Friday, August 13, 2004 Strange, strange weather we’re experiencing this summer. June gloom started in May and lasted until the end of June. July, usually a hot dry month, was hot and humid. Uncomfortable. August weather. Now, in August, we had a couple of hot dry days and then some hot humid days and now, it’s a little on the cool side, due to cloud cover. There’s a tropical storm down in Mexico and the edges of it are hitting here. Strange because it’s cool, where you expect tropical storms to be warm. Maybe it’s just the cloud cover. If that burns off, it’s going to be miserable. And you can take that to the bank. And it really sucks because our air conditioner is about a thousand and four years old and is extremely energy inefficient, as well as not working well. Not well at all. We ran it about four or five days last month (set at 78?) and our electric bill this month is up about seventy five dollars from the previous month. *sigh* So, I sit and swelter. I’ve seriously considered taking one of my movie coupons and hitting a theater.
We were going to get the Irish moss for the pool area, but it was too expensive. So, Brian found some nice no mow fescue, that grows to about six or eight inches and just lays over. It looked pretty cool in the picture, reminded me of beach grass. I ordered some online, requesting that it be delivered next Saturday, the 21st. Unfortunately, there is none available. They won’t be harvesting anymore until the middle of October. That isn’t acceptable. We need something soon to keep that damned crawling weed grass from coming back. Most of the flowers I planted last year are gone, victim to that grass. Jesse, the gardener who was here last week (he’s a Mexican, works for eighty dollars a day and a carne asada burrito), said that we really needed to use chemicals on the grass to make it go away for good and I reminded him we can’t do chemicals because of the cats. Then he said we should put white rock down.
Now, I’ve been after Brian for years to put that black plastic down. In previous years, we had bark in the area, but it’s really hard to walk on. And Brian nixed the idea of the white rock. So, after finding out we can’t get the real grass for at least two months, he went online and started a search for fake grass. Heh heh heh. That’s not gonna work. That stuff sells for $36.00 a square yard. We’ve got about 400 square feet we need to cover. We absolutely can’t afford this. *sigh*
I did find some Irish moss seeds for less than twenty bucks for 10,000 seeds, which would cover 1000 square feet. But it will take to long to get going. That creepy crawly grass will come back before the seeds can start growing enough to push out the grass. So, Brian says last night “I guess I’ll have to get some black plastic”. And this morning on our walk, in a voice so low I barely heard it “and white rock”. Hahahahahahaha! At least, this should help kill that damned grass so that we can eventually plant something nicer. I will have to get some stepping stones for the rock, because I hate walking on that stuff. On one of our morning routes, we go past a place that has white rock where you’d expect a sidewalk and even with shoes on, I’ll walk in the street.
I put up some more pictures in the family album if anyone is interested.
I got an email from someone who is having major problems viewing this site since I implemented the hotlink prevention. I don’t know why this is happening, the only thing it should do is replace one image with another. She said that lisaviolet.com was shutting down her computer and that she didn’t think she should have to download a different browser, that the latest versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer should be good enough. And I agree. I use Internet Explorer all of the time, I have for years. Out of curiousity, I downloaded Netscape 7.1 yesterday and I had no problem viewing any of the camera pages. I did see where http://catcam.lisaviolet.com was badly formatted and I fixed that. It now looks the same in Netscape as it does Internet Explorer. But beyond that, I had no problems bringing any of the pages up. So, I’m at a loss. I doubt I’ll remove the hotlink protection, though.
Brian finally gave me the go ahead to order a new 4DTV receiver earlier this month. It should be here today. Our old one really frustrates us. You go to change it to a different satellite and the dish moves, but the numbers don’t change (they are the guideline for where the receiver needs to move the dish, they’re set when the receiver is initially set up). Then, for whatever reason, in a half hour or so, it works. Except the numbers are off (when you try to move the dish, it moves a little bit, but the numbers don’t; so you’ve moved it about ten clicks, but the number still says 4798, instead of 4808 and this throws off the entire system). I’ve spent hours and hours this year, reprogramming the numbers only to have them messed up by the end of the day. I finally got Brian to be able to fine tune in a satellite, but when it won’t move at all, there’s not much either of us can do except wait. Hopefully the new receiver will fix the problem. I also ordered a dish tune-up kit for Brian to get up on the roof and reposition the dish. Neither of us can see paying someone else hundreds of dollars to do this when it’s not getting done properly. The guy we used in the past is more interested in working with the small dishes and doesn’t even have the necessary tools anymore. Plus I don’t really think he knows what he’s doing. He sold us that new actuator earlier this year when I moved the dish too far (trying to set those damned numbers). Well, I did it again a few months later and Brian went up on the roof and physically moved the dish and it worked just fine after that. And it didn’t cost a cent. With any luck, by next week, we’ll be as good as new.
The cats are doing fine. DeeJay threw up the other day. When the other cats throw up furballs, they can be as big around as my thumb and about four inches long. DeeJay’s are about as big as a large pea. You know, I was obsessing about him gaining weight. Earlier this week I had to get more fluids for him and I noticed on the invoice that his weight when he was first diagnosed with kidney disease was six pounds, two ounces. He weighs a little more now, so I guess that’s not too bad. It’s been almost two years. I was really surprised. It was nice the other night, I got him to eat an entire jar of beef baby food. I couldn’t believe that he did.
I’d very much like Ciara to be well.
Little Bit comes down to eat. I’m sure curious how many kittens she had and if there’s any color besides black in the litter. SpotTee is getting a little less anxious around us when I feed them in the morning, he comes a little closer. And KittyMeeze is doing okay, still hangs out here in the day. I do get nervous when I can’t find him.
Well, that’s it for now. Friday is laundry day. And it’s calling my name.
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