delving into the underbelly

image via the internet. overcast here and not dark at all just out of the totality path.

How is it that in this day and time people still harbor superstitious nonsense about the mechanics of the solar system, about something that happens with regularity and can be predicted to the minute, a 30 minute event, the eclipse of the sun, whose totality lasts all of about four minutes?

The wackos are out predicting doomsday and retribution. Governor Sanders of Arkansas declared a state of emergency yesterday that will last until Wednesday to mobilize producers and deliverers of essential goods because the sky will dim briefly today. Another group tells us to be ready for the Rapture. Marjorie Taylor Green warns us that her big daddy in the sky is sending strong messages via earthquakes and eclipses telling America to repent! Her boyfriend goes even further claiming this may be the last normal weekend because who knows what this ‘very rare’ eclipse will bring (newsflash, solar eclipses are not rare and happen with predictable regularity) and that next is the plague of locusts that will attack mankind (he’s referring to the 13 and 17 year cycle broods of cicadas that will hatch this year and, no, they will not be attacking humans and no, cicadas aren't locusts). Alex Jones has gone off the deep end claiming that all kinds of rituals are going to be performed by Masonic, Esoteric, Satanic, Brotherhood of the Snake, and other Occult groups to usher in the New World Order! (Thanks to Jeff Tiedrich for this compilation).

And then on the way to the vet with Minnie for a wellness check NPR was interviewing a woman about christian nationalism and evangelicals and their plan for forcing a repressive theocracy on the US. Fun stuff.

And the Vatican has released a doctrine statement defining gender affirming care, gender theory, and surrogacy as violations of human dignity when it is in fact these religious doctrines that violate human dignity, that proclaim a way of being they don’t like or try to understand to be sinful and deserving of repression and violence. I suppose all those child rapers and molesters in the Catholic clergy weren’t violating the human dignity of their victims.

And then there’s this…House Intelligence Committee chair says Russian propaganda has spread through the GOP. Ya think?

And here’s a big surprise…not. Trump is lying (hard to believe I know), now that it has occurred to him it might be a big issue in November saying he believes the abortion issue should be left to the states after he foolishly admitted supporting a national ban if reelected and bragging about ending RvW. 

 

just so you know

some of the republican fucknuttery of the last two weeks or so.

A public school in Florida sent home a permission slip to be signed by a parent to allow their child to listen while a book by an African American author is read aloud in class. Another public school sent home a permission slip for parents to sign that allowed their child to watch the Disney film Tangled. Apparently it has caused DeSantis to have an epiphany about his broad stroke book banning and crusade against Disney that has allowed considerable confusion and strife and little old biddies with sticks up their butts and no children in public school to complain about all sorts of books and things they don’t personally like. He now thinks his law should be changed.

Following Trump’s orders congressional republicans killed the tough bi-partisan border policy and funding bill that they had demanded because Trump wants to campaign on the “border crisis”. Hint: it’s not a crisis if you want to wait a year to do something about it. 

House republicans had their second impeachment vote of Secretary Mayorkas which passed by one vote charging high crimes and misdemeanors without a single shred of evidence of high crimes, misdemeanors, or any impeachable offense all while accusing Biden and democrats of weaponizing the justice system against Trump. 

Anti-abortion activists are ramping up accusations that prenatal tests are inaccurate and the testing industry is corrupt in an effort to ultimately ban genetic testing and ultrasounds that detect deformities and unviability in fetuses. In the interim they want to pass legislation that demands doctors tell their patients who get a devastating diagnosis that no test is 100% accurate and they may be ending a perfectly healthy pregnancy and to send these women to anti-abortion prenatal ‘counselors’ who will lie to them about their pregnancy. They would prefer that pregnant women never know if there is a problem. I guess not enough women are dying from pregnancy and childbirth to suit them in these days of preventive care.

Alabama republican senator Tommy Tuberville, who withheld important military promotions that had a negative effect on the Armed Forces readiness praises Putin and blames the US for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Arizona republicans are pushing a number of bills that will, among other things, make registering to vote and voting more difficult, will allow election vigilantes free reign to harass voters, and will ultimately give county election deniers the ability to throw out election results that don’t favor republicans and declare their candidate the winner.

Trump has posted two articles from Newsweek that he has altered by deleted anything critical of him and anything praising Biden.

Trump has claimed that if elected he will not come to the aid of our NATO allies and will encourage Putin to do whatever he wants.

Tucker Carlson was in Russia, which he claimed is nicer, cleaner, happier than any city in the US and interviewed Putin. When asked later why his didn’t ask Putin about Navalny and assassinations, he replied that “leadership requires killing people”. Let that sink in.

Trump claims he, as president, has total immunity for anything done during his term and then says if re-elected he will indict Biden. So I guess he means only he has total presidential immunity.

Alabama republicans want to be able to jail librarians.

Faced with having to actually govern and address the aid package that Ukraine desperately needs that passed in the Senate and the appropriations bills to fund the government when the stop gaps expire in early March, because Trump wants no aid to Ukraine, being Putin’s lap dog, even though 90% of the funds would be spent here replacing the old munitions we would offload onto Ukraine with new modern ones, Speaker Johnson has recessed the House for two weeks. 

Trump invites Russia to attack NATO countries; Speaker Johnson, whose campaign for his Louisiana seat in the House was financed by Russians, recesses the House at a crucial moment for Ukraine instead of voting on the aid package passed by the Senate; Putin murders Navalny. Coincidence? Not likely.

Since Putin’s support of Trump is not helping Trump in his reelection campaign, he has now decided to support Biden in an effort I suppose to get democrats to drop their support for Biden and switch to Trump?

The Alabama supreme court has declared unimplanted frozen embryos to be human children under state law. What happens now is anyone’s guess. Forced implantation? Outlawing IVF?

Two republican state representatives have introduced a bill in the Tennessee legislature to prevent a retailer with a beer license from selling cold or refrigerated beer.  

probably shouldn't have done that

Everyone was right and I enjoyed myself much more that I thought I would. And I definitely gave them a peek at the real me. Probably shouldn't have done that. 'That' being taking my blouse off halfway through the meal at the dining room table where half of us were sitting conversing and eating.

OK, is everyone finished spitting out their drink or choking? I had on a white tank top underneath. Fortunately the group at that table (the rest were sitting at the table in the eat in kitchen) were the guys I work with in the back and their spouses and the hostess who works up front. I apologized (only took me about 10 tries to spell this word correctly) in advance to the table saying I had to take this off because I was just too hot and then pulled it off over my head. There was a moment of stunned silence when one of the guys said “we're all friends here” and the conversation resumed as if nothing had happened. I did put it back on after we all got up from the table. I had wanted to dress up a little and the clothes I had chosen were way too warm but I thought I would be fine in an air conditioned house only they had cathedral ceilings and it was not exactly cool.

So back home, I'm reviewing the evening and I am a little shocked myself at myself. I can't believe I did that. I don't know why, I do shit like that all the time. So a sleepless night wondering what they all thought of me and the next day I sent this text to the hostess:

Hi XXXXX. First I want to say it was a lovely party and I had a really good time. Second I want to acknowledge that I shocked everyone when I took my blouse off though I knew I had a tank top on underneath and didn’t think wearing just that was indecent but when I got home thinking about the evening I sort of shocked myself in retrospect. I’d blame it on dementia but doing something spontaneous and inappropriate that seemed imperative at the time is something I’ve done many times in my life. My filter breaks down I suppose. Anyway, I had a sleepless night on the ass kicking machine. So for that I apologize.

But let me make an attempt at understanding where my head was at. I take two meds that one of the side effects is intolerance to heat. It doesn’t affect me all the time but Friday was a particularly bad day and coupled with my poor choice of clothes for the evening and how warm it was in the dining room I felt like I was radiating heat and was a small step from physical unwellness and my brain said cool off now! I was so appreciative of everyone at the table just moving on as if nothing had happened.

When I do stuff like that I just have to brazen on through. At the very least I gave you a story to tell.

She was kind enough to reply with this:

Oh my, I am so sorry you lost sleep over this! It was not inappropriate. I wear a camisole often, so it was not offensive at all. We owe you an apology—XXXXX noticed today that the vent in the dining room was closed. Guess he had done that a long time ago to try to route the air better to the kitchen (we seldom use the dining room). I was anxious to tell you this on Thursday. 1) I’m sorry you were so hot 2) I’m so sorry you have worried this 3) you certainly are welcome back in our home anytime.

Please do not worry about this for one more second!!!

So now I'm waiting to see what kind of ribbing I get on Thursday.

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In other news Rocky finally came on Saturday and fixed the cracked pipe that brings water into the shop so now I have water in the studio and a functioning toilet.

No more having to pee behind the shop. Yay! So while Rocky was working on that I filled another trash bag, emptied another metal shelving unit, added quite a bit to the trash pile to take to the transfer station, tossed a few things on the burn pile. This particular shelving unit is rusty since it was against the wall where the roof leaks so I brushed it off, sprayed it with Ospho in preparation for painting before I move it into the empty space to the left of the studio. Still too hot to work over there today, temp still climbing to the high of 90˚ but a front is moving in this evening dropping the low to 45˚ so next week I can get more work done over there.

I took a new selfie for my profile pic on FB yesterday.

What's blooming...

four o'clocks and mistflower

the large array with cosmos

and the morning glory bush.

why can't I make up my mind!

Sunday, when I went over to the studio to work on the mold it didn't take me long to think that I might have used the marigold powder instead of the yellow powder when I started backfilling the large flower. The reason I thought this is because when I added more of the 10/1 ratio color, it looked lighter than what was already in there. And if so then I've totally lost control of how intense the color I was trying for will turn out. Later though I thought surely I didn't make a rookie mistake confusing one jar with another. The powders both look the same but the marigold is in a small jar and the yellow is in a bigger jar. So we'll see.

Then I had to decide on a background. I was thinking a light blue, there are blues that don't react with yellow and decided on gray blue but after filling in two sections now I'm not so sure. It would be a pain to remove it without disturbing the yellow but I could do it, well most of it, probably not where the two colors touch.

The gray blue was the color I used for the first failed body for the heron box. You might remember that disaster from late summer 2019.  Maybe I'll remove most of it and then layer in some of the indigo behind it.

Watching the bird feeder Monday morning, there's one male cardinal in particular that hangs out and chases off all the other cardinals that light on the bird feeder or the shepherd's crook it hangs from.

Coming back from our walk Sunday, I pulled up a handful of hay grass in the front and passed this plumeria to toss the grass in the garden cart and I noticed this grasshopper laying eggs in the hollow stump of a branch I had pruned back.

Ah well, of course I removed the gray blue Monday morning and I got almost all of it out replacing it with the indigo which looks fairly dark in the mold but I don't think it will be that saturated after firing, at least I hope not because I don't want a dark blue (I know you're thinking that indigo is a very dark blue but this is a tint, one of the very pale colors). It's only about a 3/16” thick layer and so should only be as dark as the tip of the sample after it melts down. But of course now I'm thinking I should have stuck with the gray blue.

gray blue on the left, indigo on the right

I don't know why I'm so indecisive about this but I'll just have to forge ahead as no way can I remove the frit from around the narrow tendrils without screwing those up but probably what I'll do is try and lift out some of the indigo in an uneven manner and put in a layer of clear so it will look slightly mottled. I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

We had a full class at yoga last night, 8, about average for that but sometimes a few more. I start out with breathing and a gentle warm up getting increasingly more difficult from beginner/intermediate to intermediate/advanced as the class is mixed in skill level. I'm not sure when Abby's coming back, maybe next week, maybe not but surely the week after that. It's challenging for me and maybe even a little fun now that I'm over my nervousness.

crazy people

The other day the son of the crazy woman who owns the lot next to us came over to mow and cut up the catalpa tree on the corner of the open shed that fell over several months ago. Then he was out there with a metal detector trying to find the metal stake at the front of the property that marks the property line and he was looking in the wrong spot, figuring it would be across from the fence line of the shop property across the street. Originally, the lot next to us belonged to the people who owned my house but for reasons unknown to me, they sold it to Frank of the Bountiful Garden whose property was on the other side of the lot. Frank didn't want to buy the tallow trees on the property line so the original owner retained 5', meaning we own the 5' adjacent to our property. This was news to her son and he finally conceded he would have to get someone out there to find the actual property line in preparation of putting up the fence. I'm pretty sure this is news to the crazy one as well and all this time she's been thinking we have not been respecting the property line, hence the fence between us, I guess. Or who knows what motivates her as far as we're concerned. I have to admit that I wish I could have been a bug on the wall to see her reaction when he told her. Don't you know she went nuts learning we owned 5' of property that she thinks should be hers.

And speaking of crazy people, the madman in the White House has kicked the hornets nest by assassinating the second most powerful man in Iran. For reasons. Trump is a proven liar and governments lie when they want to go to war (Iraq being our most recent example) and so I do not believe a word Trump or anyone in his administration or any of his Republican supporters says about Soleimani and his plans to attack US embassies and bases especially since defense officials dispute Trump's claim. So Soleimani was evil. So is Putin, so is Erdogan, so is Kim Jong Un, so is the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu and all the other dictators Trump so admires and in fact he alerted Putin of his intention and not Congress who has the sole power to authorize an act of war.

Not satisfied with this stupid thoughtless stunt all because Trump and his minions can't tolerate the achievements of a black man, and asked if he had an exit strategy for the events that will surely follow, he replied “I don't need an exit strategy”; Trump has threatened to bomb 52 cultural and heritage sites in Iran, 52 non-military targets. This is a war crime. Not surprisingly, our allies that Trump has spent the last three years shitting on do not support the impulsive assassination of Soleimani with no thought as to the consequences that has already endangered their own service people abroad and Trump can't understand why not while Pompeo actually said he expected the Iranians to rejoice over Soleimani's death.

And who are we to claim righteousness? How many innocent lives have we ended in our quest for oil and conquest of the world? We destroyed Iraq under false pretenses, over half a million Iraqis dead, their infrastructure destroyed, the economy decimated, caused it to fall into anarchy and terrorism, not to mention the 30,000+ maimed American soldiers, all because Dick Cheney had a hard on for Iraqi oil.

Trump has fulfilled his own prediction/tweets about Obama...a failing unpopular (and in this case impeached) president would start a war with Iran to get re-elected.

Welcome to 2020. And I thought 2019 was fucked up.

the bitch was back with apologies to Tina Turner

My crazy fucking bitch neighbor showed up yesterday. Fortunately, I wasn't here and Marc had to deal with her. She came and knocked on the back door to tell us 'as a courtesy' that she was going to have a fence put up between us. Good, Marc says. Well, I'm not good, she says, and get your vegetation off my property and out of my airspace (I'm paraphrasing here). And I don't want you mowing my property (?) as we don't mow her property though the last time Marc mowed he did a strip that was over the property line to blow our grass off her property and onto ours and Marc told her so, 'which is more than you do', he says. I don't do that (blow her cut grass onto our property with the mower), she says, which makes her a liar as well as a crazy fucking bitch because we watched her do it the last time she cut the grass over there. She went on about her bricks, she's tired of our shit, she should sue us to make us pay for half the fence (good luck with that), and everything everybody has said about us is true (?). Marc called her a lunatic and told her to leave.

I asked him if she was going to get a survey and she said no that she was going to go by my impermanent wrought iron fence sections that I put up in the back years ago to show her husband about where the property line was because he would spray Roundup back there and he had encroached on our side by about a foot. Well, she better get a survey because when I see the fence people show up that's the first thing I'm going to ask for.

I'll be putting the number for the sheriff on speed dial.

I was warned about her but unfortunately the warning came too late. We should have just gone to the funeral for her husband with whom we got along great and then gone back to the status quo, which was no contact with her, instead of trying to be friendly and supportive of her in her grief.

Oh well. How does that go...no good deed goes unpunished.