dark days of one kind or another

Woke up to dark and rumbly this morning, raining off and on. The dog is, of course, a mess.

I’ve been working on the pomegranate painting following the suggestions of Codex who offers excellent advice on ways to improve my skill level and I’m grateful that he takes the time to help me with technique but I did not like where it went at my hands. I liked the painting much better before this last revision and spent much of yesterday trying to undo what I did, trying to move the light source back to the left, which is not easy. I’m definitely overworking this piece and will probably ruin it before I’m through. I have a hard time putting the brush down and walking away. I tell myself to just let it dry and then five minutes later I’m dabbing a little more on or trying to lift some of the color off.

I went to take a shower yesterday and when I looked in the tub I saw this. 

This tiny little gecko had to be just hatched, maybe an inch log. Took some effort to catch the little thing so I could release it outside and managed to break off a bit of its tail in the process but at least it didn’t get drowned. And I have no idea how it even got in the bathtub. I’m just glad I saw it as I turned the water on. It’s taken years for the geckos to recover from the flood in 2017.

The rangoon creeper is starting to bloom.

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I wrote the above Wednesday morning. Wednesday night a storm came through full of lightning and thunder and rain and a couple of tornados in the county. It rained all night, was still raining when I left for SHARE Thursday morning. All the low spots in the yard had standing water and the rain gauge had nearly 5” by the time it stopped. It cleared up a little for sunset and the air was pink

although the color had faded a bit when I took this picture of the eastern sky.

I did a little more work on the painting Wednesday afternoon, declared it finished and painted in the background. Dwarf pomegranate 4" x 4".

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Things are getting bad out there which is exactly what Trump wants. Police in LA are responding with violence, batons, tear gas, and the ‘less lethal’ rubber bullets, to unarmed protesters who have finally had enough of Trump and Stephen Miller’s round up of law abiding hard working contributing members of society, family men and women and their children, sending them to detention centers under deplorable conditions and deporting them to whatever country will take them. There is video of an Australian journalist who was intentionally shot, of an unarmed woman shot at point blank range just trying to get home in the building cops were standing in front of, of a woman shot in the head and left laying on the ground by police until one officer tried to render aid but they refused to call an ambulance, of another protester beaten with a baton by a cop on horseback and was trampled by the horse when he fell. Trump has usurped the governor’s power to activate the National Guard in California against Newsome’s wishes and sent Marines against American citizens on American soil (unsupported of course, he did not send food, water, or shelter). California Senator Padilla was forcefully removed from Kristi Noem’s press conference, thrown to the ground and handcuffed for wanting to ask a question. Trump has had a federal judge arrested, the mayor of Newark arrested for attempting to visit an ICE detention center with members of Congress to conduct oversight one of whom, Rep. LaMonica has been arrested and indicted over ‘trumped up’ charges. Trump is sending National Guard to other big cities in advance of Saturday’s planned No Kings Day protests against his ridiculous military parade and has promised harsh retaliation against any protesters who show up for it. And now, on Saturday he is going to have all kinds of military personnel and equipment in DC with an unqualified toadie in charge of the military ready to support Trump if he declares martial law. 

This is scary folks. What will the people of this country do if he declares martial law and turns the American military against Americans on American soil? 

addendum, oppressive heat, flowers

Sort of an addendum to my last post. It wasn’t easy this path we chose. At first there was no market because architectural etched glass wasn’t a thing. We had to create the market by cold calling interior designers and architects and doing presentations to introduce them to the possibilities of this medium. We often worked seven days a week. There were plenty of times when we would go several months with no work. We never had health insurance and are fortunate that we and our kids were basically healthy. We lived hand to mouth. Any money we managed to save was always spent. It was very stressful either because we had no work or too much work at one time but even so we were making one of a kind original art that had/has the possibility of enduring long after we’re gone and the satisfaction of seeing a commission go from thumbnail sketch to finished installed work never got old so at no time did we ever really consider quitting and getting jobs as some self employed artists eventually did. But then there came a time when we did. The stress from doing two enormous corporate jobs back to back was too much, our relationship was in the toilet and we were headed for separation if not divorce. We had enough money saved from those two jobs to last about a year and we just couldn’t do it anymore. Of our two employees, one had already quit and we let the other go. We focused on getting our shit together for the next year and a half until our financial situation became dire and then we started over, just the two of us like in the beginning because really, we had become basically unemployable in our own minds by that time. This time we kept it small focusing mainly on high end residential and some corporate work. During this time we also developed our pate de verre technique, a lost wax glass casting process but that’s another post. We retired from the etched glass at the end of 2017 when the house flooded from Hurricane Harvey. There were other reasons; our contacts were aging out or dying, architectural decorative glass had really evolved offering other alternatives, it was physically demanding on our own aging bodies, and we were just plain tired of the whole thing; but that was the impetus. It still amazes me how much we produced out of our little two car garage studio.

If you are interested in seeing more of the work we did, here are links to two pages on our website (which btw is seriously outdated and contains broken and missing links that I was in the middle of renovating when I got the new computer two years ago and the program I used to upload images and text no longer worked and I’ve lost interest in buying the updated software because we’re not doing glass at all anymore). This one links to images and information about those commissions. The list of residential work is only a tiny fraction of what we did. This one is just a portfolio of images that shows a lot more of the residential work. Some jobs I don’t have pictures of, most were really hard to photograph because my only chance was right after installation and either too much or not enough light.    

Ok, enough of that.

It’s been so hot. July hot. Highs in the mid 90s with high humidity which pushes the feels like about 10 degrees hotter though we're supposed to get a little relief later in the week. Still stuff has to be done. I set the sprinkler up Sunday, hand watered Saturday. I cut the wisteria back one day and hauled it to the burn pile another day, cut back the low hanging branches of a tree and wild grape vine in back of the shop. That stuff is still lying where it fell. Another big branch fell from the pecan tree that was so heavily damaged last summer in the hurricane which took me two days to cut and pile up and then today I saw another big branch had fallen out of the farther most pecan tree.

But it’s not all sweaty labor. I've been working on the dwarf pomegranate painting (4" x 4"). It would help if I could decide on where the light source is and stop changing my mind.

I got to spend time with Paisleigh and Harrison on Sunday and put up another 18 ears of corn. That should be enough for the year. And stuff is blooming. The double orange daylilies are in full bloom, the crinum lilies seem to have popped up overnight, and one of the yellow bells has a cluster of flowers.

And the plumerias are blooming. 

corn and art

Friday night one of my neighbors who works on a local farm knocked on the door. He had a truckload of freshly picked sweet corn and wanted to know if we wanted any. He did this last year too. He refuses money, just spreading around the goodness. We got 2 dozen ears so Saturday Marc and I shucked them and Sunday I processed them for the freezer. Blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes, dunk in cold water to stop them cooking, cut the kernels off the cob (you can freeze the whole thing but we don’t have room in our freezer for that), and bag up in vacuum sealed bags. I got 11 2/3 cups out of 18 ears (I kept six back for immediate consumption).

He’ll have more in a week or two and I’ll repeat the process so that we have corn for as long as it lasts. I don’t buy corn at the grocery store. I don’t know the farmer, I don’t know where it’s grown, I don’t know how long it’s been picked, and most the corn grown in this country is genetically altered. As the farmer who I used to buy my corn from said, if a worm won’t eat it neither will I. Turns out he was the brother of another neighbor and he died. The same neighbor has another brother who grows corn but I missed his harvest this year.

I did finish the zucchini part of the painting. I don’t know if it would pass for a botanical illustration but I’m happy enough with it (so she says but I may darken one area) and more than ready to be done with it. 

I did the flower part first in glass as part of the botanica erotica series and then I did the drawing where I included the zucchini.

And I started on a new little painting, a pomegranate, 4” x 4”. It is also from the botanica erotica series. I thought some of them would make nice little paintings to put in the market at Hesed House.

Here’s the glass version. 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".

I got the proofs for the notecards. There are 7 designs but I’m going to package them in groups of five. Ten copies will give me 14 sets of cards. The bee will be turned so it’s horizontal on the card.

I have another follow up appointment with the ophthalmologist today and I hope that she will discontinue the drops. 

post freeze work, finished painting, med report

Mid 50s out there, overcast and damp, dreary. Saturday was nice enough that i got out there and started cutting back some of the dead stuff; the lantana, the yellow butterfly ginger that hasn’t bloomed for a couple of years and probably won’t get any this year, the pink butterfly ginger at least what’s left of it, picked up the orange cosmos I had pulled out the week before, worked more on clearing out the overgrowth at the end of the shop. That five feet or so of cleared ground on the left is what I’ve done so far plus some behind the air compressor that was completely engulfed that you can’t see. That area used to be a nice patch of dewberry vines until the virginia creeper and wild grape vine took over.

I uncovered the ponytail palm and it looks good. Uncovered the other plants that always freeze to the ground and they did but I think covering them helps protect the roots. Took the larger pots out of the house and the smaller pots out of the garage so they could get watered by the rain predicted on Sunday.

I’ve declared this first part of the painting done, 4" x 4", and removed the blue tape 

and penciled in the shape of the zucchini below. 

I figure if I don’t like the way the zucchini comes out I can just cut it off. I’ve sort of picked an image for the next painting. I saved a photo of a landscape with the moon, all fading deep dark indigos. It will be another technique/skill building exercise. Not sure I can pull it off.

I had the TEE yesterday. I’m getting to be an old hand at this joking with one of the nurses that I could tell her what to do. I got the results today via the patient portal: “The WATCHMAN device is in good position; there appears only very trace leaking between the device and left atrial appendage (with maximal diameter of 0.2 cm). No evidence of any thrombosis in this leaking area or left atrium.” So, no change in the Watchman, the heart tissue did not heal over the leak in the last three months. No sign of blood clotting but I am on low dose aspirin and plavix so I wouldn’t expect there to be. I want off the plavix, the whole point of getting the Watchman was to get off the blood thinner and since this very small leak is within the normal range I expect to be able to stop taking it. I haven’t heard from the doctor yet about what the results mean and probably won’t until the end of the week. 

So the Watchman is stable but there were some other notes concerning the aortic valve that were not noted from the TEE three months ago. One that there are mildly calcified leaflets (part of the structure of the valve) meaning slight hardening (I looked it up) that can be a result of age but not necessarily. The other note was mild aortic regurgitation, meaning a slightly leaky valve. I have no idea if these conditions are newly developed from three months ago or just not noted previously or something to be concerned about. The third note was concerning the size of the ascending aorta, the value increased from 27 to 30 and while 30 is still normal the increase seems worrying. Anyway more stuff to talk to the heart doctor about. So that’s my health report for today.

horrid cold and horrid day

The cuttings I took of the morning glory bush are sending out roots and still giving me an occasional flower from buds that were already developed enough albeit smaller

and when I watered all the pots indoors Saturday I noticed the Brazilian button (centratherum asteraceae) had burst into bloom. 

When I got up this morning the predicted low for tomorrow (Tuesday) had dropped from 17˚ to 12˚. I don’t think it has ever gotten that cold here in my life. Now at nearly noon forecast has risen two degrees to 14˚ but still a 91% chance of precipitation, meaning ice or snow for Tuesday. Tonight only 25˚ and I can’t decide if I want to get the cats in the shed tonight or not. Today is cold, windy, and overcast. Whoever has been working on the house next door has been there every day for about the last week and a half but not today. The only thing good about this arctic air is that it will be short lived, really just one terrible day and night with each succeeding day warmer and warmer and nearly 70˚ on Saturday. 

I’m not going to talk about the other terrible thing happening today.

I got my grocery shopping done on Sunday so I shouldn’t have to go out for any reason until Thursday, my SHARE day or to feed the cats. I worked on my painting yesterday, am working on it today. Currently waiting for it to dry and assess where I’m at.

You might remember that my electrophysiologist wanted another TEE (transesophageal echocardiogram) to check on the Watchman device in my heart three months after the first TEE in October after the procedure last August which showed a .2 leak (within the normal range) to see if it continued to heal up. Well, that’s been scheduled for next Monday the 27th and I hope to all the powers that be that this will be the very last time they go poking around the inside of my body.

We finished watching The Outlaws on Prime which we really enjoyed and I highly recommend and wrote about the premise here. Now we’re into the second season of Eureka (also on Prime), a small town of the most brilliant scientists and high IQ individuals doing all sorts of research at Global Dynamics around which the town grew up and in which things go awry with regularity and it’s up to the average IQ sheriff to get things squared away.

Not much else to write about. 

miserable days ahead in more ways than one

Wednesday I went with my friend who is undergoing treatment for cancer to one of her doctor appointments. Because we live in a rural county it’s a two hour drive there and back, or nearly so, to certain appointments and treatment so when I can I accompany her to keep her company. On the way there I checked the weather forecast for the next arctic vortex barreling down on us. The first front turned out to be not that severe and most everything survived with little or no damage. This next one, no suck luck. They are predicting high to mid 20s for three nights Saturday through Monday and then Tuesday a low of 18˚ and the temperature will never rise above freezing. So the azalea buds forming will freeze; all the various lilies, the fire spike, the banana trees, the morning glory bush, the rangoon creeper, the pink trumpet flower, and more will all freeze to the ground. And if that’s not bad enough, we might get snow and if not snow, freezing rain. Yay.

I’m going to have to get Handsome Boy, Lovey, Twin, and Momcat in the shed with the little heater for one night at least. Feral Ghost will be on his own. I’m wondering if I can get them to follow me to the shop and get them in the studio for that night as it’s insulated and much more space. I’m not sure they’ll go in even if I put their food in there.

Add to that the impending doom of the incoming administration of unqualified ass kissers whose only desire is to carry out the demented orders of a guy whose emotional maturity stopped developing when he was five so my mood isn’t great today. As such, I’m limiting my exposure to all the depressing reports. It will do me no good to continue to read about the horrible people and horrible policies that are almost upon us. I know it’s going to be bad. How does that go? My need to be informed is at odds with my need for sanity. Something like that. If not sanity, serenity. Reading about it over and over will not stop it from happening. All we can do is resist. Of course if Hegseth gets okayed for the Department of Defense we might get shot in the legs for resisting.

The only rainbows likely for the next four years will be on my walls on sunny mornings.

Progress has been slow on the new painting, haven’t had much time to work on it this week but I’ll be mostly housebound Sunday through Wednesday so maybe I’ll get it finished. In the meantime here’s where I’m at. Keep in mind that the colors are more intense/saturated than the actual painting. I’m using a picture that I printed out years ago from a photo I took when I was working on the cast glass series of which this was one, the drawing I did of this, and pictures on the internet that I searched for but haven’t printed out for reference. In the end it’s probably not going to look like any of the sources but that’s ok. I’m liking what I have so far.

yesterday

The new neighbors (correction, not the new neighbors but hired workers either by the new owners or Montreal) were at the house yesterday, not moving in but working on the house scraping the exterior doors and the trim around the windows. It was in the 50s yesterday and sunny so they had the doors open and the curtains on the windows (or shades) drawn. That is the first time since we have been here that I’ve seen the curtains drawn in that house. Many years Montreal was not here, traveling for work or up north visiting his wife and son but even when he has been in residence the curtains were never open. I’ve always been curious about the inside of that house, not that I can see anything now. And today they’re back working inside lots of banging and sanding noises as it’s overcast and not quite as warm.

I started pulling out the dead cosmos, clearing the ones in the day lily bed. I don’t think I’m going to let them grow there again since they’re plentiful in the flower bed on the east side which I haven’t begun to clear. I’ll leave them a little longer since the seeds provide food for birds in the winter.

I found a dead white wing dove in the front yard. It didn’t look damaged as if Cat had gotten it so I figured it must have frozen. You might remember I have a small collection of bird skulls on my buffet. 

l to r: seabird from Scotland, seabird from Galveston (those two found), bluejay, cardinal, mockingbird, wren, house finch, warbler

I don’t have the wren skull anymore. A mouse pushed it off onto the floor and Marc stepped on it when he sat down at the table. (If you are squeamish, you might want to jump to the next paragraph.) When I find a dead bird I cut off its head and nestle it in a fire ant bed for them to clean it up for me. And so I did with the white wing dove and then I disposed of the body by flinging it into the wild space at the back of the property, food for insects and night creatures. When I told Marc he said I hope it didn’t die from bird flu. Erk. Well, I did wash my hands when I came in. When it’s clean I’ll add it to the row.

Also yesterday I had a nose bleed and it would not stop! Took about 3 hours before it finally stopped. Damn blood thinner. I’ll be so glad when I am finally off this one. Today I’m afraid to blow my nose for fear it will start up again.

And I worked on the painting. I think I’m through for now with the stigma part of the pistil (the female parts) of the zucchini flower. Now on to the rest of the pistil and the surrounding petals.

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The following is from Heather Cox Richardson’s Jan. 8 newsletter. The Republican MAGAt representatives are compiling their wish list of bills that implement their Project 2025 and one of them is this gem urging Congress to support a consortium of antiabortion doctors for women because, as the bill says, “health care should emphasize the whole woman, including her physical, mental, and spiritual wellness…health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities.” Emphasis mine. Women’s healthcare shouldn’t be just about women, it should support the needs of men. Hey Christian nationalist MAGAts, you can stick your patriarchy where the sun don't shine. They care so much about women and families that they would rather pregnant women bleed out or die from sepsis leaving their other children motherless than get the life saving abortion they need.

And then there’s this…Where do you think the California republican legislators are? If you said California providing help and leadership you would wrong. They’re in Florida at Mar A Lago kissing Trump’s ass while he lies and casts blame for the fires. 

No solutions offered of course, just lies and blame. You know who we're getting help from? Canada and Mexico, our allies that Trump is threatening with economic disaster.