Viewing Christmas Lights

This evening I went out looking at Christmas lights.  There are various places in town that are good spots.  A few blocks west of my house, on 59th Street, there is  house that has a light show that is coordinated with music.  I saw that a couple of weeks ago.  Tonight, I went to Ransom Canyon, which is a small community to the east of Lubbock, in the Yellowhouse Canyon.  This was formed by the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River. 

Deer Crossing

When I went out looking at Christmas lights tonight, I was reminded by deer crossing signs that the farm and canyon country east of the City of Lubbock is deer country.  I have rarely seen deer when I have been driving in this area, but tonight, just about dusk, I saw a small herd of 5 female deer feeding on the side of the road, near a farm field. I slowed down when I saw them, and they raised their heads and looked as I drove by.  Beautiful!

The Missing Pen

I keep several pens on my computer desk.  Most are stowed in a small vase that I use as a pen holder.  It also has pencils, nail files, a white out pen, highlighters, a marker and a staple remover.  

I had one pen out loose on the desk, and a few weeks ago, it disappeared.  I got another out, thinking either I accidentally dropped it in the trash (although I checked the trash and it was not there) or it would appear at sometime in the future.  

Well sometime in the future arrived, and the lost pen appeared.  On the floor, under the desk.  Hmmm.  I had looked under the desk for the pen.  Who knew?

Today, I saw something unusual.  

Haiku likes to play with pens.  She likes to chew on them when I am writing, and she likes  to bat them around, knock them off the tray, and I fetch them and we start all over again.

Today, Taki got into the act.  I had some paper and a pen on the tray next to the desk. And Taki attacked them.  She knocked the pen and the paper onto the floor, ignored the paper, and started batting the pen around.  She played with the pen for 20 or 30 minutes!  That is a long time for Taki. 

After she became tired of playing with the pen, she checked out the paper on the tray, but decided it was not really interesting!  

I know Taki plays but she does not play a lot in the evening when I am home.  I like to watch her play.  

Steak for dinner

Well, after the horror of seeing Haiku jump on the hot oven door, and getting her to the vet on Wednesday night, steak did not sound so good after all.  But I finished cooking it Thursday night, and ate about half.  And, Haiku was right there, wanting steak.  No wonder she jumped on the oven door.  The smell of the steak was very tantalizing to her. Well, she has become a very picky eater, and had lost .2 lb. since her annual visit to the last spring.  She was given her fill of steak.  She earned it. Since the steak was big, I had enough left for dinner Friday night.  Again, Haiku was very interested in steak, and again was allowed to eat her fill.

Interesting, Taki did not even show any interest. 

I had not been buying beef flavored cat food, as for a while, neither Taki or Haiku showed any interest in it.  This morning, I fed beef cat food, and Taki seemed to enjoy it. 

Relief

Haiku did not want me to check her feet Thursday. I did not fuss with her, as she was acting normal, did not seem to be favoring her feet or walking in pain.  Friday morning, she let me check her feet.  The pink spots were gone, and she seemed just fine.

Relief.

Horror!

I did something I rarely do these days.  I bought a steak for dinner.  I was cooking the steak in the oven under the broiler, and I was checking the steak.  I have a built in oven, and left the door open as I was checking the steak.

Horror of horrors!  Haiku jumped on the oven door.  I yelled and she got off right away, but ran around the house. I could not tell if she was scared of me, scared from the heat, or hurt.  I grabbed her up, and checked her feet, but could not tell anything. I crated her up and called the Small Animal Emergency Clinic and told them what happened and I was going in.  Haiku cried in the crate all the way over, and they started tending to her as soon as I got there.  The vet said she could not tell about her pads, but gave her a couple of shots: and antibiotic and a steroid.  She mentioned icing down the pods, but thought it would be too traumatic on Haiku, if she did not seem to be in pain. 

I looked at her feet after we got home, and one had some pink spots on the pad.  She is not walking gingerly, she is not crying as if in pain, and there was no singed hair on her feet.  The vet said to keep her quiet the next couple of days, and gave me a copy of her records in case we need to go to our vet. 

I am sick about my carelessness.  I also was not in the mood for steak when I got home.  I was really scared, too.  It is just horrible.   I hope Haiku will be okay.

25th Anniversay

2018 is the 25th anniversary of the Texas Tech Lady Raiders winning the NCAA National Championship Texas Tech basketball history.  The university has started celebrating this fall, although the game happened in 1993 in the spring.

At various Lady Raider games this year, the National Championship team, Coach Marsha Sharp, and Sheryl Swoopes have been honored.  So it was today at the throw back game. Of course, you would expect that.  Why celebrate if the stars cannot be there. 

Throw Back Basketball

The Texas Tech Basketball teams had a throw back weekend.  The men's and women's teams played in the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum .  I have been to the Coliseum before, but I never went to a Tech basketball game there before today. I think a large reason for the change in venue was the United Supermarkets Arena was used for graduation this weekend. 

Yesterday, the men had an old timers game, and played their game against Rice and won.  Today, the women played against the University of Texas Rio Grand Valley and won.  

When I went to the Coliseum,  I thought the ease of parking and the closeness and intimacy of the arena was very nice.  I thought I would miss the electronics: no jumbo tron, no listing of players and points, rebounds and fouls.  

But the intimacy of the of the arena outweighed the lack of the electronics.  

It was really a fun experience.  If the Lady Raiders have more games in the Coliseum, I would not mind. 

My Mask

I woke up this morning with a dry, scratchy throat, and some nasal congestion as well as a bit of a cough.  I did not feel particularly bad, but I knew I needed to do something. Before I left the house, I drank a couple of glasses of orange juice, and took some vitamin C.  I did not have any cold medicine in the house, so on my way to work, I purchased some, as well as some chicken soup and more orange juice for later in the day.  

I go to work late on Monday morning for scheduling reasons, and the sun was bright, so I put on my subscription sunglasses.  For administrative reasons, I was not going to have to stay late as I normally do on Monday, and because I did not feel well, I decided to truncate my schedule, and leave after the early afternoon staff meeting. I have the sick leave.

I work in a psychiatric prison hospital.  When I got to work, I went to a treatment pod and asked for a mask, since I was feeling poorly.  I did not realize that I did not carry my eyeglass case into the building, and did not feel like going back outside to get my clear lens glasses.  (Going out side involved going through 6 locked doors that are controlled by someone else. And then, there is the walk to the car.) So, I walked around with dark glasses and a surgical mask on.  I know I looked like an alien, but my co-workers were cool about it.  

Our staff meeting included a couple of administrators who do not know me well, but they did not react too badly. In fact, one was exhibiting upper respiratory symptoms, also. 

And, earlier in the day, one of the charge nurses told me not to worry, the crud was going around.  

I left work after the staff meeting, and went home to hot chicken soup, lots of liquids, more medications and vitamin C.  

I cannot say I am feeling great, but I am holding my own.  

Update

Today, I had some trouble with my computer, and decided to restart. When I did, I noticed the option to update and restart, so I clicked on that.  When the restart happened, it said it would take some time, and it really did.  I checked on it several times, and it said it was updating, do not shut off the computer.  I went out and ran errands, and went to lunch, so, when I got home, the computer was ready to reboot.  It took several hours.  Tonight, I have had some difficulty with some applications I have previously used.  I applied the "fixes" but that did not help.  No big deal.

Tires

As I was finishing up an errand earlier this week, and returned to my car, I noticed a metal stud or rivet in the front driver's side tire of my vehicle.  I purchase my tires from Discount Tire  so I went be the store I usually use. They were busy and could not work me in until almost closing time.  I did not want to wait or come back, so I made an appointment for the next day. I did return the next day.  The service representative remembered me.  They could not salvage the tired, but it was still under warranty, so they replaced the tire with a $21 charge for the warranty certificate for the new tire.  That was a lot less expensive than the $130 or so for a new tire. I was satisfied. 

Errands

So, this past week, I went to the county tax assessor's office to renew my vehicle registration Vehicle Registration.  As I ran this errand, I felt like I had done this just a few days prior.  As I was leaving the tax assessor's office, I remembered that last year, the county staff were putting up Christmas decorations in the hallway.

But it felt like I had just been there.  

Community Nativity Display

A gift to the Lubbock community from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Ladder Day Saints regularly is the Lubbock Nativity Display. I went today to see the display. It was phenomenal.  They had nativity scenes from many foreign countries, and many traditional nativity scenes.  It was beautiful and meaningful. So wonderful!  Thank you!

Christmas Lights

So, today, I put out Christmas lights.  They are sort of "Charlie Brown" Christmas lights because they are not pretty or fantastic, or even organized.  But they are Christmas lights


.  

The lights on the left sort of look like a shoe.  That was not my intent. I just wanted lights on the Nandina bush and the ivy.  

Merry Christmas.