the pretty and the ugly

The big surprise from yesterday…my pink crinum lilies are blooming. They didn’t bloom last year so I moved them to the end of the flower bed after I dug up the root ball of the dead confederate rose. I didn’t think they were going to bloom this year either since when they have bloomed it was in May, hence the surprise.

I heard a tapping on my window and when I looked up a titmouse was clinging to the window frame looking in. I glanced over at the bird feeder which was empty to see another titmouse waiting there patiently. Ok, ok. I got up and filled the bird feeder.

The plumerias are blooming, some of them. My two biggest ones froze because they were just too big to bring in (one planted in the ground and the other the pot sunk in the ground). I have four more big ones that really need bigger pots which I don’t have. They’ll be getting cut back severely this fall. Of those four two are (supposed to be) light pink with a yellow throat that I acquired the original from a guy we knew who had died decades ago, a victim of the AIDS epidemic, but the flowers are so pale on one of them this year as to be almost white;

one darker pink with a yellow throat which has come from cutting after cutting after cutting of one my father had;

and the other white bridal bouquet plumeria with the spade shaped leaves which is not blooming yet. I have three small ones that are not big enough to bloom: a cutting from a yellow one my niece has, another of the darker pink from my father’s parent plant, and one Pam grew from seed that came off one of my light pink ones that had been fertilized (we think) by the small white flowers of the bridal bouquet, a bigger one of those is blooming, white with a yellow throat, the flowers are small, 2” across.

I finally sat down yesterday and started painting the leaves for the shadow box starting with a pale yellow base color. I started with the green on one and already I’m going to have to do this one over. I’ll work out the colors and process on this one. The two samples I did previously were with the cheap Prang watercolors which act differently than the professional ones.

Lots of work to be done outside now that it’s stopped raining but it’s just so damn hot out. I did get the dewberry brambles cut out of all but the flower bed in front and all the sprouted pecan and hackberry trees and that was enough for yesterday.

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Alright, here comes the ugly part, the continued assault on our country and freedoms that you may have missed with all eyes on the reflection pond debacle and you can skip it if you want. All names have been changed (or left out if I couldn’t come up with a suitable nickname) to protect me.

Kegsbreath’s white christian nationalist vision for the military, all male because women should not be giving men orders, can aptly be described thusly: “Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.” So he’s remaking the military into a Crusade military. And because he thinks vaccinations are for wimps, not strong military men, he deep sixed the flu vaccine requirement and over two hundred new recruits promptly got the flu and disrupted their training. A week later he grudgingly reinstated the flu vaccine requirement.

Nazi Nosferatu Miller is saying out loud and in public that disabled Americans need to be locked away in an institution. This is not about economics since it costs about 3 times more to institutionalize someone than it does to provide the aid that allows them to live in their own homes. This is only about getting ‘defective’ people out of sight, out of society. I imagine it won’t be long before he advocates for just putting them down like you would a rabid animal. He has also declared our national borders closed since the Supreme Court has ruled that this administration can deny asylum seekers entry while waiting for their appeal to be heard. All those desperate mothers with their children are all liars, he says, only wanting free stuff. Never mind that they wouldn’t be eligible for any of that ‘free’ stuff. Then he claimed that the nation that was built on and exists because of immigration has no future if we don’t end birthright citizenship, and by that he means not white.  

Lest you think some Republicans are finally remembering they have a spine and passed the War Powers Resolution to limit Petulant Grievance Baby’s ability to wage unsanctioned war, after meeting with PGB after the vote, the Republican Senate reversed the vote and defeated it. Of course they did.

Even when this republican congress actually does something right like passing the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act which addresses housing affordability, Trump refuses to sign it because “nobody gives a (expletive) about housing”, or rather he refuses until congress passes his voter suppression SAVE America act. Regardless, it will become law anyway in ten days as long as Congress is still in session. We can expect Supreme Butt Kisser Johnson to send everyone home any day now.

So of course the far right Freedom Caucus in the House said if PGB isn’t going to sign passed legislation there was no reason to debate anymore and voted against procedural measures that allows the House to conduct business and so SBK sent everyone home Thursday. Did I call that or what?

And now Texas has required all public school teachers to use christian bible readings in their lessons and all the christian nationalists are going fuck yeah, now our students will get some morality and all the behavior problems will disappear. Rest assured it won’t be the ones where Jesus tells you to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, welcome the stranger because that’s just communist. The Texas Lt. Gov. stood up and said with a straight face, in order to justify the legality of imposing christian scripture in public schools, that “Separation of church and state is not in the Constitution”.

The Supreme Court just ruled that protected immigrant legal status for Haitians and Syrians is illegal and these people can be deported. Guess who voted in favor of getting rid of their protected status? Justice ACB who adopted two Haitian children.

That’s about all I can stomach for today.