Dog Baths, Etc.

 Dog Baths, Etc.

 

Two dogs and one old woman have had baths already this morning. The dogs know what to expect and are sweet about staying where they can be reached to scrub. The hardest part is trying to dry parts of them before they jump the side of the tub when they think the situation calls for it. Covering the floors with old towels helps, but it still takes mopping the floor to reduce the likelihood of slip, sliding away. Yes, now you have that song in your head. Giggling. Just have to keep the critters inside the house until they are thoroughly dry or it will be Katie-bar-the-door for dirt all over the floor.

 

Talked to Patty a bit ago and found out that now her lavatory has no water pressure. Argh! She plans to check out the other facilities to be sure that everything works as it should. After having the city water inspector, the window washers, the dog groomer, and the plumbers at her house this week, she is just about tired of having anyone around. And then early this morning the thunder upset Roxie so that she had to wake Patty up for reassurance. Life is always a bit of a circus.

 

Talked to Sterling early this morning. They have been getting rain by the inch in slow increments. Lucky bucks! We got a shower, but that won’t help the lakes any at all. The thunder just made my dogs a bit nervous, but they just came to stand next to me. Took me a few minutes to figure out what they had on their minds.

 

Took the top sheet off the bedspread along with the little blanket that covers the end of the bed where Sylvia sleeps at night—when she is not in her crate. Never know when she thinks she needs to be next to me. Maybe my snoring sends her to her crate? Anyway, have a load of wash on and at least two more to do before the day is over. Have heard it said that death and taxes are two things that never fail. Well, someone needs to add laundry to that list.

 

Have been reading some books based around life before the automobile or steam trains. Those women had it bad! LONG skirts that touched the floor and got dirty easily. Unless the woman had a maid to do her laundry, it was a pretty sure thing that she could not wear a dress a second time that had been worn outside the house before it had to be laundered again. It reminded me that women often died from getting their skirts too close to fires when cooking on the fireplaces. And the servants took the same risk when doing laundry outside near a fire under a pot of steaming water. We are SO blessed to have mechanical servants!!

 

Read something this morning that just about made my jaw drop: From the fjords of Norway to the streets of Singapore….. Now frozen salmon fillets can be purchased from ATMs. Imagine! Maybe we could get T-bones and tacos dispensed in Texas. Nah, it would never work. Frozen tacos? Nope, they have to be fresh.

 

My son-in-law has a business called Lone Star Tool and Die. He sometimes supplies things to a company called Dayton. Don’t ask me how or what, but today an article about the pop-top can development interested me. It seems the first beer cans had to be opened with a “church key.” But the guy who ran Dayton Tools got upset because he ended up having to open his can with the fin on his car. “Fraze was the progenitor of the pop-top, the forefather of the modern tab. After his invention changed the world, he remained chief executive of Dayton Reliable Tool until his death on October 26, 1989. Today, his company, now known as DRT Holdings, is focused on metal packaging, custom machining and the aerospace industry; still headquartered in Dayton, DRT has 10 facilities across the world.” Life is weird sometimes, but preserving food and making it easier to access has been a really strange adventure. Beer, fish, canned or frozen, and spices galore, we have been an inventive species.

 

In reading today, it surprised me to learn that Mark (John Mark) was a recorder of Peter. It seems that Justyn Martyr in the middle of the second century quotes Mark 3:17 as from the “Memoirs of Peter.” Peter spoke Aramaic, and Mark became a translator or continuator of what Peter said in Aramaic. When reading about this, my warped sense of humor reminded me of the woman who swore she would only read the Bible in English as that was what Jesus spoke! Oh my! Having attempted to read from Old English, let me just say that none of us would be able to easily translate Beowulf!

 

Sometime around 1440, the printing press was invented. Were it not for some rather stubborn and determined men, we would still be sitting around listening to bald-headed men chanting in Latin and attempting to buy our way into the graces of God. We have so much to consider when looking at blessings.

 

Rest well, my friends. You are loved.