder! Wishing you a good week.

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  6. Yay! I am so glad your eye is doing better. Great news, Boud.

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  7. Good news on the eye!
    I wonder if you got some CBD cream for your shoulder if it would help. I think it helped when I broke my ribs.
    You don't have Netflix, do you? They have a new docu-series from Michael Pollan's "How To Change Your Mind." We've only watched a bit but so far, it is very enjoyable.
    I am still comfort-reading Larry McMurtry's "Moving On" which is many pages long. Enjoying it still.

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  8. There are two variables at least in the space drug test. The first is drugs, the second is space. And probably a lot more, like atmospheric pressure .

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  9. A lot of tests like this have been done by researchers in different countries, all in regular bio labs on the ground. NASA just had the best pictures. NASA has been interested for a long time in drug effects, aside from its space exploration.

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  10. Mary, no I don't have Netflix. All paid subs are out of my budget. I manage quite happily nonetheless! Good idea about CBD, thanks.

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  11. I'm sorry I missed all the eye events in real time, but I just caught up. I'm so glad for you that your eye is healing up, and the leak is resolved. I'd be interested to read about your experience waiting with one eye done and one eye yet to be done. The spider web experiment is interesting. The caffeine one is most surprising.

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  12. I find the caffeine one most interesting to look at, unpredictable!

    I'm learning the technique of living with one good eye and one dodgy one. Surprisingly functional up to now, though I haven't tried driving yet.

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  13. Pretty smart with that Aloe plant.

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  14. I had never heard of using aloe as a pain reliever. I think I've reached the conclusion that it might be aloe in hand sanitizers that I'm reacting to and have found one that has glycerin instead and it doesn't seem to bother me. Not at all sure at this point if it would be wise to slather with aloe.
    I must see if 'Sense and Sensibility' is on Netflix because I don't think I've ever seen it, at least not this particular version.

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