Vio-kitty seems better today. She ate and showed signs of wanting to be around us so The Hub brought her upstairs. She's relaxing on the sofa, her eyes are brighter, and she ate a good portion of her food. The vet called to say that her blood work was not as good as he had initially thought (????) and we ought to pick up an antibiotic and a vitamin for her. Also, he wants The Hub to look at some damaged floor boards in his clinic.

This is what the sign outside the clinic says: "Don't know what soap tastes like? Then you haven't washed a dog." I guess it works as a thought for the day in the t.v. age.

I was up early after attempting to sleep on the sofa last night. The Hub snores. The dog snores. I finally drifted off about 4:00 in the morning only to have the alarm blare at me at 7:00. Still, I did make it to the home of my new customer, Mrs. Retriever, at 9:00. It was a by the hour housecleaning job, complete with chewing gum in the carpet ( effeciently removed by yours truly - which was great, since the customer wasn't sure it would come out it was so ground in) As you might guess, there are a number of Retriever dogs in the Retriever household ( as well as two adult children. To save me, I cannot imagine why THEY are not doing the work she hired me to do. But far be it from me to complain!!)

Anyway, no sooner did I show up with my equipment, then Puppy ( age about 6 months) dove into the box, siezed the feather duster, and lead the whole household on a merry chase. I felt like Alice on a Brady Bunch episode. I couldn't be mad. He's a RETREIVER. His whole DNA is telling him "Oh, that's a thing with feathers I'm supposed to pick up and....I dunno...do something with it". Thankfully, he was nervous of the vacuum cleaner and portable steamer.

Mrs. Retreiver asked to have me come again next week: good news. After I finished I went to visit my parents and see if my Mom wanted any of the "preview" Christmas jewelry. I had lunch there, then canvassed a few streets nearby. "Would you like an Avon book?" "No thanks" etc, only it was much hotter than I realized and by the time I got back to Mom and Dad's I felt like I had lost a third of my body weight in perspiration. If only it were so!

I meant to go right to the grocery store, but I had such a strong feeling that I ought to go see my friend Gold. I decided I would see if she was home and, if not, just leave her an Avon catalog. But she was home, and really quite sick. She's got a nasty bronchitus, which she's being treated for. Her doctor gave her an inhaller but she was afraid to take it. Her husband wasn't home, and she has such strong reactions to everything. I gave her a couple of pointers on how to manage to actually get some of the medicine into her lungs ( taking an inhaller is harder than it looks). Her doctor had ordered her a canister/ bellows to help her take the medicine, but the pharmacy didn't have it. Meanwhile, this poor woman's breathing sounded like a train whistle. Consequently, I sat and visited with her for quite some time, til we felt she wasn't going to have any bad effect from taking the inhaler. Her father, who lives next door, brought over some subs, and she was able to eat half a sub and a pickle. Even though she is getting better, I still feel that I ought to find some reason to stop by there tomorrow.

Then I moved on to grocery shopping. Gold's father gave me some wonderful produce from their garden. It was a win-win situation. I have to get a perscription filled tomorrow ( the cost is more than my car payment, which I am putting off in favor of the medicine) so I was overjoyed to get the produce and he was just as happy to see it go to someone who can use it. I still spent $105.00 for two weeks worth of groceries, though. I was really hoping to get under $100...but considering that it's been three weeks since I did any "serious" marketing and I saved $18.75 in coupons I suppose I did all right.

As I was trundeling around the market, I looked down at the cilantro I had picked up in the produce department . It was in one of those plastic containers, but there was something red....and moving in there. It was a ladybug. I opened the container and let it out, but it stayed right with me through the whole shopping expedition ( and, believe me, when you have $18.75 worth of coupons and are trying to achieve $50 a week on groceries it IS an expedition) I had heard that ladybugs bring good luck and I've decided to take it as a good omen. It finally flew away when I pushed the cart out onto the parking lot.

The moral: always wash your produce!