Hibernation Thursday

Today, I don't exist. I'm hiding. (Yeah, I know, some of you wish you could do that, but hey, being old and decrepit has its priviledges!) I've closed my windows and doors, turned on the A/C "down" to 75 and took my phone off the hook. After several days of being hot and sticky from not running the A/C (trying to conserve energy), I have to have one day of comfort. I've not been able to get enough rest since I got back from my trip. It's not that I did anything physically exhausting, I hardly slept a wink on that bed in the hotel room and was in agony every morning. I didn't complain too much because I didn't want Betty to feel bad, who, by the way, is still not feeling as well as she had hoped. Her mom is staying with her and when I just tried to look in on her, Betty was in the bedroom trying to sleep. Poor thing! It's not getting easier with age. The body simply doesn't heal as quickly as when we were young.

My Hep C condition causes me to be overly tired anyhow, so I have to make sure I get adequate rest. I have a doctor's appointment for next week since I'm unable to get my liver biopsy/test results interpreted until I see him. I will keep you abreast. I'm hoping it's not too bad, because it's been a month since the liver biopsy and I figure if it were serious, they surely would have contacted me by now instead of me having to hunt down my test results, but one just never knows. Mistakes get made all the time. I don't want to be one of them. So, I decided to be a proactive patient. I know some doctors don't like it, but that's just too bad.

My cherry tomatoes are making slow progress (later on I'll thin/space the seedlings out a bit) and Mr. Smokey Robinson, one of our "community cats" has decided that my front porch is his permanent home, which is fine by me.

I just don't want the neighbors to pitch a fit over it. I still feed the cats away from the apartments, off in the woods, so that there won't be a bunch of them congregating at my front door. God forbid, or else we'd probably get another visit from those killer pitbulls that came through a while back and killed four of them. I still say that was planned because those dogs have not been seen since.

On Monday I had to do a little grocery shopping and stopped at the "U-Pick" strawberry field and bought some freshly picked strawberries. They usually have some for sale that were picked fresh that morning because I could not pick very many with my bad back.

I want to go back one more time because strawberry season isn't very long. It ends mid or end of May and I want some more for my freezer. By the end of May the blueberries should be getting ripe and I will definitely buy a bunch of those because I love them even more than the strawberries.

I will have to do some research to find out if - or where - there are raspberry bushes because I love those the best, only I've not seen any. I figure since blackberries grow wild all around me, surely the raspberries must grow here as well. We had tons of those growing on our property where I grew up in Germany and really enjoyed them. This is a question to my German friends: Do you remember Himbeersaft? (thick raspberry syrup) I love that stuff. I buy it sometimes at the GermanDeli.com, but if I know it's in the house, I just have to use it on everything! It reminds me of my Oma (grandma) because she'd make that raspberry flavored pudding, poured it in pretty glass dishes and after it was chilled and set, she'd turn it over a plate and drizzle that raspberry syrup over it...that was always my favorite treat and to this day I still love the raspberry and strawberry puddings. Strange how we associate certain foods with home. Certain foods just make me feel close to my Oma (who raised me) even though she's been long gone - only she lives in my heart forever! (That reminds me, I still have one strawberry pudding left. I should make it to go with my fresh strawberries.)

Wishing you all a peaceful day.