busy week

You will not be surprised to learn that I did not get my plans for the weekend done. I did get dirt and plants and some seeds (but not all I wanted) on Saturday and then Sarah and I went to get mani pedis (more sparkling toes!). I don’t get polish on my fingernails because I don’t like the way it feels and yes, I can feel the polish, it feels like my nails are suffocating. Doesn’t seem to bother me on my toes though. Or maybe it’s because for all my working life I worked in an etched glass fabrication studio and always kept my nails extremely short, and now that I’m retired, gardening and maintaining a bigger yard I still prefer very short nails. And fake nails? No way. I don’t see how people function with those long fake nails. 

Sunday mornings are even longer than weekday mornings and while I did get one bag of good expensive garden soil carried out to the bed I want to start in, it was already in the sun by the time I did that and nut grass has sprung up in that newly weeded down to dirt bed so that has to be dug up first. And did I mention it was already in the sun? So, yeah, nothing more got done. Monday morning was a bust because I had to leave early because Robin had an appointment to finally get her driver’s license. She needed to use my car because it’s legal and everything works so I followed her and Sarah to the DPS and she passed. Then she and Sarah continued on to the city where Robin is going to start working part time and I came on home. 

I had my annual eye exam Monday afternoon. My insurance requires a referral for a specialist and since I go to an ophthalmologist and not an optometrist I need a referral. I called the referral department two weeks in advance of my appointment to give them plenty of time to send it. Last Friday the doctor’s office called, they hadn’t received my referral yet. Called the referral department, oh yes, I see you called on the 9th, don’t know why it hasn’t been sent, I’ll see what I can do. Monday morning, still no referral so I called my PC doc’s office, explained the thing to them. Oh, yes I see your doctor has authorized it, I don’t know why it wasn’t sent, let me transfer you to the referral department. The eye doc’s office finally got the referral an hour before my appointment so I didn’t have to reschedule. Vision hasn’t changed, right eye cataract hasn’t changed much so no surgery yet, dilated my eyes and they look healthy she says. And then yoga that night.

This has been an incredibly busy week for me. Monday was a long day. Tuesday was grocery shopping for the week and then my night to fix dinner which only gives me a few free hours in the afternoon when it’s too hot to work outside. Wednesday I had my 6th month check in with the EP. I go prepared with a book because I know I’ll be waiting about an hour (no loud grumbling from others waiting this time). On the way home I stopped by CostCo to return the shoes and then did some shopping. I had cut the mailing label off the bag they came in and stuck it in the box. The nice lady thanked me for bringing that, makes it so much easier she said. Then when I was ready to check out I got in one of two lines and it turned out to be the self checkout line which I had never used before. An employee had scanned my items while I was in line and when I got to the check out I didn’t quite know what to do. The employee told me to scan my card and then scan my items. So I did. Got to the line to exit and the woman counted and counted again and finally figured out I had been charged twice for every item so anyway if was all straightened out but it was mid afternoon before I got home. I skipped yoga class that evening because I just did not want to get in the car on the highway again after only being home for a couple of hours.

Spied these two moths on one of the yew trees Wednesday. They were about 14” apart. They are female (brown) and male (yellow) Io moths (automeris io), part of the silkworm family.

Yesterday I was back at SHARE after being closed the last two Thursdays for new flooring. The vinyl in the back food area is nice, kind of a gray marble/stone pattern, but the carpet is hideous. Kind of a red and gray stripe pattern in blocks that turn 90˚ from each other. Really ugly but I had little time to even think about it because this was probably the busiest day we’ve ever had except for maybe one Thursday before Thanksgiving. We had 56 food orders, mostly bigger families. Since we were closed Jan didn’t order very much from the regional food bank, she hadn’t shopped locally, and we hadn’t received any donations. We ran out of one item and at the end of the day we are very low on many others. We have an abundance of eggs though because we still have to get our monthly donation whether we are giving them away or not. I was so tired when I got home but I went to the local yoga class anyway since I had missed the night before. Stephanie asked us if we wanted high energy thumb up or low energy thumb down. All eleven of us went thumbs down. 

So now today, this is the first day of this week I haven’t had to rush my morning to get somewhere or do something and wouldn’t you know this morning was really kind of pleasant, would have been perfect for me to get out there first thing and dig up the nut grass and spread and turn in the good garden soil. So did I? Fuck, no, I was enjoying my not rushed leisurely morning.

* Picture at top…Philippine violet. 

 

osteoporosis, rat killing, books

Wednesday I created a Feedly account and transferred my blog list over there since Blogger had become unreliable. So, of course, the next morning, guess what? Blogger had finally refreshed the blog roll on my sidebar and the reading list on the dashboard. Damn, if I’d know that’s all it took I’d have done it days ago.

Nothing has happened in my little world since I last published Tuesday. I have some pictures to share but first a little health reporting. You might remember I had my 6 month check up with the PC doc. We talked about my latest dexa scan results for osteoporosis. It’s been three years since my previous scan and most my numbers are stable, my lumbar spine improved, total left hip essentially no change, left femoral neck worsened (T score went from -2.9 to -3.1 but the Z score did not change). So we talked about the meds, how they work, how common are side effects. For those of you who don’t know, the standard treatment for osteoporosis is bisphosphonates like Fosamax that work by preventing your body from breaking down old weak bone faster than new bone is made. That’s how it increases density. I questioned the effectiveness of this especially since some women on these drugs still suffer fractures. Bones may be denser but they aren’t necessarily stronger to which my doctor replied that old weak bone is better than no bone. Ok, she’s got a point there. I also questioned whether taking calcium was really helping since calcium alone does not build bone. Other nutrients are required to convert calcium to bone and brought up all the various supplements advertised that claim to build bone for people when nothing else worked (and of course the only place you can buy them is online from a single vendor). She said there is no clinical evidence that supports their claims. I asked whether there were any drugs that stimulated bone building not just prevent break down (break down speeds up, bone building slows down in women after menopause). And, yes, the injectables do but most insurance companies won’t pay for that unless you go through the bisphosphonates first but that they also interact with other drugs like the one I take for my thyroid. Well, I have no intention of taking the bisphosphonates, the side effects are awful, I believe they are more common than they tell you, and women are still suffering fractures. So she’s sending me to an endocrinologist for a more specialized look.

In the meantime I continue yoga, keeping limber, maintaining balance (falling being the number one reason bones break), and strengthening my muscles to help protect my bones. They also tell you that walking or running or dancing or jumping, anything that causes impact on the feet and hips, stimulates bone growth. I’ve read that just doing so with your normal weight may not produce any benefit because your body is used to your weight, that you need to do exercises that target specific areas or activities (as noted above) with added weight, gradually increasing the weight over time so as not to suddenly add ten or more pounds to already weak bones. Granted, this info is from trainers who want to sell their exercise instructions and routines but it makes sense. I’m not interested in joining a gym and certainly can’t afford a trainer so I bought a weighted vest. The vest itself weighs four pounds and came with six additional one pound weights that slip into pockets on the vest. Right now I’m only wearing the vest with no additional weight when I walk the dog and I’ve added side leaps and walking lunges with the vest on. I realize it may have no impact on bone growth and it will take six months of gradually increasing the weight to see any possible improvement but the vest cost less than $40 and while it may not help, it can’t hurt. 

Thursday was the coolest day since last spring. I don’t think it even broke 90˚ and we got a little shower earlier and when I went over to feed the kitties it was drizzling. Would be nice if that was the start of lower temps but we’re headed back into mid 90s tomorrow and for the foreseeable future with the attendant humidity. Went out to run some errands earlier, or as my mother would have said, do my rat killing. First to the Evil Empire for more AC coolant for the car and a coupe of prescriptions for Marc and more watercolors for Paisleigh as she’s pretty much used up the ones she has and a coloring book. Also got another pad of watercolor paper for me and a new set of sheets. These are 600 thread count Egyptian cotton discontinued and on sale for less than $40 in a soft sage green color. Hard to pass that up since I did need another set of sheets. Then off to Hesed House market for local lettuce, honey, eggs, and cornmeal. This weekend the plan is to get more compost and prepare the beds for planting, acquire plants and seeds, and maybe even get something in the ground. It’s still really too hot for winter vegetables but if they aren’t in the ground soon there won’t be enough time to produce before we start getting freezes. And there’s a super niño this year which means a colder wetter winter for us.

Now some pics…I’ve seen quite a few fritillaries this year (picture at the top), in another subtle sign of the coming shift of seasons the tallows are starting to drop their colorful leaves whereas before they were just dried up brown from the heat and drought.

Saw this walnut sphinx moth hiding in the not yet blooming mist flower,

these guys were on a thin althea branch. The bigger one was chowing down on a leaf.

A cascade of rangoon creeper flowers.

Two book reviews to end.

A Box Full Of Darkness by Simone St. James - Siblings Violet, Vail, and Dodie grew up in Fell NY, a town where strange things seemed to be the norm and most particularly in their little neighborhood and house. Born to emotionally distant and generally unavailable parents with no other children in the neighborhood, the three Esmie children relied on each other even though none of them shared the nightmares and visitations they suffered. They knew Violet sees ghosts but she never told them about Sister who menaced her constantly, nor Dodie about the waters that rose and in her room at night not Vail who would be awakened by a light and figures peering over him. When their mother appeared one day with a baby, their little brother Ben became their world but then Ben disappeared when he was six during a game of hide and seek and never seen again. Whatever glue held the family together dissolved when Ben disappeared. Within two years the house was abandoned, and two decades later both parents deceased and the three siblings scattered barely remaining in contact. Then one day Violet gets a call from the landscaping company hired to maintain the yard of the family home. They are quitting the contract, he can’t make any of his workers go there again. What did you see, Violet asked. A little boy, he said come home. And so Violet contacts her siblings and the three return to the family home to finally find the answer to what happened to Ben. A nice little haunted house/ghost story.

Solo Leveling 1 by Chugong - Translated from Korean, this is the first of 8 books in the English release, 14 in the original Korean edition. It’s like a video game or graphic novel in book form. There is also a comic series and two Netflix features, one animated, one live action. Jinwoo is a level E Hunter, the lowest and weakest Hunter level. Gates open to dungeons and the hunters have to go in and kill the beasts therein and kill the Boss of the dungeon before they enter the world. After the Boss is killed the gate will close and the hunters have an hour to get out or be trapped in the dungeon forever. Jinwoo is on a hunt in a double dungeon, the inner dungeon of which is a temple, with giant statues that attack the hunters. There is a plaque with three commandments and Jinwoo figures out how to follow the commandments and survive. He manages to let the 8 surviving hunters escape and then inadvertently completes the third commandment and is rewarded by a mysterious System with the ability to change his status as a hunter, something no other hunter can do, hunters are awakened and your level is your level for life. Jinwoo is trying to keep his ability a secret as he continues to level up but when he is the only survivor of several hunts with higher level hunters people are starting to take notice. This is written as if it is a video game with all the grunts and various noises written out. It was ok, just not to my taste and definitely aimed at a younger audience. I won’t be reading any of the others.

 

sweating it out

More oxblood lilies popping up, in front of the Buddha and across the front of the house.

I sweated out whatever lingering effects of the cold on Thursday early evening. Friday is trash day and so when I went over to feed the kitties I pulled Robin’s trash can to the street and then came back and pulled mine over there. When Pam was alive the house was/is hooked up to the water meter for the shop so we paid for her water and she paid for trash pickup that we both used so the trash service picks up from the shop/house driveway across the street. We haven’t bothered to change the account. Anyway, we’re allowed two cans and two bags a week and my can wasn’t full and since whoever owns that rent house has not been by to check on it and it’s been nearly two weeks since the tenants moved out, the trash pile they left behind was starting to spread out especially with the rain we’ve been getting (and we did get a very decent rain earlier in the day on Thursday so everything was thoroughly soaked) so I filled one of those 14 gallon tall kitchen bags and topped off my trash can and then started filling 45 gallon contractor bags (and yes, I was wearing gloves, it was just downright nasty and full of bugs by then). One of my neighbors drove by on her way home from work and saw me and came down to help. In all we filled five 45 gallon bags besides the one 14 gallon bag. Two of them we hefted across the street to my cans, one we put in her extra can and the other two we left on the side of the street. I figured they would just sit there until next week when I would drag them across the street next to my can but the trash guys surprised me. When they came by Friday morning they not only collected the stuff in the shop driveway but they also grabbed those two extra bags on the other side of the street. So now that little eyesore is taken care of. 

I say I sweated out the last lingering effects of the cold on Thursday but yesterday, Monday, was the first day I have felt completely well. It didn’t stop me from getting some outdoor work done the last few days. I finished weeding the back flower bed before I got sick, got all the water sprouts cut from the crepe myrtles, cut up two large fallen dead branches added to all the others in the truck and got that over to the burn pile which will have to wait until the burn ban is lifted, hauled the ladder to the side of the house where 90% of leaves and branches accumulate and cleared off as much of the debris as I could reach with the hoe (I did not climb on the roof, I didn't even stand as high on the ladder as I could have being the good girl that I am and Mikey got up there yesterday and cleared all the rest off for me), I mixed up another tub of potting soil and repotted 3 medium sized plants and three small ones. When I came in Saturday about one o’clock, hot and sweaty Marc asked me if I was trying to get heat stroke. No, but stuff needed doing. In fact, new little plantlets for fall gardens are already at the feed store so I need to get some more composted stuff to add to my garden areas and seeds and plants and get that started. So, active in the yard but apparently being sick for a week has pushed me solidly into procrastination mode as far as the shadow box is concerned since I have done nothing on that all weekend.

My little yellow rain lilies have popped up from the rain we got last Thursday.

Monday was grandparents day at Paisleigh’s school. They had an after school activity; bring your grandparent/s and do a craft, take a picture, pick out a book to take home, and have a snack. My daughter couldn’t leave work early enough so she texted me in the morning to see if I wanted to go with Paisleigh, so of course. The craft was making a strawberry handprint, the books were ones they had weeded out of the library, the snack was a brownie and milk, and this is the picture.

I guess blogger has just abandoned its own platform and users. It’s been over a week and it is still not updating blogrolls and reading lists. I’m having to click on blog titles to see if there is a new post. So if you’ve missed my last two posts, try that. But then, if you haven’t figured that out you probably won’t be seeing this one either.

It seems some people are finally starting to understand that this race to produce the fastest, smartest AI maybe isn’t the brightest idea. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, is starting to get an inkling that AIs are pushing advances faster than the engineers can understand them. In July one test of programs designed to hack into systems found a weakness in the containment designed for the test and the AI escaped for a week before anybody noticed. This time the result was relatively harmless but he warns that it could have caused catastrophic damage and if this headlong rush into self-improving super intelligence is left unchecked these AI systems could take over the entire internet within a year and kill us all within a decade. (From the NYT) “Models now cheat on tests, conspire against their owners, hack outside companies, recruit humans to promulgate malicious code and cover their tracks”. I guess it never occurred to them that building a system that can think faster than a human, that has access to all the knowledge in the world and the electronic systems that control everything including weapons systems, that has no innate compassion or empathy, and no ability to judge the rightness or wrongness of an action may not be the best idea. Every science fiction fan, every person who ever saw 2001 or The Terminator or I Robot or Ex Machina could have told them that. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, Amodei is calling for a slowdown in development and creating regulation of the programs and some sort of international government oversight to keep it all from going rogue. In fact, President Biden issued an executive order in 2023 calling for the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence”, a document that provided some oversight and conditions for development of AI. You will not be surprised to learn that rescinding that EO was one of the first things Thxmp did when he regained office because he sees AI as another cash cow and, like everything else he meddles in, has no understanding of the thing itself or the possible consequences and in fact his family is heavily invested in the technology. What could possibly go wrong?

I know better

I do, I know it’s never a good idea to invoke the gods, but apparently I forget or get a little cocky. I should not be telling people I don’t get sick because the child infected me. Actually, she infected Marc first and I guess he infected me. I woke up Monday morning with that feeling in my nose and throat that I was getting sick and it worsened as the day progressed. I only had one really bad day and night and that was Monday. Tuesday I felt some better and my nose had dried up but no appetite and no energy, achy, my face and right eye hurt. Better still on Wednesday but no real appetite and no energy though I did get the weekly grocery shop done. Consequently I’ve done little else besides read and nap all week, besides the grocery store I mean. I was hoping to feel completely well today but there’s still some lingering effects.

I ventured out in the yard today for the first time this week to a few little surprises; the first oxblood lily (also a sign of the changing season),

one little rain lily from the bit of rain we've been getting,

and when I went across the street to take a picture of the rangoon creeper flowers I saw this, the first time I have ever seen it make seeds.

I did get more work done on my little art project before I got sick. The three cattail elements are cut out and the foam core spacers cut out but I haven’t glued them to the cattails yet because I’m still working out the spacing since I only have three layers instead of four like the previous shadow box. I also started painting the background water and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Next is finishing the background water and painting the heron. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend.

We’ve been getting a bit of rain, more than just a five or ten minute light shower but far from the sustained rain we need. At least I haven't had to go out and water some part of the yard and pots every day. 

You may remember we put my sister’s house on the shop property summer of 2020. Six years later it had settled enough that the back door deadbolt no longer lined up and the front door was out of square and sticking so Tuesday and Wednesday Rocky and his helper were under the house adjusting the level. Both doors now open, close, and lock properly. Unfortunately, he had some bad news. Some of the piers of mortar block the house sits on are starting to lean and the dirt pad is hollowing out from water getting under there. The whole house, every pillar, needs to be redone. They set the mortar blocks directly on the dirt pad which was built up higher than the surrounding yard to prevent water from getting under the house instead of on 3” thick 18" square concrete pads which should have been put down first. Aggravating that, my sister planted a row of crinum lilies across the front right up next to the house 

which over time have compromised the slope of the dirt pad and the hurricane in 2024 didn’t help any. So, all those bulbs need to be dug up and moved, each pier needs to have the dirt built back up and be rebuilt with a concrete pad first. Yay! 

SHARE is closed today and we were all supposed to show up Wednesday to start moving everything out so the flooring people could start on Monday. Obviously, I did not go yesterday, but I talked to my neighbor on Tuesday who also volunteers and he and another volunteer had gone there over the weekend and it only took the two of them 2 or 3 hours to completely clear out the back food area; all the baskets of canned goods, all the boxes of other food, all the shelving, all the tables, the three freezers and the refrigerator. I might go over there after breakfast and check it out or not. I am curious so maybe. 

Apparently my curiosity is not enough to make me actually leave the house.

The wheel is turning but oh so slowly

The morning glory bush is coming into full bloom. It’s a good thing it’s drought tolerant. 

Even the rangoon creeper was being affected by the drought, dropping leaves until I started watering it but now it’s putting out some new flowers.

We were getting a much wanted and needed rain shower yesterday morning. I was afraid to take my eyes off it, afraid that if I did it will stop. I didn’t think it would last because I could see clearing sky to the south. Aaaaand, it stopped. I don’t think it rained even 10 minutes. We’re supposed to get more rain today. We’re finally getting a break from the brutal heat, our highs for the next 10 days predicted to be in the low 90s. The calendar ticked over from August to September, days are noticeably shorter, and there is a subtle difference in the air. Still plenty humid though. I made it down to the other end of the street to photograph the pampas grass and its new plumes, one of my harbingers of fall.

I went out right after I got up this morning, grabbed the shovel and set out to do some weeding. Did a little bit in the bed that had the zinnias last year and then headed back to the far flower bed that I have ignored all summer except for watering the two clumps of crinum lilies now and then. This was as far as I got before I started sweating and the sun started creeping in. That dirt is so dry, not a lick of moisture in it.

SHARE is getting new flooring on the 14th so it will be closed for two Thursdays. What we have now is linoleum tile and while it is old it is still perfectly serviceable. I’m of the opinion, and I’m not the only one, that that grant money should be spent on food, especially with all the cuts to food assistance by this administration. We’re getting vinyl in the back where we sort food donations and fill food orders, carpet in the clothing and interview/waiting area which I think is a particularly bad choice, much harder to keep clean. So next Wednesday it will be all hands on deck to move everything that isn’t nailed down. All the shelving units and everything on them, all the tables and chairs, all the freezers and refrigerators, all have to be moved from the back either further up front or in a moving van rented for the purpose so that the new vinyl can be laid down in the food area and then all that stuff has to be moved back. Then all the clothing racks, shelving units, tables and desks and chairs and everything on them has to be moved for the carpet to be laid in the interview and clothing area, and then all that has to be moved back. Since the volunteers are all retirees, four men have been hired to help. 

A while back my grandson got a zero turn mower. Next thing I knew my daughter sent me a little video of 4 year old (5 in October) Paisleigh driving it. She was amazing, figured out the steering, the start and stop, right away. She drove that thing all around their yard never hitting anything. So Wednesday, Mikey brought the mower over to the shop to replace a wheel and while it was here he went ahead and mowed the yard but not before Paisleigh had a turn at it.

I’ve been working on my shadow box project. I think I’m done with the paintings of the cattails. I’ll do the water background next, leaving the heron head for last. I may go ahead and cut out the cattail elements first and work on the spacing. I have an inch and a quarter depth on this one.

Not much else going on this Labor Day weekend.

 

nature of things

There’s a cypress tree in the space between my property line on the east and the fence around the backyard of Montreal’s old house. If you know anything about cypress trees their roots send up ‘knees’ and if the area around that tree is mown, whatever growth gets shaved off by the mower and they end up looking like this. This is a big one. Most are considerably smaller in diameter. This one is 14” at its widest.

August is always hot but the last couple of weeks have been brutal, and still no rain. but here we are at the end of the month, days are getting noticeably shorter and the next ten or so the highs have dropped about 5 degrees, so mid-90s. Not much but I’ll take it. And rain is predicted for the next several days. One can only hope. It’s about all I can do to keep the plants in pots and stuff in the ground watered, keep the water freshened in the three birdbaths. I have plants that need to be repotted in bigger pots but I just can’t seem to make myself mix up the dirt and do it knowing that I’ll come in wet with sweat dripping off me, then sit under the fan on high for the next 30 minutes while I cool off.

The clump of pampas grass at the other end of the street is putting out new plumes (I took a picture but the sun was just blasting it and I'm not walking down there again before I post this). That surprised me, it’s one of the signs that the season is heading toward change. It seems early. Snow-on-the-prairie is also a portent of cooler temps but I haven’t seen any of that yet. The tallows are dropping leaves though but I think that has more to do with the drought than changing seasons. Speaking of tallows, there are two small ones on the west property line one of which lost a big limb last year. That limb had been dead for a couple of years before it finally fell. I was walking by that tree yesterday when I noticed a hole had opened up at the base and obviously dead bark above it so I reached down and pulled the bark away and more and more and wood pulp, some of it so dry it basically turned to dust in my hand and pulp that was wet and spongy. That whole tree is rotting from the inside. 

First picture above shows all the material I pulled out down on the ground, next picture a close up. Looks like a torso with the hips narrowing at the waist and widening with two arms reaching up. Both those limbs are rotten all the way up all while they are furiously putting out new foliage from the solid outer bark. The last picture is a chunk of the soft spongy stuff that came out of the center.

I filled the bird feeder yesterday morning. The white wing doves had it more than half empty in about an hour. This morning they are already coming to check it out but it will stay empty today even though the little birds keep looking in my window like aren’t you forgetting something? I’ve been seeing a little hummingbird mornings and evenings and more butterflies; fritillaries, swallowtails, long wings, a few sulfurs; migrating through, also signs of season change. The orange cosmos has some open blooms but haven’t started their big display yet. They are a favorite of the migrating butterflies though this one is on the Mexican bird of paradise.

I’ve been working on the new shadow box, started painting the cattails. Because the elements are long and narrow I decided to glue two pieces of watercolor paper together to stiffen them up, give them more body. Experimented with one of the leftover first attempt at leaves on the previous box to see how much more difficult it would be to cut through two layers (and glue) of paper. More effort but doable especially since the cuts are all going to be mostly smooth straight lines (as opposed to serrated edges on leaves). 

The neighbors next door that were renting Montreal’s old house moved out. Last weekend I saw a flatbed trailer backed up to the open front door and a few days later I noticed all the curtains were gone and no lights or activity, no car coming and going. Today they came back to finish cleaning up, picked up some trash around the yard and then emptied the house of trash and piled it all up on the side of the street and drove off. 

No idea if they are going to come back for the trampoline frame and jumping surface which never got attached (I think not at this point). But that pile of trash? The rural trash pick up that we residents in the county have to subscribe to (and I have no idea if they did since I never saw them put a trash can out, they were burning it for a while and I saw them put a bag in someone else’s can once) will not pick that shit up, not like that. Neither will the county. So it remains to be seen if the owner of the house will take care of it when they come inspect the house and property. Which surely they will do.