Coffeecup

(((hugs)))

OMG that is scary! Beautiful photo, but terrible in showing the power of a storm. I'd be curled up in a little frozen ball if I saw that thing bearing down on me. Sorry about your pear tree. It looks pretty much destroyed. You and Booney will be planting new trees this fall. I'm glad they caught Joe's blood clot in time. Hope he will be all right. Take care of yourself -- don't get so worn down hauling wood that you get sick.

Does she have cheek implants? Those are chipmunk cheeks.

Goat herds are available for rent, and yes, they're used by city governments and private landowners used to clear kudzu and other weeds. (Trouble is, the goats eat everything, so you wouldn't want to use them if there any plants you want to save.) Here's a video of goats eating kudzu in North Carolina. I've seen a couple of cooking shows where the chef prepared kudzu, but I wouldn't want to eat it. It looked yucky and slimy.

Yes! This is more like a true dystopian Southern landscape would look. Unless the surviving live [non-zombie] humans kept herds of goats. Goats will eat large amounts of kudzu.

Ugh, I hate kudzu! "The Vine That Ate The South." It is starting to creep around in my back yard. Yes, it's unsettling to see "kudzu castles." You have to keep after it all during the growing season or it will take over your property.

Booney, sorry your tree is gone. I agree about fall being the best time to plant trees. In the meantime, you have a new open sunny spot (I'm assuming your large trees are not close together). Maybe you will want to plant something different there, like a big flowering shrub, or a rosebush, or something. I got a new big sunny spot in May when a huge old tree got uprooted in a storm. Actually this tree was not on my property. It was in the wooded buffer zone behind the houses on my street, between our back yards and the creek (the one that floods us once in a while). The city owns the property, but they never seem to pay any attention to it. I try to look after "my" part of the buffer zone, such as keeping ivy and kudzu vines cleaned up. I have also planted some extra shrubs back there. Now that there is so much sun, I could plant a new tree. I have a four-foot-tall maple tree growing in a pot because I ran out of sunny places to plant it. The maple would be nice back there in the buffer.

Nope, no pump. My basement is the "walk-in" type, and it looks like they built the floor on a slight pitch sloping down toward the door. After a flood, as soon as I open the basement door, the water starts rapidly draining out. I sweep out the remaining thin layer of water with a broom, and I have a wet-and-dry vac to clean the low spots. I know that sounds primitive, but that's what I've done after three floods. I live near a creek that is prone to flooding. It didn't flood my basement for the first 15 years I lived here, but all the uncontrolled development in Atlanta has made flooding a problem for a lot of us who live near creeks. Too many new concrete surfaces (roads, parking lots) and too many new rooftops. Without sufficient greenspace, the water runoff has nowhere to go, so it gets dumped into the creeks, which swell up and overflow their banks. You just have to avoid storing valuable things in your basement. But basic things you need down there still get damaged, like the washer-dryer and water heater. Your flood insurance covers those things. Several of my neighbors have made apartments in their basements to make some money as landlords. Knowing the flood risk here, I would never do that! Your tenant's possessions get ruined, and they usually want to move out and look for a safer place, so you have to find a new tenant. I've seen that happen several times. Booney, I'm so sorry your beautiful redbud tree can't be saved. I always wanted a redbud but never got around to planting one. BronxBabe, glad you checked in with us about the funeral. Sounds like everything went well. I hope that eased your mind some. Cricket, I feel for you and Joe, with that awful medical bill! It's bad enough to deal with the illness, and then you get this unbearable financial stress on top of it. Why does medical care cost so damn much in the first place? (And prescription drugs too!) The costs just keep going up, never down.

We got creamed by Cindy's heavy rains too. All the houses from mine to the end of the street had flooded basements. Yucky, dirty cleanup job. We had a flash flood alert on the weather forecast, so we all moved our cars to higher ground. But I know what you mean about the dead battery. A couple of years ago there was a flood advancing toward our house, and the battery in hubby's old car died. We called an AAA tow truck and luckily they were able to pull the car out of harm's way in time. I always try to keep my gas tank half full because the engine runs better if it's one half or more full. Of course hubby likes to take risks and run it down to near-empty. Must be a guy thing.

Kardashian Photoshop deception: I just posted about Kris' Photoshop fail on the Pimp Mama thread, so here's an absurd Khloe Photoshop fail too. The skinny picture is from Khloe's Instagram, and it's clear that she pasted her head on someone else's body (probably someone modeling the outfit). The chunky picture is a pap shot from the same day.

Kris had a big time Photoshop fail. She's getting roasted on the Internet for all the skin filtering and body slimming photoshop tricks. Badly done -- you can see the wood behind her arm bending -- and the skin is as fake-looking as a plastic Barbie doll. Looks more like they put her head on a much younger woman's body. This picture was one she posted to advertise a tea that is supposed to make your stomach flat. (People say it's a laxative tea that gives you diarrhea.)

In Georgia we've always called it a bathing suit.

My question is whether Kim will keep the identity of the surrogate a secret. (I mean, no Kim selfies of the two women hugging on social media, no being seen together out in public, no discussion on KUWTK that might reveal the identity) I hope she stays quiet, because the paps would be all over the poor woman if she's identified. Even if Kim keeps her mouth shut, I wonder if somebody in her entourage might leak the identity for $$$. In reading comments about Kim's surrogate on other sites, I've seen several people comment that $45K is too low for a surrogacy in the Los Angeles area, and too low for a celebrity surrogacy. People are saying $100K would be more typical. I know very little about how the "employers" handle a surrogacy. Do the women who hire surrogates take a hands-off approach and let the pregnancy take its course, or do they hover over the surrogate and watch her every move?

Cricket -- I was LOL'ing like crazy at the mental image of jealous Argus marching back and forth along the edge of the bathroom door, trying to squeeze under it to bite Joe. Joe is a tolerant sweetheart, that's for sure! I use Paint to resize pictures, but you can also try this website. I used it a lot before I figured out the Paint program. http://www.shrinkpictures.com/ "Shrink pictures online." You upload your picture, select the resizing criteria, wait a few seconds, and then download the resized picture to your pictures library. It's free. Everybody: yes, the Kardashians are pieces of work! So trashy, and so underserving of all that wealth. I d believe the mother set the tone. That's why we snarkers call her PMK, Pimp Mama Kris.

Cricket, this is pretty hopeful news for Joe. It sounds like the doctor is right about not putting off the tumor surgery. Hope Joe will recover quickly from the radioactive scan. It took me about three days to feel normal again. (BTW, my test didn't show any cancer, just "hypermetabolism." They referred me to another specialist.) Sorry you are entering a period of financial stress. I hope Joe can concentrate on getting well. I was both amused and sad to read about Argus wailing and crying because he couldn't have his special time with you. I would love to have a bird, but I don't want to put a bird through the stress of living in a house with a cat. Same thing for fish. I would like an aquarium, but kitty would be hanging around it constantly trying to catch the fish. My cat was a stray and he hunted mice (I've seen him catch them, and he always wanted to bring them inside the house! Nonono!), so he still has that hungry hunter mentality. SnarkByte, sorry you had that bad experience with your first marriage and the painful loss with your second. I'm glad you had those years of happiness with your late husband. As the old song says, "No, no, they can't take that away from me." A period of love and happiness is a priceless jewel that will last forever.

Those doggone weather forecasts! I wanted to do some gardening today, but the weather folks said we'd have heavy storms. So I stayed indoors. You guessed it -- all we got in my neighborhood was a little sprinkle.

I love this story. You did a wonderful thing to take in Shana and the kittens. My only cat now is a stray I took in when I could see he'd been abandoned. At the time one of my pair of elderly kitties was still alive; she died of a tumor about a year later at age 12. My stray baby is about 6 years old, a beautiful black neutered male. Since he's very gentle, I'm thinking of getting a No. 2 shelter kitty to keep him company. It would have to be an easygoing kitty like him. About anxiety and depression, I've struggled with that all my life too, so I can identify with it. I think having a cat or dog companion is good for us, and good for them too, since it provides them with a home.

I just now saw this on the news. How awful! Since he never regained consciousness, we will never know what the North Koreans did to him. I think his parents are right: they brutalized him.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like a good solution for me. Love the pics of Onyx and Pearl. Look at those two fluffy cute tails hanging down!

Thanks to everyone for the kind words! Supr, as far as I know, there aren't any more sophisticated tests than the nuclear medicine PET. (But I could be wrong about that, of course.) There is an MRI test, which does not use radioactive material (not sure), but I don't think I'd be able to tolerate that either. The information I have on MRI is that you have to lay on a hard table for one hour, inside a cylinder shaped machine, and the machine is extremely noisy, making loud knocking noises. My sister had an MRI and she said it sounds like a machine gun. I hate loud noises, so I would be screaming within a few minutes. One interesting thing I learned in my post-procedure research is that the PET scan is not the first test doctors order. The PET scan is used to confirm results from previous diagnostic tests such as a CT scan. It provides a sharper and more detailed image of the area of concern. I am still puzzled, however, as to why they scan your entire body in a PET. My doctor was only interested in looking at a small lung nodule. The barium drink is intended to show your stomach and intestines, which was not my problem, so why did I have to drink that stuff? Seems like the PT scan could be refined to concentrate on a specific area of the body. My husband said that in his experience, doctors who have personally invested their money in nuclear medicine equipment will always try to make their patients use it, whether it is absolutely medically necessary or not -- there's a financial incentive to do the radioactivity tests. That is not applicable in my case, but it might be a problem in the future if I go to a different specialist. Unfortunately, there is no way for patients to know whether the doctors are owners of the nuclear medicine equipment (or, for that matter, part/whole owners of any type of diagnostic imaging facility and equipment). I'll ask my doctor about other tests. He has already had a CT needle biopsy done on my left lung (this outpatient procedure was done by an "interventional radiologist" doctor). The biopsy caused my lung to collapse, a known risk with this procedure. I had been advised of the risk, so I was not surprised when it happened. The radiologist put in a tube to fix the air leakage, and I just had to stay in the hospital for a few hours taking pain medicine (the tube hurt) and getting chest X-rays. Depending on what the results are from my PET scan, possibly the next step would be a needle biopsy on the right lung. Doc said they never do biopsies on both lungs at the same time, because if both lungs collapse, you are up shit creek. (My words, not his, lol.) I talked about my experience to a friend in the medical field. She confirmed what some of you here are saying, that the techs are just focused on carrying out their tasks, checking off all the things they're supposed to do, and they aren't trained to deal with anxious patients. The techs at my clinic were not rude to me -- in fact they seemed a little intimidated by me (the Crazy 50-Foot Woman!) -- and the tech who released me from the scanning table actually sounded apologetic, and thanked me for coming. What doctors and techs need to remember is that if we're going in for a CT scan, PET scan, needle biopsy or some similar procedure, it's because we're already sick. We aren't perfectly healthy people going in for a routine checkup. We know something is wrong with our bodies, and we're already anxious about our conditions. We're stressed out, wondering what the results will be. We can't be expected to behave like passive lab rats or docile robot people.

HI Cricket, I just had my first PET scan four days ago, and I'm still sick. I hate to be such a downer, but that experience was so awful it was one of the worst days of my life. Background: I have COPD (emphysema) and a mystery lung infection, some nodules, that my doctor is trying to diagnose. (So far, no cancer has shown up on my other tests this year.) Before reading the rest of my post, bear in mind that most people do not have serious problems with PET scans, according to the articles and patient discussion forums I read after my bad experience ... but here is what happened to me -- I usually research diagnostic procedures on Google and YouTube before going in for my appointments, because I am so terrified of medical testing. I feel less threatened if I know exactly what will be done to me. My doctor's staff and the diagnostic imaging center staff never tell me anything about the tests except to fast for a few hours ahead of time, so the "patient education" part is left entirely up to me. This time I made a big mistake and didn't do enough research on PET scans. Due to a history of drug and CT infusion allergies, I got preoccupied with researching side effects of the barium swallow; you have to drink a big container of barium solution two hours before the scan. The one they gave me was called Readi-CAT 2 by Bracco Diagnostics, "barium sulfate oral suspension," 450 ml (15.2 ounces, a pretty large amount of fluid to drink all at once). It tasted like crap, but didn't any side effects except mild nausea, and it made me pee a lot. I failed to research the actual PET procedure, and just had this information thrown in my face by the technician when I arrived for my appointment: Before the scan, they inject you with a radioactive solution, and then you have to sit alone in a little dark room for 1 1/2 hours! They tell you to sit back in a reclining chair and not move, or rather, keep as still as you can, while the stuff circulates through your body. You aren't even allowed to use your eyes for anything, do as little eye movement as possible -- no reading, watching TV or looking at a cellphone or any other screen. When they told me about that, I started crying. I mean I was really sobbing. I felt like I was being put into solitary confinement in prison, and put in a straight jacket too. They told me I could go in and out to use the bathroom (it was next door to my room, and I had to pee frequently because of all that barium solution) but otherwise keep still. The light in the room was down to the level of a low wattage night light. They had a space heater running. It was not a good environment for me. I learned later, the next day when I read about the procedure, that they won't even allow anyone to come sit with you and talk to you during the 1 1/2 hour period, because the radiation is dangerous. There was a sign on my room door "Warning: radioactive material in use" and a sign posted over the toilet "PET scan patients, please sit down to urinate, to avoid splashing radioactive urine on the seat, and please flush twice." Thanks a hell of a lot; I'm sitting in that room getting cooked by radiation that is so dangerous no one can get near me, and somebody else's poor butt could get contaminated if I even drip pee on the toilet seat! I absolutely could not keep still. I felt trapped. I never thought I was claustrophobic, but I sure was on that day. I cried for a while longer, and then tried to sit still, but I only lasted five minutes sitting in the reclining chair. Then I popped up and started pacing. I paced back and forth for the entire 1 1/2 hours, plus three trips to the bathroom. I will never forget it: five paces across the room, seven paces down. Trapped like an animal in a cage, pacing, pacing, pacing. I also hit the reclining chair with my fists several times, using it like a punching bag. I was feeling hot, in addition to feeling so agitated, which I suspect might be an allergic reaction to the radioactive material. (Penicillin makes me feel just like that: hot, agitated, angry.) There was no call button in the room, and the technician never came to check on me. Every time I went out to use the bathroom, the whole place looked deserted, nobody around. My later research indicates that I probably spoiled the test results by being active instead of still. (My results are not available yet. I was told to call and ask in 3 to 4 business days.) The articles said that the scan could show false positive results, or look too blurry to interpret, if the patient had been moving. In fact, the articles said the patient should refrain from any physical exertion for the entire day before the scan -- no jogging, exercising, or even sex. The articles also said there are dietary restrictions, limit intake of carbs and sugar the day before, since the radioactive stuff interacts with your glucose levels. Well, nobody told me any of that. As for the actual scan, it was not bad compared to the agony of being trapped in that little room. You lie on a narrow table with a pillow under your knees, and you can have pillows to elevate your head if you wish. They put a big double flap of some white cloth or plastic over my abdominal area. I don't know whether this was to protect my female organs, or to strap me down. I didn't feel any sensation of being tied down. My clinic said they do not make patients remove bras, jewelry or watches, since the amount of metal in those things is so small it doesn't interfere with the image. (Most articles about PET scans say to remove all metal from your body). I wore my own clothes and shoes, not a hospital gown. They just said to remove your belt because of the buckle. I didn't have any metal in my pants pockets, but I suppose men would have coins and keys in their pockets, and would have to remove those. My only serious physical problem with the scan was that I had to lay there with arms over my head for 30 minutes, while the table moved me slowly back and forth into the scanning machine (a big doughnut thing open on both ends, like a regular CT machine. You can see them on YouTube). I have arthritis in my shoulders. After about 15 minutes I started getting pain in my shoulders, and by the time the 30 minutes had passed, the pain was so excruciating I was ready to start crying again. Then it was all over with and they let me escape! I was never so glad to get out of a place! I am not sure (will ask doctor) what radioactive chemical was injected into me. According to Wikipedia and other sources, the radioactive tracer chemical most commonly used is "Fludeoxyglucose (18F) (INN), or fludeoxyglucose F 18 (USAN and USP), also commonly called fluorodeoxyglucose and abbreviated FDG, 18F-FDG or FDG." Articles said they may also inject you with other drugs at the same time. I have to find out if they gave me anything else that could have caused the bad reaction. Anyway, FDG is considered to be "safe" (haha, it's radioactive! Yeah, that's real safe!) and disappear from the body within a few hours. I kept feeling agitated for six hours after the injection, and thereafter felt weak and sick. I felt droopy, beat up and sick for the next three days, am only beginning to feel more normal today. My blood pressure went up 25 points shortly after the scan (no telling how high it got while I was pacing around), and it's still high today. I am still getting nauseated every time I eat a meal. Anybody remember the 1950s horror movies about atomic monsters? People or small animals would get contaminated by radiation and grow to a gigantic size, or go crazy and destroy the nearest city. I feel like what happened to me was "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman." My agitation was so bad I think I could have torn down a building with my bare hands. Here are a couple of articles about the chemicals and the PET scan; many more are available. As I said, I wish I had read all this stuff ahead of time. I found a survey of PET scan patients that said over 50% of them had not been given any information at all about the scan before they had it, so patient education is a real problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fludeoxyglucose_(18F) Article about FDG drug. https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/cancerwise/2015/04/getting-a-pet-scan-what-to-expect.html short article https://www.insideradiology.com.au/pet-scan/ long article Cricket, best wishes to you and Joe. I hope his diagnosis and treatment result in success. I will keep you both in my prayers.

Boy, you really nailed one of my pet peeves! I have gotten one to three spam calls a day for many years on my landline. I keep the landline because it will work during a long term power outage (like after a bad storm), unlike VoIP "imitation landline" which will go dead when the batteries run out. Also, if you have to call 911, they can tell exactly where you are with a landline, unlike a cellphone. If there is an emergency where you are having trouble speaking, the ability to pinpoint your address is very helpful. Anyway ... yes, Do Not Call is a big joke. I've been on the list for years. I have Caller ID and an unlisted number. But spammers use a computer program to sequentially dial numbers, so it doesn't matter any more whether your number is unlisted. I am also driven crazy with political roboclls every time there's an upcoming election. I never used to get spam calls on my cellphone, but since May I've started getting some almost every day. Like others, I just don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number. I Google the number to see what others have reported. One good spam reporting site is 800notes.com. The problem with not answering is that sometimes I miss legit calls, such as calls from medical clinics to confirm appointments. I have to write down their numbers and keep them by the phone so I'll know whether to answer. Isn't it pathetic that you can't even answer the phone any more because of these relentless spammers and fraudsters? Our voice communications system has been ruined by these creeps.

Funny Word Misuse: Little Sister of our forum Word List I read a lot of news articles on the Internet, and read the comments too if I have time. I always love it when I see funny word misuse, because it gives me a laugh. Comments sections can be a real basket of howlers. Today's example: Comment on an article about a person getting arrested in a foreign country for doing something that wouldn't be illegal in the U.S. : "Americans do not realize... and regrettably, ignorance does not pass mustard." Hey, Iggy, pass the mustard please, I gotta finish eating before they haul me off to jail! LOL (Should be: "does not pass muster." From grammarist.com: "Pass muster vs pass mustard. Pass muster means to be acceptable, to sufficiently meet expectations. Pass muster is an idiom that has its roots in military parlance. Muster means to assemble a group of men for a variety of reasons, including inspection. If one passed inspection in an acceptable manner, then one passed muster. Related terms are passes muster, passed muster, passing muster. The word muster comes from the Old French word mostrer, which means to show or reveal.) Granted, sometimes you see this kind of error because of Autocorrect, but all too often it happens because the writers don't know the correct words/spelling.

That is a terrible story -- he's been in a coma for over a year? So far, all I could find out from the news reports was that he got botulism in the North Korean prison, and when they gave him medicine he went into the coma. I hope he survives.

BronxBabe, I am so sorry about your mother. Praying for her eternal peace, and comfort for your loss. Byteme, it's distressing to learn that your mom has such a short time left. I am so sorry, and I pray that her passing will be pain free and peaceful.