We hope Becky’s life is like ours!
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
June Gloom has come early this year. The sky is grey every morning, but by noon, the sky is blue, and the birds are flying backward to see where they have been!May and June are typically the cloudiest months of the year in coastal southern California, with only 59% and 58% sunny days, respectively, on average in San Diego. The number of days in May and June that are “gloomy” varies yearly.
Mary got a video/slideshow of Becky’s wedding shower, so I converted it to share with friends and family. The shower was held a week ago in Newport Beach.!
We both wish you two nothing but a lifetime of love. See you at the wedding in two weeks in Ireland.
Today is Girl’s Night Out at the Elks Lodge, and we are getting close to celebrating our fourth year having lunch there on Thursdays.
Being at the Lodge every Thursday started thanks to my brother by another mother, Bob Z. It was on July 16th (twelve days before Mary and I had our first “date”) that Bob pried me out of the house (click the link to visit July 16th 2020 on the Daily Diary). Bill Capps and Mike Andersen were also there. Thank you guys! We have gone there every Thursday since missing only a few days due to being out of town.
Since we were heading to the Lodge, Mary wanted to bring Iris some sweetpeas, but she had already picked all the lower ones. So, with the assistance of a ladder, she went up top to get the ones closest to the Sun.
As we left, the sky became clear, and we enjoyed beautiful blue skies all day, with temperatures in the mid-70s.
Up Up And Away (Great title for a song!)
I trimmed the onions while Mary was up in the air and looked after our newbie, the Borage. Borage grows 2 to 3 feet tall and has blue, star-shaped flowers. The leaves and stems are grey-green.
Quite an attractive plant!
Did You Know? In traditional medicine, borage is used as a sedative and a diuretic and as a treatment for seizures and kidney disease. The leaves are often used as dried herbs or tea.
Borage leaves have a subtle cucumber-like flavor and are commonly used in salads, teas, and cocktails. They add a refreshing taste and are rich in nutrients.
We departed at 10:45 am as we had to stop at the Honda Dealer and get new windshield wiper blades, which we bought a month ago, and finally had time to install them.
We were at the Lodge with Bill C., Iris, and Will, which made for an interesting conversation.
Iris and Will joined us today; Iris will be 98 this year!
Somehow, I can’t remember how we got on the subject of old medications. I blurted out “Carter’s Little Liver Pills,” and everyone remembered these little gems, which, by the way, can be bought through Amazon!
Interesting conversations always occur at the Elks Lodge.
Carter’s Little Liver Pills (Carter’s Little Pills after 1959) were formulated as a patent medicine by Samuel J. Carter of Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1868.
Did You Know? Carter’s trademark was a black crow. By 1880, the business was incorporated as Carter Products. The pills were touted to cure headaches, constipation, dyspepsia, and biliousness. In the late 19th century, American businessman John Morgan Richards marketed them in the UK.
Carter’s Little Liver Pills predated the other available forms of bisacodyl and was a very popular and heavily advertised patent medicine up until the 1960s. It spawned a common saying (with variants) in the first half of the 20th century: “He/She has more (filling a noun) than Carter has Little Liver Pills.”
In 1951, the Federal Trade Commission required the company to change the name to “Carter’s Little Pills” since the “liver” in the name was deceptive.
Most surprising of all? While the marketing is practically non-existent today and the packaging has changed, you can still find these storied little pills on Amazon. Carter’s Little Pills are currently offered as a sodium-free laxative, the active ingredient of which is bisacodyl.
We all thought the conversation hilarious. We are a combined age of 400 years, wow! There is nothing we do not know! In addition, if we do not know something, we make it up!
Just us! The soup and salad kids!
We headed home because we had gardening to do. We worked in the front yard for about an hour. The neighbors had requests regarding our new decoration, which we promptly ignored. Ceramic flower pots are long-lasting and add character to the home.
We watered everything carefully! During the summer we give the plants two flushes!
Then we went to the backyard, where Mary trimmed the roses while I worked on the grapes and manually removed the suckers from the tomato plants.
Keeping roses trimmed keeps the blossoms going all summer long. Even though these blossoms were “done”, it made a nice picture.
I cropped this image from a larger image.
Roses are red, violets are blue; roses are red—whoa, déjà vu!
The picture started as a picture of the wheelbarrow!
The beautiful picture was taken in a wheelbarrow.
We worked in the backyard until about 6:00 pm, then headed to the swim spa to ease our aches and pains. The older we get, the farther down the ground seems to be.
Mary gardened and clipped the dead flowers and examined the lillies.
After three cycles in the tub, about 45 minutes, we felt no pain! We discussed the plan of attack for tomorrow as Joe and Bob are coming over around 8:00 am, and we are heading to the hair parlor at 9:00 am to prepare for our trip to Ireland.
