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.