Caution: Pollen Alert!

If you are allergic, you may want to postpone your trip to Alabama until allergy season passes this year.

My lime green view of the world today:



It was so bad on Tuesday a number of people came to work saying they could see it blowing in sheets across the freeway. Every car in the parking lot today was covered with it. The asphalt even had a greenish-yellow tinge.

Luckily, I don't suffer from allergies. I hope you don't either.

Well, I might have this allergy: "I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness." -James Thurber

The Latest News From the Homefront

In a comment to my former varmint report, Thyme asked about squirrels in this area. In Alabama squirrels are plentiful and are gray with bushy tails. I've lived here 22 years and this is the first time a squirrel has decided to move in with me. My yard is filled with hardwood trees which are in turn filled with squirrel nests. Squirrels can be easily seen everyday playing chase with one another out back. The only dispute I've ever had with them is that they bury their acorns in my flower boxes in the fall and spend the summer digging up all my flowers, even though I make sure to dig all their acorns out before planting anything.

The culprit continues to prefer my garage ceiling to his former home out of doors. We have made further contact with him. My daughter and son in law brought a trap over. I think it is for opossums, but we're hoping it will work for Rocky as well. While we were setting the trap up, he kept tabs on us from above. Every now and then we could see him fluffing his tail as if to say, "what are you doing in my home?" I keep thinking Christmas Vacation with the Griswold family. He scares the living you know what out of me! I know he is just a squirrel. I know I am bigger and stronger. But, he is a critter and he's on my turf. We pounded on the ceiling until he decided to exit the building for a while. We walked around the whole house trying to find his way in and out-nothing. Needless to say, when the commotion died down, he returned.

What if he is a she? And what if she is building a nest? I'm calling a real estate agent tomorrow. I think it's time to move.

This Blog Is Interrupted For A Varmint Update

It's a squirrel. I saw it! I knew it was big when spray paint cans started shake, rattle and rolling. It is tearing up the insulation around my heating ducts. Operation RID is underway! I called my closest male relative. My brother brought bird seed. We opened the garage door in the hopes that it is only trying to find it's way outside. We've left a Hansel and Gretal trail of birdseed to the outside.

Further update later.

Eeeeeek!

There is a darn mouse in the ceiling of my basement. I can hear him doing somersaults and handstands under my feet as I type. I think maybe there is a whole family down there playing a volleyball game. Now he is biting on something! Eeeeeek!

I'm wondering why mice are so hyperactive?

I'm wondering why he has picked my basement to invade.

I'm wondering what he is doing.

I'm wondering how to get rid of him.

When I say mouse I don't mean this one either!

My skin is crawling. I'm going to have to turn the TV on and leave it on all night to be able to sleep. It is times like these that I hate living alone!

Someone please call the exterminator.

Nightmares

In a recent post, Pat at Mille Fiori Favoriti stated that she dreams a lot and rarely experiences a nightmare. I, on the other hand, have nightmares regularly. For the most part, I stopped having really terrifying dreams a long time ago. Now, I call them nightmares because they are terribly oppressive, although all too often, I still wake with my heart pounding.

I used to have a recurring nightmare. I would dream that dream once or twice a year. It began when I was in grammar school and it finally stopped at age 18 after a traumatic experience. Don't ask me why. As a young mother, I would dream that I had fallen walking up steps in front of my childhood church and couldn't get up. I've dreamed that I needed to warn someone and couldn't make a sound. I've dropped numerous valuables down grates and have been unable to retrieve them, etc, etc, etc.....

Near the end of my marriage, my "bad" dreams intensified. In them something bad would always happened. Something so bad that I would spend the whole dream trying to fix it. I had so many bad dreams for so many years that I finally taught myself to wake up. At some hopeless point in the dream I would say to myself..."this is a dream, wake up" and I would. Learning to do this was freeing. No longer would I have to spend the whole night trying to do the impossible, trying to redo some deed gone horribly wrong, trying to undo some misdeed. But even though I might wake myself, sometimes I still would go back to sleep to start the frustrating cycle all over again. Once I woke up from a nightmare every night for about 2 weeks in a row at 2:00 in the morning.

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli 1781

I don't have as many frustrating dreams anymore. Probably because my daytime circumstances aren't as frustrating now, but sometimes I still find myself trying desperately to work out problems in my sleep. Before you suggest it, let me assure you that I have no need of a psychoanalyst. I know why I have these kinds of dreams. I just don't like them. Why can't I have wonderful, happy, colorful, dreams of happy people who do great things?

I remember going to my parent's bedroom in the middle of the night often when I was 5 or 6 because of scary dreams. At first I was allowed to get in bed with them, but eventually my mother told me whenever I had a bad dream and couldn't go back to sleep to count my blessings...to think of all the good things in my life. Counting blessings has stood the test of time and countless bad dreams. Thinking on the good things in life has soothed me back to sleep many a sleepless night.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Philippians 4:8