Getting your hand-knotted Asian rugs cleaned can be a bit spendy, but it’s well worth both the price and the effort involved in extracting them from the house and hauling them to the cleaners’ workshop. If the dog has eaten the fringe, as some dogs will do, a good cleaner will also provide repair services.

I just love the glow of the red Bokhara on my bedroom floor. I’m told they’re out of fashion since minimalism is the thing these days, but I don’t freakin’ care!

Steve, I can heartily recommend probiotic capsules for your poor innards. After decades of bronchitis and pneumonia at stonking big doses of antibiotics per bout, I had major grief from my guts that just up and went away when I started using probiotics on the advice of the gastroenterologist who did my last colonoscopy. I hope you’re soon back on form.