,April 14--half past another month!!

Another pretty day--sunny but cool. A bit too cool for much outside work. If I do get out my plan is to cut back the lavender which, astoundingly, survived the winter. A small pot of lavender also survived and I will transplant with the rest of the lavender. I have several pots that still need to be cleared and I want to move the pot I have in front because our landlords may be planning to refurbish that nasty patch I was hoping to beautify a bit.

It's been a busy week so far. Mom had a doctors appointment Monday and we did our meager grocery shopping also. We normally would have put it off til next week but why waste an errand when it could be combined with another. We hoped that we could get cat litter but, like our last trip, they had none on the shelf. For about two months supplies of cat food (canned and dry) and cat litter has been scarce. Signs on the shelves say that the manufacturers are experiencing problem. I have been reading about all kinds of shortages in the blogs and in their comments: electrical supplies, canning supplies, cleaning supplies. Even the mainstream media has noticed the semiconductor shortage. 

Oh well, getting back to our week--yesterday we finally decided to do something about our sheets and bedspreads. They are getting a bit thread bare after about 20 years of use. Replaced them all. I will be cutting the spreads up into placemats and binding their edges. I will cut out the unusable parts of the sheets and those will become parts of other projects. We have a bigger project on tap--going through the linen closet and sorting those that are still useable from those whose best days are long gone. I will refurbish, reuse, and generally make something new from what is old.

The news has been covering the suspension of the Johnson&Johnson vaccine pending a review because six women developed rare blood clots in the brain. A similar suspension affected the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe. This story at the New York Times lays out the story pretty clearly. About a month ago we got the J&J vaccine but we aren't worried. We aren't under 50,  it has been double the time for the clots to appear, and the six cases represent less than 1 case in a million recipients. If we were still planning on getting a vaccination and the AstraZeneca were the only one available we would get it. The numbers are similar.

 Besides the shortages I noted above (and many more I didn't mention), we have also seen price increases. Driving past the sign our landlords have on a major intersection advertising the units they rent we noticed that the rent has increased to $950/month. That is a $100 increase from the last change which was $100 above the last increase before that. All of that has happened over the last six or seven years. We started renting here in 2000 and the initial rent remained $650 for the first 13 years. Thankfully, the landlord hasn't raised our rent so far. But our little dairy has also had to raise their prices. Almost everything costs more.

I wonder how many remember Bernie Madoff. According to Axios the author of the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history has died at age 82 while still serving his 150 year sentence.

April 18

As I mentioned above our week has been very unusual. We have spent more time out and about. Mom had a problem with her cell phone so we went to the local vendor to try to sort out the problem. Some time ago we spent a lot of time both on line and on the phone with the company which provides our phones and service trying to resolve the problem. I will say they tried but nothing worked. So she got a new phone. And I mentioned replacing our bedspreads and sheets. That also took more time than one would think. Problem: we wanted bedspreads and went to several stores trying to find what we wanted. No luck. We had to finally settle for comforters which meant we had to get bed skirts as well. That was all in addition to our normal grocery shopping.

I keep telling Mom that we are in retrograde. We got rid of almost all prepared foods and cook from scratch. We got rid of our so-called non-stick cookware and got stainless steel and cast iron. They both work better than the non-stick and will probably out last us.

We watched Prince Philip's funeral. It was an amazingly simple and moving ceremony. I was a bit amused by some of the news coverage because it focused on Queen Elizabeth's isolation during the rites. The poor, lonely Queen all by herself in her pew. Bosh--to be polite. The arrangements were made with the COVID regulations in mind and I give the family and the Queen herself admiring kudos for doing what all her subjects are expected to do. That is called leading by example which Former Guy and his minions over her total failed to do. I wish her peace and healing with her family and thank her for a magnificent example of grace under trying conditions.