a week of my life part whatever

I haven’t felt much like writing this past week, haven’t done much to write about and the situation in this country just keeps getting worse. 

I got most of the work in the yard done, the garden is planted but still needs to be mulched as do the flower beds. Still have to clean up the east side of the house where nothing much grows because it’s in shade almost all the time, some variegated shell ginger that never blooms because our winters have shifted due to global warming and we get those arctic blasts now every winter sending temps into the 20s. Shell ginger blooms on last year’s growth. About the only thing I’ve done is move the sprinkler around and resort to my soapy water to kill the fire ants. The organic ant killer only makes them move so they have moved out of the flower beds and into the grass outside the borders where I can’t see them and they’re all over my feet before I know it. Can’t use the soapy water in the flower beds because it’s bad for the roots. I did finally cut back the dead banana trees over in the shop yard.

I still have to get the trimmer out and go around all the flower beds (done after breakfast) and mow the little backyard both of which I planned to do over the weekend and neither of which got done. I can’t even remember what I did Saturday instead but Sunday I made blueberry pecan pancakes for breakfast because I needed to use up the blueberries and then I swept and mopped the kitchen floor and then my grandson came over with Paisleigh and she and I watered the little backyard and got the chalk out and drew a hopscotch and I showed Paisley how to write the numbers by writing them lightly with white and she went over them with pink (she had particular trouble with the 4 for some reason). 

So we did that until she went in to get some water and managed to shut her fingers in the door, not badly, just a little scrape but you’d think she had lost a finger and wanted her daddy who was working over at the shop. So by the time I got the wagon and put Minnie in it she was mostly over it but halfway to the shop driveway she remembered her fingers and the closer we got the louder her wailing became. She got a few minutes of attention from both her parents, Audra was there with Harrison washing her car, and that was that.

I mentioned to Audra that I needed to get my car washed and she said, bring it over, I’ll wash it after I finish mine and detail the inside. Audra does that to her car every week. I’m not that great about housecleaning and that extends to my car so she had no idea what she was getting into but I said great! After I ran my one errand getting more food for the outdoor cats I parked my car over at the shop and played with Paisleigh 

or held Harrison all day so Audra could do my car and it looks fabulous inside and out. I apologized afterwards because it took her a lot longer than she expected but she said to consider it a birthday present.

Speaking of which, my birthday is the last day of the month. My daughter asked me a couple of weeks ago if, since I was turning 75, I wanted a birthday party. Yeah, sure, I guess. So Sarah is planning a party for the 27th, the last Sunday afternoon of the month to be held here at my house because it’s more accessible than her house and property. Make a guest list she told me. So this is the tricky part. the two people I’m closest to, Dick and Kathy, live in Houston and Dick’s health is poor and Gene and Brian live even farther away but I know they’ll come. After that there are my neighbors I’m friends with, two couples and three singles, and family. What about the people you volunteer with at SHARE, she suggested, or your yoga mates. So SHARE. There are three groups of volunteers; the women in the front who interview people to determine what if anything they qualify for, the women who sort the donated clothing and help people with their selections, and the guys and me in the back who fill the food orders, and then there’s a floater who helps wherever she’s needed. The only time I see these people is at SHARE. Would it be rude of me to only invite the guys and their spouses who I know and the couple of other women I’m most friendly with since this is not a SHARE social event? And what if nobody comes? That's always in the back of my mind since it happened to me one year growing up, had a birthday party and only one person came. 

Update on the dog…he trotted off mid-morning last Tuesday and there's been no sign of him since so maybe he wasn’t dumped and was just out for an adventure or maybe someone picked him up. 

Update on Minnie…after trying to chew the wrapping off the splint in two places Tuesday and Wednesday and I had to add more, she seems to have resigned herself to it and is getting around just fine. She walks on it now if she’s just moseying along but lifts her hip and swings that leg around otherwise, really amusing to watch. Sometimes it’s easier to pull her in the wagon than have her walk between the two driveways. 

She made it down the six steps of Pam’s house while I locked the door. I thought she was going to lose her balance and go head first but she negotiated it. One more week.

 

a tale of two dogs

I hate people. People are assholes. Someone dumped a black dog here Sunday night. 

It spent all day over in the shop yard on Monday. It’s a fairly big dog, looks like it has some black lab but not as stout and has really long legs and looks to be in good health. When Mikey tried to run it off yesterday evening it growled at him when he got too close. But I can’t have a stray dog living in the shop yard. Paisleigh comes with her dad sometimes on the weekends when he’s working on a car and Robin is afraid of it. Not to mention Minnie and I going over there to work in the yard and feed the outdoor cats.

Mid morning Tuesday it was over in the yard on the opposing corner next to my house so Robin and I closed the gates to the shop. Problem is there’s about a 14” gap so we secured a piece of sheet metal across the gap and chicken wire above that in case the dog tried to jump over the top of the sheet metal. So yeah, now the dog can’t get in but people and cars can’t get in or out either. I can probably engineer a more user friendly barrier with just the chicken wire but I need some bungee cords (accomplished on Wednesday).

So far it has not discouraged the dog. First it went and hung out under the carport of the house on the opposite corner but when I got back from the grocery store it was laying in front of the gate in the shade and is still there. He was over here earlier. I think whoever dumped him has a car like mine because when he saw me driving by on my way to the grocery store he got up and started following me and again when I was coming back. Even though he growled at my grandson, he is friendly enough and looking to be with people. The six year old girl, who is fearless and who lives at the other end of the street, was at this end playing with the little girl who lives at this end and coaxed the dog to her, petting him, tail wagging. He followed her home but was back in front of the shop gate this morning. 

I feel sorry for the dog, the poor thing is confused and afraid, but I already feed four outdoor cats thanks to my sister and one feral cat and I have a dog and cat of my own and am not looking to adopt a big dog. And before anyone suggests calling animal control, there is no animal control here in this low population rural county. I have emailed the local animal rescue group but they are usually overwhelmed with strays and in fact they just called me back, they aren’t taking any adult dogs and the best they could do is partner with me to have him euthanized. 

It just pisses me off when people dump their animals instead manning up and surrendering them to a shelter. Cowards, they are just fucking cowards.

Early afternoon - I saw the dog trotting down the cross street mid morning and haven’t seen him since.

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So I called the vet early Monday morning and the earliest they could get Minnie in was 3 pm. They took x-rays and she doesn’t have a fracture. She chipped a piece off the end of one of the bones in that joint on her leg. How the hell she managed that is anyone's guess. The chip is still in there somewhere though it didn’t show up on the x-ray. The vet said it would cause more damage to the joint trying to get it out than just leaving it in there. So they put her under and fixed her up with a splint which looks more like a cast. The vet says while the bone won’t grow back of course it should heal by forming a sort of callous around the injury and she should be fine. She has to wear the splint for two weeks.

She was pretty loopy the rest of the day and was clearly uncomfortable with this big clunky thing on her leg she didn’t know how to maneuver. 

She did a lot of quiet whining when we went to bed Monday night until she finally settled down and fell asleep sometime in the wee hours. Consequently I didn’t get much sleep last night either. But Tuesday morning she was much better, learning how to walk with it, thumping around like Peg Leg Pete, doesn’t seem to be in any obvious pain. And the dog has learned nothing. We were in the big backyard when the black dog came down the driveway. I didn’t see it but Minnie did. She took off after that dog barking the whole time and chased it back to the street. Dog! 

 

puppy injury, dope, and goop

Friday evening before dark Minnie sat up at attention and when I opened the storm door she dashed outside taking off after one of the black and white cats that we see around here. The cat with Minnie in hot pursuit disappeared beyond the side of the barn. A few minutes later Minnie came back hobbling along on three legs refusing to put her back right leg down. I examined her leg and foot not finding anything stuck between the pads of her foot or feeling anything obviously wrong with her foot or leg. She made no vocal or physical reaction to my manipulations but refused to use the leg the rest of the night. 

Saturday morning she still refused to set her leg on the ground and now there was some swelling just past the ankle on the foot side. 

I called the vet I normally take her to but they are only open a half day on Saturday and couldn’t or wouldn’t work her in. Monday morning was the earliest I could get her in. So then I called the other vet in town that is open all day on Saturday and is generally more expensive and their walk in fee is really high but they would work her in. So I took her there and didn’t have to wait very long. The vet examined her; hip seems fine, knee seems fine, he felt around the swollen spot and elicited a couple of whines from her and determined it could be a torn ligament or a fracture. I could get the x-ray then or wait. If it improved by Monday she likely wouldn’t need an x-ray. He thought that waiting until Monday even if it was a fracture would be fine since he couldn’t feel an obvious break. If it is a fracture, he’ll splint it to stabilize it while it heals. They gave her a shot for pain and sent me home with pain pills. Sunday morning there has been no change and I’m pretty sure it’s a fracture and now I’m wishing I had gone ahead and had the x-ray yesterday. She's been either in my lap or laying next to me since it happened.

Rocky finally came by the end of last week and gooped up the threaded end of the plug on the drain field pipe and I started filling the trench back in. Friday I got all the rest of my little seedlings in the ground that I have room for; 4 yellow squash, 6 cucumbers, and the rest of the nasturtiums. The onions have all come up, carrots too but fewer of those, far less than half the seed I put in. the tomatoes are growing and blooming though we had a cold front blow in yesterday and it got down in the 40s last night. I finished filling in the trench yesterday.

Thursday at SHARE one of the volunteers brought in two boxes of this stuff that somehow her church had acquired. One of the Elders that volunteer opened one and it looked like a cross between rancid peanut butter and baby poop and smelled about what it looked like. He stuck a finger in and tasted it and said it tasted about how it looked. Then he read the back of the package.

Turns out it’s for people with feeding tubes. It all went in the trash.

To end with something a little more pleasant, the mock dogwood/orange is in full bloom.

earworms, library thing, and the pecan trees are finally convinced

It feels like my brain is obsessed with earworms. If I’m not mentally engaged with something, there it is ready to fill the void. It’s aggravating, it’s maddening at times. I will wake up with one running through my brain. Sometimes I know why I’m repeating a particular lyric, just heard the song that day or the day before or read something that reminds me of it but often one will pop in my head and I’m, what the fuck? I haven’t heard that song in years. It’s really annoying when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have to actively counter it with something like planning a yoga routine asana after asana or repeating a mantra over and over with my breath. I don’t know why but it’s a rare day I don’t have a lyric on repeat.

You might remember that a book I checked out of the library and returned unread and even unopened had a torn end page in the front and they have accused me of damaging the book. I never even opened the cover once, not in the library plucking it off the shelf in a hurry from the author’s name alone, not at home. I gave my side of the story to one of the librarians and she told me not to worry about it and I have checked out several books since. Yesterday I returned a book and went to check out another and they wouldn’t let me. There is a hold on my library card because of the damaged book. The librarian was very apologetic but couldn’t do anything about it. I have to talk to the director who is out of town right now at a conference. I imagine I’m going to have to pay for the book at this point. Pisses me off. Once I get borrowing privileges back I’m going to examine every book carefully before checking it out. 

Issue resolved, the librarian I'm most friendly with called today to let me know that the book had been replaced and the hold had been taken off my card and I'm good to go.

Monday the guy that mows and trims the shop yard and around Pam’s house came and when I went over to pay him, as I usually do before he finishes, I saw a clump of blue eyed grass that had sprung up in front of the house where Joe had not mowed yet. First time I have seen this clump so I’m not sure how long it’s been there and since I didn’t want it to get mowed down I dug it up and put it in a pot temporarily. I’ll get it in the ground next to the clump I dug up years ago out of the easement in front of the house on the corner. It’s in full bloom.

It’s been warm and very humid the last several days, the humidity making it feel warmer than it is and it’s been making me sweat some, a harbinger of the summer to come. Today is another miserably windy day; sustained 16 mph, gusts up to 28 mph. The wind is coming out of the southeast today though instead of the south like our previous very windy days. Despite the wind and the humidity I got some stuff done. I put the biggest plumeria in it’s summer location directly in the ground (it gets dug up in the fall/winter after it goes dormant) 

and sunk the biggest and next biggest pots in their holes in their summer spots. The other three in pots are still on the cement apron in front of the barn. One of those will get moved later. When I came in it wasn’t so hot and humid that my clothes were soaked but my hair was and sweat was dripping off my face. Oh joy.

The only other thing of note is this: the pecan trees coming out.

Winter is officially over. 

billing confusion, baby love, and garden/yard report

Momcat sleeping in the dry birdbath over at Pam’s.

Sunday night a week ago a lightning and thunderstorm passed through, no rain to speak of, my neighbor said 2/10, but the neurotic dog kept me awake most the night. Wednesday I had an appointment with the EP and after that I went to talk to someone in the financial department about a bill they keep sending me for a procedure last July that I have a receipt for showing I had already paid it. More about that further down. I also wanted to pay a bill for the last TEE I had but I wanted to do it in person so I would get a paper receipt. And even that was confusing because at first on the 12th I got a text billing me for $375 (my co-pay for the procedure which increased by $125 this year) and then I got a reminder on the morning of my appointment that I owed $151.11 by the end of the month. The woman in financial that I talked to only found the lesser amount due in the system though she did see and printed out the invoice for the $375. So I paid the $151.11. I guess they’ll figure it out and invoice me for the remainder or not. 

As for the other matter, she could find nothing about it. The hospital switched to a new system just after that July procedure and old stuff is archived which she did not have access to. Friday, I got another bill for the July procedure so I called the number provided and spoke with someone about it who kept insisting I owed this amount. That the receipt I had was for the account ending in 7525 on that date and this was for the account ending in 7526 on that date. I told her I only had one procedure on that date and they have billed me twice for it. 7525 was archived and she would have to go to her supervisor to get access and they would call me back in about two weeks. Well, Marc and I started going through bills and receipts and trying to drag stuff out of our memories because this was about something eight months ago. I had so much done last summer it was hard to remember but finally I figured it out. On that date I did have only one procedure, a TEE pre-op to measure for the Watchman device I got later. I also had the pre-op blood work for the cerebral angiogram that happened four days later. That is the co-pay I paid, account 7525. The 7526 account is the TEE which I did not pay for at the time, they said they would bill me and by the time they did we had forgotten and were going by the date, not the account number. So yeah, I owe the $250. At least it’s not $375.

Wednesday night it rained and rained more Thursday. In all we finally got some much needed rain, about 3 1/2” by my rain gauge. So the days after have been too wet to do anything outside since it's continued to be overcast and humid. So Saturday I got a couple of hours of baby time. Audra brought Harrison over for me spend time with while she went to the laundromat. He’s two months old now and a hefty little man. He was awake most of the time, smiled at me, did all the things babies do, look around and gurgle and grunt and eat and pee and poop and nap and eat again.

Sunday still too wet to do any serious weeding but I got the last tomato plant in the ground and set up the tomato cages, got the nasturtiums in the ground and the green beans,

and planted more beans in starter pots. I’m waiting until the cucumbers and squash seedlings get a little bigger before getting them in the ground but the onions I planted earlier are starting to come up as are the carrots I planted a month ago.

So many things blooming (so many pictures)...more iris,

poppies,

indigofera,

mock dogwood/orange starting up,

all the pink roses (some red ones too),

and on the wild side this lyre leaf sage in my neighbor’s easement,

fleabane,

evening primrose,

in the field behind me indian paintbrush (bluebonnets too),

and the baby blue eyes are in full bloom.

a nation, a culture, a society in distress

I know it seems like I’m turning a blind eye to what’s happening here in the country but I assure you I am not. Just how do you write about the fall of a democracy, the loss of freedoms and rights, the loss of the rule of law, and the loss of the very foundations of this country, that the people voted in this man, a convicted felon and self admitted sexual abuser, who stated over and over that he wanted and would take all authority and it is all happening so quickly. 

People are being disappeared, sent to heinous detention centers, tortured and deported to forced labor prisons in El Salvador, all without due process, without showing any proof these people are threats. Foreign nationals with legal residency are being kidnapped off the street or from their homes, their visas or green cards or residency permits revoked immediately, taken far away where they have no contact with the outside world much less a lawyer because they participated in a protest in support of Palestinians or wrote something critical of Trump and his agenda. The most recent that we know of being Rumeysa Ozturk, a PHD student, who they surrounded in broad daylight on the street and arrested because she wrote an article critical of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.

Other foreign nationals with legal residence are being arrested in airports as they try to return from a trip abroad and detained in inhumane conditions for weeks before being deported or simply disappearing because of some post on SM critical of what’s happening in our government or event they attended making them national security risks, again all without due process and producing no proof of their accusations. There have been reports of citizens being arrested and detained. If you think you're safe because you were born here, you are mistaken. None of us are safe. Trump’s secret police will start coming for anyone critical of this administration regardless of citizenship status.

Court orders are blatantly ignored, people exercising their first amendment right to protest are labeled terrorists, law firms and lawyers are being targeted for representing people and organizations who legally file suits against the unlawful actions of this administration. Veterans are being thrown aside, people of color and women are being whitewashed out of the public record regardless of their contributions and expertise. All opposition is met with threats and retribution. Our allies can no longer count on us and in fact this country has aligned with other dictators. The man who desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize is having invasion plans for Panama drawn up to take the Canal while he talks about annexing Greenland and parts of Canada as well. All while his appointees and an unelected billionaire dismantle the government. And their goal is not to just dismantle the government. They want to dismantle our culture and society and replace it with their strict and repressive version as outlined in Project 2025.

The mainstream media, all owned and controlled by billionaires kissing Trump’s ass either do not report on the lawlessness of the Trump administration or sanewash it or just outright lie about it. Trump’s desire to control everything to reflect his world view is now being directed at our universities threatening to illegally withhold federal funds unless they change their policies and teaching departments to suit him which generally means getting rid of Black studies/history and Women studies/history. And unfortunately, instead of standing for the first amendment and academic freedom, Columbia University has bent the knee. Kowtowing to a bully is never a good idea. It doesn’t placate him and only emboldens him to demand more concessions. We are on the way to having only Government approved education, repressing actual history and achievements Trump and the people behind Project 2025 do not approve of. 

Our European allies are drawing away from us, tourism from Canada has almost completely stopped, and European nations are issuing travel warnings against coming here as well they should.

Trump’s cabinet is nothing but unqualified, inexperienced, and inappropriate candidates whose only qualification required was that they will do what Trump tells them to do and apparently being appointed by Trump makes them think they can do that however they want. And now this Cabinet of Sewer Clowns, as Jeff Tiedrich so delicately puts it, has put our national security at risk by discussing classified strike plans on another country on a commercial phone app using their personal phones. The media is going on about this ‘accident’. Make no mistake, this was not an accident. It was a deliberate use of Signal, a communication app that is encrypted coming and going and messages can be set to self delete after a week or three/four weeks. Encrypted for public use and a secure government encrypted server are two completely different things. If they think their conversations on Signal can’t be penetrated by enemies using sophisticated techniques, then they are just as stupid as we think they are. The only ‘accident’ here was adding a reporter to the conversation and I’d qualify that as more of a stupid thoughtless mistake.

There are a few reasons Hegseth used Signal to communicate his war plans to VP Vance, Sec of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Walsh (the idiot who added reporter Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat), Director of National Intelligence Russian agent Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliff, WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, WH Deputy Chief of Staff Nazi Stephen Miller, and possibly others. One, they are too lazy and self entitled to get their butts down to a SCIF room and use the secure government server (it’s too hard, it’s too much trouble, it’s too cumbersome, wah wah, whine whine) even though it’s a crime to violate the proper protocols; or two, the government server archives every single word and they would just as soon not have any evidence of their clown fuckery. I’d assume option 2 to be the driving force. Who knows what else they are discussing on Signal they don’t want a permanent record of.

Of course none of them are taking responsibility for putting our national security at risk. All we’re getting, as usual, is gaslighting, denials, lies, blaming the journalist, and arguing over semantics. It wasn’t war plans, it was attack plans. I’m sorry, when you make a military strike on another country, it’s an act of war. Trump denies knowing about it, they claim discussing military strike plans with actual details of where, when, how, and what is not classified material. Heads should be rolling, people should already have been fired but this is the Trump administration after all, where no crime goes punished, where the US Attorney General Pam Bondi suggests there will be no criminal investigation into the Signal episode. Or any other illegal actions by this government which is why she is the US AG.

So this is where we are. Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter of March 27 is a chilling read.