dreary day

I have poison ivy on my face. How the fuck did I get poison ivy on my face! I also have it on the index and middle fingers of my left hand and the thumb and middle finger on my right hand but I know how I got it there. The back edge of my property where it meets the wild space is lined with poison ivy and that's where I throw the banana tree mush. There's no leaves on the poison ivy, just the bare stems. I didn't think too much about it because I figured they would be dry and dead after the temps in the teens and twenties but obviously I was wrong about that and I brushed up against it when throwing the banana tree sections into the wild space. But how I got it on my forehead is a mystery.

Our warm spring like weather is over for at least the next two weeks. It was already as warm as it was going to get when I got up this morning. It's a dreary day in deep contrast to the previous warm sunny days, cold overcast windy, and a little wet. The birds continue to mob the bird feeder. I tried to get a picture but I was shooting through the door glass on magnification and it's too far away for a good shot but there's a big flock of goldfinches along with cardinals, chickadees, titmice, house finches, warblers, and doves. I think I have finally foiled the squirrels! It's been a week and a half since I have seen one on the bird feeder. Fear not that they are starving. I put cracked corn out every morning for them. The cardinals and blue jays like it too.

Things that were on the to do list this week...drop my poop test off at the post office, I know TMI but tough shit. Ha ha. Get more bird seed, take the recycling in, goop up the split in the collar on the water pipe into the shop, cut back the roses. Go to yoga class. Continue to look for a picture of me in my prom dress which I made, very hippy dippy. I know I have that picture, I can see it in my mind, and the other ladies at yoga want to see it and I thought I had it on my computer but apparently not.

I made it to the post office, took the recycling, cut back the roses, cut back all the dead wild Mexican petunias, went to yoga (and I've been very good about my home routine when I don't have class), got bird seed, volunteered at SHARE, haven't found the picture. Nothing is getting accomplished today. Dinner. I have to make dinner later.

Don't even have a picture to post except this dandelion.

Almost lunch time and then I hear a couch and book calling my name.

personal stuff and political malfeasance

The white orchid tree has been blooming but it's done now.

I have poison ivy, fairly mild as these things go, on my face, on my right cheek and jaw line, the space between my eyebrows and under my right eyebrow which has my right eyelid a little swollen and droopy, and on my left temple. I'm pretty sure I got it from Minnie who goes poking around in the wild space at the back of the property that is full of poison ivy and then comes and rubs her face against mine showing her affection. Thanks dog.

Wednesday I vacuumed the whole house except for the work room which I swept. Yesterday I used Murphy's Oil Soap to clean the top of my oak table and then used lemon oil. So far that's the extent of my housekeeping efforts.

Lily has shown zero interest in going outside since she came in Tuesday and spent the night in. She's gone out in the little backyard a couple of times for about 10 minutes before coming back in. She goes to the vet next Monday and I hope they can tell me she's not pregnant. She was pretty slim, though not bony, when I started feeding her about two weeks ago and her stomach is filling in and I hope to all the gods that it's the food and not babies. I set up a litter box for her since Tuesday night she used the door mat.

My jar of frit came yesterday so I'll be busy today getting the last three molds filled. Edit: Only got the mold for the top filled and selected two of the three colors for the inlay when a friend I have been trying to connect with for two months called. So, tomorrow, I'll get the last two molds filled and then it will be time for the part over which I have no control...casting in the kiln.

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We watched the J6 hearing last night like we have every single one previous, this time focusing on Trump's dereliction of duty and the violation of his oath of office. Once again the general information before the hearings was that Trump did nothing while the riot at the Capitol was ongoing until several hours later and once again the Committee brought the details and receipts from hardcore Trump supporters and witnesses. Not only did he sit in the private president's dining room watching it unfold for 187 minutes ignoring all pleas from his advisers and family for him to issue a statement deploring what was going on in no uncertain terms, there are no official records and no photos of that time. The call logs and the daily diary are blank and the official White House photographer was told 'no photos' even though we know through previous testimony that he was making and receiving calls. And now we know that 24 Secret Service agents wiped the call logs from their phones for the 6^th and the 7^th and are now under criminal investigation.

Not only did Trump fail to act, he refused to act until law enforcement was mobilized by Pence (when he found out Trump had his press secretary tweet that it was Trump himself who had called them in) and it was clear that his attempted coup had failed and still he did not condemn what had occurred instead telling his supporters that they were good people and he loved them and the recorded out takes from that speech show just how much he loathed having to make it. At this point I'm curious why the committee hasn't brought up the executive order of martial law that had already been prepared for Trump to use if the coup had succeeded.

If you didn't watch the hearing last night, Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter yesterday gives a complete and succinct report of who the witnesses were and what all they said. You can read it here. 

I have to admire Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger as well, for their determination to discover and hold responsible those who tried through force and violence to overturn a free and fair election and destroy our democracy, installing Trump as president when all their previous efforts had failed. I don't care for her hard core republican politics, she voted for Trump twice and with his agenda 97% of the time in the House, but she is steadfast in her defense of our democracy and constitution and laws. She tweeted the other day that she thought the J6 committee was probably the most important thing she has done in her life so far and perhaps even her entire life. 

And while I don't know how she or Kinzinger personally voted on the following bills passed by the House this week, this is how the republicans voted:

209 voted against protecting abortion rights

205 voted against protecting interstate travel for healthcare

190 voted against protecting access to contraception

157 voted against protecting marriage equality

The news pundits would have you believe that republicans are poised to take back the House in the mid-terms and if they do they will vote to make all the above illegal and then they are going to come after Social Security and Medicare. It is essential to keep the House and increase the democrat majority in the Senate so that we can get these protections codified into law now that they are subject to the chopping block since the Supreme Court took the ax to our rights to privacy.

You know what needs to be done. Don't forget, don't let anyone else forget either.

feathers, flowers, leaves, and pie

I think I've decided how I got so much poison ivy on my face. The day I was over at the shop pulling out the dead cosmos, Minnie was doing her dog thing poking around among the heavy growth along the back fence of the shop property where poison ivy grows vigorously. She's a very sweet and affectionate little dog and will put her paws on my shoulders and rub her face against mine and my neck. I'm thinking she had a face full of urushiol (the oil in the sap that causes the allergic reaction) and she generously shared it with me (even though she pokes in there a lot and has never in the past transferred any to me). While I'm still getting small outbreaks on my hands, the places on my face are beginning to dry up and heal. And I discovered the the NP cardiologist that I wanted to go to is not in my network boo hiss and so I am giving the guy they referred me to a try. Still have to make the appointment.

We're going over to a neighbor's house for a get together and dinner tonight with our little social group on the street and I'm making a key lime pie to take as soon as Marc gets through juicing the limes for me. He volunteered to do that part because he knows the arthritis in my thumb joints would be screaming at me if I did it.

So the last bunch is out of the kiln. The third heron feather came out great and I'm really happy with it and will use it with the heron box. 

The hibiscus flower and leaf fired well also and that red is in-your-face red (in hindsight I should have used a 50/50 blend of red and white) though it shrank more than I expected. 

The three experiments with the transparent glass got weird. Well, two of them did. The star which was all transparent powder fired just like opaque glass (see above) which means that I can expand my color palette without having to buy more colors in the opaque powder. The two with transparent glass that had fine frit, the leaf all fine frit and the flower shape half fine frit and half powder got weird. The all frit leaf is heavily textured not having melted completely together at the low temperature and the color changed to more of a teal than the green it is supposed to be and the yellow flower shape turned a ghastly sort of murky green for which I have no explanation.

I still don't know where I'm going with this stuff. The next things I try will be a little more complex, more than one color, maybe pansies.

OK, pie is made...with blueberries!