Tuesday-9:45am

Another dark, chilly morning (39F/4C) where I'll need the lights on all day.

It's Tuesday already.  For all the ladies over at T-Stands For Tuesday...look who's back!  I brought my old, silver thermos mug back home from McFamily's.  Leah has a few Thermos products that she wants to send to the company (supposed to have a lifetime guarantee?) and I decided that if she was mailing to Thermos that I should ask for a non-wobbly red cup.  It really is terribly unsteady. 

Well...Miss Karma.  
She's been licking, scratching, pulling at her fur (but not pulling it out so far) for months and months.  She's always had dry skin problems and has had cat dandruff since she was a kitten. 

I have tried buying all kinds of oils to add to her food (made for cats)...which she then refuses to eat.  I got some anti-itching spray this summer because she scratches her ears till they're raw.  Good thing she doesn't have claws!

Can you see the redness over and around her eyes? 

Just from scratching herself. 

The anti-itch spray works, but for only a couple of hours.  She doesn't have fleas or anything.  She just has dry itchy skin all over...and particularly beats up her face and ears.  Been worse as she gets older.  (I can relate--my skin is drying out, too.)

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Anyways, Leah discovered online about using amber beads around Ian's ankles (under socks) to help him with teething pain...and saw how somebody used hazelwood beads to stop a dog from itching himself raw.  (The amber is supposed to help with pain and the hazelwood is supposed to remove toxins.)  So I had Leah order Karma a collar of hazelwood.  I put it on her when I got back from their place last Thursday night.  She seems to be scratching less than she was?  Just like Ian seems to be less cranky?  Time will tell, eh?  I sure hope these work...for Ian and Karma.  I might have to get an amber one for pain, eh?  

Well...I have a confession to make.  When I went to leave for Dagan and Leah's last Thursday night...I came out of the elevator to the usual stripped lobby... 

...but saw these stuffed chairs over by the window! 

I hadn't heard the bad news from the lady about the waiting lists (not till Friday)...but I froze right there outside the elevator.  I knew I was being told by the Universe that I wasn't leaving..."see, we'll try to make it better--it won't be so bad"...and I did not want to hear it.  I never said one word to anybody about the chairs.  We have not had furniture down there for must be 5-6 years now.  Because residents broke, smashed, destroyed it little by little...until the owners gave up and striped it bare.  You can see these two chairs are not new and were salvaged from the destruction.  They're original chairs from when I first moved here and the lobby was inviting with wooden coffee table with a glass top, tables, artificial plants & trees, pictures on the walls...

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I know that might not make logical sense to anyone else...but I came out of the elevator and it was definitely a sign to me...loud and clear.  You are not leaving for a long time.  I didn't want to hear it...refused to look at them as I left the building (these pictures were taken a couple days later).  But...I wasn't as shocked by the bad news the following day.  I had been prepared...forewarned. 

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I wonder how long the chairs will last?  The only thing we have had in the lobby for years is the wire rack for the free paper--and they mangle that regularly so that it is removed and then put back--over and over and over.  Maybe people will leave these poor old chairs alone.  Please!  Please!  Leave them be!  
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One of the issues for me is that I cannot stand for very long without additional pain--especially since adding sciatica to the mix--and there's been no place to sit downstairs to wait for a ride.  The senior bus wants you to be waiting ten minutes ahead of time and do not like to have to wait for you to come down from third floor and can leave if you aren't there within a couple minutes.  

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[Note: The Paseo is so light that it slips and slides on the ice in the winter.  Even Dagan and Leah don't want me to drive it very far--probably only the 2 miles to McFamily's if the roads are pretty clear--and Dagan said he'd let me know.  I still plan to take the senior bus to appointments this winter.]

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Anyways, one can hope the chairs will not be smashed, poured on, ripped, peed on, sliced up, or set on fire.  Maybe none of the current residents are chair haters--LOL!  ;)  
One can hope.

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I will leave you on a much happier note--with a video Leah took of our boy, Ian.  (Gramma can never get enough!)  

Oh, and Ian is ready for Halloween, too!

Have a great week!
Happy Tuesday!  :):)
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"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm" 
Winston Churchill