the pretty and the ugly

The big surprise from yesterday…my pink cranium lilies are blooming. They didn’t bloom last year so I moved them to the end of the flower bed after I dug up the root ball of the dead confederate rose. I didn’t think they were going to bloom this year wither since when they have bloomed it was in May, hence the surprise.

I heard a tapping on my window and when I looked up a titmouse was clinging to the window frame looking in. I glanced over at the bird feeder which was empty to see another titmouse waiting there patiently. Ok, ok. I got up and filled the bird feeder.

The plumerias are blooming, some of them. My two biggest ones froze because they were just too big to bring in (one planted in the ground and the other the pot sunk in the ground). I have four more big ones that really need bigger pots which I don’t have. They’ll be getting cut back severely this fall. Of those four two are (supposed to be) light pink with a yellow throat that I acquired the original from a guy we knew who had died decades ago, victim of the AIDS epidemic, but the flowers are so pale on one of them this year as to be almost white;

one darker pink with a yellow throat which has come from cutting after cutting after cutting of one my father had;

and the other white bridal bouquet plumeria with the spade shaped leaves which is not blooming yet. I have three small ones that are not big enough to bloom: a cutting from a yellow one my niece has, another of the darker pink from my father’s parent plant, and one Pam grew from seed that came off one of my light pink ones that had been fertilized (we think) by the small white flowers of the bridal bouquet, a bigger one of those is blooming, white with a yellow throat, the flowers are small, 2” across.

I finally sat down yesterday and started painting the leaves for the shadow box starting with a pale yellow base color. I started with the green on one and already I’m going to have to do this one over. I’ll work out the colors and process on this one. The two samples I did previously were with the cheap Prang watercolors which act differently than the professional ones.

Lots of work to be done outside now that it’s stopped raining but it’s just so damn hot out. I did get the dew berry brambles cut out of all but the flower bed in front and all the sprouted pecan and hackberry trees and that was enough for yesterday.

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Alright, here comes the ugly part, the continued assault on our country and freedoms that you may have missed with all eyes on the reflection pond debacle and you can skip it if you want. All names have been changed (or left out if I couldn’t come up with a suitable nickname) to protect me.

Kegsgreth’s white christian nationalist vision for the military, all male because women should not be giving men orders, can aptly be described thusly: “Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.” So he’s remaking the military into a Crusade military. And because he thinks vaccinations are for wimps, not strong military men, he deep sided the flu vaccine requirement and over two hundred new recruits promptly got the flu and disrupted their training. A week later he grudgingly reinstated the flu vaccine requirement.

Nazi Nosferatu Miller is saying out loud and in public that disabled Americans need to be locked away in an institution. This is not about economics since it costs about 3 times more to institutionalize someone than it does to provide the aid that allows them to live in their own homes. This is only about getting ‘defective’ people out of sight, out of society. I imagine it won’t be long before he advocates for just putting them down like you would a rabid animal. He has also declared our national borders closed since the Supreme Court has ruled that this administration can deny asylum seekers entry while waiting for their appeal to be heard. All those desperate mothers with their children are all liars, he says, only wanting free stuff. Never mind that they wouldn’t be eligible for any of that ‘free’ stuff. Then he claimed that the nation that was built on and exists because of immigration has no future if we don’t end birthright citizenship, and by that he means not white.  

Lest you think some Republicans are finally remembering they have a spine and passed the War Powers Resolution to limit Petulant Grievance Baby’s ability to wage unsanctioned war, after meeting with PGB after the vote, the Republican Senate reversed the vote and defeated it. Of course they did.

Even when this republican congress actually does something right like passing the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act which addresses housing affordability, Trump refuses to sign it because “nobody gives a (expletive) about housing”, or rather he refuses until congress passes his voter suppression SAVE America act. Regardless, it will become law anyway in ten days as long as Congress is still in session. We can expect Supreme Butt Kisser Johnson to send everyone home any day now.

So of course the far right Freedom Caucus in the House said if PGB isn’t going to sign passed legislation there was no reason to debate anymore and voted against procedural measures that allows the House to conduct business and so SBK sent everyone home Thursday. Did I call that or what?

And now Texas has required all public school teachers to use christian bible readings in their lessons and all the christian nationalists are going fuck yeah, now our students will get some morality and all the behavior problems will disappear. Rest assured it won’t be the ones where Jesus tells you to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, welcome the stranger because that’s just communist. The Texas Lt. Gov. stood up and said with a straight face, in order to justify the legality of imposing christian scripture in public schools, that “Separation of church and state is not in the Constitution”.

The Supreme Court just ruled that protected immigrant legal status for Haitians and Syrians is illegal and these people can be deported. Guess who voted in favor of getting rid of their protected status? The newest female Justice who adopted two Haitian children.

That’s about all I can stomach for today.

rain (big surprise, not), a surprise visit, and local weirdness

Did I say the sun came out and it stopped raining Wednesday afternoon? Silly me. Well, it didn’t rain but by Friday 5ish it had completely clouded over and was thundering in the distance.

Saturday dawned, you guessed it, overcast. The little backyard needed mowing and the rest of the yard needed trimming, something I had not done so far this spring/summer so I decided to take advantage of the overcast and therefore cooler temps and get both tasks done. So, bandana tied around my forehead (because menopause totally flipped my internal temperature and now sweat rolls off me whereas before I only ‘glistened’ with perspiration), work in the yard clothes on, and doused with mosquito repellant (legs, arms, clothes, hat) I got both tasks done. The sky had been steadily darkening and by the time I cooled off enough to take a shower it had started raining. Again. And then it rained again sometime during the night. Ask me how I know. A little neurotic dog told me. But no rain Sunday, no rain Monday and so far no rain today. Forecast says we should have an unprecedented (lately) six days in a row with no rain. Regardless, the big black mosquitoes are back having given way to teeny tiny ones for about a week. It’s not enough that they attack you the instant you step outside, they follow you in hitchhiking on your clothes and continue to attack you in the house. I just came in from picking green beans with blood streaks down both arms and legs.

Enough about the rain.

Before I got the yard work done Saturday, Mikey came over with Paisleigh and Harrison. The kids have been in Arkansas for the last four weeks with their mom and Mikey went to get them getting back Friday evening. He brought them over for a quick visit before taking them to see Robin and then home. Sunday I went across the street to fetch Paisleigh to walk the dog in the early evening, this has become something we do several times a week, and then back to my house until Mikey was ready to head home. She wanted to paint a picture for her daddy and we got the paints out but he arrived to fetch her back before she really got started good. 

I pass this enclosure on my way to the grocery store. Looks ominous, right?

First they graded the land, then they erected a knee high steel bar barrier around the perimeter, then the light poles went up, then a chain link fence topped with barbed wire was built outside the steel bar barrier, and then they covered the fence with this black material, not sure when they put what looks like a container in there. Every time I passed it I wondered what the hell is that place? They finally put up a sign, Allied Recovery Services. I looked it up, it’s a repo outfit, vehicles and other property, so I guess this is where they stash the stuff before getting it to its proper owners.

And from the Department of Weird Food, I came across this Sunday when I had to go to the Evil Empire for something I can only get there unless I want to order from the other Evil Empire or drive to Shopping Mecca.

There was a huge display, many flavors of this Korean drink, also 'modern' noodles all on sale for $1 each. 

Apparently it did not appeal to the American consumer.

Saturday’s sunset (don’t let it fool you, it rained Saturday night).

flowers, rain, tomatoes

One last daylily and I think I’ve now shown you all the different varieties in my yard (although this last one is behind Pam’s old house so not in my yard…yet. I plan to move it).

And one last pink angel trumpet flower on the cutting I rooted but now the rangoon creeper is starting to bloom.

As usual, this post is written over several days.

Tuesday - It’s been raining for the last four days and it is raining today and will rain tomorrow. From last Saturday to Tuesday evening we got 4 1/4”. This on top of the weeks of rain we’ve already had. It was just sprinkling this morning when we got up so Minnie went out to do her business and came right back in. Cat has been pacing the room meowing at me. This is her way of telling me she wants out so I opened the back door, told her it was raining, she looked out, looked at me, backed up, and meowed. I know, but I can’t do anything about it I told her. Now I hear her in the litter box.

Last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we had intermittent showers. Monday heavy showers all day letting up now and then. The west side of the house, across the front, and the low spot in back all had standing water and the ditch was flowing about half full. 

I think this is the first day after all the weeks of rain that the ditches had water, that’s how dry it was but now the ground is truly saturated. The standing water around the house eventually soaked in and the ditch was empty this morning but sometime during the night another large dead branch fell from the water oak onto our internet cable line and dragged it to the ground. Fortunately it didn’t pull it loose so we’re still connected. Marc managed to lift it high enough by draping it over small shepherd's hook next to the water oak so we can get the car in and out.

Wednesday - You’re not going to believe this but it was raining when I got up this morning! Who’da thought? More like sprinkling but enough that neither the cat nor dog wanted to go outside. Now a few hours later, barely sprinkling but looking across the corn field it looks to be raining in earnest. 

Friday - A mysterious thing happened Wednesday afternoon, it cleared up and the sun started shining. Yay! Thursday afternoon, the sun is shining and it is brutally hot, boo. Already pining for the overcast that helped keep the temperatures down. I just can’t be pleased I guess. One thing this incessant rain has brought is the fire ants up to the surface, into the pots, into the house, and into my pants! Pulled on my capri leggings Wednesday morning that I’ve been wearing this week which were hanging on the elephant head hook in the corner above the chair that not clean but not dirty clothes get thrown on and felt a sting and then another sting and by the third sting I was shucking those leggings as fast as I could and there were ants in them. I literally had ants in my pants. They came up from an infinitesimal crack in the corner under the baseboard, up and across to the hook and into my pants. Why the fuck would they do that? I ended up with 7 bites. Also have had ants in the kitchen the past two days from a crack I had previously sealed.

A recent harvest of green beans and tomatoes. 

The green beans are still blooming. I’m getting a handful just about every day. I have 16 green tomatoes still on 3 plants and 18 either on the windowsill or in the fridge and we’re eating one or two every day. I’ll be making stewed tomatoes soon because we can’t eat them fast enough. I’ve lost 5 or 6 to splitting from all the rain

and one to some critter that took a couple of big bites out of one almost ripe hanging low. Leaf footed stink bug nymphs have finally showed up on a couple of the green tomatoes. I’ve been amazed they haven’t shown up before but they are strongly attracted to corn and since the farmer planted corn at this end of the field I guess they’ve been over there. Stink bugs inject a fluid into tomatoes and suck up the juices. It doesn't make them inedible but it does create white hard spots in the tomato that are sour. A few of the plants are still blooming but now it’s hot enough they aren’t setting any more fruit so when these last 16 ripen that will be the end and now I have to keep a close eye on them. The nymphs and stink bugs are hard to kill because if you try and smush them or spray them with insecticidal soap they just drop to the ground so I try and slide a small shallow pan with rubbing alcohol in it under the tomato they are hanging out on without disturbing them and then poke at them so they fall into the alcohol. Then I follow that up with insecticidal soap on any stragglers. 

This is long enough so I’ll stop here.

cooking and listening to Bruce to save my sanity

Friday I made the second batch of tomato sauce, then made Ms Moon’s life sustaining cookies, and then made dinner…green beans I grew, corn I put up, and stuffed mushrooms the stuffing of which is finely chopped mushroom stems, finely chopped pecans, bread crumbs, grated parmesan, parsley, minced garlic, and enough melted butter to hold it all together and stuffed and mounded up in the mushroom caps and baked for 25 minutes at 400˚. It was a fine dinner. Cookie for dessert. The tomato sauce got bagged up and frozen on Saturday, 5 cups, 5 packages. I also made some savory roasted pecans. Sunday mornings Marc usually makes our brunch but this morning I made pancakes. I’m just on a roll in the kitchen.

I stopped into the new little indy bookstore here on Thursday to sign the petition against the building of the data center in Boling (tiny town less than 400 residents) 12 miles down FM 1301. Residents were against it but the powers that be allowed it anyway, land is bought. I know the petition and the anti-data center signs won’t stop it but it is essential that we voice our objections anyway. The peace and quiet and dark skies of tiny Boling are going to be destroyed. Their wells may run dry. Why does the US need so many data centers? We don’t but the rich can get richer so who the fuck cares. We don’t need AI, we need water and peace and dark skies at night. AI is the engine of our demise. As if we weren’t getting stupider enough with all the defunding of education and demonization of critical thinking. Why do your own research, write your own papers when AI will do it for you. How does that benefit humanity, what do you learn when you just prompt AI to do the work for you? The proprietor of the book store told me she just learned Barnes and Noble will stock AI written books provided they don’t plagiarize existing work. Seriously? Where do they think AI is going to get the ideas and info to ‘write’ a book if not from every book that’s been written by actual humans. I remember an old Star Trek episode where the people invented AI to run things which resulted in them devolving from capable intelligent people to being little more than adult children incapable of creative thought or actions. And now it’s happening. The other possible future is the more grim version from Terminator or I Robot. When all the jobs are gone because they are being done by AI, when all the decisions are made by an algorithm devoid of empathy and critical thinking, what then? 

So many in this country are already astoundingly stupid. The bookseller (she was on a tear) was also telling me about a young woman she knows who believes the earth is flat, the planets aren’t real, and that space doesn’t exist, that somehow all the images of such are created underwater. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that she doesn’t think space is real. What does she think the stars are? And this woman homeschools her kids. Humanity is fucking doomed. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Give the planet time to regenerate, ecosystems recover, let the other life forms flourish.

And that’s just one of the horrible things happening in this country. Now we have cage fights on the White House lawn so reminiscent of the gladiator days in Rome’s declining years. Keep the people entertained so they forget they’re starving. Not satisfied with defacing the South Lawn, the UFC fighters held a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial and (quoting Heather Cox Richardson) “The fighters walked from Lincoln’s statue down the steps of the memorial through the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon, a pathway formed between two groups made up of sixteen service members in dress uniforms. This is the U.S. military’s highest ceremonial formation, usually reserved for heads of state, foreign dignitaries, senior officials, and funerals for military heroes.” and then “This morning the weigh-in for the UFC fights at the White House also took place at the Lincoln Memorial. Heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit seemed to pretend to throw up, dribbling colored liquid from his mouth. “So what? Maybe I was drinking last night,” Hokit told the media there.“

Where is the fucking dignity? Is there not one single place or ceremony 47 hasn’t or won’t defile?

So this morning I’m distracting myself with Bruce Springsteen. One of the newsletters I get every day is 1440 at the bottom of which is a list of links to lots of interesting things. Today’s list included a link to some guy’s opinion of Bruce Springsteen’s 100 best songs. Give a listen to the ones with links.

Here’s another little piece of trivia. Did you know there’s a proper order of adjectives? Native English speakers say the adjectives in a specific order but I think people do it without giving it any thought, relying on what sounds ‘right’. I certainly don’t remember being taught that in all the years of English class. Anyway, here’s the pattern called DOSA-SCOMP; determiner, opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, and purpose. Example: My favorite big old square white French cotton gardening hat.

Well, that’s enough.

it's summertime and the livin' is...

hot, humid, and sweaty. It’s brutally hot out there, heat index over 100 so beyond going out and checking for green beans and tomatoes or pulling up the obvious crabgrass in the daylily bed or taking some pictures, I’m staying indoors. So instead i got sweaty vacuuming the entire house Wednesday because apparently I’m in no hurry to work on the shadow box project because I haven’t done anything since I transferred the drawings to watercolor paper. I keep thinking I need to walk around to the other street and take close up pictures of the leaves on the cottonwood tree there but Minnie has not turned that way lately when we go for our walks. She gets to decide if we turn left or right at the end of the driveway since these walks are primarily for her. 

I did finish the book I was reading. Yoga class Wednesday night, SHARE and yoga class yesterday. SHARE was another busy day coupled with it being a food delivery day from the regional food bank along with the stuff that arrives from Walmart, HEB, and the Dollar Store. More tomatoes so I got enough at the end of the day to make another batch of tomato sauce. It did finally slow down a bit after the first couple of hours. I even got to sit down for a while. We had three Es though (7 and up) which has never happened in all the years I’ve volunteered there, rarely two but usually just one and most weeks not even one.

The rest of this post is just going to be miscellaneous pictures because I have nothing else of interest to report.

Here’s how the tomato sauce went: after roasting, after blending, after containing, about 4 1/2 cups in all.

Minnie laying next to me in bed the other night.

The red crinum lilies are blooming. These were in the yard of the city house when I bought it 50 years ago. When we sold the house I dug up every one and brought them out here.

More green beans. They bloomed and produced and my neighbor pulled up all his when he had picked all they produced. I meant to pull mine up but never got around to it and they started blooming and producing again. I'm getting a good handful about every other day.

Another day lily.

The bees were swarming this magnolia bloom. It looked like they were pulling the stamens off one at a time.

I have more but this is long enough.

the rain in Spain

may stay mainly on the plain but the rain on the Gulf Coast Plains doesn’t know when enough is enough. Small showers off and on all day Friday and yesterday as well. This on top of the weeks of rain we’ve already had (and more predicted for today and tomorrow). You know, I hate to moan about the rain because the alternative, apparently, is drought, but the ground is pretty saturated and puddles are everywhere. I have to admit all the green stuff loves it, everything is looking lush even though it’s a little steamy out there. I was going to add that at least there’s no thunder and lightning, the little dog can tolerate quiet rain. She doesn’t like it but she doesn’t go into full panic mode.

I finally called for an appointment to get my hair cut. I loved my long hair when I was young but it had more body then and didn’t look so limp and lank so after letting my hair grow again, not from intent so much as laziness, and putting it up in a bun or ponytail every day as soon as it was long enough to do so and since it had gotten slightly longer than shoulder length I went and got a haircut yesterday. She cut off at least 6 inches, maybe more, so now it's off my neck and out of my face. I hate having hair in my face.

The first Thursday of the month at SHARE has usually been slow, people have gotten their benefits but now that those benefits have been slashed and in some cases denied, we were just as busy as the previous end of the month Thursday. When I got there Walmart had sent a big box of just past prime tomatoes, globe and roma, still firm or slightly soft, maybe not best for eating for perfectly fine for cooking. I’d been waiting for this to make my tomato sauce so I bagged up 6 pounds and set them aside (don't worry, there were still more than enough for our clients). 

Saturday I had prepped the tomatoes, peeled and cut up the garlic, getting ready to slather it all with olive oil and put it in the oven to slow roast when my daughter texted me. Did I want to go with her to get a pedicure and then to the Peach Creek Market. Let’s see, stay home and make tomato sauce or spend the afternoon with my daughter. Yes, I said so she picked me up and we went and got our toes and fingernails done, just cut and cuticles, no polish on the nails but my toes are sparkly silver. (The baby toe is from when I was six and dropped a heavy glass coke bottle on my toes requiring stitches and apparently broke a bone which resulted in a loss of growth from about halfway up.)

The attendant did a great job especially on my two big toe ingrown toenails, no pain, no blood, and cut back far deeper than I manage. Whenever I work on them I end up bleeding and very sore. 

The plumerias are starting to bloom, at top and below.

Well, I’d best get in the kitchen and get those tomatoes in the oven.

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Two more book reviews.

How Bad Things Can Get by Darcy Coates - As a child of 7, Ruth was the only survivor of the suicide cult Petition where the members literally tore themselves to pieces, a fact she has kept secret for the past 20 years. Years of therapy has helped her put it all behind her even though she still has nightmares. Now her boyfriend Zach and his best friend Carson and Hayleigh have won tickets to a week of games with large monetary prizes put on and paid for by the influencer Eton on his privately owned and remote tropical island Prosperity, an island with its own history of a cult. The first game begins shortly after everyone arrives via cruise ship and the participants are selected at random except Ruth has a niggling feeling that she was selected specifically but shrugs it off. Things start unraveling pretty soon with injuries and reports of missing and dead guests and it’s not a coincidence that this is the 20th anniversary of Petition’s demise or that Ruth’s group won tickets. Then Ruth learns that her identity is not a secret, she’s been betrayed, and her presence has been orchestrated so that Petition can finish what Ruth escaped as a child. Good story, well told, kept me engaged.

One Of Us by Dan Chaon - I really enjoyed this book. Twins Evelyn and Bolt, born in 1910 and so close they could read each other's minds, became orphans at 13 and soon after a man they had never met who claimed to be their uncle (he wasn’t but had known their father) came into town and took them under his wing however he was a murderous scoundrel at best. The twins managed to escape and went to live in an orphanage where the orphans were put on a train and headed out west to be adopted by whatever family deemed them suitable for whatever reason. Because they were unlovely children they were not adopted until the last stop when Mr. Jengling rescued them to be part of his traveling carnival full of all sorts of misfits. Bolt settles right in but Evelyn is perpetually suspicious and resists all attempts to be drawn in. When their ‘uncle’ tracks them down and kidnaps them, Jengling sends three of his crew, guided by the mental directions of Rosalie who lives mostly in the astral plane. I don’t want to say too much more, but it’s a good story.