Saturday, March 6, 2010

Calling St. Bernard!

We’ve been battling the toughest little opponent we’ve ever faced around my household—fleas! It’s weird, because we have only one cat—George (named after George Gershwin)—and we are 100% sure he is “flea-free”. It started about 6 weeks ago, when Alicia found bites appearing on Lily. Of course, then it became a five-alarm fire!

Marilyn bought some over-the-counter foggers and set them off for a few hours. Alicia, Lorenzo and Lily had something to do, so it kept them out of the house for most of the day. Marilyn, I think, went to her mother’s house to help her out with something. I went to work. When I came home in the early afternoon, Marilyn was already there wiping things down and opening the doors and windows to clear the air before Lily came back. Problem solved. NOT! Lily continued to be bitten by the little pests. We checked George again, and still found no fleas on him.

Marilyn went to the pet store and got a different brand of fogger and repeated the process one week after the first. This was the day of Lorenzo’s baptism. After getting Mom home, I went home and did the whole “clear the air, wipe everything down” thing. The family stayed at the cabin that night. Mission Accomplished! NOT! The very next day, Alicia again found fleas on Lily!

OK, this was getting serious. Marilyn went to the pet store again and got some sort of powder that is put into the carpets so that there is a good penetration of the poison. Remember, after all 3 of these treatments we had to be careful not to let Lily play around on the floor because God forbid if she should get poisoned, too! Those of you with small children realize how hard it is to keep a one-year-old off of the floor!

This last treatment worked! NOT! OK, so it only worked for about 3 weeks. Yesterday, Alicia found another flea on Lily when she changed her diaper! We don’t know if it’s a “rouge” flea or some new infestation, but today we did it all again with an even stronger spray. If it doesn’t work this time, I guess we’ll invest the money to get a professional in here and “tent” the house for a couple of days. That will be interesting. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I wonder—Is there a patron saint for getting rid of fleas? Maybe St. Bernard?

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"I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it.

I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor:
the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy, and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy.

Many souls ... are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions nor storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul.

If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain My mercy on the day of judgment. Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasure for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall My judgment with their mercy".