Everything Fred – Part 100

3 August 2023

I’m beginning to believe life is nothing but a series of comical errors. Holy Cross oncology verbally scheduled me for infusions for 9 weeks of Mondays starting August 21. I happened to have a blood draw and a doctor’s appointment with my endocrinologist for two of those Mondays. Of course, when I called to change the endocrinologist appointments, they were closed that day. To their credit, they did call me back and we rescheduled to Tuesdays in October.

Holy Cross later sent me a message via their app that August 21 and 28 infusions were correct but since September 4th was Labor Day, they shifted to the next day of the week, a Tuesday for the next seven infusions. Now I had to call the endocrinologist office back and change those Tuesday dates back to Mondays. In the end, instead of seeing my endocrinologist for a three month check up, it’ll be a four month check up.

I’m terrible at balancing bank statements. I can go for several months and get it to zero out but other months there’s some weird number that doesn’t fit anywhere that I have to do a reconcile entry. With everything going on in my life, I even forgot to download my bank statement for June and it was way off when I did tried to reconcile it. Then I downloaded the July statement today and I had forgotten to put in a $2200 debit. How I forgot that is anyone’s guess. After a lot of tinkering, and doing a reconcile, I finally got it to zero out.

This problem with bank statements is not recent. It goes back to the time I had my first checking account. One year when I was teaching at Itawamba Junior College in Fulton, I actually went in and had one of the VP’s at my bank work with me on balancing the statement. It was never off very much – a few dollars here and there but it never balanced – ever – and I taught there five years. Later, I heard one of the other VP’s left the bank under a cloud. Hmmmm!

After bulk trash pickup yesterday, there was a mess of small debris in the front. It used to be that when they picked up bulk trash, an extra person on the truck would rake up the small stuff and you couldn’t tell anything had been there for pickup. Apparently budget cuts stopped that and now we have to rake our own swales (which belong to the city). I combined the swale rake up with my weekly raking of mango leaves on the side of the yard. A lot of people just leave the stuff on the swale and let the lawn service mow it to smithereens but I can’t stand the look.

I made use of Holley’s gift of Dawn Platinum. I’m still seeping blood at night, even with a bandaid and a tee shirt. I don’t mind a bloody tee shirt but somehow the blood got on the top sheet this time. The Dawn Platinum and cold water works pretty well. I look forward to the day I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I also look forward to the day I don’t do daily washes.

I’m still swollen above my breast and in the arm pit and both are sore to the touch. Tomorrow I’ll find out more with my appointment with Dr. Burgers. If the current conditions continue, I’ll argue for her to put me under again and clean out the congealed stuff. To add insult to injury, I had several bouts of diarrhea again last night, even with taking Lomotil.

We seem to be in a pattern of hot, humid mornings, heat advisories during the afternoon followed by electrical storms and rain towards the evening. Yesterday’s electrical storm had me worrying about some of the other palm trees in my yard but they seem to have escaped unscathed.

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Wikipedia reports this a native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean but also found throughout the neo-tropics. Here in South Florida, it’s usually used as a ground cover and it takes to the task very well. You might guess from the flower that it’s a member of the aster family (Asteraceae or Compositae) and you’d be correct.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) says it is on their list of 100 worst invasive species since so many people plant it as a ground cover. I think that’s the way it goes. An attractive, functional plant takes over from native species. Getting ground cover to grow anywhere is often difficult and this particular one likes the sun, something which we have plenty in South Florida. Personally, I think the ground cover peanut is a better choice but this plant has been around a long time in Florida. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) tells people to not plant this – it outcompetes native species.

The aster family is the second largest family of plants on earth, second only to the orchid family. Wikipedia suggests there are 1900 genera and 32,000 species in the family.

It’s such a large family and it is constantly undergoing revision by taxonomists that it’s difficult to keep track of genera and species changes. For example, when I was doing graduate work, the genus Aster was probably had the largest number of species in the family. Today, in the U.S. there is only one species of Aster. They were all placed in other genera.

During my travels, I managed to photograph 82 genera and 152 species of Asteraceae. I’ll admit, when I normally see a member of this family, I run the other way with my camera. I can often identify a member of this family to the genus but identifying to species is pretty impossible through photographs alone. You really need to collect both flower and seeds and dissect them with a dissection scope to make any significant determination of species. A dissection scope is a little difficult to carry on a hike.

Stay tuned!