Too Late to Call It the Antepenultimate Day

Today is the last day I'm only 55 years old. Tomorrow I'll still be 55, I'll just be 55 + 1. If I had thought of this a few days ago I could have posted that it was the antepenultimate day before I turned 56, but I snoozed, I lost. I love the word "antepenultimate". It means the next to the next to the last. Last = ultimate, next to the last = penultimate. I learned the word my freshman year of high school when I got the chicken pox and spent a lot of time laid up in bed reading the Penrod books by Booth Tarkington. I've never read the Magnificent Ambersons--also written by Tarkington--and he won a Pulitzer for it. That might be a good read for this summer.

I celebrated the last of my 50 hump year by doing not much. Oh I planned to do a bunch of stuff with the bees, and I planned to put the last plants (vines and a couple of shrubs) where I would like them planted so Devon can get them in. I also planned to make appointments to have both the cars serviced before Montana. Well I didn't get those appointments made, but I did get an appointment for a mani/pedi today and a mini spa day tomorrow. A girl's got to have her priorities and I plan to ride into the last half of my fifties with style and well-sanded, well-oiled skin from head to toe. I think they're even going to use some hot stones on me tomorrow!

Of course before I get the whole pampering thing done I do have to see to the bees. I have my plan of attack all set out: First I'll slip the paper into the bottom of the hives and then I'll dust all the little critters with powdered sugar. I'll collect the powdered sugar on the paper and then pour it into an empty plastic frit jar--I have one jar for each hive. Then I'll put the new brood boxes on two of the hives with the feeders (filled today) in them. For the nasty hive that already has the second brood box on, I'll just take out two of the frames in the top box and put in the feeder. The hybrid hive will get a closed-top ladder deep division feeder, and the TopBar won't get anything at all. As soon as I'm done feeding and putting on new brood boxes, I'll slip off my very hot bee suit and take the jars of powdered sugar into the house to do my mite count in cool air-conditioned comfort. There is no way in hell I'm going to swelter out in the sun in my full bee suit trying to count little black specs with wavy legs. That's how you tell a varroa mite from a regular black spec: When you poke a mite it waves its legs around. When you poke a spec it just sits there because, hey, no legs! I have to get this all done by 9:20 am so I can take a shower and hit the road by 9:30 to be at the Spa by 10:00.

For my spa treat (I am using the gift card Dave and Jessie got me last year for Mother's Day), I'm taking a bottle of champagne. I won't finish it, but I have a time where I need to sit and wait between services as they couldn't get them all in one after the other. But I don't care. I'll sit in their comfy lounging area in a fluffly white spa robe reading my book and drinking champagne. Then tomorrow night, The Mummy! I just wish Jessie were home to share the day.