Hairballs Happen

When I pulled my refrigerator out to clean behind it, I found a fresh hairball. I live with cats, so finding hairballs is not unusual. I took out the spray bottle of Lysol and quickly mopped it up.

Usually hair balls are left in places easier to find. The back of the refrigerator was a surprise even though Lancelot, one of my older cats, does go back there sometimes to sleep, and all the cats climb on top the refrigerator. They like high places.

It reminded me of an embarrassing hairball moment from a few years back. When I went to a faculty meeting. I sat at a table with half a dozen other college instructors. I reached in my purse to pull out a pen. Instead I pulled out a hairball.

Hairballs happen. Nowadays I make sure my purse is zipped shut when I am at home, and I glance at the insides before I leave

READING, WRITING, HOUSEWORK

I gave all my pets their monthly flea treatments. We piled the Advantage tablets on the counter. I had a list of pets; my husband and I checked off their names as we found an animal and applied the solution to their necks.

Afterward I washed all pet bedding and sprayed areas where the pets congregate and sleep.

I happen to be reading “The Magical Household” by Scott Cunningham and David Harrington, so, of course, I was interested in magical ways to eliminate fleas. Some readers will say they aren’t superstitious. Neither am I. Magic has been a part of human lives since the days of the cavemen. We are still magical people.

Do you knock on wood. throw salt over your shoulder or pick up pennies because they are lucky. If you have a St Christopher medal or rosary in your car, perhaps you believe it it will protect you. Religion purports to be magical I believe magic is all around us.

Anyway I paid special attention to the parts about how to magically remove fleas. Some magical people write polite letters to the fleas asking that they leave the pets alone. This letter can be placed outdoors on a stump. For some reason, the fleas eat the note, and leave the pets alone. I tried to to write a letter to the fleas. What do you say to a flea?

Please leave my pets’ alone. If they taste good, perhaps this letter will taste better. I will even write it in peanut butter or olive oil for your enjoyment. Thank you, dear little fleas.

Another way to get rid of fleas is to scare them away. Go through the household banging on a pan as if it were a drum. “Yell at the fleas. Tell them them that they must be gone. The book says to shout, “Out with you scorpions, fleas, serpents, roaches, bugs and flies.” Name any critter you ned to rid of. That might scare the neighbors and the pets. I don’t think it will have much affect on the bugs.

Another flea removal method is to burn a dish rag, the first time you hear thunder in March. You could also burn fleabane every day of summer.

I already missed too many days this summer to start on fleabane now.

Anyway we are free of fleas at least until next month. It may have more to do with the Advantage and the coat of diatomaceous earth I spread around the house.

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL;

Flivver was a nickname for the Model T; it means ‘worthless headache.”

I went to Kingsford High School in Upper Michigan The nickname of our sports teams was the Flivvers because until the 1950’s, Ford had a plant in Kingsford. I wonder if whoever named the school’s mascot Flivvers knew what it meant.

Support your local butterflies: Place overripe fruit outside; it has nutrients that butterflies need.

Things I wouldn’t know were I not a reader: Julia Child helped the war department in World War II by developing an odd recipe. The ingredients included black dye, copper acetate, and water soluble wax. The purpose was not to eat, but to keep sharks from bumping into mines. This caused the mines to explode before their time. The concoction was used by the Navy for three decades and had the added advantage of keeping sharks away from sailors. From “Mental Floss. November 2014, page 47.

Thomas Jefferson was a smuggler. When he was minister to France, he went to Italy and smuggled out a type of rice that could be grown in dry upland regions. America needed this rice because up until then rice in the United States was planted in swamps where mosquitoes bred and made workers sick. The type of rice we needed in this country was only grown in Italy, and Italian law protected the rice seeds. The penalty for exporting the seeds from the country was death. Yet Jefferson filled his pockets, and then headed for the border. Same page in "Mental Floss"

FAIRY DAY

Fairy Day. These mischievous folks come out of their hiding places on May 4th every year. Leave an offering of bread, tea, raisins or bird seed for the fairy folk. Never leave left-overs. The fairies will feel insulted, and who knows what they might do to exact revenge.

Fairies have been known to steal small children, so keep an eye on your little ones today.

I often think that Persephone was stolen by fairies, and perhaps sold to Hades. Who knows?

If you are traveling, wear your coat, t-shirt,sweatshirt or hoodie inside out. That confuses fairies and protects you from fairy mischief.

GRATITUDE PRAYER TECHNIQUE FOR ANY RELIGION

Prayer method: Find a piece of string or ribbon about a foot or two long. Run your fingers over the silky material and think, “I am grateful, I am grateful, I am so grateful.” When it holds enough of your gratitude, take it outside to a place where birds will be attracted to it. The birds take your thoughts of gratitude with them to the heavens.

You might have a different gratitude ribbon every week or every month. We want to send our prayers to heaven often

This idea is from the "Witches' Spell-A-Day Almanac."

PUTTING MEASLES IN PERSPECTIVE

By Mary Ann Slavcheff

When I was a preschooler, I got the measles. I had pimples all over my body, but I was not sick. I went outside and played with the neighborhood children. It did not matter to their moms that one of us had the measles. We all played. Chicken pox were more serious and may have kept us in bed. But it was all part of childhood. No one died or went to the hospital.

My younger sister did not get the measles until she was in grade school. She had to stay home from school, but she went outside to swing and watched television. She was not sick.

One day a boy in our class had pimples on his body. The teacher looked at him closely and then sent him home. None of us were concerned that we had been interacting with a child with the measles. Most of us had already had the measles. Those who didn’t hoped they would get the measles, so they could stay home from school.

I did not have children of my own. As an adult measles were a forgotten thing until they entered the news recently. Suddenly measles are a disease as horrible as the bubonic plague. There is talk of compulsory vaccinations for all children. Some unvaccinated children will be ostracized - as if kids don’t already have enough reason for bullying. Parents are pressured to vaccinate their children.

A few years ago I had a deaf student, her affliction, caused by a childhood vaccination. She and her husband shared the same fate. Their children were not vaccinated. Need I explain why?

In November 2013 I lost a cat to a rare disease, eosinophilic granuloma complex. Cats are expected to be vaccinated every year, even though the kitten shot should give them protection. This cat, Sonoma, was accidentally double vaccinated one year. The disease is difficult to treat; my cat suffered horribly and there was nothing I could do to help her. Some research suggests the disease is caused by over vaccination.

I myself am pressured to have a flu shot every year. I refuse it. I don’t get the flu. My doctor’s assistant once said I could be penalized by the insurance company for not getting the shot. I don’t believe this is true, but it shows the pressure’s we are put under to have vaccinations.

My mother and my husband both had flu shots one year and both became very ill with flu like symptoms. I did not get the shot or become sick.

The big drug companies have powerful lobbies and they can buy influence everywhere including in the media.

The media has made gentle pit bull dogs into deadly killers and the measles into a deadly disease. Brian Williams is not the only newsman who lies.

If you are considering a vaccination for yourself or your children, go ahead. it is your right. It is also the right of others to refuse. Parents who don’t have their children vaccinated are not negligent. They are intelligently weighing the pros and cons.

Let’s to get to the real issues. Jobs are disappearing. Globalization is no longer the only thing taking our jobs. Robots are here too. What happens to workers then? I admit it is a tougher question than: Should I have my children vaccinated against the measles?

But we will be unprepared for the future unless we start making better choices.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This blog returns in mid April. I have been taking time off to deal with winter; I have shared lots of great ideas in the past. Check some of them off. See you in April.