still hot but changes in progress, annoyed Cat, more cards, and maybe a ray of hope

I’m happy to report my reaction to the second shingles shot was minimal. I woke up about 4 AM the next morning feeling achy and a little chill. Not having chills but I turned the fan down from high to medium, took some ibuprofen and I’m fine today (Saturday) though I do have a red and sore area on my arm in the vicinity of the injection site. The All Knowing Oracle tells me this is a common reaction.

Things are happening that denote the start of the changing season even if our highs are still in the 90s albeit the low 90s. Of course the ‘real feel’ temp is always over 10 degrees hotter. The tallow trees have been dropping leaves for a couple of weeks now, 

I noticed last week that the snow-on-the-prairie was blooming with it’s tiny flowers and white leaves, bloom plumes are emerging from the clumps of pampas grass, 

the beauty berries are purple, foliage all around is looking tired, and it’s dark by 8:30. Yesterday (Sunday) and today, a bit less hot staying in the high 80s but will zoom up high 90s this week before dropping back to low 90s. Still, it’s September and the summer did not seem to drag on. I don’t think we had an actual temp in the triple digits this summer.

Cat always wants out in the morning and back in by noon or earlier and then spends the rest of the day inside. This morning (Saturday) I let her out as usual and as usual when I venture out after breakfast and emerge from the garage she runs up to me from the deck in the front where she spends her outdoor time and I let her in. This morning I didn’t pause waiting for her but went straight to the backyard looking things over when I heard her meow at me from the driveway. Instead of going and letting her in right away I continued my meander around the yard and when I was over by the zinnias she came running towards me and let out this long indignant howl and when I looked at her she ran back to the garage. Hey bitch get your butt over here and let me in.

I’ve done three more cards but I’m starting to get carried away. The azalea took way too long and is too big, well it’s not too big just too big for the purpose of these cards which is why it took so long plus I kept making adjustments to the colors (not to mention I painted the wrong side of the card). The point of these cards is to minimize my time investment, small fairly simple designs, two hours or less. The black eyed susans took a little over an hour so I’ve decided to keep the azalea, send it to one of my friends. I’ve done seven so far. If I do at least two a week I’ll have them all done for the little expanded market day. It’s more likely I’ll only get 15 or 20 done by then.

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There’s been some question the past few days about whether or not Trump had died or was whisked away to the mini hospital in the basement of the White House, if he had had a stroke or heart failure because he had not been seen for about five days. Being the media hog that he is who loves nothing more than to talk about himself to the press and air his grievances while claiming to be the best at everything this is highly unusual. Finally a pictured appeared Sunday of Trump leaving the White House for one of his golf clubs, of course since that’s all he does except for when they hand him more EOs to sign or he’s indulging in one of his cabinet ass kissing sessions. Looked pretty bad as he ignored the press. No telling what’s going on and the White House certainly won’t tell us the truth but if he is getting more incapacitated people are starting to speculate on what a JD Vance take over would be like. Some people think it will be worse because Vance is smarter than Trump and I thought so too at one point. Now, though, I’m thinking maybe the whole MAGA movement might unravel quickly. MAGA is a cult of personality, without Trump, there is no cult. Vance may be smarter but he is also unlikeable, has no people skills, no charisma, has basically been side-lined since the election; he may be a willing puppet but I don’t see him inheriting Trump’s following. I think maybe that while Trump’s core refuses to blame Trump for the deteriorating conditions in this country they will have no problem blaming Vance. And with Trump gone, so will be his hold on congressional republicans, at least the more moderate ones, and we might start seeing some push back from them. One would hope anyway. It’s one ray and I think I’ll hold onto that for now.

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A few random photos:  I noticed this spiral of green lacewing eggs,

Another praying mantis, this one on my sister’s Mexican bird of paradise (pride of Barbados),

which is still in full bloom. She has a different variety than mine. Her's comes out later and fuller, blooms earlier than mine and blooms longer. Mine is already done blooming.

general life and three more

Tuesday’s sky.

We did finally get some rain Tuesday, about an inch and a half, but need more. And speaking of rain, my pecan crop is going to be a disaster this year. All that rain we had earlier in the summer caused the developing pecans, of which there were many, to get some kind of mildew or fungal disease because they never got a chance to dry out. Some are worse than others like these. I asked my retired farmer friend what that meant for the pecans. He said it meant they were rotten inside. Sigh.

As mentioned the blank watercolor note cards came and I’ve been having fun using the watercolor pencils and crayons. I have a vast trove of drawings of flowers, plants, birds and other critters from my decades of etched glass and pate de verre. I’m wanting to limit my time investment in these little paintings so I’m using things I’ve already drawn. Just have to transfer the drawing to the card, color them in and add a little water. I did two more Wednesday and another on Thursday after I got home from SHARE. 

We got our second shingles shot today. My PCP explained why the first shot is a breeze and the second shot knocks you on your butt for a day. The first shot you have no antibodies and it creates about 75% protection. The second shot, now you have antibodies and they are doing their job which is why people get side effects. After the second shot we get about 95% protection from shingles so be prepared to feel bad for a day.

So that was on the agenda for today but yesterday, when I went over to feed the cats I got the long handled nippers out and did some pruning on the trees and grape vines in the back because Joe was coming Monday to mow over there and that shit was hanging down almost to the ground. And while I was at it I cut some of the low branches off one of the catalpa trees that were hanging on the little front porch of the house and then some of the long rose canes from the arbor and left all that on the ground to deal with later. Paisleigh and her dad were over at the shop and so she trailed around behind me to help telling me many times “because I’m good at that”. Yes you are, I told her, you’re good at many things. And then I discovered that my readers had fallen out of my pocket at some point and although I searched around every area I worked I did not find them. Poot.

This morning Joe called me at 8 AM to say he could come on Sunday as he was going to be out of town on Monday (oh, yeah, holiday). I told him just anytime today or tomorrow at his convenience so he’s coming today because, he reminded me, it’s supposed to rain this afternoon and maybe even the next two or three days. Perhaps this morning so after I fed the cat, fed the dog, fed the birds, took my pills I had to get over there and pick up all the stuff from yesterday and lug it to the burn pile and wind up the hose so he could mow. Getting hot and sweaty first thing is not how I like to start my day. 

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And because Trump is a resentful needy little grievance baby, he has revoked Kamala Harris’ continued Secret Service protection today, the day before her (best selling) book tour starts, protection afforded to all past Vice Presidents. I have nothing to say about the shooting in Minnesota. Once again nothing but thoughts and prayers from republicans even though those kids were praying when they got shot and their god did nothing. But you know, for republicans it’s never the guns but mental health while they cut funding for mental health and continue to let disturbed individuals buy all the fucking guns they want. This is a sick country led by the sickest of individuals. No citizen needs an AR-15 for protection. They aren’t good for that. Their only purpose is to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible.
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I hate to end on this so here’s a picture of flowers on the white orchid tree/shrub in front of Pam’s house.

a few accomplishments

Wednesday night when we were heading to bed, our 2 year old (we think, can’t remember exactly when we bought it but not that long ago) TV would not switch back to TV from streaming and then wouldn’t turn off. Buttons on the remote either didn’t work or got squirrelly. Replacing the batteries had no effect. Marc managed to turn it off by pushing actual buttons on the TV. It did not self heal Thursday or by Friday morning. Friday we were going to drive to the electronics store but rain was threatened all day and we didn’t want to get caught on the highway in the rain. So Walmart it was. We have a small TV, 32”, the biggest that will fit in the cabinet/shelving unit. We have a small living room and art on the walls and don’t want to have to rearrange the wall, move the art, to accommodate a big screen. Also we don’t want a TV to dominate the room. All the TVs at Walmart are big. We did find a 32” Walmart brand smart ROKU (we have a fire stick) set tucked in a foyer like area to the employee break room/bathroom? for cheap. Yeah, no and we left but not before we looked at the printers which I need one of but also did not buy one of those.

At home Marc looked at TVs on Amazon and bought one and Saturday I searched for the best inkjet printers for home in a price range I was willing to pay and compared several and bought one, also on Amazon. I know, evil empire but that’s our choice out here, one evil empire or another unless we want to take a road trip to the outskirts of the city. Don’t judge us. The new TV and printer both arrived Sunday and while Marc got the TV hooked up and functioning we put off hooking up the printer until today. Figured one frustrating tech job a day was enough. Turned out getting the printer hooked up was pretty much a breeze, the instructions were clear and easy to follow. 

In other accomplishments, my blank watercolor note cards came today and I’m going to do a series of quick little paintings with watercolor pencils and scribble sticks planning on a loose not fussy style. The point is to not spend a lot of time on them. Hesed House is planning to do an expanded market day with not just their vendors in the store but inviting other local artists to set up a booth or table so I want to have more stuff. It’s going to be the weekend before Thanksgiving. Here’s the first one, the card is 4" x 6" folded, the other woodland violet I had drawn. This one was done with the watercolor pencils.

I finally got the two watercolors, the pomegranate and zucchini, framed. I bought the concrete adhesive and glued the two halves of the birdbath pedestal together. 

A little front blew in Friday and Saturday was less horrible, only got into the high 80s with a pleasant little breeze, and I decided I would get the trimmer out and go around all the flowerbeds but by the time I got out there my enthusiasm had waned so I went around cutting down all the stubborn hackberry and pecan tree sprouts (eventually they will die) and did some weeding so I didn’t entirely waste the good day. And then early evening we got a visit from our daughter Sarah and great granddaughter Paisleigh. They had been out shopping and Paisleigh showed off her new sparkly shoes.

I had my 6 month primary care visit today and didn’t forget this time. No significant changes, I’m holding steady.

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Trump is continuing his power grab today, issued an EO for national guard units in each state to be ready to "assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances.”, in other words any gathering protesting Trump and his policies. He won’t tolerate another No King’s Day, peaceful or not, laying the foundation for turning our Armed Forces against the American people saying “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator,’”.

No DonOld, no one is saying that but you.

more art stuff, apparently I've been discovered, and cats and interlopers

Went outside about two of clock yesterday and could hear the distinctive call of a kite so I walked out from under the big oak where I could get a view of the sky and maybe see the kite. It was there chasing after one of our resident red shouldered hawks. They circled around lazily, the hawk didn’t seem concerned but the kite was definitely following behind calling out and then they finally flew off out of sight. Didn’t have my phone with me but probably wouldn’t have been able to get a picture anyway. I imagine the kite was protecting a nest.

I solved the question of what to do next by getting out the water color pencils that came with a larger art materials set, a birthday gift from my sister in law, and the scribble sticks (water soluble pigments) that my friend Delores sent me that she wasn’t using. I just dabbled with them to see what they did at first and then did two little drawings. This one with the pencils

and this one with the scribble sticks.

Not sure what I’m going to do with them but a friend ordered some blank watercolor note cards that she did little paintings on so I think I’ll order some and play with the pencils and sticks before I think about whether or not I want to try a serious painting with them.

We’re getting a little rain right now and the dog is her usual neurotic mess. I told her to calm down, it was just a little rain, no lightning, no thunder. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than thunder rolled through. Thanks, powers that be.

I had quite a surprise today. I average about 250 - 300 page views per post some get more than that, some less. The last 6 posts bar the very last one averaged 273. When I checked my blog dashboard after I got home from SHARE this afternoon the last post had 695 (and counting) page views! The only thing I can figure is the ‘weird aging’ in the title somehow aligned with a search topic cause I’m pretty sure ’art stuff’ and ‘flowers’ are fairly benign. Most by far were referrals from google but there were several hundred from domains I have no idea what they are.  Almost 700 page views is a lot but it doesn’t come close to the number I got when I published my post of “S is for…sex” when I was going the alphabet posts. Anyway, that one got me flagged as porn for awhile because the illustrating picture is a very graphic representation (in my defense it’s a picture of a Hindu sculpture on a temple and so qualifies as art imo) and I got thousands of hits mostly from the middle east and eastern Europe.

I have noticed recently that when I go over to feed the kitties the dishes are all knocked over, like are you guys having a party or what?  Lovey and Twin,

Handsome Boy.

Robin sent me a short video yesterday. She went out and startled three little juvenile raccoons polishing off the rest of the cat food that hadn’t got eaten. She shot a video of them escaping over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. 

Latest count of views for the last post…759. I wish I knew what caused this.

art stuff, flowers, weird aging

I made a decision about my drawing. I left the large central petal for last because those white filaments coming off the side petals were tiny and fussy and with small gaps where the petal in the background shows through and the shading of them and quite frankly I don’t think I can detail them in any way that they will look right or that I will be happy with. I looked at lots of pictures of violets yesterday and many, maybe even most, don’t have those things. So. I’ve decided to take them out. I thought maybe when I finished the drawing I could use a little thick watercolor and add them in, experimenting on a scratch piece of paper but then I realized that colored pencils are wax based it might not work. I’ll still test it out so we’ll see. I did a quick little test and it might work but I still don’t think I can get the definition. 

I worked on it more yesterday, the bottom petal, and finally put it aside because I didn’t feel like anything I added or slightly erased was changing it in any significant way. Not sure I’m through but I probably am. Not sure how happy I am with it, for one I know I omitted part of the flower and two I don’t think the shadow reads as a shadow like it does in the photo but, hey, can’t expect every drawing to come out to my satisfaction. I’m not unhappy with it just eventually I get to the point where I’m ready to move on. I think I’m there.

So, now, do I do another drawing of the other violet while I have my pencils out or go straight to watercolor. Or maybe I’ll get out the watercolor pencils and play around with them just to see what they do. And speaking of drawings or rather prints of my drawings, one of my framed prints, the yellow trumpet flower, sold at the Hesed House market.

I had to get up early this morning, and by early I mean 7 AM, for a dermatology appointment in Rosenberg (or Richmond, never sure as the two towns are contiguous). It’s a 25 minute drive mostly on the highway and my appointment was for 8 AM. By choice. Am I crazy? I think so until I get there and no waiting because I’m first and back home by 9. The other choice is in El Campo which is closer but would actually take about the same amount of time to get there. Today is also the day I do my weekly grocery shopping and one of my days to fix dinner so not much free time today.

Just some random photos…Next year’s zinnias. There’s a seed at the end of each petal, not all mature but most.

The indigofera,

the beauty berries turning purple.

Can you see this? That black line in my palm is a rogue hair I pulled out of my left eyebrow. It’s over 3/4” long. Aging does weird things to your body.

anniversary, no butterflies or kites, and mockery

Yesterday was our 49th wedding anniversary. Wednesday night at dinner Marc asked me if I knew what tomorrow was. Thursday, I said kind of shrugging like yeah. He looked at me and said, August 14th. Oh, yeah, right. I never remember and he knows that. I can’t believe it’s been 49 years he said. Yeah, you lucky bastard I replied. He laughed. Just a counterpoint to all the times he’s told me how lucky I am to have snagged a fine fellow like him. I roll my eyes. So Thursday morning we got up, wished each other happy anniversary. I went off to SHARE, we had lunch, took naps, I went off the yoga, had dinner, watched a little TV and off to bed. Like every other holiday or cause for celebration that other people indulge in, we don’t do anything special. We used to go to a movie and dinner out for birthdays and anniversaries but that stopped with covid and we just haven’t picked it up again. For one thing out here, there is no place local we would want to go eat at and the closest movie theater is a half hour on the highway away and up until recently that stretch of highway has been under heavy construction and expansion. Wrecks with 18 wheelers were frequent.

As anniversaries go we’ve really been together for 50 years. That one came and went in July. July 4th to be exact. While we had been out a couple of times with our friend Tommy previously that would have been our first official ‘date’. I had already left to spend the holiday weekend with the family at the beach house and when I got back there was a message that Marc had called and if I got back this was the number he was at. Well, it was days before I returned and when I did I called that number and it turned out to be the phone number of a friend of his because he didn’t have a phone but the guy would let him know I had called back. What I missed was a trip to Dallas to see the Rolling Stones that Marc had two tickets to. So while we did eventually have our first date (we went go cart riding), July 4th is the day we mark as the beginning of our relationship.

It was so hot yesterday and has been especially the last week and while we’ve had lots of rumbly days we haven’t gotten any real rain. It’s dark, windy, and rumbly and we’re getting a light rain right now but it remains to be seen how long it will last…and 15 minutes later it has stopped and the sky is clearing. We really need a good rain, everything is suffering and it’s only going to get worse because the current administration is canceling and revoking funding for every climate mitigating related effort put in place by Biden, just as Trump did during his first time in office to the programs Obama put in place. Reopen those coal mines and fuck you if you get black lung, drill for more oil and fuck our remaining pristine wildernesses. Burn burn burn all because he doesn’t like the sight of wind turbines or solar farms and his acolytes are all yeah, that shit don’t work when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine because they are fucking idiots who cannot comprehend the concept of batteries.

I have seen almost no butterflies this summer, a few fritillaries and skippers, maybe one monarch, no sulfurs, no hairstreaks, no giant swallowtails. The pipe vine is still intact, no pipevine swallowtail caterpillars which should have decimated it by now. Mississippi kites used to summer over here. I’d start seeing them in June. Finally started hearing their distinctive call, an occasional wheet whee a couple of weeks ago but never saw one until the other day, a single kite soaring where there should have been many. I guess they are migrating further north. 

Haven’t made much progress on the drawing but I have finished three of the petals.

I went out in the back last Wednesday morning to see that the dish of the birdbath under the magnolia tree was laying on the ground. I have no idea what creature knocked it off the pedestal. I picked it up and put it back and while I was doing so I noticed the pedestal was cracked all around the narrowest part. This morning when I went out I was greeted by this. 

Something is jumping up there for water, something big enough to knock the dish off and now the top half of the pedestal. A raccoon maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think a hawk would be heavy enough. No dogs loose that I’m aware of. So it’s off to the feed store for some concrete adhesive.

I had a whole post written about just some of the recent and continuing horrors and the continued degradation of the Constitution and our rights, the continued march to fascism and a totalitarian government but I just couldn’t publish it. Every day I delete 15 - 20 emails unread. I just can’t read essay after essay after essay telling us how fucked we are with no hope in sight of a return to a representative government. There is this though, Governor Gavin Newsom of California is trolling Trump big time, mocking him with all caps SM posts written in Trump’s style. A few examples to make you smile during these dark times:

We need more of this. Democrat leaders…get your heads out of your asses and fight fire with fire. These fascists want your fear, they revel in being called evil. What they can’t stand is mockery.