The battle of the flys is continuing.  I am slowly winning.  Or not.  It’s hard to tell.  Each day there are fewer of them.

My friend across the street, Jeanine, took me to lunch today.  It was to a cafeteria that was awesome--on the campus of  her denomination’s college.  DDDDDelicious.  Dozens of choices.  I had Chinese and it was awesome.  She kept wanting to take me for my birthday and today was the first day we could work it out.

My azaleas are starting to bloom.  Everything is late.  Very late this year.  Ann planted Hosta roots for me last year.  I didn’t know if the roots made the winter, but they are coming up!

The cryptogram this morning was: “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”  I’m working on that.  Scott sent me a new kind of green beans.  I planted them, but probably won’t stick with picking them.  Laziness will set in when it gets hot.  I know myself.

He also sent me and Ann tomatoes.  Jet Stars.  They do well here.  Ann took most of them because she is always feeding a crowd.  She asked me to Easter dinner, and asked if I had any of Kathy’s rolls left.  I do!  And will share them. (Reluctantly--ha ha.)  My friend Kathy bakes and sends them to me from Pryor when Becky Bacon comes to the eye doctors here.  God has given me the best friends in the world.

Today, I am remembering to post.  Carolyn and I have been talking about this generation’s problem with grocery shortages.  Most of them don’t know how to cook.

I remember what Ken told me on his first attempts in the kitchen after twenty-one years in the Marines, and over thirty years as a college prof.  He had never (never) in our marriage attempted anything in the kitchen, but I had been in breast cancer recovery and he was fending for himself.

“I think I’ve got it,” he said.  “If you start with good stuff, it will probably turn out good to eat.”  I didn’t correct him.  Before we were married, his mom kept him fed.  In the Marine Corps, he ate at the officer’s mess--which was always top notch.  Linens, crystal, silver, waiters.  And when he married me, I kept him fed.  I didn’t do a good job at first, but he ate what I put in front of him. (Except Spam--supply ship in Korea got bombed and all the cook had to give them was spam.  Spam and eggs.  Spam sandwiches.  Sweet and sour spam on rice.  For months.)

But this generation has never learned the basics to ward off starvation.  If you have flour, cornmeal, eggs, milk and beans...you will survive.  Someone asked me the other day how to make beans. “You boil them in water!!!  If you have a ham bone, throw that in.”  Back in the day, everyone had chickens, a cow, and a hog or two.  Everything you needed along with the flour and cornmeal.  Soda powder, salt and yeast were appreciated.  This new generation doesn’t know where to start.  What happened to those cooking classes in school?  

Hello Monday morning!  I still have bathtub-drain bugs.  I called the product company phone this morning and got a real (lovely) person.  She wanted to know everything I had tried before using their product.  “Clorox, Borax, Vinegar, Soda, and a can of Raid,” I told  her.

She asked me if the gel (her company sold me) had slowed them down, and told me that the product wouldn’t kill them.  It traps them.  The smell of the citronella draws them into the gel and they are trapped and die.

The product says it takes time.  What you don’t want is for the little bugs to hatch and grow wings and breed and lay more eggs.  It is kinda like the egg, caterpillar, butterfly cycle.  Three stages.  I’m killing stage two. 

She immediately offered a refund.  I told her I didn’t want a refund, that I wanted dead bugs.  I told her I would try for another week, and call her back.  She said that the numbers decreasing was a good sign, that I probably started with one hatching--of thousands of them.  

I told her my name for the bugs was “Satan’s Spawn.”  She got a kick out of that and said she would recommend putting it on their containers.

Today, I am down to eight of them.  I killed them and haven’t had any more in the last four hours.  Maybe there is an end in sight? 

My friend Gayle in Edwardsville La. called me yesterday and said she would love to read the book (if it EVER comes out) but needs to know the name of it.  And that I should also give her the publisher.

“The Letter.”  Oklahoma publisher “Road Runner Press.”  I think I need all of my friends to pray they can find a printer.  Small companies are last in line with printers.  And the price of paper has almost doubled.  

But if you are like me, I like to hold a book.  I do Kindle as a last resort.

It is two in the afternoon and this is the first time I have been able to sit down to blog.

Squig has high liver enzymes---not good.  He was so sick I took him to the vet yesterday.  It’s one of two things.  The vet is treating him for one of them.  If he isn’t better by Monday, I’ll take him back for an ultrasound.  Which means it is probably the second thing which isn’t good.  He has been more chipper today, I’m praying.

But he is 14 years old.  Old for a Schnauzer.  I won’t put my head in the sand, but I am hoping for the best.  Pat called her friend Erica, a vet that occasionally works for “Vets without Borders” and explained Squig’s symptoms and Erica said to get the ultrasound.  I don’t want to know...but I will get it.

I got a text from my publisher.  I’m afraid to believe it.  A list of book stores she has lined up for sales.  What does that mean?  Is it for May of 22, or 23...?  Is there actually going to be a book...I hope everyone buys one so they can keep it on the market!  I just want people to read it.

Wednesday got away from me.  I didn’t even get out to get the paper today.  Stanley Steemer came, Squig went to the groomer, Craig came to plant asparagus (and brought the paper in).  I transplanted stuff to make room for the asparagus, and the day slipped away before I had even done the crossword puzzle.

My yard man broke his leg.  So I guess I won’t get all the projects done that I had planned for spring. 

I’ll try to do better tomorrow.  I seem to be getting more and more distracted anymore by all the things going on around me.  It must be spring.

I planted parsley--Ann will plant cucumbers and Scott is sending tomato plants.  So I can make tabouli all summer.  

If the wind will stop blowing, maybe things will grow.  The wind was 50mph over night.  Sweeping down the plains...

 The drain gnats have disrupted my life.  I can’t seem to remember to blog.  I finally got a specific drain gnat treatment from Amazon.  It is the consistency of thick jello.  You leave it in the drain over night and pour boiling water down the drain the next morning.  Then do it all over again.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result!  That's where I am.  Yesterday there were only a dozen or so little bugs so I guess that’s progress?  Jeanette ordered me a gallon of the stuff so I can keep going.  The instructions say that it could take up to four months.  This is not how I planned to use the spring of 2022.

These critters are the devil’s spawn. 

 None of the plumbers that I have contacted have ever dealt with this problem.  Or heard of it.  

My back up is prayer.  And boiling water.

I didn’t break my hip.  I tore a ligament.  I needed one more thing to deal with.  Rest is prescribed.  But I have to get down on my knees to pour the gooey stuff down the tub drain.  Which hurts.  

I can do it.  Four months...maybe.....

 I thought RAID had killed the gnats...but today, there are four or five that seemed to have survived.  I hope that the principle of “Survival of the Fittest” doesn’t mean that I have promoted a super breed of these little devils.  I am currently killing them one by one by drowning them in poison.  I’m going to win.  The question is when.

Becky Bacon (Pryor) has been here since Wednesday.  It has been awesome.  She is such a good friend.  She brought me four huge pans of yeast rolls from Kathy.  “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.”  I’m singing that.  Kathy always baked me rolls when I lived in Pryor and that hasn’t stopped her just because I moved.  God bless her!!  

Becky Bacon was laughing at me because because I had my hand in the pan of rolls grabbing one as she came in my front door.  Ahhhh....  The next two or three rolls made it to the microwave for a few seconds to warm them up.

Ann picked us up and we went to breakfast and to the street sales afterward.  What a fun day.

I’ll get my act together next week about blogging I hope.  Right now, I’m eating rolls with raspberry jam.  Heavenly.