I’ve been clicking on spam and finding the page on each item that says I can unsubscribe and clicking on that. It takes forever, but I am determined to whittle down the tons of mail I get. Deleting “as spam” doesn’t work. They have found a way around that, somehow. One item (I forget which) I clicked on had at the bottom of the intended message a three-page paragraph of sentences that were gibberish. This is one way they get past your spam blocker which tries to identify certain marketing phrases. If the blocker can’t identify the meaning, it lets it through.

I have a question: Do any of you decide you are going to go back to the early posts of any blog pal and read what is written and brood about it and try to figure out who they are writing about so you can tell everyone you know? I have been asked to delete a couple of posts by someone I wrote about and I find that offensive since I never use last names and see this as some kind of paranoia. Or a wish to put me in “my place”.

We are all still undefined – does anyone feel undone?

Had a check up yesterday on a lump behind my right knee. It’s not a problem and will dissipate but it could have been a blood clot (dangerous) and that would have meant, get this, instant hospitalization and a regimen of blood thinners. Guh. I am glad it was nothing. The process of getting it checked and then going next door for an ultrasound took from 11 a.m. to 2:30. And it was, despite the fact I was sitting and reading all that time, exhausting.

I am so glad I took a mystery with me since hours of popular magazine reading would have fried my brain.

Edward is now an official guardian and must deal with paperwork on his clients and that is something he doesn’t like to do. Some time ago I said if you are going to continue to volunteer (actually guardians also have paid cases) try to find something without paperwork. So much for that.

We considered both volunteering at the Humane Society animal shelter but neither of us is strong enough for that. We'd want to bring all the animals home with us.

I asked my friend, Clare, who stayed in our house while Ed and I were in New York to take care of Chewy, Max and Brunswick, whether the poop-scooping was daunting. She said, well, I sort of knew what it was going to be like when you showed me. Yeah, I said, but at that point, you couldn’t back out. We chuckled over that. (I did, anyway.)

What are friends for?

xx, Teal