Fact: You lose up to 30 percent of your taste buds during flight. – This might explain why airplane food gets such a bad reputation. The elevation in an airplane can have a detrimental effect on our ability to taste things. According to a 2010 study conducted by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, the dryness experienced at a high elevation, and low pressure reduces the sensitivity of a person’s taste buds to sweet and salty foods by about 30 percent. Add that dry cabin air affects our ability to smell, and our ability to taste is reduced further.
We thought retirement would be easy, but alas, the two of us are working harder than ever before. By 8:15 AM, we lowered the Valentine’s Day flag and hoisted our St. Patrick’s Day flag.
First things first, reflagged the front yard!
Now that it is officially St. Patrick’s Day season, I asked Mary, “What’s Irish and stays outside your house all year no matter the weather?” I could not resist, “Paddy O’Furniture.”
We dressed warmly as the temperature was in the high 50s, and the clouds would, on occasion, remind us who is the boss. When it started to rain, Mary kept staring through the window. If it gets any worse I’ll have to let her in.
My granddad always used to say, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”
It rained a bit, and the wind was cold!
By 8:30 AM, we were heads-down in the various planters in our backyard! Paul dumped the contents of the boxes and refreshed the soil while Mary followed behind and planted fresh onions, some great bulbs from the Netherlands, and replanted several Swiss chard plants.
The baby will be producing in 60 days!
We attempted to repair our windsock and whirlygigs; most of them are back in operation. Two need some serious work which may entail asking Amazon for another delivery.
Froggy is now happy.
The transplants sometimes get under the weather, but Mr. Swiss Chard will be up to snuff and start growing again by tomorrow!
The transplant shock was wicked!
The sprinkler system we have is great as I can operate it from the phone, but alas, the solenoids (magnetic devices that open and shut the valves) needed to be replaced. It looks like spaghetti, but I have a plan to color code the wires and make it pretty.
I replaced one more solenoid, which was malfunctioning.
Scout, The Wonder Dog, was just fascinated by his humans behaviors. He must wonder why we run all over the yard pulling and putting plants in little barrels and boxes, sticking our paws in the dirt, losing and refining hand tools, and burying round objects in the dirt (and not bones).
Scout supervised from a distance!
We had a nice small lunch before hitting the showers, but I got into serious trouble and must remember to look at Mary when she is talking!
Before we knew it, it was 2:30 PM, and we had to get ready for “the mad dash.” We pulled out at 3:00 PM, heading for Paul’s tax lady in Long Beach. We drove by and lobbed an envelope full of tax stuff into her mailbox. Wince we bought and sold four houses this year, I had no idea what the tax implications might be, although I may get a vacation out of it; I think they call it federal prison!
Then to the skin surgeon, where I got the stitches out of my hand. It looks pretty good. Steri-Strips are thin adhesive bandages often used by surgeons as a backup to dissolvable stitches or after regular stitches are removed.
Dang, we were well ahead of schedule, so we returned home to visit Scout and allow him to assist the clouds in watering the grass. At 5:45 PM, we were off again to the Santa Ana Elks to attend the Lodge meeting and cast our vote for the trustee of our choice. Bob Duda, Mary, Bill Capps, and I had dinner at the Lodge; it was Taco Tuesday, so we did well!
We went to the meeting at 7:30 PM and did the voting. While the votes were being counted, they did some business, and before closing the lodge meeting, they did several drawings. I bought $20 worth of tickets (it goes to charity) and MAry asked, “What chances do we have of winning?” I responded with the same chances as the next pope will be from Duluth, or that the parrot in the pet store window speaks Flemish.
Dr. Mary won a five-gallon bottle of Jack Daniels. Translation: Dr. Mary won een vijf-gallon fles Jack Daniels. The translation was just in case the parrot also reads!
We were home by 9:00 PM and immediately crashed. I tried to watch Eureka but the old eyes just closed! To much work today and too many miles.
