THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Earlier this week Heidi started to get a bit more friendly.  She stayed with Ann on the bed for a few minutes several nights.

 

Then yesterday she let us watch her while she ate. She prefers the dry food it seems.

 

She also allows Ann to pet her while they are both on the family room couch.

 

She doesn't allow me to pet her yet.  She still hides a lot.

 

There are dozens of streets near us with cherry blossoms on both sides of the streets.

We went for a drive today to see some of them.

And there will be more because the late blooming cherry blossom trees aren't even in late budding stage yet.

 

Took this  today. I like the way the cherry blossoms soften and focus the man made structures.

I used to use this bus shelter a lot when I commuted to DC.  It is next to the White Flint metro-rail station.

The bus from there to Montgomery Mall went by my house.  Back then the cherry blossom trees in back of the shelter weren't as high as they are now.

The trees provide morning shade but as this is on the east side of Rockville Pike the summer afternoon sun gets pretty hot inside and outside the shelter.

I have no idea what the ladder was doing that day.

 

 

There is an abundance of cherry blossom trees in the DC area.

There is also an abundance of white pear blossom trees.

 

This image looks west from the end of our driveway. 

The trees are probably close to 30 feet tall which is near the top of the range (a website I looked at said 50' was absolute top).

 

Some early blooming spring plants are showing color.

 

First image are some daffodils.

 

Second image are some

hyacinths, some purple some white.

 

 

 

 

We also have daffodils in other colors and hyacinths in other colors around the yard but not in prolific numbers yet.

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We brought home a new cat March 6.

She is a 5 year old grey and white tabby. As we were examining her she seemed very friendly and nuzzled me while I was scratching her ear. Also she didn't put up a struggle when we got her into the cat carrier and didn't cry on the way home. So it seemed everything was going to work out.

The image is at the adoption center that Last Chance Rescue has at Pet Smart.

When we got home she waited about a minute before exiting the carrier (after we opened it).

She hung around for a few seconds and then went into hiding.

I put out some wet cat food, which has an oder and then some some treats with melatonin so she will calm down, then got some calming spray (2nd image).

 

She is still in hiding now, March 19, and she does eat some as we can see the food disappearing a bit. She also uses her litter box a bit. 

However we almost never see her or hear her. Maybe we should rename her Stealthy or Heidi.

 

Ann had some chest pains this week. After consulting with our internal medicine group
she went to Suburban Hospital early on March 17. 

By coincidence her cardiac doctor was there that day (she saw him in 2011 and has been seeing him since for annual tests). After some tests, they determined she had heart flutter., a.k.a., Atrial Flutter (image one).  

She started on eliquis which is fairly new (approved in 2012). It has many advantages over coumadine (the oldest blood thinner) and also advantages over other thinners approved in the 1990-2010 period.

She also got, on 3-18 a beta blocker (image 2), metoprolol, which blocks some of the adrenaline from influencing the heart tissue (this is a drug with several decades of use). She also got a diuretic.

She is to self monitor and if the problem persists, they will electroshock the heart. Notwithstanding this, the prognosis is good.

 

 

 

Her room was in the area of the hospital that was recently a major center of treatment of Covid19. Evidently somebody thought they did well because the plaque above was on the wall of the corridor (image 3). 

She returned home late on 19 March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

On March 11 we had temperatures in the low 60s and even at midnight the temperature was in the mid 40s.

However, by about 7am, it was snowing. 

The first image is from

Brookside Garden in Wheaton and posted on the Capital Weather Gang site.

We have some small cherry blossom trees on our street that are early bloomers and they had snow on them until the wind got strong but in any event it was on Sabbath when I don't take pictures. In any event, the one in the image is bigger and far more impressive.

The second image was taken in Arlington, also posted on capital weather.

 

The third image is of small statuary in our yard with snow on it.

 

On March 13 we bottomed out in the teens (above zero) at our house which will be, I'm pretty sure, the coldest mid March day we've had in several years.

 

I think National Airport did not get below 20F.

 

I received a jury summons in the mail.  I dislike being in a jury pool as it eats up time and is boring as well. 

 I've been in a jury pool about 3 or 4 times but always was excused from being in the sitting jury.

 Some people like being in a jury. I remember my father wanted to be on a jury for some reason.

 

Anyway, if you are over 70 in Maryland you can request being made temporarily or permanently excused from jury duty.  Not only that, it can be done on line.  I presume the request is always granted but we will see.

In the mail 7 March was approval of my request for being excused.

 We have several varieties of crocuses in the yard.

There are some yellow ones and some blue ones (which are not out yet) and these pink ones which obviously are.

 

Years ago I planted the bulbs all over the yard. In some places they grow, in some, they don't.

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 It should have taken about one hour but took two hours.

Some of the problem was that the computers weren't working at the start of the donation day.  

 

Then there were items missing at the administrative/medical metrics interview.

 

Anyway, metrics were: BP=  117/79, Pulse=72,  hg=13.3 The latter (iron in blood) was just over the minimum allowable  (13.0).  It is the lowest I can remember, the previous values for the previous four donations were over 15.0.