Jury Duty

Janet remains in India- enjoying the warm weather and lack of too much snow and longer days. She went to Jaipur and Udaipur recently. Meanwhile it has continued to snow in New York. At our house we are close to about 6 feet of snow for the season. We did get a little melting last Sunday after some additional snow on Saturday.
One of the concerns with a lot of snow and cold weather is that snow on the roof melts and runs down the roof to the gutter where it freezes again due to lack of heat from the roof. The ice can build up and work its way under the shingles where it can then get into the house and damage walls and ceilings. We have a lot of ice in our gutters and Jim spent several hours standing on a ladder to chip some of it away, though much was back just a week later, so it is still a concern.
This week Jim got a summons for jury duty. Here that means calling a phone number to get a message on whether or not you need to report each day. The first 3 days they only had about half the people report, so it seems likely he would not have to report, but on Wed. the message said to report on Thurs. So, Jim reported and waited around a lot and filled out forms. Finally they started questioning potential jurors. In the first few minutes they said that if you knew the people involved then you could not serve. However, they could not excuse such people until they questioned them. Of course, Jim knew the defendants, but the attorneys did not get around to questioning Jim until 5 hours later. A number of people were in the same position, but had to sit a listen and wait for hours only to be dismissed! What a waste of time!
Even though we left India more than 3 months ago, it almost seems like a dream that we were away and were there. The time went so fast!

The Little Man Arrives

On Friday Jan. 7 our sea shipment arrived during a snowstorm. The movers arrived a little later than we thought they would have done and it was snowing some by then. We decided not to have anything put in the basement, but the snow made that difficult anyway. So, everything had to go in the attic or garage- with some things going directly into places around the house. One thing we placed in the living room is the statue of standing Buddha which, Renuka, in India, referred to as "the little man". He stands in a corner of our living room here, while he stood near the center in Bangalore. We also have the stone Buddha head we got in Mahabilpuram placed on his stand in the sunroom. Most things are in boxes where they are likely to remain for awhile.
It snowed about 3 inches while the movers where here and they managed to get away without any difficulty. they only had to unpack about 20 percent of what we shipped, since we have to decide where other things go. It snowed about 5 more inches after they left.
On Wed. the 11th we got about 12 inches of new snow, so that is the 3rd large snowstorm of the season.
On Thursday the 13th Janet left to go back to Bangalore and India for a visit. She arrived safely and apparently had an uneventful flight and reports the weather is just fine!
Zoe seems to have recovered from her treatments and is behaving quite normally.

The Blizzard of 2010

On Sunday afternoon Dec 26 heavy snow started to fall with strong winds as well. that combination can be called a blizzard if the winds are strong enough. In some areas the winds probably were that strong. We ended up with about 18 inches of snow at our house. New York City got about 20 inches. This year we are paying someone to plow our driveway instead of Jim doing it. The plow guy came through once during the night and then again in late morning on the 27th after the snow stopped falling. We have a snowblower, so that allowed Jim to clear our sidewalks and front of the garage in a bit more than an hour along with some old fashioned shoveling. It was cold, but not too bad. It was difficult to tell how much snow we had because the wind blew so much around. In some large areas we had 3.5 feet piled in drifts while other areas were around 8 inches. However the neighboring town reported 17 inches and we usually get a little bit more. Our electricity stayed on the entire storm, but our cable connection was out for about 16 hours.
On Tuesday the 28th the roads were pretty clear and Jim drove to Cape Cod with Ziggy and Zoe going along. They are never too happy about making such trips, but after the trip from Bangalore to NY, they are seasoned travelers now!
The Eastern parts of Cape Cod did not get much snow- because it stands further out into the warmer ocean water, that area often gets rain instead of snow.
This was the first time Jim, Ziggy and Zoe have been to the cape since early Oct. 2008!
Just like our main home the one on the Cape needs some attention as well.

Zoe and snowy

Zoe is behaving more like her old self each day, so we think she'll be ok.
The temperatures in New York have been colder than what we think of as normal and certainly much colder than Bangalore! The low temperatures here have been around 15F at night while Bangalore has been about 58F. We had between 3 and 4 inches of snow earlier this week and it looks like it will stay around awhile since the temperatures have been low. We may get a little more in the next day or so.
We are expecting our sea shipment from India to arrive this week, which is unfortunate in one way because the snow on the ground may make it impossible to safely put some items in our basement. However, it should be a lot like Christmas to receive all the things we lived with in Bangalore again.

Thyroids and flurries

Zoe was released from her prison on Friday and came back home. Generally she seems OK, but is a little subdued compared to her usual self. This could be a natural result of the thyroid function reduction plus the stress she has endured. We will learn more about her situation over coming weeks.
On Saturday, Dec. 4 the Town of Rhinebeck, NY had it annual "Sinterklaus" parade and celebration. For a small town this drew quite a large crowd of onlookers who generally enjoyed to show. The parade was led by "Santa Claus" riding on a horse and followed by many puppets and people in costume. It was a fun thing to see for the half hour or so, but it was pretty cold out there too! Rhinebeck was settled by people from northern Europe in what is now Germany or The Netherlands and this celebration is supposed to resemble those from northern Europe.
Tonight (the 5th) we have had a slight accumulation of snow flurries- the first accumulation of the season though it is slight.

Thyroid issues

About 2 weeks ago Zoe was showing signs of a respiratory illness so Janet took her to the vet who did some tests. The forst result said that she might have FELV which is normally only transmitted from cat to cat, so we thought this very difficult to explain. However a second test was negative for that, but her thyroid function test was very high which could also explain her symptoms as well as some others that we had not taken too seriously- like occaissional vomitting. The treatments for high thyroid in cats are not very many. Our cat, Cary, who died at age 18 in 2004 was diagnosed as high thyroid at age 11 and we gave him daily doses of medication to keep it under control, but his was not a very bad case. It was difficult to always give his medication. Most cat owners know how hard it is to give pills. We found a vet and pharmact that would give the medication in a sort of paste that could be rubbed in his ear and then the medication was absorbed through his skin. It seemed to work pretty well, but was tedious.
Another alternative that was starting the gain favor back when Cary was diagnosed was radiation treatment- very much like in humans. We were a little wary of that at the time.
In Zoe's case, the thyroid function values is very high- indicating a more serious problem than Cary had so we decided to have the radiation treatment. She went to a vet on Tuesday the 22nd of Nov. to have a screening test done and then injection of radioactive iodine. She has to stay at the vet for at least a week until the radiation levels come down and then we have to keep her at a little distance for another 2 weeks or so after she comes home.
The vet has webcams set up so the owners can watch the cats from home and we have checked on here many times over the past 2 days. We are sure that she feels quite anxious being in a strange place without her family around, but hope that tshe will be much better for the long term after her treatment.

Sleet! ....and Snow!

We were not too happy to return to New York late in the year due to the colder weather and shorter days, but we have managed. However, today, we have gotten some sleet and a little snow! This is a little early in the season to get this, though the years are highly variable in this respect. It was pleasant to see a little snow- something we came to miss- just a little- in Bangalore. Having just a little is ok.