good food, color charts, stupidity

Buddha in the garden.

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Well, damn. No picture of my salad, no picture of the food laden table. Everything was so good…chicken and dumplings, enchilada casserole, clusters of green beans with bacon wrapped around the middle looking like miniature sheaves, corn and rice casserole, fresh fruit, my salad, deviled eggs, and more and that doesn’t even cover the desserts. And it was nice to have all the volunteers there, most all, a few were absent; the Monday group that deals with donations and other stuff but not open to the public and the Thursday group. As usual a prayer preceded the eating. I just stand there quietly and politely without bowing my head. I have no issue with the wishes for good health and being grateful for community and the good things in your life but the submissive appealing to the big daddy in the sky for granting those things or giving him credit for the same is where we part ways. 

Actually, here’s what’s left of my salad moved into a much smaller bowl. I didn’t bring home very much.

I haven’t started on my painting yet but I have been working on getting the last box of paints my friend sent me added to the color chart…a rectangle with straight pigment on dry paper and one with diluted pigment on wet paper. It helps me choose what colors to use in a painting. This last box, the pigments are very strong, dense.

This was the first chart I made of the three small tins. I need to redo it with the larger format.

I looked out the back door the other morning to see half a dozen or so inca doves all fluffed up on the little patio right outside the door in plain sight. I snuck away to get my phone/camera but when I looked again they had moved to the left among the pots there so they’re a little obscured.

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News is that the man who shot and killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare has been arrested. I can only surmise that he wanted to be caught and arrested. They found the gun, the suppressor, the fake ID, the clothing, and a 3 page ‘manifesto’ on his person when approached and arrested, well maybe not the clothing but they did recover that also. Clearly the man has never watched a crime show. The first thing he should have done was dispose of the weapon, ID, and clothing and for all the gods’s sakes don’t carry around a 3 page manifesto. If I have learned nothing from watching General Hospital it’s how to dismantle and dispose of a gun after a shooting. So how did health insurance companies react to the killing of a CEO? Did they send out orders to stop denying tests, procedures, and care recommended by doctors? Oh, hell no, they beefed up security around their board members.

And last from the Department of  Disconnect, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk are going around spouting about the ‘deep state’ in government, the unelected bureaucrats running this country into the ground, and how they are going to purge the government. They seem to have completely missed that fact that they are themselves unelected bureaucrats.

 

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.

a confession and a tirade

Thursday's are my SHARE days and yesterday I should have just kept my big mouth shut and now I have to offer an apology to one of the other volunteers. This woman works in the clothing area supervising clients making their selections so I don't normally interact with her all that much. She's loud mouthed and pushy in my opinion (yes, I know, people have said the same about me) and I took an instant dislike to her when she first started volunteering which I admit is inherently unfair but I feel like I've sort of suppressed that over the last year or so and I try to be pleasant to her when we interact. Anyway last week because of the food shortage and the dwindling grant money to purchase food, J sent around a memo for us all to sign saying we would not be allowed to take any food purchased for SHARE or donated unless it was a perishable at the end of the day that we had no room to either refrigerate or freeze till the next week.

Now we all on occasion, some of us more than others, have helped ourselves to things that have been bought or donated especially at the end of the day when there are things like day old milk that we get from the dollar stores left over. We can give it out that day but we can't give it out the next week when it's a week out of date or if we get a lot of meat or fish or desserts that we don't have freezer space for it all or like the box of sausages that we couldn't give out because they weren't pre-packaged. But this is all done at the end of the day, not at 11 AM strolling back and helping yourself to whatever meat you want from the freezer because you have guests coming for the weekend. I rarely take stuff for myself though I have. 95% of what I take goes to a neighbor at the other end of the street who has a raft of grandkids she cares for.

So yesterday, this woman came back to the food area where we were all standing around in between food orders wanting candy, gotta have candy for her sweet tooth (and we did get a butt load of chocolate bars that morning from one of the dollar stores) and that's when I opened my big mouth and told her that this food wasn't for us, that we all signed the memo last week about not taking stuff, and if she wanted candy go buy it. When she started complaining about how much candy cost I walked back to my station removing myself from the conversation. And here's the thing, it was a candy bar, not a rack of ribs or something equally egregious, several people had already helped themselves to a candy bar or a small bag of chips and I didn't say anything to them.

Then she came back to where I was, wanted to know what was my problem, that if I have a problem with her to say it to her face (which is what I did I thought) and you take stuff too and I work hard and deserve what I take and I put money in the jar. I wasn't about to argue with her over who takes what, when, or for what reason, I just turned my back on her and went about my job until she finally went back to her station.

Because it really wasn't about her wanting a chocolate bar.

Ten minutes before, she had been going around to every volunteer with her phone telling people to be sure and vote for her man and, big surprise, it was a picture of Trump. When she approached me I just shook my head and walked away and she walked over to the guys, same thing, saying he's better than who we have now destroying the country, heading us into a recession. I managed to keep my mouth shut then because of course there's no convincing a MAGAt who only gets their information from Fox or OAN that Trump is pure evil and doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself and intends if elected again to consolidate power in the presidency, throw his detractors in jail, fill every position with people loyal only to him instead of the constitution or law, and fulfill his dream of being a dictator like Putin or Erdogan or Kim Jon Ung all of whom he admires; a convicted rapist, a vindictive liar who refused to accept defeat in a fair and secure election and called his thugs to overrun the Capitol to kill or otherwise incapacitate his vice president and Speaker Pelosi and prevent the peaceful transfer of power that has been a hallmark of our democratic system of government, twice impeached for extortion and dereliction of duty, a criminal indicted four times on 91 counts, who stole highly classified sensitive documents concerning our national security and refused to return them (why exactly do you think the Saudis gave Kushner $2 BILLION), who has had all his business certificates rescinded in NY for fraud and that's just a very short list. Besides not wanting to get into an inappropriate and useless argument with a MAGAt, I do not bring politics into SHARE, none of us do, but me personally, I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW if any of my fellow volunteers support Trump, a man who is ordering the far right 'Freedom Caucus' controlled House to shut down the government in a bid to get the investigations and indictments against him to disappear regardless of how it will negatively affect hundreds of thousands of federal workers, our national security, and our standing on the world stage. I do not want to know because it will permanently negatively affect my opinion of them.

So next week I have to go apologize to this woman for jumping on her over a candy bar because it's really none of my business what she takes or who she votes for.

the last year of my first marriage

Mary Moon's post about her early hippie life living days in a shack with her first husband reminded me of my own little living off the grid attempt. I was 23 in 1973 and many decades have passed since and I found I had a hard time with the timeline. I think it's basically correct. I had to reconstruct it based on the jobs I held, 5 in three years, I know the order in which I held them and the one that came before and the one that came after so the summer trip around the US had to be 1973 though the woman who went with us as far as California thinks it was earlier but I'm pretty sure it was not 1972 just a year after we were married.

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My first husband and I decided we were going to build a yurt in the woods.

something like this

This was back in 1973. The whole yurt thing came about because the summer of '73 we took a car trip around the country and stayed in a fabulous yurt in the woods of New Hampshire for a couple of nights and we just fell in love with the whole idea of a yurt in the woods. At some point my ex got a line on a landlocked acre in East Texas outside Nacogdoches in the piney woods but I'm fuzzy on when we bought it and I don't remember spending any time there in the winter. We had to open a gate and drive through a pasture to get to it (the law required the land owner to give us access). It had been used for hunting and had a shack on it maybe 15' x 30', 20' x 40' (it's been many decades and my memory of the condition of the thing is fuzzy, size is also a guess) that we shored up and made weather proof but no electricity, no generator, no phone, no running water, no well, no septic system, we pooped and peed outdoors. There was a little creek we could take cold baths in. We had acquired some building materials that we took out there and had actual construction plans for the yurt. Apparently it never occurred to us we would need electricity to build the yurt, I guess we thought we were going to cut all those boards with a hand saw. At first we would go up on weekends but nothing was getting done so at some point we decided that my ex would move up there, see about getting a job in Nacogdoches and start building the yurt while I stayed in the city and worked and join him on weekends. Great plan, right? Except my ex being the druggie rat bastard that he was, no job ever got got, no progress was ever made, he had made friends he hung out with in Nacogdoches.

April of 1974, on my birthday he showed up at my door in the city, had a great plan to solve our marital troubles. We needed to get a divorce but still be together because in his mind things started going downhill after we got married, not because he refused to get a job, that he stayed home all day doing drugs and watching TV in bed, that he would not lift a finger to clean the house or cook while I had a full time job, would not even empty his overflowing ashtray, and wanted an open marriage so he could fuck whoever he could get to stay still long enough. And that suggestion opened a door that could not be closed.

He went back to the property, I stayed in Houston working while I considered the whole divorce thing liking the idea more and more (but not the staying together part) and not joining him on weekends until he showed up again about a month later. Divorce was a bad idea, he had changed his mind, he didn't mean it, and convinced me to give us another try which I foolishly did, quit my job, gave up the cute little house I was living in and we moved the bed, the metal kitchen table and chairs, the stove, and as much other furniture as we could cram in that little shack with zero insulation and a dirt floor, got a propane tank for the stove, used an ice chest for a refrigerator. I planted a very small vegetable garden in that dry red dirt, had to carry water up from the creek to water those little plants, which failed almost immediately. But things did not change. He would be gone all day ostensibly looking for a job while I was isolated out there except for the few times I would go in town to visit friends and get a shower.

I don't remember how many weeks I spent out there in the heat and humidity, but one day while he was gone I packed all my clothes and personal items and when he showed up told him I was filing for divorce, got in my car, and left, moving back in with my parents as I had no job, no money, and no place to live. Went back later with a borrowed truck and a friend when I knew he wasn't there and loaded up all the furniture that was mine. The divorce was final in October. By then he had abandoned the acre and everything still there I guess and taken up with another woman in Galveston. The divorce settlement was simple, no children and all I wanted was what I had brought with me into the marriage, he could have everything we acquired as a couple including the debt still owed on the acre. He eventually moved back to Barrington, Illinois outside Chicago where his family lived. He wasn't completely out of my life though until 1981.

In '75 he had a mutual friend try to pump me for information about why I had divorced him which I declined to revisit. When he found out in '76 I was living with another guy (my now husband) he showed up unannounced and uninvited at our house to check him out. When he found out in '77 I was pregnant with my daughter Sarah, I got an indignant nasty phone call, I had never wanted children with him. The last time I heard from him was in '81 when my son was two. He called one evening drunk or drugged or both wanting me to tell him why I had divorced him, that I had ruined his life, that he hadn't been able to form a steady relationship with anyone since. I wasn't about to get into that with a drunk drugged up rat bastard, simply told him if he didn't get it then he wouldn't get it now and hung up.

Years later when my father died in 1996, the woman my ex had shacked up with in Galveston saw the death notice and called to offer her condolences (we had been acquaintances pre divorce). She filled me in on what she knew of my ex. That's when I found out he had moved back to his mother's house in Illinois, went to work at their family electrical engineering company (at his mother's insistence I'm sure) where he was involved in some kind of accident (probably because he was stoned) and got on disability, hooked up with another druggie who inherited a house from her grandmother or aunt which she sold and they moved to Florida somewhere, living in a trailer. Sounded like the perfect life for him, doing drugs all day, on disability, never has to work, druggie girlfriend with money.

crisis

I'm telling this without asking him if he minds. Because right now, I don't really fucking care if he minds. (edit: I wrote this a week ago, he has since said no restrictions.)

Pneumonia. Of course it's way more complicated than that. This is a man who comes from a line of folk who are generally healthy and long lived. This is also a man who joined me in an artistic pursuit that did not offer the benefit of health insurance. This is a man who wouldn't have gone to the doctor anyway even if he had had insurance. This is a 71 year old man who had only been to the doctor a handful of times in over 40 years. And not once since getting on medicare, health insurance for the first time in our working lives. A lifelong smoker whose part of the creative process was sandblasting and plaster/silica mold making, who did use reasonable precautions whose breathing and lungs have been compromised for 6, 7 years? We all assumed it was from work, this state of his lungs but it turns out not so much. Turns out it is primarily because of his smoking. And I base that opinion on conversations with the doctors. It may change when he gets released from the hospital and starts going to a PC and a lung specialist but immediate diagnosis...entire left lung infected with pneumonia. Secondary diagnosis emphysema in both lungs from smoking, no obvious evidence of silicosis. The doctors in the hospital are concerned with getting rid of the pneumonia, the emphysema falls to the primary care physician or specialist. Cure the infection, then deal with the rest.

This is what I think, that Marc was feeling bad enough to quit smoking (4^th try, nicotine is heinous) about 5 weeks ago which he never bothered to mention until he started to crash the first weekend in February. He started to feel bad the last week of January, appetite sort of deserted him. By February 1st feeling worse. By the 3^rd looked terrible and increasingly breathless, would still not entertain the idea of going to a doctor, clinic, or hospital no matter how many times I suggested it. Saturday the 4th felt scared enough to say he would call a doctor on Monday. Dude, he's just going to tell you to go to the hospital. Sunday could barely sit up, very labored breathing, instability, pain when coughing, mental fogginess, and the cherry on top, incontinence and still refusing to get help. Called our daughter to come back me up...you can get in the car or I can call an ambulance. Those are your choices.

He got in the car.

By the time we got to the emergency room of the hospital in Bay City, he could barely get out of the car into a wheelchair. Sarah wheeled him in while I parked the car. They were on him like a duck on a june bug, wheeled him back to triage before he was even completely registered. Seemed like half a dozen nurses and techs swarmed in and were hooking him up 9 ways to Sunday...oxygen, IVs, checking vitals, starting fluids, drawing blood, X-ray and CAT scan, EKG, and with the first blood test result, low kidney function. The doctor came in before they were even finished hooking him all up, quizzing Sarah and I. Before he sent him off for the chest X-ray he said 'Don't know what we will find, but it won't be good.

Well, we already knew that.

The doctor came back after the X-ray, his entire left lung was encased in infection, basically completely whited out in the X-ray but the CAT scan did not show a mass hiding under the infection, about the only good news of the day.

As soon as they had all that done they took him to the ICU.

More to come.

prank calls, food, flowers

Boxes are gone, taken to the post office. Now I have to come up with a price.

Tuesday in Houston would have been a good day to rob a bank or some other crime. Police got a call about an active shooter at Heights High School, incidentally the high school my grandchildren went to. The school went on lock down and 500 police showed up. Five hundred. Talking heads interrupted programming to tell us over and over that they had no information about what was happening. Parents were showing up and a spot was designated for them to wait for their children as they were released. Turns out there was no active shooter, no shooter at all, it was a prank call. I guess this massive show of force from the police was in response to Uvalde but hey, guess what, it doesn't matter how many cops show up if none of them go inside to apprehend the bad guy. I'm not saying none of them went in, don't really know how the whole thing was resolved, but 500 police? Really? And apparently there was another prank call at a different school the same day in a different city, apparently, this is something that's happening all over the country. What the fuck is wrong with the people in this country?

I've made prank calls, when I was a kid, you know, pick a number at random out of the phone book and ask them if their refrigerator is running and when they say yes tell them they better go catch it, hang up and then laugh hysterically with your best friend. Or ask if they have Prince Albert in a can (a brand of loose tobacco) and if they do tell them they better let him out. More hysterical laughter, harmless fun. Annoying maybe to the recipient but never instigated a police response.

Slow day at SHARE yesterday except it was a food delivery day from the food bank in Victoria. Besides what Jan ordered they sent another giant carton of watermelons, big ones this time, and two boxes of bagged peaches, two boxes of bagged sweet potatoes, and a box of lettuce. And lots of milk left over from the Dollar Stores and hamburger buns out the wazoo. I brought home stuff to share with neighbors and family because they filled all the freezer space. Any bread not given out needs to be frozen or parceled out to the volunteers as it will be too old next week. Same with the milk donated on it's 'sell by' date, has to be given out that day or parceled out to the volunteers to distribute. I brought home a 2 pound bag of pistachios in the shell for myself. They're shelf stable but we got several boxes.

I might try to work out in the yard a little today. Weeding needs to be done, stuff needs to be cleared out, and I have a clump of day lilies to plant. We had a small rain shower yesterday and it's predicted to rain today. Regardless, currently in the mid 70s at 8 AM we have 99% humidity which makes the 'real feel' in the high 80s.

This is one area that needs attention. It's full of stuff. L to R in the back: indigofera blooming, white phillipine lily not blooming yet, rose of sharon blooming, orange cosmos not blooming yet; L to R front: Texas sword leaf blooming, mistflower just starting to bloom, rose and zinnia intertwined blooming, very bottom R wild petunia blooming which really is interspersed all through there.

indigofera

sword leaf

The mosquitos are fierce though so we'll see what I get accomplished before the heat and sweat drives me in.

afib, covid, stupidity, and seasonal things

I was all set to call the EP's office about the continuing afib and Wednesday after breakfast it stopped. Of course it did. So I transitioned into wait and see mode. Midday on Friday, today, I'm still good. But I did break down and call the EP's office anyway, explained what had been happening, when my next appointment was scheduled, that all was good currently, and didn't know what to do. He said he would relay the information, the PA would consult with the EP and call me back. I'm trying not to think about it, create stress to trigger it. Although I don't know what triggered these extended episodes. I haven't felt stressed out about anything lately. So then I tried to document the days on and the days off which was mostly guesswork from my posts and replies to comments but I think basically out of the 11 days between the 5^th and the 15^th, I was in afib for about 7 of them though not all in a row.

edit: talked to the nurse and I have an appointment for next Friday to come in and discuss options with the EP. She reassured me that it wasn't life threatening, just quality of life issue.

I think I mentioned that I've been wearing my mask at SHARE the last 3 Thursdays (not counting yesterday) because my neighbor and fellow volunteer has yet to get vaccinated, not a political position he says, just hasn't so I think he might be needle shy. Anyway, I walked in yesterday and to my surprise everyone was wearing a mask. Normally only the volunteers who deal with the clients wear a mask. One of the other volunteers, another of my neighbors, vaccinated, has covid, was exposed by her daughter/grandchildren, also all vaccinated, who also came down with it. So she and the unvaxxed neighbor volunteer who hang together are in quarantine. He's been tested but we don't know yet if he's got it or not. It would be a miracle if he didn't or he could be one of those who don't get sick, just shed virus. The good thing is that she was exposed after the last Thursday when we were all at SHARE. A new statistic popped up...1 out of every 500 Americans have died from covid. I wonder what the ratio is of those who have had it vs those who haven't.

My friend Denise in Canada sent me a link to an essay on The Third Force. The first two which seemed to rule us are good vs evil. Now a third force has emerged...stupidity. It's worth the read even if it is a little discouraging. First world human culture has become too easy.

My week break from the studio is going on three weeks now. Today is already blown, tomorrow is the baby shower for Audra, my grandson's SO, and the baby might come in another week. So maybe I'll get over there Sunday. I don't really want to lapse into another uncreative span of time but neither do I want to engage in pedal to the metal either. Surprisingly enough, a more relaxed pace takes more determination.

What else...it's dove hunting season with special days for white wing doves. Today must be one of those days as the birdbath in front was full of white wing doves, a dozen, more, with an equal number on the ground, hidden from the street by the row of red tip photinias across the front of the house. It's hard to get a picture because as soon as I move close to the window they scatter.

And it's oxblood lily time. Two days ago, nary a flower. More should be popping up in the coming week.

a rant, more doctor shit, and attempted sedition

Well, dammitall. My new jeans arrived yesterday and they are, as I suspected they would be, the stretchy 505s. After I posted about ordering the jeans I looked at the label in my stretchy pair and it's the same in the pair that arrived yesterday...

this is the label from my older non-stretchy pair...

so once again a perfectly fine product has been changed into a not fine product. Why the fuck do women's clothes makers think that all women want stretchy pants and stretchy shirts for that matter. Couldn't they have just left 505s alone and introduced a new product? And now I'm glad I didn't buy two pairs. So now the hunt for decent jeans is on again. Am I going to have to go back to wearing men's jeans which I did for decades because I could not find a pair of women's jeans that weren't 4” too long (no, not every woman wears 4” heels all the time), weren't cinched in at the waist or so low riding they barely covered my pubic bone, weren't covered with spangly shit, or stretchy. I want my jeans the right length, the waist just above my hip bones, and not stretchy or spangly or pre-torn. Why is that so fucking impossible?

This is my month for doctor appointments I guess, get them all over with at once, so Wednesday was my follow-up with the electrophysiologist. Since the afib has settled down, especially since the election, he is content to keep the status quo so I don't see him for another six months unless it starts acting up again. Don't wait til the next appointment and to call if I start having problems, he tells me, we are partners here you and I, he says.

Next Tuesday is my dermatologist appointment but January 21^st is the soonest I could get the bone density scan scheduled. What I'm not getting this year is the boob smushing as my PCP says I only need one every other year so yay for that.

I'm not even going to address the unbelievable and unthinkable, as it was pre-Trump, lawsuit petition to the Supreme Court by Texas' AG Paxton to overturn the election results in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan and the AGs from 17 other red states and 126 House Republicans as well as Trump himself that have submitted amicus briefs in support of the petition to overturn a legal and secure election to appoint Trump as the winner after over 50 lawsuits have been thrown out of court for lack of one iota of evidence or proof of fraud. Even Barr has said there was no fraud. So many republicans willing and ready to commit sedition because their guy lost. It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court is just as willing to commit sedition and throw our democracy and constitution to the wolves.

edit: the Supreme Court turned them down.

And you know, they aren't contesting every vote on a ballot that went for Biden for president since they are perfectly happy with the votes that got them elected or re-elected to the House and Senate. Apparently only votes for Biden are fraudulent but the down ballot votes for republicans are all on the up and up. And where does Texas get off contesting how other states ran their elections?  yes, I'm a Texan but not all of us are crazy or stupid   No place, there is no train or bus stop for that destination. Paxton is being investigated for criminal activity and the FBI subpoenaed records from his office the day before he filed his petition so the conventional wisdom is that he's angling for a pardon from Trump by showing his loyalty with this ridiculous lawsuit.

And Melania apparently had a member of her staff check to see if there was a government budget dedicated to paying the expense of their move out of the White House (there isn't). OK, that's enough of something I wasn't going to write about.

So ending up with a few critter pictures piling up...this little rat snake was sheltering under one of the cookie sheets I use to put the pots on inside,

I have many bird houses that mostly the birds don't use but the frogs like them,

wasps are pollinators too,

and Big Mama coming to see if I had food (I did not).

a near miss tragedy and a finished drawing

I damn near killed the cat last Friday.

She likes to lay on the concrete apron in front of the garage where we park the car and the truck, next to the car or right in the big middle of where the car would be when it's parked there. Used to be she would get up and move when we started the car or pulled in to park but for the past several months she has just stubbornly laid there. So when I'm ready to leave I have to pick her up and move her into the garage and when I return I have to stop and move her before I can pull into the space where we park the car. When I left last Friday, I picked her up and moved her and when I returned from my errand, I didn't see her laying on the apron because she was over by the truck laying in the accumulated leaves. I swung the car into the space, felt the front passenger side tire thump over something and heard Emma howl.

OMG, I ran over the cat! I jumped out and she was trying to make it into the garage and I scooped her up, grabbed my phone and called the vet in a panic, grabbed the cat carrier, and took her straight over there. By this time she wasn't crying but you could hear a crackly sound when she breathed. So they x-rayed her and it's a miracle there were no broken bones but it looked like her lungs were bruised and some fluid was developing in them. They gave her a steroid shot to reduce the inflammation and a lasik shot for the fluid build-up and sent her home with the instruction to keep an eye on her and if she starts open mouth panting to call the emergency number. So Friday night was very scary, she was totally lethargic. I usurped the dog bed for her and put it and the litter box next to my bed and when I woke up sometime during the night she was gone and I found her in the closet where she likes to sleep at night.

Saturday morning all lung sounds were gone and when I opened the back door she got up and very unsteadily, limping heavily on one side, went out and laid down where she spent the day 

but she wasn't eating or drinking so I got an old needle-less syringe I use out in the shop Saturday and started forcing water into her mouth four or five times a day. Sunday same, moving a little easier but still not eating or drinking on her own. Monday she didn't seem to be limping and she started drinking water on her own but didn't start eating a little bit until Tuesday morning. She's still not back to her usual demanding vocal self but she is twitching her tail in annoyance now but I'm confident there is no lasting damage. And maybe she's learned her lesson. Probably not. She is a cat after all.

I finished the drawing of the morning glory Sunday.

Still don't know what I'm going to do with these little botanical illustrations, very different from Linda Sue's little book of blank pages she's filling with delightful and insightful watercolors. You'll have to scroll through her posts to see them all. I'm more of an illustrator than a spontaneous artist. I really should practice that more. I should do a watercolor before I forget everything I learned in the class I took. I've got the supplies right here so we'll see.