and here we are again,

riots and violence and destruction because privileged white people don't listen. Or should I say privileged racist white people don't care how many black people are murdered. And did you see the video of the white guy who walks up with a hammer and starts smashing windows and then leaves? Or that the police precinct building that burned was evacuated 20 minutes before the fire started (granted this was just a tweet or FB post I saw) or that people are reporting on social media that they are seeing white people setting fires and smashing stuff or that the police chief of Minneapolis has reported that all the people arrested were from out of town? So who knows who is really starting the violence and fires. It's not unheard of for cops to plant guns and drugs and it's not such a big leap to think that certain cops and outside agitators would not hesitate to start the violence and destruction and then blame it on the protesters. So many white nationalists and nazis and racists WANT violence and an excuse to gun down black people in the street and they have been infiltrating police departments for decades. At least they have arrested the cop and charged him with murder, albeit 3^rd degree murder and 2^nd degree manslaughter. But he'll get off because they're all in this together. The medical examiner has stated that strangulation was not the cause of death even though anyone who saw that video knows exactly how he died. And the looting? Plenty of videos showing white people helping themselves to merchandise are on social media but you won't see any of those on the news.

For those of you who don't understand the rioting, think it doesn't help their cause, what else is left for them? Black Americans are killed by police far more often than white Americans. In 2019, 370 white people and 235 black people were shot and killed by police. On the surface it seems more white people were killed until you realize that black people make up only 12% of the population, 12% of the population accounts for 39% of the people killed by cops in 2019 so proportionally, per capita, far more black people are killed by police than white people. Black people have tried everything...being submissive, being compliant, writing letters, giving speeches, protesting peacefully and still they are shot dead unarmed by police and civilians, still they constantly have to deal with white people calling the police and being arrested for simply living their lives in public. Why do they finally riot? Because nothing else fucking gets attention! Nothing else has ever instituted change. Take a knee during the national anthem to point out racial injustice and you get spit on and fired. They are angry and frustrated and horrified when all they want is to be left alone, to not be killed by police and citizens who think they have the right to be judge, jury, and executioner over an accusation, to just live their lives with the same sense of safety that every. single. white. person. enjoys.

And what is Trump doing? He is throwing gas on embers, looting equals shooting, encouraging violence against black Americans. He wants nothing more than to use the National Guard or the Military Police (which have been put on alert) to fire on black civilians, to declare some sort of martial law, complaining that the Mayor of Minneapolis isn't being forceful enough against these protesters. He wants desperately to use the strong arm tactics his buddies Putin and the royal Saudis use. He threatened violence to the protesters outside the White House last night and is calling for his supporters to show up tonight.

If you still think we don't have a problem with racism in this country, consider this. In Atlanta, white militia members dressed their children up in camo, vests, shields, gas masks, helmets, and assault weapons and spread them out in a line to confront protesters. Their children! 

       

Their children are being taught that black people are scum and thugs and don't deserve to be treated with respect or even listened to and must be dealt with accordingly.

It is past time for our society to actually put into practice what we claim to be, a place of opportunity for all Americans regardless of skin color but that will never happen as long as we refuse to call out these white supremacists and nazis for what they really are...domestic terrorists...and then deal with them accordingly.

Edit: I read today statements by the mayor of Minneapolis, the governor of Minnesota, the police chief of Minneapolis, and a report by a resident of Minneapolis that the city is under siege. Peaceful protests against the murder of George Floyd take place during the day and after curfew, bands of roving white right wing militia members spread out and start fires and bash in storefronts, even removing plywood put up for protection. There are eye witnesses to this but by the time the police and National Guard show up they have melted away. Predictably AG Barr is blaming 'the radical left' and Antifa for the rioting and destruction without any proof whatsoever and despite the fact that some of those arrested are linked to the far right militias that have been threatening their wet dream of a new civil/race war ever since Trump was elected and in several cases it is the cops themselves that are escalating the violence.

preparing the mind, MAGA, and a finished piece

I had sent off my barrage of questions Friday a week ago via the patient portal. Monday I got a reply that the doctor was out of the office that day, would be doing procedures all day Tuesday so it would be Wednesday before they had any answers for me. Actually it was Thursday mid morning but I didn't see it til after 4 PM that day. Too many questions with too many parts and the doctor thought it would be better to answer in person so if I could come in on Friday he would make time to see me. Far too late in the day for me to reply and, I figured, for them to set up a time for me. And the last thing I wanted to do was drive into the city through the gauntlet of Fort Bend County construction and deal with the horror of the Medical Center since I would have to see him in his office there instead of the nearer hospital center where I had seen him previously and where the procedures will take place.

In the meantime I had seen some terrible reviews of this doctor...get yourself a different doctor!...mostly concerning his bedside manner or not taking time to explain things as well as far more great reviews...he saved my life!...with praise that he took time to explain and answer questions, exactly the opposite. Thursday evening I was feeling anxious about the whole impending thing, didn't want to submit without my questions being answered, didn't want to spend a whole day going into the city at the drop of a hat, thinking maybe I would just postpone the procedure and subsequent change of medication until I had a chance to talk with him especially since several of my questions were about the new medication but Friday morning I called the doctor's office, explained the situation, and the person on the phone told me he would see me at noon. OK, I'll be there. The drive turned out to be not so bad as the maps app routed me around the city with a straight shot to the medical building and parking was easy and with the return trip home just 3 1/2 hours out of my day.

When I got there the waiting room was empty, about noon they put me in a room and about 12:30 Dr. Cheng came in. He shook my hand and explained why he wanted me to come in so he could answer them in person, he had a print out of my questions but when I pulled mine out he deferred to me and answered everything to my satisfaction. I'm a little anxious about all this, I told him. Understandable he says.

One of the things I asked was which was the worse ailment, the flutter or the afib. The flutter he said which surprised me. But it makes sense since that is the one he wants to treat with ablation and address the afib with medication. When I asked why not just increase the medication I was on for afib instead of starting me on one with such heinous possible side effects that he wants to observe me in the hospital for a few days he said that the meds I am on don't really address afib. After the ablation he'll take me off those.

When I left, the waiting room was packed. So this has set my mind at ease, I'm impressed that he made time for me during his lunch hour on a day when he obviously had a full schedule and didn't rush me or seem impatient to be done so I'm ready to go through with the procedures as scheduled on Monday and Tuesday. Maybe even looking forward to not having these episodes anymore since my anxiety has had the flutter going full bore the past two days.

In other news that pathetic and despicable man occupying the White House wants us to believe he called off his thoughtless impulsive order to bomb Iran for shooting down our spy plane over their territory (Iran supplied coordinates to support their claim and they also declined to shoot down the manned plane accompanying the drone while the US has provided zero proof that they were not in Iranian airspace) because he really cares about the 150 probable deaths of Iranians instead of finally being convinced that it would look bad for his re-election campaign and there would be a ton of bad press which is the only reason he would call it off especially considering he doesn't give a shit about the lives of all the would be immigrants being held in concentration camps on our border in unsanitary overcrowded conditions with disease rampant, insufficient food, sexual and physical abuse dished out by their captors, no clean clothing or laundry facilities or even diapers for the babies, children taking care of toddlers they aren't even related to. Our government thinks it's all fine that they are sleeping on concrete under a piece of foil, that they don't need soap or toothbrushes and or actual real meals instead of frozen uncooked/unheated dinners and those kids who are so sick they are unresponsive, why, they're  just sleeping. So yeah, sure, Trump called off the bomb raid on Iran to spare the lives of Iranians and now he wants to be praised for not killing them. MAGA!

The latest piece is out of the kiln and washed but no finish work done yet. This is the third of the four large Drowned Feather pieces, actually #4 in the series but cast out of sequence. Yes, that's a dried up fern frond, the whimsy part of the set. 

10” x 10” x 1/2”

crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good

fair warning...this is long.

timeline:

Thursday Aug. 24^th – prepare for the hurricane

Friday Aug. 25^th – rain off and on with wind and gusts

Saturday Aug. 26^th - light rain off and on during the day

Sunday Aug. 27^th – light rain off and on during the day

Monday Aug.28^th – heavy rain and high wind all day and into the night

Tuesday Aug. 29^th – clear sky by sunset

Wednesday Aug. 30^th

The Colorado River crested at about 5 AM at an historic 50 1/2' but the day dawned with a clear blue sky. Our grandson who had been staying with us while he worked on his truck getting it street legal asked if he could take our truck to Houston to help with rescue and clean up efforts and so he did and my sister and I went to look at the river about 10 AM.

Riverside Park completely underwater as well as Elm St. that runs along the park, and the next block towards town.

Around noon our neighborhood lost power and word on the street was that it was a shut off by the power company rather than damage to lines somewhere but it came back on around 3 PM. By that time we were watching as our neighborhood started taking on water.

There are 6 streets in our neighborhood and our house is on the most southern street. About the time we lost power one of the neighbors told us the most northern street, Engbrock, was flooded and the water was coming our way. By the time it was halfway to us and people were packing up and leaving, the neighborhood was already surrounded by water we didn't think we would be able to get out in the car and didn't know where we could go even if we could have. My sister's house in town was surrounded by water though with about 12” before it flooded her. I moved the car over the shop which is on higher ground than our house and hoped for the best. At some point after the water started coming into the neighborhood we learned that Peach Creek and Boughman's Slough, into which the Colorado River drains into during flood stage, banks failed or were just overpowered by 50.5' of water and a wall of water engulfed the Peach Creek neighborhood flooding houses up to the roof line and then moved on into Peach Acres, our neighborhood.

I'm standing on the corner of our street and the road on the east end looking north. Our shop is on the northeast corner and our house is across the street from the shop.

The west end of our street (that's Richmond Rd. at the end where we were dropped off a little further up later) was underwater while we were still dry but the ditch completely full.

By about 4 PM, the water had circled around from the west and the field behind us was filling fast coming at us from the south and from the north. 

Water was just starting to come in the house. If I had had any sense AT ALL, I would have closed the garage door.

By 4:30 PM we had 5” in the part of the house on a slab. I waded through the knee/thigh deep water in the yard and street to check on the car which was sitting in about 3” of water. Tripped on debris I couldn't see on my way back and lost my prescription glasses that I had tucked in my shirt front because sometimes I can see better without them. Luckily I still had a pair of readers from before I got my glasses.

I made sandbags with wet towels in plastic bags and put them against the door into the lower part of the house and also against the front door but we knew we had to get out as the water was still rising and was now even deeper in the lower part of house. I went back out to get the canoe and paddles when the water was about 3” from coming in the upper house but Marc was afraid the strong current would sweep us away so about 6 PM he called the sheriff's department for a water rescue as we could hear the airboats somewhere in the neighborhood. “OK”, they said, “we'll put you on the list” so we packed up some clothes, dog and cat food, the cat in her carrier and the dog on her leash and waited.

About an hour later the sun set and it was almost full dark when we heard an airboat with a light shining our direction and Marc shined our flashlight back through the dining room window (we had lost power again around 5:30) and the airboat came right up to our front door where the water was about an inch from coming in under the door. These two men, an ex-Marine and his helper, got us into the boat and then went back to the other end of the street to pick up our neighbors and their two young granddaughters and dropped us off on a high spot surrounded by water on the road at the end of our street that takes you into town where there were already a bunch of people, telling us that there were other rescuers in high water trucks ferrying people from this spot to the shelter and in fact, a loaded truck was just then leaving for the shelter, while he went out to rescue more people in our neighborhood.

While all this was happening we learned that the official rescue operation stopped at dark and this man and other private citizens were out in their own boats rescuing the people the official authorities had abandoned til the next morning. I wish I had gotten this man's name. He was so angry that the official operations quit at dark and that the game warden even tried to prevent him from going out. He was having none of it.

Anyway, eventually he was satisfied that he had found as many as he could and loaded up his boat and headed into town. So 23 of us including old people and very young children were stranded on this spot of dry ground surrounded by water that we didn't know if it had stopped rising or not. Us and mosquitoes and about a million fire ants. Someone had parked their SUV and left it on this high spot so I put the cat carrier on the hood and climbed up with the dog and one of my friend's grandgirls but everyone else was standing in the road.

And we waited and we waited and we waited and no one came back for us. We had been there about an hour and a half when we finally saw lights approaching from the north and from town in the south and they basically arrived at the same time. The lights from the north was a National Guard troop carrier that is stationed in Katy (about 60 miles away). They had received a call that they were needed to rescue some people, took them about two minutes to get on the road but an hour to get to us. The lights from the south, from town, was our same rescuer, even more pissed. He had learned that they were not coming back for us and so he returned to cram us all in his truck and boat to get us to a shelter. “This ex-Marine is not leaving anyone behind”, he told us.

So the National Guards helped all 23 of us along with our dogs, of which there were many, and a few cats and all our baggage into the troop carrier and drove us through water to dry land on one of the main roads in town, the road to Boling. It was an eerie drive as there was water in every direction as far as we could see. When we got to dry land, they stopped and conferred with someone about where to take us. The one and only shelter, the Catholic Church, was already full and they were refusing to take animals anyway. The city had tried to open the junior high school and the civic center but both had taken on water. Fortunately, a new shelter, the American Legion Hall, had just opened and were accepting animals and they took us there. 

We were dropped off and they went out to continue to bring people in and that is where we spent Wednesday night.  Wish I had thought to grab a couple of pillows and a blanket.  It was a long sleepless night.

The way this shelter opened was totally a citizen effort. The husband and wife, who own the building that the American Legion rents, had flooding in their house and they got out with their two young grandchildren and their disabled son and their dogs and went to the official shelter at the Catholic Church who turned them away because they weren't accepting animals and this couple refused to abandon their dogs. They knew the American Legion Hall was dry and so since they own the building they went there and opened it up to people and their pets and then throughout the night continued to accept people and animals and got with the city and the Red Cross to become an official shelter. During the night, they called everyone they knew that was dry and could get there to bring whatever food they could and they cooked it there to feed the 70 some odd people that were eventually brought in until the Red Cross could get there the next morning and take over, which they did just about the time we were leaving.

Next: another rescue of sorts

barium swallow and modified upper GI

Some of you may remember last August when I was eating and then suddenly could not breathe (again) and Marc had to jump up and give me the heimlich and my granddaughter was sitting there witness to the whole pissy mess, if not you can read about it here, and I promised everyone I would go to the doctor about it.  Well, I had my annual last week and I mentioned to my primary care doc in an oh-by-the-way manner about the freaky spasms and the choking thing and before I was finished talking she was writing down orders for a barium swallow test, a modified upper GI test, a chest x-ray, and a referral to an ENT. So there was plenty of fun to be had in my immediate future.

I got the x-ray right away and they scheduled the other two tests for last Monday and they had to be on an empty stomach, so nothing to eat or drink past midnight. First I talked with a speech therapist trying to tease out exactly what happens and when and how often and for how long, if there is any unifying element. There’s two issues here, one the whole spasm thing where when I swallow, the food scrapes or scratches (or something but it's always a sensation so I know what's coming even if I'm powerless to stop it) the inside of my throat and I start coughing and then sneezing forcefully and more coughing and eyes tearing and my vocal cords freeze up and I can’t talk but I can breathe fine throughout the whole event. And then there are the three times when I couldn't breathe and I think I’m choking and Marc does the heimlich on me which opens my airway barely but enough air to work through it myself, inhaling with that horrible sound and exhaling as hard as I can until I can gradually breathe completely again. And then there's the times when I aspirate tiny amounts of liquid, a few drops getting past before the glottis or larynx closes off the airway. Or when food starts to fall into my esophagus before I'm ready to swallow. Eating, it's all fun and games kids.

The speech therapist isn't convinced I'm choking in the literal sense, in that she doesn't think I've aspirated liquid or food since there is no food being expelled when Marc heimlichs me and also because if I was choking in the literal sense, once the obstruction was expelled then the airway is immediately cleared and that's not what happens with me. It's more like I'm suffocating because my airway has been closed off. She says it's a possibility that my vocal cords (larynx) are responding to some sort of stimuli which causes them to flatten out and obstruct my airway. Turns out two things happen when you swallow...the glottis closes and the larynx flattens out, both of which act to protect the airway.

So the first test was to swallow this thin barium liquid while she and the radiologist watched and conferred on the x-ray. I was turned to the screen so I could watch too. The first thing I did when they turned the screen on and I could see my skull and jaw and teeth was laugh. I mean we all know there's a skeleton inside us but to see it in real time and watch myself swallow was weird. The point of this test was to see if whatever it is that happens that causes either the spasm or suffocation happens while they can watch but of course, it never does. There were four thicknesses of this stuff but she passed over the middle two and went straight to the thick 'pudding' of barium, then with a bit of graham cracker mixed in but still no cigar.

Then they had me drink a bit of fizzy stuff to get air in my stomach and then this other medium thickness barium stuff a few swallows at a time while they watched further down the esophagus and from different positions. I couldn’t see that part. Then I had to drink a whole cup of the thick barium which was about the consistency of a milk shake but it didn’t taste nearly as bad as I had feared and they took x-rays every 30 minutes or so until it reached where the upper and lower intestines came together. They said everything looked good and I could go. They’ll send the test results to both my doctor and the ENT I went to see the following Thursday. The speech therapist also gave me a lot of printed info on swallowing disorders and strategies for coping with it. I went home and finally got to eat around 3 PM.

TMI? Not yet.

It would have been nice had they given me a little warning about what to expect when it all came out the other end. Seriously ooky.

just grab them by the pussy

The expression on his face in this picture says all you need to know about Trump and his opinion of women in general and the one that is wiping the floor with him in particular.

Just as racism increased when a black man ran for and won the highest electoral office in the country not once but twice, now sexism and misogyny are on the rise and it will only get worse. It's already been the standard that women in positions of power are judged on their looks, their clothing, described as shrill when they speak with emphasis or ineffective if they keep their voices down, they are still treated as interlopers in the boy's club and the closer Hillary Clinton gets to winning the presidency the worse the abuse Hillary and all women will have to endure.

Rapists getting off without punishment because it would ruin their lives wasn't enough. Now we are expected to accept that it's acceptable for any man to just walk up and grab a woman by the pussy. The Republican candidate for President of the United States says it's no big deal, just one of those things. The Republican candidate for President of the United States promotes sexual assault and the women and men in this country are supposed to think that it's no big deal, just one of those things.

That this man is a sexist and misogynist has been clear from the beginning. He regularly insults women over their looks, weight, temperament. He regularly tells his managers to fire any women that aren't attractive enough. He boasted about trying to have sex with a married woman (who spurned him) while married himself. He regularly commits adultery, he would regularly walk into the women's dressing rooms unannounced and uninvited during his TV shows and Miss Universe pageants, he doesn't mind men referring to his daughter as 'a piece of ass', he would even fuck his own daughter if he thought he could get away with it. And now out of his own mouth we learn that he thinks sexual assault is just one of those things that women 'let' you do.

No, Donald, women don't 'let' you do it.

I've been groped. I was 18 in New Orleans for Mardi Gras moving through a crowd when some anonymous man reached out and grabbed me by the vagina and then was gone. It was one of the more shocking things that has happened to me. It wasn't fun, I didn't like it, and I didn't 'let' him do it. I wonder how male predators would feel if women were in the habit of grabbing men's penises when they walked by. Would they take it as an invitation or would they be shocked by the intrusion, by the uninvited sexual assault.

I watched a short video of two women who support Trump after the first debate when he went off on the Miss Universe because she gained weight after the pageant. “He's right”, they said, “she did gain a lot of weight”. And “he shouldn't even be dealing with this”. And “a god has finally come down to help us”. Yeah, one of them really said that. These women are totally clueless and they are going to vote for him. Do they not understand that Trump, if asked about these women, would call them 'fat, disgusting, ugly really', that he has never ever in his life ever helped anyone but himself.

I've already posted about why Trump is totally unqualified to be president of this country so I'm not going to go into all that again. The fact that so many people in the country still support him, even after the revelation that he thinks sexual assault is just boys being boys and us women shouldn't be getting our panties in a twist, leaves me speechless.

If Trump, a man with no respect for the constitution or the rule of law, who says he will order Hillary Clinton imprisoned if elected because that's what dictators do, if this man gets elected, he will be our Nero, fiddling, or diddling, while the country burns and a good 30% of the population will be cheering him on.

And that is fucked up.

of all the ways to die

I used to think I was going to die in a car wreck since I had been in so many but then that stopped happening though I am aware, every time I get in the car on the freeway, that that is a possibility. I used to be afraid of drowning, not because I couldn't swim, but because I always thought it would be a terrible way to die but I've since read that it isn't as painful and horrible as I imagined. I would like to die of old age in my bed, peacefully, without being ravaged by some disease but I'm thinking now I will probably just choke to death.

Anyone who has known me for a long time and has shared enough meals with me knows that sometimes my throat goes into a spasm while I am eating when something scratches or touches a sensitive spot which produces coughing, sneezing, frozen vocal chords but no choking. And then there are the times I actually aspirate liquid or food and choke a little because that little flap that covers your airway when you are eating or drinking doesn't always work properly. This is one of the reasons I'm a slow eater.

Once, I was dreaming I was eating candy and my mouth started watering and I aspirated saliva to the point where I could not breathe at all and Marc had to Heimlich me a couple of times. That was kind of scary since I wasn't even eating or drinking anything and was sound asleep. And another time eating, that was worse, when my eyesight started going gray around the edges before I could breathe again.

So last night we had just sat down to dinner, roast with potatoes and carrots and I'm chewing my first bite of roast and all of a sudden I can't breathe, my airway was completely blocked and my first attempts at trying to clear it were unsuccessful. Marc jumped up and Heimliched me a couple of times which dislodged the obstruction just enough that I could start forcing some air in and out.

This was the third time he's had to do that but this was the first time I pissed myself. And by that I don't mean I just wet my pants a little, I mean my bladder totally let go and by the time I could breathe a little easier but still struggling, I was standing in a puddle of urine and my pants were soaked. I knew it was happening in a distant way, just as I knew Autumn, who is visiting for her week, was watching with a look of horror on her face, but my whole focus was on dragging air into my lungs and expelling it as forcefully as I could to remove whatever was blocking my airway. At this point I knew I wasn't going to die and after a few more minutes I could breathe more or less regularly. 'Well', he says, 'that hasn't happened in a long time'. 'It's happened before?!', Autumn exclaimed.

'I'm sorry you had to witness that', I told Autumn as I went to change clothes. The only word I heard of her reply was 'traumatic'.

Yep. For me too.