Monthly Archives: October 2005

Mars should be at its brightest this weekend, and won’t be this close
to earth (43.1 million miles away) again until 2018, according to
current news reports. Normally, the two planets are about 140 million
miles apart….I snapped local Monrovians tonight who had set up
several telescopes at Myrtle and Lemon to share the view with passers-
by. One man had connected his telescope with a laptop, and the red planet could been seen shimmering live on the screen.

Rumor has it that Monrovia will be getting a new bakery on Myrtle where the old children’s furniture shop used to be. I heard that a woman from Altadena will be serving Lebanese pastries, amongst other delicacies. I can only hope that she adds a decent loaf of bread to her offerings!

I’m happy to say that my recent purchase of my first robot vac is going quite well. We are getting along splendidly as I sit with my feet up and it contentedly spins and drones along beneath, sucking up all bits of fur and dirt that happened to have floated down to the floor. Quite a good arrangement, I must say! It does an amirable job of getting up the pet fur, much to the relief of my allergic housemate. My Shiba Inu, whom I have nicknamed “Fur Factory,” no longer puts the fear in us when she shakes her coat! No need to follow her around with a Dustbuster! No more furry dustbunnies! We are freeeeeeeeeeee.

My Shiba Inu, Sushi, looked so sound asleep last night that I just
had to test it out by placing some kibble in her bowl—right under her
nose! I was sure that her little nose would start twitching and she
would come awake right away, but she just continued to breathe deeply
and didn’t move an inch…I was even able to take several photos with
the flash on and she still didn’t wake up! Was it cruel? I don’t
think so…as she got a nice treat upon awakening….

I wanted to share my love of not only chocolate (which I highly recommend consuming as often as possible in all its forms), but my love of cocoa butter. Most of us know of it as an ingredient, but when you have it in a larger dose, it’s mahhhhhhvelous! A friend turned me on to the deliciousness of applying it to your skin as a lotion (yes, it comes this way). Palmer’s makes a scrumptious one, though by the plain packaging you wouldn’t suspect it at all. With your first application you will be hooked. You will smell like the most scrumptious chocolate, and feel as if it is slowly melting into your pores! If you are dreading the dry skin that comes with colder weather, dread no more.

With all the hullabaloo over the potential spread of this terrible virus, I decided to read up on it a little more to gain a greater understanding of the threat. We know that it spreads quickly, and kills quickly. And its potential to spread worldwide via bird migratory routes is evident. There are effective vaccines being developed, but the ingredients to make them are scarce and you must come back for a second dose.

Okay, so what else is there to know? What I didn’t initially understand is that what has the potential to kill humans is the bird flu virus mixing with an active flu virus in our own bodies. In other words, if we don’t already have the flu, we aren’t likely to sicken and die from a flu that a bird might have because the bird flu virus doesn’t yet know how to operate efficiently in a human’s body. But because of how many people get the flu every year, chances of someone having an active case of the flu and coming in contact with a bird flu virus is the problem.

So the best protection we have is to get vaccinated against any kind of flu (to lessen our changes of being a host) and be extremely conscientous of not spreading the regular flu if we have it. Take cough suppressants. Cover your mouth. Take decongestants so your nose doesn’t run. Keep contact with others to a minimum. Don’t laugh, I may be one of the people you see wearing a mask and gloves.

It’s amazing what you can do with a digital camera, a laptop and
Photoshop. I photographed the front of my mother’s garage and gave it
a paint job without even setting foot inside Home Depot. No need to
hold up a paint chip and squint! I wonder if I could make a little
side business out of this? Anyone interested, send me an email!

You just never know what is around the corner. Falling Rocks? Fires? Floods? This latest round of storms, earthquakes and—remember the Tsunami?—have left otherwise practical folks wondering if they should start worrying. And then there is the BIRD FLU. I have decided to put together several different disaster plans for my household, and spent an entire day last week cleaning out and rearranging my garage items so I know where I am on supplies. Apparently folks at the city are thinking along the same lines. In fact, they have a diaster planning workshop set up for Thursday, October 27th at 7 p.m. at City Hall. Might not be a bad idea….