lazy days with rain

Between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning we got 3 1/2” of rain accompanied by lightning and thunder. Saturday night another 1/2”. Consequently I got very little sleep the last two nights what with the trembling panting constantly on the move dog as she shifted from side to side of me. For hours. This morning it looked to be clearing but quickly clouded over, dark and dismal, listening to the distant thunder all morning. It’s closer now, thunder louder and a flash or two of lightning but still no rain. Neurotic dog stuck to me like glue, wants to sit in my lap facing me. At least it’s not the middle of the night. Oh, raining lightly now. 

I didn’t actually get out in the yard Friday like I planned besides pulling a few weeds and the only thing I accomplished yesterday was running a few errands and cutting away the second third of the dead rangoon creeper off the fence across the street. Doubt I’ll get anything accomplished today either, indoors or out. Certainly not out, too wet to do anything out. There is so much I could do in the house but...meh.

I finally finished the book Jade gave me to read which took freaking forever because it didn’t appeal to me all that much, all 260 pages of a monologue by an older woman recounting her late childhood and early adulthood from which home and life she left without a backward glance or word to anyone, painting herself as an unappealing character with pretend interactions and conversations and sexual obsessions and when she finally gets to when she leaves, that’s the end of the book. Maybe I’ll start one of the books I got at the library yesterday or maybe we’ll watch the next episode of Shogun. 

Tomorrow I grab up the last wildling, Twin, for his appointment at the vet on Tuesday. I’m still not sure how I want to go about it as he will only let me pet him while he eats as he is facing me. Doesn’t let me approach from behind and while I have managed to pick him up several times, it’s only for half a minute while he struggles so I don’t know if I can get hold of him long enough to shove him in the carrier. The other option is putting the other two kittens in the shed and baiting the live trap with food and see if he goes in after it. And then what, take him to the vet in the live trap? So we’ll see how this all works out.

This is the far back of the big backyard, behind all the flowerbeds and banana trees (which you can’t see because they are only about a foot or two tall so far), a nice thick patch of evening primrose. Behind me is a large area of just thick weeds...cleaver, clover, and another thing I don’t know what it is but it makes tiny flowers and seeds that stick to you...and hay grass and off to the right of that are some bluebonnets. This area is really part of the big pasture behind our lot, behind all the houses on our side of the street, but we have incorporated it into our yard for the wildflowers because our back is not fenced like most the other houses on the street. It will eventually all get mowed down after it goes to seed.

My flag iris are starting to bloom, white in the front

and blue in the back.

The purple japanese iris is sending up it’s bloom scapes but none have opened yet.

As it turned out, we watched the next three episodes of Shogun on Hulu and are now caught up with the subsequent episodes being released on Tuesdays. It’s based on the book by James Clavell which I read long ago when it came out. It’s very good so if you’re looking for something to watch I recommend it.

just a day, same as the other days

Wednesday evening was week three of the current cardio drumming class and it is still so much fun. Only two more weeks left. This was the sky returning home Wednesday evening.

Judging by the number of juvenile cardinals I'm seeing at the bird feeder I'd say this was an excellent year for cardinals.

My gallery called yesterday to invite me to send a piece for their annual anniversary show, 50 of their favorite artists, one piece each. You might remember she called me last year in March about this show because she wanted a box and to give me plenty of time to make it. That was the coral reef box I worked on all last year, well, 4 1/2 months. Anyway, I had to tell her that I have not so much as set foot in the studio since finishing the box and it was just too hot in the studio now to even attempt working over there. You're not retired are you!? I told her that was a question I had been pondering this year but that no I didn't think so, not yet. I don't want you to retire she tells me. So while I have two older pieces I've never sent and am sending her the pics, I may not be represented this year. Which is fine. My interest in the glass art community has waned significantly.

I do have two pieces I've started on the wax models for, if they haven't melted into a puddle by now, though I have abandoned the idea of remaking the luna moth piece and completely abandoned making the comet moth piece. And I have a major piece I want to do comprised of three separate parts for the wall but even if the air conditioner could keep the studio room cool the cold work part and the kiln is in the un-air conditioned part of the shop and I bet it's well over 110 in there without the kiln being on. And then there's the no water part which I haven't addressed yet and don't plan on until working outside isn't an immediate threat of heat stroke. Hell, it's so hot I don't even want to walk across the street much less open up the shop.

I'm still spending my days watering, making sure the bird feeder and bird baths are full, playing games on my phone, reading a bit, streaming shows, currently The Bear which is about a young up and coming chef, Carmen, working in an upscale NY restaurant when his brother commits suicide and he returns home to take over the family sandwich shop to try and save it and make it into something better. Doesn't sound all that interesting does it but it's really good. Two seasons and we're about halfway through season one. What I am still not doing is anything creative. Well, I've been here before and it will pass.

I've mentioned I've been putting raw peanuts in the shell out for the squirrels to help keep them out of our pecans which have suffered another less severe attack. A while back I noticed three little plants in a different part of the little backyard that I had never seen before and didn't know what they were but decided to let them grow until they revealed themselves (not great pictures, a little out of focus).

I happened to notice the other day that one of them had little yellow pea shaped flowers.

I finally looked it up today and I'm growing peanuts! Those squirrels are planting them for future reserves I guess.

And this, Mexican bird of paradise, one of the few things that does not mind the heat and lack of rain.

a (not so) hidden danger, a task completed, and being lazy

Cat is hiding in the yellow butterfly ginger next to the bird feeder this morning while the chickadees, a wren, and a cardinal issue their warning calls. 

I had just filled the bird feeder and set out the cracked corn and peanuts. She's been going out with the dog and me first thing in the morning, the dog to do her rounds and take care of business, me checking for stink bugs on the tomatoes, and Cat poking around the flowers and when Minnie and I head back into the house she follows and comes in with us. This morning though it's foggy and wet and I did not go out with the dog and so Cat is hanging out under the ginger having followed me out when I was setting out the bird and squirrel food. The birds have given up. They'll come back after Cat comes in.

Another storm came through yesterday afternoon though we barely got any rain out of it while it poured on the other side of town at my daughter's house. I checked with Abby and then checked the radar and there was a big storm over El Campo so I didn't go to yoga last night. Which is well because grandgirls Jade and Robin came over and y'all will be glad to know that the roof is finally clear of leaves, downed branches, and overhanging limbs from the trees and I did not have to get up there and do it. Jade said she would and so she did. 

She not only shoved all the debris off, she swept it clean and pruned off all the branches from the crepe myrtle, magnolia, 

and chinese fringe flower that were brushing the roof or nearly.

Jade was here and Autumn was in route because they are leaving today for a week or so in Costa Rica to celebrate their birthday on Thursday when they turn 25! Some of you have been reading about these girls from the Granny Camp days and now they are going to be 25.

All these storms blowing through have made our mornings nice and cool though the days are humid and warm up fast. Apparently we're going to have a wet summer this year, far different from the long hot dry one last year when it was already getting into the 90s in February. I'm starting to see little baby pecans falling off the trees which is good I guess, just as long as plenty stick and grow, as my neighbor Gary says if they all developed they would be too heavy and break branches.

We've been watching The White Lotus on HBOMax (which is now just called Max) and watched the last episode of season two last night. The White Lotus is a hotel and the season follows certain of the guests and hotel employees during their week's stay. It's really good but if nudity, including full frontal male nudity, sex, gay sex, offends you then you might not watch it. There's a lot of sex and nudity and early in the first episode of the first season is a close up of a guy holding his penis up jostling his balls because he thinks he has cancer and wants his wife to tell him if they're swollen. The first season is set in Maui, second season (different hotel, same name) is set in Sicily. I know I've emphasized the nudity and sex but it's not really about that. It's mainly about the people with really good character development, their relationships, familial and otherwise, contentious and otherwise, power struggles among themselves and between the haves and the have nots. One character carries over into the second season but both seasons have surprising endings. It's been renewed for a third season which won't be out until the end of the year at the earliest. There's a couple of trailers on youtube if you want to check it out.

And that's about all I know. I went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and bought some okra, a cantaloupe, a flowering plant with sky blue flowers, 

and a small bag of cookies. Sunday I did some housekeeping, vacuuming the house and cleaning the little bathroom. If I did anything yesterday, I don't remember. I'm in limbo right now, needing to shift my mental energy from outside work to inside work and by that I don't mean housework but some sort of creative work.

 

unprepared and don't particularly care

I am totally unprepared for the open house this year and while I should be feeling anxious about it, I'm not. This time last year, and previous years, I was very busy getting any models in progress finished and molds made and the pieces cast and the cold work done on new work already cast, getting stands made, new cards printed, all the stuff to prepare for the first weekend of December. The last week of November I would be setting up and arranging and tweaking my display. And last year I was all energized during the open house, I had plans for this year, I was going to be diligent and get a lot of new work made, I was going to develop some low cost items...snowflake ornaments, note cards with my drawings on them. I was going to get enough stuff made to set up at another art/craft show run by a fellow artist that is one Saturday only, I would work that show while Marc would be at the open house. Well, the note cards never got made, the snowflake ornaments were disappointing (but only because I didn't have the right glass so I may try those again), I haven't made any new models and the one piece I spent months on was one disaster after another (though I haven't given up on it yet), and come February of this year whatever excitement, energy, plans I had just fizzled right out when I finally went to the doctor about the racing and uneven heartbeat and the next 6 months was all about that and the last month plus has been about getting my teeth repaired. When I worked on anything at all, I played with the modeling glass.

I really want to like this product but I'm having a hard time. Besides being limited by my color palette, I just don't care for the opal glass. I'm used to working with transparents which have so much life due to the light transmission. The only things I'm mostly pleased with is the feathers  (they range in size from 7.5" to 9.25")

except for the blue jay feather of which the gray is not dark enough. And my second try at the lichen was a bust because I forgot to mix my new color combination with an equal amount of white and it came out too dark. 

One more try on that. And the pansies came out well enough 

but I really don't like the yellow color which looks like it has a tinge of gray and the other one, the pink turned out purple, not bad in itself except it wasn't what I was expecting and apparently the pinks need a hotter temperature to mature. 

So yeah, I should be really busy and single minded and I'm not and I don't particularly care.

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The above is what I was musing about last night. Yesterday afternoon it was hot and the AC was on. About sunset a front started blowing in and this morning, late morning 11 AM, it was 49˚! I guess we're just not doing fall this year as it seems to swing from summer to winter. That wind blew all night and it's still blowing out there and the yard is littered with even more pecans and I think I'm going to get my book and go take a nap on the couch.

winter is being a sore loser

Seriously, what the fuck winter? Is this some kind of early bad April Fool's joke? Cause no one's laughing. I had finally put all my winter clothing away because it's been well and truly spring and today I had to get some of it back out because it's 48˚ out there. And turn the heater back on. Supposed to get down to 39˚ tonight and 35˚ tomorrow night. All the plants have been back outside for weeks, three plumerias planted in the ground, and it will all jolly well stay outside and just deal with the cold. Except the staghorns. I'll probably bring them in.

This little blast of winter did bring us some much needed rain Saturday night but I don't know how much since I haven't so much as stuck a pinky toe outside yet. Yesterday though I finally went to the feed store and got bags of dirt, compost, and mulch, 13 bags in all, half my allowance til the next time money gets disbursed, and spread compost out in two of the flower beds and then sprinkled zinnia seeds a fellow blogger sent me along with some rudbeckia, cosmos, and gaillardia seeds that were from last spring and never got used so we'll see what comes up. Then I piled up more compost around the blueberries in an effort to revive them and added another layer of mulch in the bed and then it was lunch time (we eat lunch late, in fact we eat every meal late...10, 2 and 8) and then the cold front was blowing in and it was overcast and after a quick walk with the dog it was couch time and by evening my back had decided it didn't like me hoisting around those heavy bags of compost and mulch and I had a very uncomfortable night. Seems a bit better today (Sunday). I guess this cold overcast windy day will give it more time to recover.

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I finally ventured out yesterday twice. Once to check the rain gauge which showed 1/4” - 3/8” of rain and once to let the dog run around some and take care of business because we were not going for a walk, not even the short one. I spent Sunday on the couch reading and napping.

Not sure today's going to be much different.

the last days of 2018

You might remember the last time I renewed my driver's license, I couldn't pass the eye test so I had to go get prescription glasses for the first time in my life which I subsequently lost several years later in the Harvey flood. I bought a pair of readers for $5 which I managed to hang on to until maybe a couple of months ago when they went missing, out in the yard somewhere I'm sure. No problem, I had an old pair I had kept from before the eye test but it also went missing a week ago and also probably lost out in the yard somewhere, buried under the mountain of leaves I raked up. Well, phoo. OK, one more extra pair that I don't like because they have metal frames with the separate nose thingies that get tangled up in my hair on top of my head when not in use so off to the CVS to get new ones. They ranged in price...$12, $20, and $30. I was used to paying $10 for good quality frames and lenses. I won't buy the really cheap ones at the Dollar Store because the frames are flimsy and the lenses are crappy. OK, so $12, I got them home, slipped off the tag, only to discover that they were Dollar Store quality. For $12. They went back the next day and I went to the Store of Last Resort (that would be Walmart) unless I want to drive to the next town or further to the nearest shopping mecca. Usually I'll wait till I have enough errands accumulated to make it worth the trip to the shopping mecca but I find myself slipping more and more rationalizing that it's just this one item. This particular item was good quality glasses for $10 that came with a shiny purple case to slip them in. Damn you Walmart.

very spiffy, doncha think?

I've made no effort to replace my prescription glasses as I couldn't see any difference with or without them while driving and I figure if I get stopped, as long as I have some glasses on, they aren't going to question me.

It's been a dreary few days, cold and overcast. Nothing blooming out in the yard except for the roses, spare and halfhearted, and the pansies. I keep thinking these days would be good to play with the modeling glass but Friday I went over to my sister's to visit with my niece who is visiting her mother for a few days. And yesterday I decided to make a Charlotte Russe.

somehow I don't think mine is going to look nearly this good

Charlotte Russe was a favorite childhood dessert of mine, and rare as my mother rarely made it, though she did make me one for one of my adult birthdays one year. I've never made a Charlotte Russe but when we were in Trader Joe's I saw lady fingers and bought them on impulse and yesterday I decided to make good on that impulse  

I think I was writing this down as my mother was dictating it to me over the phone...decades ago

so I dragged out the recipe, soaked the gelatin, melted the chocolate, stirred in the boiling water, added the sugar and half the evaporated milk, stirred in the gelatin, and then happened to look at the empty can of sweetened condensed milk sitting on the counter. Well, fuck. A quick check on the internet assured me one could not be substituted for the other in cooking. I was tempted to just keep going and see what I ended up with but the other half of the evaporated milk needed to be whipped and folded in and condensed milk doesn't whip, so saith my sister whom I had already called once before about what the directions meant by 'paste' but considering she's never made one either there was no satisfactory conclusion, which turned out to be neither here nor there as I ended up dumping it out in the field with the intent to try again today. With all the correct ingredients.

The robo-vac arrived Friday and it's been busily humming all around the house. 

the Mooka mooking around

It's like Christmas every time we recharge it and empty the 'bin'. It had only been four days since I had vacuumed and the floors didn't look like they needed it so we are amazed at how much dust and dirt and pet hair and stuff it has sucked up. I'll still need to get out the big vac now and then as the robo-vac can't get in some corners or under some furniture or in areas where there are too many furniture legs too close together and I have to pick up the small oriental rugs because, while it will travel over them, the fringes get tangled up in it but...I LOVE this thing.

Well, tomorrow is New Year's Eve and maybe I'll play with the modeling glass then or I might make a coffee cake that was a staple in our house growing up that I haven't made in decades (I've gotten so old everything is decades ago) (if I can excavate that recipe) to go with our brunch and mimosas on New Year's Day.

We'll see. First I have to venture out to the grocery store.

an autumn sky and the last adult leaves the room

The banshees were back. The wind howled and shrieked all day yesterday. It was a beautiful day otherwise, clear sky and pleasant, well except for the wind which had a bite to it. 

I'm having a hard time getting motivated this week. I've done nothing with the modeling glass samples I rolled out and dried, or the one feather that I keep having to repair. Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow I tell myself every day. I did scrape the kiln shelf and applied fresh kiln wash to it.

There's so much stuff that needs to be done...vacuuming and mopping the floors, clearing off the table in the garage to give me some work space, raking the leaves off the concrete apron outside the garage and the little backyard, getting a container to keep my balls of modeling glass in, reorganizing the garage after all the construction, acquiring more shelving units, cut down the small trees growing against the fence over at the shop, it just goes on and on.

I'm headed into the city tomorrow because I guess the last three weekends there just wasn't enough. But the twins are back from college for a few days and Jade is going to photograph my drawings with her fancy camera with an eye to getting note cards printed up and I want to go to the art supply store and get more colored pencils, colors I don't have, with an eye to doing some more little drawings and one or two other little errands.

It looks like the last adult is leaving the White House completely giving the asylum over to the inmates, not that I have any admiration for Mad Dog Mattis, or Kelly for that matter, but they, at least, are intelligent and understand the issues, unlike any of Trump's other appointees who don't have even a basic idea of what their jobs entail or what they are supposed to be doing besides getting a paycheck like Kirstjen Neilsen, director of Homeland Security who didn't even know how many legal ports of entry there are along our southern border, had no knowledge of the studies that show immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native born, or know how many people have died while in the care of her department. And now Trump is getting ready to shut down the government over a boondoggle while Republican Rep. Mark Meadows tells those getting ready to be furloughed or expected to work without pay that they 'signed up for this' as a civil servant. Of course, he is still getting paid. And the stock market is nose diving, people are being laid off, factories are closing, black lung disease is increasing, interest rates are rising, prices are rising as Trump's policies finally start to show their effect while he hands the Middle East over to Russia and Iran and thumbs his nose at what is left of our allies.

But, hey, Happy Holidays y'all.

the county at work

I've woken up the last two mornings to heavy fog. I've been a lazy slug the past two days and all day today so far. The only thing I got accomplished is doing the dishes which took me two days. I don't understand why there is always a mountain of dirty dishes every Monday morning when we are out of town all weekend. Well, yes, we do come home at night and we do have breakfast and dinner and I just shove it all aside before I fall in bed but still, I think someone breaks in the house during the day while we're gone and gleefully adds to the mess.

I did get one other thing done, I finished weeding the flower bed in the back and was planning on starting on the one in front today except it rained last night. Instead, I was out there clearing the culvert of mud and grass that the county so helpfully clogged up this morning in an attempt to improve the drainage in the ditch that drained just fine, thank you very much, at this end of the street. My neighbor at the other end of the street had called them because those culverts are totally clogged up and don't drain so much as the water just eventually subsides. Three weeks ago when we got that 5 1/2” and then a week later almost 2”, the houses at the other end had small lakes in front and we are just a little gun shy around here about having small lakes in our yards. Anyway, the county came out with a backhoe and a dump truck and scooped out dirt mud and grass on either side of every culvert on my side of the street and left. I'm out there clearing the mud and grass they shoved in front of my culvert when my neighbor drove by spitting nails. She was the one who had called and they didn't even do her side of the street! The county was due for a scorching phone call. She called me later to let me know that they had told her they weren't finished and would be back later so she's mollified for now. Depends on what they mean by 'later'.

A before picture! (who are you and what have you done with me?)

what the county considers an improvement

after I got out there with a shovel

The other side wasn't so bad but did require digging away the dirt that obstructed the bottom half of the culvert.

What the county needs to do is get a surveyor out there, find the high point on the street and re-dredge the ditches in each direction even with the bottoms of the culverts but what they really need to do is replace the culverts since they are half filled at least with mud, gravel, and flood debris. What they did was just dug little pits at each end of the culverts. Apparently they plan to get the surveyor out and do it right after the first of the year and this was just a stop-gap measure to try and improve the drainage til then.

All that rain and high wind we had last week caused the pecan trees and the oak trees to drop a lot of dead branches. I'm surprised the trees have any left. Every time I venture outside I pick up an armload and dump it in the back of the truck for eventual carting trucking over to the burn pile at the shop.

Well, the last yoga session of the year is tonight, the perfect reason excuse to not start anything productive today since I'll get interrupted later to head to class. I will go over to the shop though and try and excavate a small reproduction mold that's in one of many possible boxes. I imagine it will be in the last one in which I look. Funny how that works.

it's been a lazy rest of the week

Well, as several people have pointed out, the subdued celebration of the 4^th was more likely because it fell in the middle of the week instead of my preferred reason. Especially out here in this little red town. We recently had a special election for our US Representative since the last one resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal and our district elected a party line Republican to replace him. Hopefully it's only temporary and he will get the boot in November.

We went to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, number 5 in the Jurassic series.

What can you say about it? Arrogant humans think they can control dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat arrogant humans, dinosaurs are loose in the Pacific Northwest. The plan to save the dinosaurs from the volcano eruption and move them to a new island sanctuary is a ruse and the true purpose is to capture as many as possible and sell them on the black market for millions. Oh, and to continue the plan to weaponize them for war (because isn't that what we humans do, weaponize everything?), as if we don't have bombs big enough to take out a trained dinosaur. The last scene on the island is rather poignant though with the lava flowing to the ocean while the last brontosaurus bellows on the edge before being overcome.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up early and pick my sister up by 8 AM as we have plans to drive the 2 hours to Rockport for their annual art festival which is supposed to be one of the best in the country. Not an early riser like my sister who inquired when she first proposed the trip if I would be able to get up in time. Yes. I'm a big girl, I can set my alarm and get up when I have to. We're going to take the back road state highway along the coast, a much more pleasant drive albeit a little longer time wise.

What did I say about Rocky showing up today? So far, no. I imagine he plans to show up tomorrow which he has done the last three Saturdays except I won't be here and it's better if he doesn't work when I'm not here. Hopefully he'll give me enough days next week to finish.

I could probably think of many things I could and should do for the rest of the day today but instead I'm going to go sit and continue to read Outlander. When my sister brought the book to me I about fainted...627 pages of small type and small pacing between lines. OMG, it will take forever for me to read this book except that it grabbed me almost immediately. I'm at least 3/4s of the way through and was surprised that, in this first book at least, it was a woman that passed through time. For some reason I had always thought it was a man.

Ah, so Rocky popped in a little after two, has caught up on his two other jobs and can give me his undivided attention now til it's done. Should take less than a week.