Everything Fred – Part 85

7 July 2023

It’s mango leaf drop time. Seasons are a little confusing in subtropical south Florida. A lot of tropical trees like the mango shed their leaves either in spring or summer. It’s high season for leaf drop in mangoes.

This is less than a week of leaf drop on the west side of m house.

Leaf drop will go on like this for another week or two. New leaves begin to replace the fallen almost immediately. Sometime in late February or early March, flower buds appear (and drop off) and May and June are the height of mango harvest on this particular tree. Some mangoes in the neighborhood are just now getting ripe. By July, all the mangoes on my tree have fallen. I don’t miss the thumps in the night as they hit the ground, the garbage cans, or the awning over the back patio. Nor the iguanas feeding on them.

Mangoes are messy trees for three times a year but the taste of fresh mangoes is worth the mess.

Friday is clean the pool filter day and check pool chemicals. I actually felt up to it today. Add in the raking of sweeping and then killing weeds and grass on the patio and front walk, it was a productive morning. All was accomplished before the heat warning took effect at 11 am.

I had two prescriptions to pick up at Walgreens: Flomax and Lomotil. I like this particular Walgreens on SR 84. There was only one person in front of me at the pick up window. The clerk was courteous, spoke clearly and enunciated well, and everything was handled with alacrity. I also picked up two boxes of Imodium AD (Walgreen’s brand) and paid up front with the cashier who did exactly the same at the pharmacy rep. What a difference from the madhouse at CVS on Davie Blvd. near me.

I was also looking for lime GatorAde. They didn’t have the size I wanted so I stopped at Winn-Dixie on SR84 before returning home. Still didn’t have exactly what I wanted but I did pick up some acceptable size bottles. I also did my Sunday shopping and picked up some fruit and some munchies. Since that first chemo, I have learned to eat what I can when I can and cholesterol and sugar be damned. I’m still losing weight, so I figure eat what tastes good right now. Still won’t go back to regular toothpaste. The last attempt was a disaster in my mouth. Baking soda it is until the foreseeable future.

One thing I picked up at Winn-Dixie was a gallon (the size of the container makes me think it’s much less than a gallon) of peaches and cream ice cream. I guess the peaches I bought the other day and talking about peach ice cream was too much. I’m sure it isn’t anything like the home made version, but it seems appropriate for summer time.

Today makes the second day in a row we’ve had thunderstorms with heavy lightning but no rain. Both times it has come from the south and it sounds like it’s going to overwhelm us but then stops just short. It reminds me of the time I lived just east of US1 in Hollywood and the rain from the west stopped on the middle of the line of US1. West of the middle of the line was wet and east of the middle of the line was dry.

Tomorrow is wash day and clean house. Might as well get this done because I won’t be doing much of that after the surgery.

Stay tuned!