flowers and espionage and anniversaries, oh my

My frit finally arrived Friday afternoon, too late to go over to the studio so I didn't get the last mold filled, the body of the box, until Saturday afternoon. It's in the kiln. It might come out tomorrow but more likely Tuesday.

Friday's mail also brought a little check from the gallery. The sunflower sold.

Saturday morning I went to the Earth Lab series at Hesed House, this month on Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging and instead of just a presentation on the history and development, we also got a hands on workshop where we all got to try our hand at doing an arrangement. It was a lot of fun. My sister Pam is the coordinator who lines up the speakers and topics.

Here's my effort.

We're getting a much needed break in the heat today, still in the 80s and should only get up to 90 and we're getting another little shower, no thunder so far but rain is all it takes for the dog to tremble. The frogs are loving it though. Tomorrow, back up in the mid 90s.

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After it was revealed that Trump had super sensitive top secret documents, some marked SCI meaning that they are to be viewed only on a need to know basis by those with the highest security clearance and only in a secure room from which they were never to be removed, and was being investigated under the espionage act the far right wackos with their lies went silent for two days apparently told to back off the volatile rhetoric by other republicans (though now they're back to attacking Biden and lying about the Inflation Reduction Act). The documents retrieved were so sensitive and national security related that the FBI is dusting every page for fingerprints to see who touched them. One of the documents was the list of our uncover agents and their payroll information. There's no way to accurately describe the danger and damage to our national security that these top secret documents in the hands of a man who already tried to overthrow our democracy incurs. Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station does a good job though. You can read his essay on this here. It's long, as his essays are, but well worth the read if you want to understand just how damaging Trump, who no longer has any kind of security clearance, having these documents for a year and a half is. Anyone else would already have been arrested for espionage.

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Some things blooming in the yard. The rangoon creeper, the coral butterfly ginger finally started blooming, the bridal bouquet plumerias, the morning glory bush for all that it likes heat hasn't done very well but is starting to bloom a little.

I should get over to the shop and continue the cold work on the pieces already cast but today is our 46^th anniversary and that's as good an excuse as any to be lazy today. That's beer in our champagne glasses.