the continuing corruption of our government and destruction of our democracy

I'm testy today. Was testy yesterday. It's all feeling like too much. Every day a new revelation of the horror that is Trump and none of it is enough for his supporters to abandon him. He knew in January how bad the virus is, was going to be, and he purposely did nothing and lied about it for 6 months, is still lying about it, because, he says, he didn't want to create panic. People dying in droves was apparently just fine with him as long as the stock market didn't crash. Because that's the only panic he didn't want to create since he sees the stock market as crucial to his re-election to a job he doesn't like and didn't want in the first place.

And if that's not enough Barr and his corrupt DOJ is now going to defend Trump in the defamation lawsuit brought by the woman who accuses him of rape, a case that could be settled immediately if Trump would just give over a sample of his DNA, which anyone would do if they were innocent. So now us taxpayers are paying for Trump's defense in a case where he is obviously guilty.

And if that's not enough, there is a new whistleblower complaint from Brian Murphy, former Acting Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis, accusing DHS acting secretary Chad Wolf of twice telling him to withhold reporting on potential Russian threats to the election because it made Trump look bad and to focus on threats from China and Iran instead on orders from the White House national security advisor Robert O'Brian. Murphy was also told to downplay the domestic threat posed by white supremacists and focus on leftist movements like antifa and to modify intelligence assessments to make sure they aligned with Trump's public statements. When Murphy refused to do so he was demoted. Let me repeat that...Murphy was ordered to stop investigating Russia and to lie in intelligence reports.

All this and still Republicans won't denounce him. No wonder my afib has been acting up. The past week, week and a half, it's been very active, every day or day and a half, episodes that last half a day, not intense but after 6 hours I just want to sit on the couch. So I had my check-up with the electrophysiologist today, it had been 6 months since the last one. I had to call from the parking lot to let them know I was there and they would call me back when they had a room ready for me but I was able to go right up, the waiting room was empty. The nurse took my temperature then took me to the room where she took my blood pressure, a little high she said, yeah, I know, I could feel it going up on the drive in I told her. Then she did an ekg which was good. Then the doctor came in and I told him about the uptick in episodes and he said that if it keeps up we may have to do the ablation, which I really don't want to do, I said, to which he replied, nobody does. I told him I thought it was probably stress from paying too much attention to the horrible news and that I was trying to address that. I've also been thinking about the procedure more, I told him, but not until sometime next year. He stressed once again that the condition was not life threatening, just a quality of life issue and to come back in 3 months. If the current episodes settle down during that time, good, if not, we'll talk more seriously about the procedure.

That little cool front did make it down here after all. Not as cool as predicted but it was 68˚ yesterday morning, and this morning, at 8 AM and low humidity. So I took advantage of it yesterday and got the trimmer out and got it started by myself yay and trimmed the house yard til I ran out of gas, refueled and trimmed over at the shop yard around Pam's house and the gate and the rose bush and the banana trees and yellow bells til I ran out of gas. My right arm is really sore today.

So, what else, I've been working on my website again this week tackling the recent work gallery page which is so out of date. After the first day I was so confused trying to remember which folders all the changed files and images were in so I finally created two new folders, one for images and one for pages, to put all the changed things in until I get them uploaded.

Three happy making things in the yard...the rangoon creeper is continuing to bloom profusely on both sides of the fence,

the oxblood lilies are shooting up, yesterday there was just one,

and my little redbud tree in a pot, which nearly died this summer because I wasn't watering it enough and needs to be root pruned and repotted with fresh soil, sprouted new growth after I dragged it into the shade under the magnolia tree. I had noticed one day that the leaves were all limp and shriveling and so I gave it a good watering but by the next day or so all but 3 leaves had turned irrevocably brown, dead. That's when I moved it into the shade. I'll repot it this fall but I won't prune it back til spring just in case the branches are still alive. It's about 7' tall and is at least 20 years old, could be older, I just don't remember what year I got it as a freebie when it was about 4” tall during one of the many Trees For Houston giveaways.

I'm amazed that it's still alive.