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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 20, 2020 4:17:00 GMT
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Post by fumobici on Apr 20, 2020 5:29:05 GMT
I'm sorry but that made me laugh bixa. I'd never seen a scorpion until I'd been to Italy, where they are common. Your reaction was similar to mine the first time one came zooming towards my bare feet in a dimly lit room.
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Post by mossie on Apr 20, 2020 7:18:19 GMT
All the while I was in Egypt I never saw a scorpion, but we were warned to tap our shoes on the heel before putting them on in case one was in there. Stood me in good stead here a few years back when I discovered a mouse had been storing peanuts in my gardening shoes which I kept in the garage, near the stock of peanuts kept to stock up the bird feeder
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 20, 2020 7:26:42 GMT
You are very brave Bixa.
My father always turned his shoes upside town and tapped them to dislodge anything inside. I did ask him many years ago why and he said when he was growing up in Kenya tarantulas often would hide in them. They would dig into the lawn and his two older brother used to grab hold of him when he was barefoot and frog march him across the grass to bring them out as they thought is was raining.
Mossie, in all my years in deserts I only saw one.
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Post by questa on Apr 20, 2020 9:06:48 GMT
Oz seems to have more than its fair share of 'nasties' that hide in boots. My son #2 goes into anaphylactic shock if stung by a bee. One rainy day the kids in his class were just putting on their rubber boots to go outside when a bee in the boot stung him. This was before Epipens were available, his Doctor had made him up a small kit... pills to keep his Blood Pressure up, to reduce the swelling of airways and avoid defibrillation etc. The teacher phoned ahead to the Medical Centre to alert them and another teacher drove the 3 to the MC (quicker than an ambulance)
I got to the Centre about 10 minutes after Them. Son was very pale and seemed to have shrunk. He slept for ages and was OK on waking.
A tip from a farmer...Take boots off and bang on the step to remove spiders etc.Then turn one boot upside down and ram the cuff into the top of the other boot (shoe,wellies etc)
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Post by tod2 on Apr 20, 2020 13:24:34 GMT
I don't mind scorpions but they are a rarity here in suburbia, What isn't rare is the number of frogs hoping around. Yesterday I was just about to step into the shower when something dark and very teeny moved next to the shower mat. On close inspection I saw it was a baby frog. I don't pick up frogs although they are harmless, so had to yell to the kitchen where husband was washing dishes to come and capture the little bugger. I have not idea how the heck it got into the house but on occasion I have seen dozens hopping all over my back courtyard. The step is far too high for them to hop up but I know froggies are able to climb walls at times.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 20, 2020 13:35:54 GMT
One of our renters of the Sanibel house reported that wihile he was sitting on the toilet a frog dropped from the ceiling onto his leg! Apparently they can get into the rooftop vents for the exhaust fan and make their way inside.
We have found a dead frog IN the toilet bowl on returning after the summer, perhaps it traveled through the plumbing vent stack on the roof then swam like a cave-diving spelunker into the toilet itself. As we cover the bowl tightly with Satan wrap to prevent evaporation, the poor little bugger couldn’t get out to feast on all the spiders and millipedes that reside in the vacant house, and died.
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Post by breeze on Apr 20, 2020 15:20:47 GMT
Kimby, was this on purpose? "As we cover the bowl tightly with Satan wrap..." If so, I like it.
I've been trying to cut back on plastic use but now that grocery stores don't want you to bring your own bag, we're accumulating lots of their plastic bags.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 20, 2020 16:09:34 GMT
Breeze, we have learned that by tightly sealing the toilet bowl off with plastic wrap, we can keep the water from evaporating, preventing the trap from drying out and keeping sewer gases and critters from gaining entry. By adding a splash of chlorine beach, we also keep mold and mildew from forming during the long hot summer. Our toilets are fresh as a daisy when we return in the fall.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 20, 2020 16:25:26 GMT
I'm just wondering how long it takes to have Satan wrap delivered from hell.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 20, 2020 17:36:46 GMT
“Satan wrap”, ha, ha!
I read and reread my post multiple times without catching the typo, which was generated by the ever-unhelpful auto-spell feature on my phone.
My eyes need examining, but all appointments are on hold during the pandemic, so bear with my sloppy editing, please.
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Post by tod2 on Apr 21, 2020 17:07:54 GMT
Last night I went into our lounge to fix myself a pre-dinner drink , and out the corner of my eye I happened to notice something dark and lifeless lying at the bottom of the glass wine cooler. On closer inspection I realised it was one of those pale geckos that run along the walls and ceilings in our house. The poor little bugger must have dropped into the cooler and because of its smooth texture and high sides could not escape. I felt quite bad just then.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 21, 2020 21:50:06 GMT
I hate when that happens.
For me it’s squirrels that get into the chimney pipe and die in the wood stove because they can’t climb the slippery metal pipe back out.
If I’m around and hear the poor little bugger scrabbling to get out, I’ll go on the roof and drop a rope down the chimney, to give him something to grab onto and climb out.
But what I will NOT do is open the glass doors and let him escape into the house. They can be terribly destructive with their sharp teeth.
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Post by Whatcantlogin on Apr 22, 2020 8:13:26 GMT
We had a mouse in a shoe once. Well half a mouse. I guess one of our cats dropped of there... had to throw away the shoe...
My godmother went to the loo in 1958 or close, at her house close to Elisabethville. Now Lumumbashi. There was some move from a bag where toilet paper was stored. She screamed and a boy came with a machete to kill a big snake. In my memory a boa constrictor but I don't think it was it. Nevertheless a big ugly a dangerous snake...
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 24, 2020 13:46:46 GMT
This morning the big monitor attached to my downstairs laptop would not work after working perfectly for at least the last 6 years. I checked all of the cables and electrical connection without luck. This was a bad start to the day. After fuming for a while, I started checking the cost of monitors on the upstairs laptop (I was mad at the downstairs laptop even though it was innocent of any wrongdoing.). Without scrounging through the dodgy discount sites which are probably closed at the moment anyway, I determined that monitors of about the same size range from about 80 euros to 150 euros. I did not bother to try to understand what was so much better about the more expensive models, since I knew that I would be going for the lower prices.
Phase II was to go out and see if the little geek shop on my street was open. Computer and telephone shops are among the "essential" services that can remain open right now. Meanwhile, I was convincing myself that my monitor just needed a tiny fuse or something changed. It's not as though I had a dying off-colour screen with wavy lines. I wasn't going to carry the big damned thing with me without being sure that the shop was open, so I decided that I would go to the Indian supermarket to get some spices and maybe some poppadoms. It was a little farther along the same street. But it was closed. I pressed on to Gare du Nord to look at the places that were open, but they all had queues to get in and I did not want to stand in the hot sun. So I took the bus back from Gare du Nord (it's only 4 stops). By the time I got home, I felt completely covided so I washed up and had lunch.
For phase III, I managed to get my monitor and its cables in a travel bag and I carried it to the geek shop after 14:00 when it reopened. They had built a fort of cardboard boxes inside to keep people away from the counter and leaving just a slot where you could stand, no more than one person. "Monitors can't be repaired" was about the first thing the geek said but then he added "maybe it's the converter thingie on your cable." (He didn't call it a thingie.) So he took the cable and checked that with the amp metre or whatever those things are -- and that is what seemed to be the problem. He took the monitor and plugged it in to a new cable, and it worked! He asked me if I wanted to buy a normal cable or the deluxe super duper one that lasts forever.
"What's the difference in price?"
"4 euros."
I took the deluxe model and left the shop 20 euros poorer but quite happy. And even happier when I reconnected everything at home and it worked.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 24, 2020 15:52:00 GMT
Well, that is not a PPT. It is a LTTMAL!
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Post by mossie on Apr 24, 2020 18:51:18 GMT
Now I know I am totally senile. Sent my cleaning lady off to the supermarket with my carefully thought out list of shopping this morning, when she returned I thought the bag didn't feel very heavy but put the stuff away.
Then realisation dawned, I had not put down any main courses for my dinners, bloody fool!!**!. Luckily I have some back up stuff in my little freezer so wasn't going to starve today, and got out some sausges that had last Octber on them. Then rang my sons wife and arranged with her to buy me some meals for the weekend.
I must remember to do better, but am very cross with myself.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 24, 2020 19:28:57 GMT
*sigh* It's just not the same as doing the marketing for yourself, is it? I generally never put actual food on a shopping list because it seems so obvious, but I am capable of forgetting to buy it.
I went to the market today because I needed butter. Was about to leave when I remembered that I if expected to have a balanced meal I needed to get a few other things.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 24, 2020 19:42:28 GMT
I cannot count the number of times that I have gone to the store for one specific item and returned with ten different things but not the one I had gone to buy.
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Post by lagatta on Apr 24, 2020 20:21:24 GMT
I have friends half my age who've been doing the same. We are all more than a bit befuddled. And many things are missing in the shops. I'm looking for a steel scouring pad to clean a metal plate that protects the bottom of my little convection oven. (NOT the ones made out of rusting metal and soap). Haven't found one anywhere.
I did see an action by a woman who is probably not only living extremely precariously but also much worse than befuddled. She was ahead of me in the queue to get into Dollarama, (you know, dollar, euro, quid or whatever currency super-cheap shops). They usually carry the steel scouring pads I was searching for). An entire cigarette was lying in the bit of dirt on the pavement outside the shop. She picked it up and stuffed in her breast pocket. Several people looked aghast but didn't say anything.
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Post by tod2 on Apr 25, 2020 8:29:42 GMT
We make grocery lists days ahead, keep adding this and that, then off the Boss goes to the food store. About 10min later I will remember an urgent item and give him a call so he can add it. Another 5min pass and I remember something else….another call. We don't let this seem unusual, only normal for people like us who are over 70+ !!
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 25, 2020 9:46:25 GMT
I have a rule with Mrs M when I go shopping alone at any time. If she rings me to add things to the list, no problem - but she is only allowed the once. Same in a way when we move somewhere and are placing furniture in the rooms - I'll put it wherever she says, then she has one more try if she thinks it'd look better elsewhere and I'll move it without a problem. After that, she moves it herself.
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Post by Kimby on Apr 26, 2020 1:27:49 GMT
And how many times are YOU allowed to ring the Missus to ask where something can be found? Or what brand? What size? They don’t have x, do you want y or z? I see men on their phones all the time in grocery stores...
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 26, 2020 6:38:40 GMT
Good point, but there is a difference in that it is me who does the shopping in the week, Mrs M may only come once a month on a Saturday if we need something, so I know where stuff is, what is good and what not so and what is a viable substitute or how big a one to buy. I go shopping when she is at work and I don't ring her when she is there. I also see men often on the phone, yet who is to say who has rung whom?
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Post by casimira on Apr 26, 2020 13:19:53 GMT
Or, if they are speaking with their spouse...
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Post by Kimby on Apr 26, 2020 14:20:46 GMT
Today’s PPT: I accidentally deleted the calendar on my iPhone. Again!
LTTMAL: I remembered how to reload it from the App Store. And all my stored entries are still there. Whew!
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Post by Kimby on Apr 28, 2020 22:26:47 GMT
Today is the first really nice day that I don’t have yard chores to do and can sit outside in shirtsleeves reading a book and listening to birdsong and the wind in the pines.
The trauma? It’s either too hot in the sun or too breezy in the shade, so I have to keep moving my chair in and out of the umbrella’s shadow. I can only last so long in the shade before seeking warmth, only to be soon driven back into the shade. But it’s too nice being outside to retreat indoors...
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Post by htmb on May 2, 2020 13:41:55 GMT
I’ve had a rash on my face, near my mouth, for about six weeks. It started as a little pimple, then evolved into two raised, red areas about the size of small coins. At first, I thought nothing of it. Then, when the area started spreading and had little clear pustules, I thought I had a staph infection.
I got a bit panicky and started trying different topical medications I had around the house. Nothing seemed to work, and one even made it worse. At times, my face itched and burned like it was on fire. Finally, in desperation, I tried topical, anti-itch liquid Benadryl. The kind you put on insect bites. And the thing started to get better. That’s when I realized it must be a rash from poison ivy. I make a point to try to clean the vines near my front door once a month so they don’t get out of hand, and I think some poison ivy, or something similar, has gotten mixed into the bunch.
I continued to put the Benadryl on my face for a few days. The affected areas miraculously cleared up, but then the stuff came back about four days later. Itching again - enough to wake me up at night - and not looking too pretty. The doctor wants to see me, but I’ve put off a visit until next week. I’m now trying apple cider vinegar - applying every few hours with a clean piece of cotton - and seem to be having some success. I think this is working, but if anyone else has any poison ivy remedies I might try I’d love to hear them.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 2, 2020 14:21:51 GMT
Sounds like a form of herpes to be ("cold sores" in their mildest form). I had facial herpes once and was not pleased at all. There are various lotions which relieve you a bit, but since it is a virus, there is not really much that you can do about it until it goes away of its own volition.
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Post by htmb on May 2, 2020 14:55:01 GMT
I doubt it’s a cold sore. I don’t recall ever having one before. This rash is more towards my cheek and looks a bit like this (example on Wikipedia).
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