Rich got one of what he hopes will be a series of hose timers the other day. So far, all efforts to program the thing have been totally doomed. It's as complex as a VCR, apparently. (I usually can manage mine, but had not reprogrammed after "The Century" so didn't get NBC's Thursday lineup last night. Fortunately, it's all repeats. This is a separate rant. Why can't they have some quality programming when it ISn't sweeps? Surely people will watch a show if it's consistently good, not just every quarter when they suddenly try to make it watchable?)

Back to the Great Outdoors. All the indoor plants, as well as the over-wintering plants, are now outside. I lost some of the bromeliads and the air plants. The frost-bitten spider plant is coming back nicely. These are all on the porch, and with the temperature flirting with 90 yesterday, the mister seemed like a good idea. Rich is trying to learn to use the water-timer, so he wanted it on between 1 and 5. It came on about 2. It was still going last night at 11.

I went out to enjoy the sunshine but had to sit away from the porch, which was quite chilly. I only lasted about 15 minutes anyway, due to the pollen. It's almost not worth it, when you have to come in and sneeze for half an hour.

I didn't start out allergic. I suppose the fact that nothing grows in Wyoming might have something to do with this! (Actually, there are lots of flowers and things, but it's nice and dry.) I only had some reaction to feathers till we got to California. In Novato, one of my neighbors had raccoon eyes in the spring, and I felt moderately smug. Well, Sacramento is knocking me down a peg! April is just miserable. I'm the sole support of Kimberly-Clark. Much of it is the fruitless mulberry. We have one of these, but there's no point in taking it out, so has everyone else. Achoo!

Rich manually turned the mister off last night. The porch is still damp this morning. I hope we get it sorted out before Bernadette's graduation, so we don't have to count on the neighbors to water.

Bernadette is (suddenly) working on her Honors Thesis, so is incommunicado. Naturally, now I have so many things to tell her. One of her grade school friends, for instance, is touring the country in Brigadoon and they're going to be in Spokane. (Oh, well, what's an Honors Thesis, anyway?) Also, I'm packing up her Scout uniform to sell and I want to check on various pieces. The man is offering good prices.

I hope Rich masters this thing in the next couple of days. Otherwise, instead of having the plants die of no water, the plants and the house will rot away.