June 2006 Week One  |  Week Two  |  Week Three  |  Week Four

Week One: A last bit of news from May For the first time in a long time, Summer came early to Ohio this year. Of course, there is a slight cool-down coming; but it's been a great end to Spring as Summer tries to push it's way into the area. Since my last update, just before the end of May, the temps spiked up into the uppers 80's and we got INTO the pool! In May, no less! But before showing you some pictures of us in the pool, I ought to show you some pictures of the flowers blooming all in my front yard. All of the irises are going like gang-busters! For some reason though, this year I have only had 3 or 4 of the peach-colored irises bloom. Most of the flowers have been the purple ones. I'll have to make sure to transplant some of the peach ones in the Fall to try to cultivate a few more to bloom next season. Not only are the irises around the fountain blooming, but the smaller purple irises across the front of the front porch are blooming too. These are some that we transplanted from Jim's house. The ones at his house, and the ones we planted up at DO's house, are also in full bloom now. The rose bush is really growing now. I plan to wire it up to the lattice by the porch as soon as it gets tall enough. The tiger lilies are putting up stalks now, and a few buds. It won't be much longer till these are blooming too. The bamboo at Jim's house is growing like mad this year. Some of his plants are nearly 16 feet high! The batch that I planted by the back door (to make a wind-break) is really starting to grow up too! Look at how big my hollyhocks are growing! It must be from the early bout of heat that we're having. Do you remember me telling you about the hollyhocks over at Expert Auto? When I went back over to work on Mark's new computer, I remembered to get some pictures. The plants have gotten huge! I'll have to make sure that I get back over there later in the summer to see these hollyhocks in bloom. the hollyhocks and a tree at EAC The Pool is Open! Even though it's only the end of May, with the temps near 90, it means it's Pool Time again! In the reverse of closing the pool, it was time to pump up all those floats. I'm always amazed by how many toys we get into Jim's pool and still have room to swim around. Of course, all those floats make great things to hide behind when the koosh balls start flying. Jim works on bringing the whales back to "life" Only a tiny portion of all the floats We need an electric pump! Whew! This is hard "work" We had several special guests visit the pool during the three days we had for swimming at the end of May. Of course, one of the guests was a regular visitor to Jim's - Gabby. Jim decided, even though Gabby swims pretty well with just three legs, that she should have a little bit of help to make it easier. So we slipped a flotation device onto Gabby that we got last year to help Austin. Even though Austin didn't like it or use it much, Gabby didn't seem to mind it too much. She patiently let us slip her legs through and get her strapped in. Amazingly, Gabby swims pretty well without any help; but she did really good with the float wrapped around her. Below are two movies that show Gabby having a good time swimming around the pool. Click to view video Click to view video "Good Girl!" "Come here, Gabby girl!" No worse for wear after swimming around in the pool for a while, Gabby sits up on the deck drying off in the heat. Our special guest visiting the pool was DO! Yeppers, just four months after having both knees replaced. I haven't shown any GBSs (Gratuitous Butt Shot)  lately, so it's time. To protect the innocent though, I've pixilated this image. mIkIE and DO enjoying life by the side of the pool MouseOver this Picture to see DO's initial reaction to the chilly water Guess what? DO still floats! Even with bionic knees There was one more doggie guest that visited - Rosita! Poor little wet rat-dog Jim, smartly, only teases about throwing the sopping wet koosh ball at me while I'm holding the camera. Poor Rosita anxiously looks to a way to get off the float and back onto the deck. Rosita didn't seem to like the heat, and didn't seem to like the water too much either. She was much more content to hang out on the patio or in the backyard, with Gabby, for the rest of the afternoon. Of course, with DO in the pool, all bets are off. Once those koosh balls start flying, it's every man or woman for themselves. mIkIE fights back from the other side of the pool At Jim's house, the lilacs have finished blooming and the cosmos still have some growing to do. The small purple irises by the pool are looking nice, while the peonies ("Festiva Maxima") are just starting to burst open. Tara sure is sneaky. She keeps sending me all these cute pictures of her kids and their adventures in Indiana, so that I keep posting them for you all to see. But they ARE cute kids, and they ARE having some fun this summer, so here are THEIR pictures. Let's start with some of Ella, getting bigger all the time! Ella's little play area let's her check out herself in the mirror. I wonder if she realizes how fast she's growing up. Poor Ella is tired of looking cute now, and ready for a nap. I mentioned that Tara and her clan have been having some adventures too. This past week, they visited a Children's Museum. a glass exhibit a dinosaur exhibit Jason and Austin tried out an old-fashioned mode of transportation, and then a much more modern vehicle MouseOver CloseUp Austin = Speed Racer MouseOver CloseUp Jason = Racer X Not only are flowers blooming in my yard; but along with the purple irises, there are a bunch of roses blooming over at DO's house. MouseOver this picture for a buggy CloseUp Some of DO's roses Although, they nearly died in the heat waiting to get planted, I think Cliff and DO's pot of pansies are going to make it. Their small side garden is doing ok. The tulips are gone, but there's a huge sunflower growing , from the seeds the squirrels dropped. I'm not certain what the other plants are, we'll just have to wait and see if they ever flower. One last picture of my yard for you, to end this update. The irises in front of the porch are really beautiful this year. Everything seems to be growing really well with all the rain we've had, punctuated with days of heat and bright sunshine.

Week Two: As Spring comes nearer to it's end, so are some of my blooming flowers. First to bloom, the irises are petering out. The shrubs got a second "haircut", and the hollyhocks get bigger every day. I haven't been doing too much yard work lately though, as I've had a couple days here and there of being sick. I tell you, there's nothing worse that having to barf first thing in the morning. It just makes the whole day crappy. Try as I do to take it all in stride, I guess those days are just subtle reminders that although I like to think that I'm not sick, there's no denying that I am. MouseOver this plant for a CloseUp Got any ideas what this is? I saw it spreading in a patch at a neighbor's of DO's and "stole" a few plants last year when the house was vacant. Whatever it is (sorta clover-y looking), it spreads out nicely as a ground cover around the fountain. There are stalks and buds on the tiger lilies, so it won't be much longer till this patch of flowers is blooming in my yard. That itty-bitty piece of a rose bush, that I transplanted last year, has really taken off! I had to tie up the hollyhocks the other day while I was trimming the hedges (it helps protect the stalks from breaking when we get thunderstorms), and I was also tied up the rose bush a bit, since I'd like to train it to grow to the lattice surrounding my porch. The temperature has dropped back down into the low 70's and we've returned to more Spring-like weather. (Well, it isn't actually Summer quite yet, so I guess it's ok. ) Although we did squeeze a couple of pool days in on the warmer, sunnier days, instead of swimming, I've been doing yard work and reading more books. Since I last updated you on my reading material, I've finished up James Patterson's "Mary, Mary" and read both the his new "Max Ride" books ("The Angel Experiment" and "School's Out Forever" - it only took me 4.5 hrs to read that whole book!). Now I have to wait for him to finish writing the next two books in this series. I finished up the three books in the second trilogy of "Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" books by Stephen R. Donaldson, along with reading the first book of a four book series by this author called "The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant". (It may be a long wait to get to the final three books of this series because this author takes a long time to write his novels.) And DO is holding a Mary Higgins Clark and a Dean Koontz book for me to read yet; not to mention the four or five books that the library is holding for me. A quick check on last month, and it looks like I read about a dozen books. As the middle of this month approaches, I should be right on track with 6 books finished. I bet you're thinking that I spend all my time with my nose buried in a book (that was probably my biggest crime as a kid ); but ask any of my friends, and they will tell you that I spend all my time in front of my three monitors. But that isn't true either! I'm logged in quite a bit of yard work time and pool time lately too! The catch is that all that reading as a kid helped turn me into a really fast reader. Plus, it never hurts to carry a book with you, just in case you have some down-time during the business of the day. My doctor can attest to that aspect of my reading. The doc always remembers me, and introduces me to his students, as the guy with a ponytail that always got a book with him. I guess all this means that I ought to add a new feature to my site - "What is mIkIE reading/listening to now?" Although the irises are starting to peter out, it won't be long until some of the other flowers start popping out. Even though Jim's cosmos are growing as well as mine, his have already started to bloom! Here's the first cosmos of the year. Ah, but not to be outdone, within three days, MY first cosmos burst forth. This year there haven't been any bird invasions into my home (as in June 2002 and March 2003), nor have I seen any golden finches yet since the cosmos are only just starting to bloom; however, I did get a picture of this Cardinal (state bird of Ohio AND North Carolina) after he was sipping at my garden pond. Although I don't live in the worse neighborhood, it's still not the "good side" of town. Through the years, the cops have only had to come down my street a couple of times. Unfortunately, for about the twelfth time over the last twelve years, my house has been struck by a little bit of vandalism. It wasn't anything destructive to my fountain, the shrubs or the fence this time. It was the second rock thrown through one of my windows! (the first time was the second year I lived here) Around 10pm one night after Jim had gone back to his house, I heard glass breaking. With the windows open because of the warm day, I wasn't sure exactly where the sound came from, so I rounded up my flashlight and the pack of dogs. We took a tour through my basement, the upstairs, the backyard, and the front yard. As I went down the street between my house and the school though, I found the broken window. Obviously some punk kid picked up a stone (from the sidewalks that the school construction crew tore up years ago) and pitched it up through my front foyer window. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out, so I turned on ALL the lights in the house and stayed up a little longer that night. (Ok, so that isn't all that true. I'm a computer geek and usually stay up that late at night anyway. ) Even though I was a "big boy" and tried to handle this problem all by myself, I did call Jim to tell him about what had happened not long after his departure. (I mean, what is a boyfriend good for if not some moral support in times of trouble?! ) As the end of this week approaches, the weather forecast is also improving. With Summer officially just a little over a week away, we are supposed to be heading in the upper 80's and maybe into the low 90's for Father's Day. Of course, I don't mind those temps, since it just means that it's going to be Pool Time again! WooHoo! And speaking of the pool, don't forget "Pool Tag" will be coming up soon! I've already been working on a test float! (pictures of that in the next update ) However, I do have one little chore to do before dipping into the water - it's time again for some blood work to be taken. I won't get the results from my doctor until the 29th, so hopefully I'll be able to start off next month with some nice news.

Week Three: Time to update you on my latest readings. I've still been stuck on an Annie Proulx kick. Luckily, I've just about read ALL of her books. The Canton libraries finally got in a copy of "Close Range: Wyoming Stories", another collection of short stories (this is the book with the Brokeback Mountain story). Brokeback is the best story in this collection, and I must say that I liked her second collection of short stories (Closer Range) much better. Since I've been a good boy lately and NOT obsessed on the Brokeback movie, it was nice to give the story version a re-reading and it's still a very touching tale. I'm now reading two books. Stephen Donaldson's "Gap: Into Conflict", and Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News".  It's looking like I might NOT read as many this month as I did last month though. Although the weather has been incredibly nice (I've been in the pool 6 of the last 7 days! ), I haven't been reading by the pool too much. Most of my pool time has been spent with DO banging beach balls around the pool. Oh, and the soundtrack behind the pool playing and book reading has been a ton of re-mixes of The Pet Shop Boys. Whatever these plants are, with lavender colored flowers, they are really doing well this year! Too well! From where I got these plants (DO's next door neighbor) , they were in the shadows by the house, and never got very big and had pale pink flowers - although they did spread a bunch, which was the reason I transplanted them to my house. At my house though, they are growing HUGE and flowering like mad and about to totally engulf my fountain. On the "shadow-y" side of my house, the hollyhocks and pampas grass are doing well. The cosmos have a lot of buds; but few flowers so far. This is the second bloom to come out - and that's the shadow of my head. Way back when Randy and I first moved into this house, we mulched behind the bushes (on the sunny side of the house) and planted Shasta Daisy seeds; but we never saw any flowers though. Then around the Fall of 1997, a friend of mine, helped me cut the shrubs in half, shortening them, and we put all the dead branches on top of what was left of the mulch. Years later now, the mulch is all gone, the single tiger lily that was there has turned into a full patch, and the ground has been covered by Asiatic day lilies that spread from my background. Suddenly this year, the daises finally have made an appearance! The first tiger lily has bloomed this year! Within three days the tiger lilies went from a lot of buds and one bloom (on the left) to a lot of buds AND a lot of blooms (on the right)! In the heat of the past week, the hollyhocks have started raising their stalks high in the sky, and buds are filling the stalks . . . . . . and the first of the hollyhocks started to burst forth! Speaking of hollyhocks, I had a chance to visit Expert Auto again, and the hollyhocks are doing very well there. As tall as mine are (more than 6 ft. tall), the ones are EAC are even taller! No blooms yet; but I bet they are going to look good when they do come out. Besides some computer work, I was at EAC because Tara has come back to town for a while. Her son, Austin, has been back for a while spending time with his dad, and things at EAC were needing a "woman's touch" to get things done; so Tara left Jason repairing hail-damaged cars in Indianapolis, and drove back home with Ella. It's no wonder that Ella is growing so much, she must have breast-fed three times while we were all in the office. Ella giggled at me some, and I even held her for a while! Babies are cute, but, thanks anyway, I'll stick with puppies! Thinking about babies, I received these cute pictures in an email this past week from Bonnie (a friend of Jim's and one of my regular readers ). This filly was born on May 22 and was just three weeks on Monday. Boy! That's amazing too! First I talked about and even held a baby (and I'm proud to say that at 44 yrs. old I've NEVER changed a diaper. ), and now I'm talking about horses, which I am highly allergic to! (Usually, it's the just aspirin and penicillin allergies that I have to mention to doctors or hospital personnel.) Bonnie says that it is often difficult to get a photo of a new foal because they stand behind their mothers; but I thought she got some nice pictures of the horses. Bonnie also said that this is a really a bad age to take a photo because they are growing so rapidly that they often look ribby and their legs aren't fully up to speed yet. This filly should make an excellent hunter/jumper and have great size because both parents are 16 Hh. Poor Bonnie! It sounds like her animals are as tricky to get good pictures of, as mine are. See, I only post the GOOD pictures here. After a day playing at Jim's house, I usually have a bunch of fuzzy pictures of flapping ears, wagging tongues, or close-ups of eyeballs. Here's what Bonnie wrote about her pictured filly: "This filly is out of Pebbles, whom we all know is always in your face and if you try to take a pasture picture of her, you usually get a good shot of the inside of her nostrils! Her daughter is just like her, friendly, curious and wanting to be scratched or pet." The yet unnamed filly is Appendix bred (for those of you who do not know what that means that she is half Quarter Horse and half Thoroughbred). Since her father is Quillaries (Quilla) and her mother is Pays Miss April, Bonnie says she thinks that will go for the name of IT PAYS TO QUILL. What a crazy life I lead sometimes, as I was just telling DO while we were at the pool the other afternoon. Although I do make the time to have a bunch of fun (all that yard work, time at the pool, working for a couple of clients and at EAC); a lot of the fun gets balanced out by the sick times. Let's see. In the last couple of months I've had a small, but annoying, wart form in the outer part of my right ear (to be removed on the 26th). I've had several "attacks" when I've been eating. A common trigger seems to be bread. It's like the food gets stuck in a spot of my esophagus where the thrush was really bad years ago, and until I can barf it back up , it's a very nauseating, painful experience. Sometimes I recover quickly, and sometimes I don't. Like so many of the health problems I have, they seem to happen with a bit of randomness that makes life a little tough to plan. But then there's the herpes infection in the middle finger of my left hand (think of it like shingles in just one finger). It used to be a rare occurrence; however, in the last few months, it's begun to outbreak about every three weeks. When I see the doctor for blood results next week, I'm going to tell him that it's happening enough now that I want a med for it (Oh no! not another med! I've put off taking this med since the outbreaks have been rare, and you can build up resistance to the med fairly easily. I guess it's time to start taking it now. ) Let's not forget the barfing. Although it's not an everyday occurrence, it still happens a bunch. However, trying to find a bright side to that situation, at least I'm not losing weight. For some reason, most of the nausea seems to hit me first thing in the morning. Ain't nothing in my stomach at that time of day. Unfortunately those dry heaves can sure make you feel pretty lousy for several hours. But enough of all that for now, I will let you know what comes of any of those problems after the visit to the doc. Since I was feeling a little down from being "under the weather", I thought I'd perk things up by getting a summer haircut. But that didn't help much, when I saw that my hair is nearly all white after the last of the red dye was cut out. Luckily, I had planned ahead and purchased some hair dye after I got that haircut. This time no red though. I'm back to what used to be my original color - "Light Ash Blonde". (And the answer is "yes to all". I also dye my eyebrows, moustache, goatee, and all that white hair that's on my chest these days. ) NOW, I look AND feel much better. DO and Cliff have quite a collection of flowers blooming alongside their house this Spring. From begonias and a giant sunflower in the front bed, to several rose bushes and a large patch of tiger lilies, ending in tiny purple irises wrapping around the back deck. DO and Cliff had waited so long to plant their pansies that I was really afraid they were a lost cause. However, as you can see from a picture just over a week ago to a current picture, a little bit of watering and rain has really brought them back from the dead. With a flower bed on the right side of the front porch, DO uses the bed on the left side to grow tomato plants. I know they aren't the prettiest plants for a front flower bed; but that bed gets the best light and rain and I sure do love all those BLT's DO will be making for me when the plants start producing. Click the picture on the right to watch DO's pinwheel twirling in the "breeze". We had some pretty wild weather the last two days. All day yesterday, the weather guys kept telling us that the showers would stop, the sun would come out and it would get into the mid 80's. However, it stayed rainy and chilly in the low 60's until the evening, when suddenly the sun peeked out for about an hour before setting. Unfortunately that was just enough time for the temp to rocket up to the low 80's triggering severe thunderstorms during the rest of the night. The waves of storms that rolled through the area brought a ton of lightning. With a fan in my bedroom window, so much lightning illuminated the room that most of the night I thought I was in a dance club with the strobe lights turned up on fast. (I nearly always sleep with a fan blowing and the radio on low. That night I had a Pet Shop Boys CD playing, so maybe that helped with the dance club feeling. ) They predicted bad weather again the following day, but they were nearly as wrong as they were several days ago when I spent the whole day poolside. Most of the day was quite nice, although very hot and humid. Taking a trip to Jim's house for the day, Jim, myself, and Gabby got some relief from the heat by a dip in the pool, until one dark cloud began to loom over us. As we got out of the pool, we heard the first rumblings of thunder. We quickly closed up shop at Jim's house and headed back to my house, in case the storm was bad enough that  I might need to close some of my windows. Shortly after arriving back at my house, we began avidly watching the weather radar online, while running to the front porch occasionally to compare with the actual approaching storms. We alternated views as the storms met near town, began to split up and encircle the city. One layer of clouds moved north-west, with swirling vortices, moving around the city to clash with another front of clouds moving south-west. Below are pictures of twirling cloud masses from the west, east, and north beginning to drop from the skies. We saw these several funnel clouds form, and thankfully break apart , as the storms swept across the sky over my house. As the bulk of the storm moved from north west to south east, I mentioned to Jim that I truly believed that Canton was in the center of a severe storm, and I hoped that we were on the right side of the tornado that was forming. Just as I said that if began to hail, we needed to leave the porch and head to the basement, hail began to pelt the neighborhood! Within seconds the sky behind the front turned a sickly green - a SURE sign of tornado weather. The emergency sirens began to wail and suddenly torrential rain swept through the area. Wave after wave of rain came down harder than the previous. Eventually, visibility was limited to only about 5 house lengths down the street. Of course, we went inside and battened down the hatches, while the cable was knocked out, and the power flickered. Power and cable stayed out all over town for much of the night. Although my power stayed on, I didn't get my cable back until the next morning. There isn't much storm damage here on my side of town; but I'm waiting to hear how they fared over at Expert Auto and Tara back home, over in Massillon, which seemed to have been hit harder, on the west side of Canton. We were hoping to have Tara, Austin and Ella come over for some pool time while they were in town; but the forecast says we'll just be pushing 80 degrees this next week with rain and T-storms still included. I thought I would be ending this update with news from Tara after the pool, and perhaps even a possible visit of my Mom from NC. Instead , all of my latest news is about several storms rumbling through the neighborhood, and not all of them were weather-related. The night after the near-tornado weather, I was about to close up the house for the night, when I hear loud voices from outside. A large group of people were filling up the road outside my house, yelling, screaming and fighting. Cars. blowing their horns, tried to get through the crowd; but were forced to turn around and head the other direction. I called the police, as I made sure all the doors and windows were secure. Scroll to see the crowds! From my bedroom window upstairs, I took several pictures (and this dark video) of the 60 to 100 people milling around. After nearly 10 minutes, the police finally arrived, and en masse. About 10 cars came with lights, sirens, and bullhorns, dispersing the group of young people.

Week Four: The small wart that was in my ear has been removed and with no problems. WooHoo It only took the doctor a few moments to numb up my ear and then use his laser. (I could smell it burning just a little. Ick!) The minor surgery went well and my ear is healing quite nicely. Since it's been so stormy and rainy lately, there hasn't been any pool time, so I haven't had to worry about the water affecting my ear at all. All the heat and then all the rain that has moved through the area has really encouraged the hollyhocks to grow. Now they are really starting to bloom! Within just two days, they went from one bloom to all these! All the hollyhocks used to be maroon, until last year when many of turned pink or white. This year three or four stalks out front are coming up maroon again. The tiger lilies are really loving the sunshine that they get on the side of the house All the plants are enjoying the damp weather we've been having. As soon as we get some serious sun and heat going, I bet I'll be able to hear all the plants growing. In the backyard, the cosmos are just getting tall enough for their first blooms. Before summer is over, they will have doubled in height. Aries strolls past the cosmos The mint is really growing now. I swear that before the summer is through, I'm going to come up with some recipes that I can use this mint in. When I was a kid, Mom used to make mint jelly from the patch of mint planted in our backyard (beside the strawberries, that our dog was allergic too. ) The only thing I've been doing with this patch is to pull some out and run over it with the mower. Ahhh! It makes the whole yard smell "minty fresh". The morning glories have already started to bloom as they start their climb up the pole to the birdhouse. By the end of summer, there will be a huge mass of purple flowers in this corner of the yard. As we are about to approach the end of the month and a holiday weekend, I have some good news. Nope it's not plans for a vacation. Not yet. Although we usually do go to an amusement park over the Fourth of July holiday, we are postponing that trip for a few weeks, when we're hoping to go to Cedar Point with our friend Mike Poland. With all the storms and flooding that has gone on in Ohio this past month, I don't want to go anywhere near Lake Erie right now anyway. (Cedar Point is on a peninsula - a point - that juts out into Lake Erie from the city of Sandusky, in the upper left corner near Toledo.) The good news is from my doctor. Although my T-cells took a tiny dip again (from 217 to 184), the doctor was really happy to tell me that my Viral Load was back to undetectable again! He's so proud of my progress over the last couple of months that I've finally been given a reprieve. Instead of my next visit being in another month, I get to wait THREE whole months before my next appointment. WooHoo! I really like this doctor, but it's much nicer when I'm not so sick that me, Jim and the doctor don't have to worry about my situation so much as to track it so closely every month. July is just around the corner now, the weather is finally breaking, and the sun and heat are coming back, so it's back to enjoying Summer by the pool. (I finished reading "Two Little Girls in Blue" by Mary Higgins Clark during this past rainy week, so I didn't get as many books read this month as last month.)  Don't forget - next month is Jim's birthday party and we'll be celebrating big and having "Pooltag"! (Check out my first announcement (Jan. Week 2) of this event, if you don't know what Pooltag is. ) If you're in the neighborhood, make sure to come join in the fun. And if you're out of town, don't worry. I plan on mounting pool-cam higher up on the roof so you'll be able to watch the festivities via the web and , of course, there will be plenty of pictures afterwards. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

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