june finalé

Well, this certainly has been a long month. It took me a few days to recover from traveling—longer than usual, I think, because I still haven’t had a real vacation since summer 2006 and, oh never mind. Just whining.

At Ginger’s last chemo treatment, the vet felt lymph nodes again in Ginger’s legs. So a lab test was done, but came back inconclusive. Next treatment, last Friday, the lumps were still there along with the lymph nodes in her neck being enlarged. So they re-did the earlier test and another one with a sample from her neck lymph nodes. Today we got the wicked bad news that Ginger is no longer in remission.

Thursday morning we go to the oncologist vet and start what’s called a rescue protocol, the MOPP protocol. Different chemo drugs. I’m not sure what the odds are or what to expect yet. Even though I’ve been kind of expecting this since she had such weird blood tests, it still felt like a kick in the stomach. She’s not acting sick or anything, doing ok (except for thunder and the dreaded fireworks). It really, really sucks.

JUMBO MEANS JUMBO
While we were in Michigan, my parents added cable telephone so had to get a cable box, which meant a new remote control to learn. Mom was having a devil of a time mastering it. So, when Stanley saw a deal on Jumbo Universal Remotes on one of the cheap crap deal sites he haunts (he says Woot Two-fer Tuesday), we thought, “Hmm, a universal remote, bigger than the cable company remote, bet that might be easier for Mom to manage.” Program it once, if it works, and only have to master one damn remote for all the boxes. In theory, anyway. He ordered two, one for us to try (we have to use three remotes to watch our DVDs) and one to take with us in August and program for Mom and Dad if it works for us.

Only, well, he didn’t read the fine print. Such as the height and width of these Jumbo Universal Remotes. They came in a huge box, which I thought was really odd. And then Stanley opened the box—then I laughed so hard I almost peed:

Stanley with Jumbo Remotes
Well, we certainly won’t LOSE them ...  (click to enlarge)

We still don’t know if they work. Maybe we can wall mount one of ‘em ...

THINGS WE HAVEN’T DONE YET
We got a new rug for the living room. It was waiting for us at Home Depot when we got back from Michigan. Lovely shade of blue and I can’t wait to see it—only it’s still not down yet. We meant to do it last weekend but got very busy outside, then on Sunday it was just so hot (dew point was 74°!) we just looked at eachother, too dull-witted from the heat to figure out how to tackle it. We decided to wait until the humidity broke.

We also did not replace the column on the porch yet—same story as above. And I haven’t vacuumed the house—right now there is quite a colony of spiders taking over all the corners, high and low. The cats are falling behind on their job of killing the little beasties.

But we did get a lot of yard work done. I am happy to report that my tomatoes and pepper plants survived us being away for more than two weeks—our next-door neighbor was nice and watered them for us. The black plastic cloth stuff we put down is working really well. A new rosebush we put in and weren’t sure was going to make it is now thriving. And a clematis vine we thought croaked came to life—just very late this year. A new one we planted last year is blooming and is beautiful—I forgot to take a photo of it today.

I wish it were easy to get back and forth between here and Oscoda—my parents are on my mind constantly and it’s hard not to be there. We’ll be back there some time next month, depending on Ginger’s chemo schedule and whether we can have a vet in Oscoda follow her while we’re on vacation. That’s one of the things I will figure out on Thursday.

COLD-BREWED ICED COFFEE
Started craving it and finally dug out the recipe from the New York Times website—I’d forgotten how much better it is than icing hot-water-brewed coffee. I made it with a touch of Traverse City Cherry flavored coffee I brought back from Oscoda, a touch of my favorite French Vanilla coffee from Coffee and Tea Warehouse, and a third of Harvard Blend from Green Mountain. It’s wonderful. Here is the recipe:
1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind is best)
Milk (optional).
1. In a jar, stir together coffee and 1 1/2 cups water. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight or 12 hours.
2. Strain twice through a coffee filter, a fine-mesh sieve or a sieve lined with cheesecloth. In a tall glass filled with ice, mix equal parts coffee concentrate and water, or to taste. If desired, add milk.
Yield: Two drinks.

I think I’m supposed to put the coffee grounds in the rhododendron or something—have to look that up.

Time to go make dinner—we’re making an omelet with fresh eggs given to us from a woman who collects them from her own hens.

 

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