Saturday Odds and Ends

I don't get sick very often, but this year is not starting out all that well. Keith brought the Barstow crud home from work and we were both sick with colds that didn't want to quit, the cough from the cold seemed to hang on for weeks and we had stuffed up noses and lots of snot. We started feeling better and then he had an attack of what we thought was allergies but must have been the Barstow crud again, with him having a miserable trip over the desert, runny nose, sneezing and coughing the entire way. Enough to where the engineer was having second thoughts about being cooped up in a cab with him and worried about his own health. It was the second coming of THE COLD not allergies, because I'm going through my second coming right now. It started a few days ago with that something more than allergy type feeling and has become a full blown nasty nasty cold. My head is full of cotton and I can't breathe through my nose very well. Two colds in as many months is very unusual for me, I don't think I've had a cold in 2 or 3 years. Thanks, nasty Barstow!

Now that we've been dog parents for a few months, I've come to the conclusion that cats are much much much easier. Dogs certainly do need a whole lot of attention and don't let you forget that they need that attention unless they are asleep. I do enjoy having an animal that is actually excited to see you when you walk in the door, whether you've just been outside to take trash out or have been gone a few hours, it's like OH MY GOD YOU'RE BACK AND YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON EVER! Kind of good for the old ego there.

I do sort of feel like a zookeeper though, what with feeding and poop cleaning up and feeding some more and more poop cleaning up, but we are enjoying our yappy needy little dog quite a bit. Except for the barking part of it all.

Speaking of poop, as we get older or don't eat the right things, we do tend to have problems in the going to the bathroom area on occasion. Or every day in my case. I've been drinking my Metamucil 3 times a day for a lot of years now, the extra fiber certainly can't hurt and it's supposed to help keep your arteries cleared out too, but even with all that Metamucil I've had a lot of problems in the bathroom going ever since I turned 50 it seems like, with each day being a challenge as to whether I will or won't be able to go today. It's not fun dealing with constipation, not a topic we usually like to discuss but something that can make you very cranky and irritable. It's also not something you want to wake  up thinking about every single day.

I had tried probiotic pills once before but the brand that I bought gave me stomach cramps, so gave those up very quickly. I decided to give them another try and got a once daily delayed release probiotic and hey! no more problems! The brand that I got is made by Renew Life and is called Ultimate Flora and boy, do they work well with no stomach cramps. I still drink my Metamucil for those digestive benefits and I feel a lot less cranky these days.

And, speaking of constipation, we've all dealt with hemorrhoids, or piles as they called them in the olden days, and those aren't much fun either. I used to use the standard Preparation H but found a homeopathic cream that works so much better, almost instantaneously. It's called Nupercainal Bio-Active cream nad it's made with herbs and is cooling and soothing and works really really well. It feels a little odd at first since it is definitely COOLING! Strange feeling to have your hind end kind of tingly cold but it works so very well.

Okay, what else can we talk about that doesn't involve butts and bathrooms?

The weather? It was supposed to start raining overnight but I woke up to sunny skies. Rain is promised for later today so we will see if that ever happens. I do like me a rainy Saturday, especially when I can just stay home and watch it all from the comfort of my couch. Which is where I will probably be most of the day since I really don't feel all that well.

Disturbing

Remember the story about the skeletons found stuffed into trash cans in the storage locker? Well, they found out who they were from dental records, which surprises me that the victims were actually taken to the dentist in their short lives.

A woman died of a drug overdose back in January and the people that she was staying with went to clean out the storage locker where she had been storing some stuff and found the bodies of what were her son and daughter, who had been born in the early 90's, stuffed into the trash cans. The bodies had been in the trash cans for two to four years and showed signs of abuse and apparently Child Protective Services had been called quite a few times during these kids short lives. Where's the father? He went back to Mexico a long time ago. The mother is of course the prime suspect, but you kind of wonder what Dad was doing while these kids were being killed and stuffed into the trash cans.

And, on a lighter note, this morning I went outside in time to see a tiny tiny little Chihuahua running down the street just as fast as his little tiny legs could carry him. The neighbor's black and white kitty was on the sidewalk, so the dumb little dog went 'ooh, a friend!' and of course the kitty swiped at him with its paw and then started chasing the little tiny dog down the street. I thought the dogs were supposed to chase the cats?