ordinary days

Monday afternoon I was to go in for a 3 month follow up ultrasound on my repaired femoral artery. Monday morning the office called and canceled, the tech was home sick. They would try and reschedule, squeeze me in, before my follow up office visit to get the results of the ultrasound on Wednesday morning. I heard nothing. Showed up Wednesday morning, explained to the receptionist what had transpired. She consulted with the tech. He had an appointment coming in soon but figured he could do the legs and schedule the aorta for later. I’m like, uh, aorta? No just the leg, the artery repair. We do both on everyone he says. Turned out it wasn’t just a look at the repair of the femoral artery, he did both legs from hip to feet, told me this would be the easiest test he did all day, that most people who come in have serious leg and circulation problems, and since he still had time, went ahead and did the aorta as well. Final report during the office visit with the doctor…some cholesterol but nothing to worry about, no blockages, repaired femoral artery good, good circulation but decreasing toward my feet which is normal and age related, no need to think about any intervention at this point, come back in six months and we’ll do it all again, and I’m released to do any activity I want. I didn’t tell him I was already doing every activity I wanted.

And then Wednesday evening I led the yoga class. Thursday was SHARE and a food delivery day from the regional food bank in Victoria. It was a small order because they just didn’t have very much on the list and I expect that to get worse as we get into Trump’s term. We got something like 28 turkeys to give out next week that she orders every year for the week before Thanksgiving but I’m not sure if they came from the food bank or elsewhere, and the food bank sent so many big bags of marshmallows that Jan made us all take home a bag whether we wanted them or not.

The past several days have been glorious blue sky days, mild temperatures and low humidity. Even dipped down in the 40s Thursday night. Today, Saturday is warmer and overcast and actually feels kind of like an early spring day. I’ve been working on cutting up the big pile I pruned off the monster rose bush, four mounded up cart loads on the burn pile so far and I don’t think I’ve even got half yet. finally got the back flowerbed weeded yesterday and ready to spread out the poppy seeds a friend gave me since mine have stopped volunteering back. That’s on the agenda for today.

Last night’s full moon rising.

I fixed egg foo yung, sort of a chinese omelet but ladled out and cooked like pancakes with a savory gravy, for dinner last night. 

I’ve made this a couple of times before and it always turned out well but not last night for whatever reason and the gravy never did really thicken enough and somewhere around midnight my intestines rejected it and I spent the next two hours racing to the bathroom. 

And just so I don’t end on that unpleasant note…dog and Cat.

a day off

Wednesday was the first day in weeks, maybe months, that I had an empty day with nothing that needed or had to be done (not that there hadn't been a few days where I didn't get anything of note accomplished but usually because of the weather). The 15 snowflakes that I rolled out, cut, dried, trimmed, and added the powder and frit to on Monday and Tuesday were in the kiln and until they came out and I could do the small amount of finishing they required (which I did on Thursday) I was pretty much at loose ends.

So I looked around and noticed that the little yellowish gray warblers that winter over here have arrived. And my camellia that I got at the garden club plant sale last spring that I sorta cheated to get (members can't buy plants until 30 minutes before it's over so I got a friend to get it for me) that was so potbound (the reason they were donated I imagine) that I practically had to bare root it to give it a chance to survive and put it in a much bigger pot so I could baby it all summer...is blooming! It has four flowers on it today. I'll plant it in the ground this next spring now that I know it's doing well.

Wednesday night was a yoga night and so I drove to El Campo and was the only one to show up and just as I was telling Abby that there was no need to hold the session on my account another yogi showed up and she also was fine with canceling especially since Abby had a party to go to so I got in the car and came home with the flat coastal plains of Texas spread out before me and that gorgeous full moon rising just off to the right right in front of me. Driving in for a canceled class was worth being able to see the Cold Moon/Long Night Moon on the way back. 

image via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uVkIF6OzIs

And speaking of yoga, I found out through an article in the Houston paper that there are yoga classes here in Wharton. The woman wondered if art and nature and yoga could help the residents recover from the trauma of the flooding that happened here as a result of Hurricane Harvey back in 2017 and so she got a grant to fix up an abandoned house in a small park here and to offer the facility to the community. They've been doing yoga and art therapy for about a year (! I had no idea) and so my sister Pam and I went to the Tuesday night session last week, the only day with evening classes which worked out for me. Anyway, Abby is in no danger of losing us as it's very low key, aimed at absolute beginners who are out of shape, working on breathing (which was all we did for the first 10 minutes) and stretching and minimal spinal twists and strength building exercises. Really it's just perfect for my neighbor so I'm taking her with me next  week. 

We all decided to do another Friday evening preview for the three new artists (a wood and leather worker, a ceramicist, and the hand weavers association) joining us for the last weekend of our open house with our glass artist friends so that's where we'll be this weekend.

short stories number whatever

I've been relatively busy the past three days making more samples though not as many as previous firings, about half of which are transparent powders over white, and another blue heron feather. In true Ellen fashion, I did not take a picture of the kiln shelf before it went in the kiln with a slightly altered firing schedule. This week I'm going to try a hibiscus flower.

Back in the days before digital photography, we took slides of our work. I have four binders of slides of old work, stuff we don't do anymore, so I took four of the slide pages and dumped the slides in a paper bag and used plastic sleeves to hold my samples. Much better than the jar I had been keeping them in. I should probably do that with the samples I have of different transparent frit combinations.

I finally got a halfway decent picture of the goldfinch. This one got over its fright and perched on the tea cup and chowed down but the lighting wasn't great and mostly it showed me it's belly perched as it was on the hanger.

The last weather forecast on Saturday had the temperature dipping down to 30˚. Hmmm, 32˚ I don't worry so I checked to see how long it would be below freezing. About 4 or 5 hours. It was so windy Saturday and cold, low 50s, which make it an unpleasant and difficult struggle to get the ponytail palm covered, I rolled the dice gambling that it would not get cold enough to do damage and did not cover a damn thing, not the angel trumpets or porterweed coming out nicely after our first dip into freezing weather, not the little jasmine which is already putting on buds and hasn't bloomed for the last two springs because of freezing weather. Sunday morning, this time the House paid me. Not a single ruined leaf or bud.

Speaking of windy, I've written about the howling wind which before the house reconstruction I never seem to remember hearing. You can stand at the door to the garage and hear it wail, open the door and nothing. Very peculiar. As it turns out, there is a 1/4” gap between the bottom of the door and the threshold on one side tapering to none on the other side and cold air was pouring through the gap. A well placed hand towel stopped both the cold air and the howling. I'll have to see about a more permanent fix for that.

I set my alarm for 11 PM last night as I nodded off trying to stay awake. At 11:15 I stepped out the back door to gaze up at the Blood Wolf Moon almost directly overhead and the blazing stars, at 11:40 a bright thin crescent of white light was edging it and off I went to bed.

Photo credit: Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station