every title I think of is filled with profanity but it's not all bad

Coincidently, I posted my last blog entry on Tuesday late afternoon and Wednesday morning this showed up in my email inbox.

This is how this country has decided to deal with the epidemic gun violence here. No attempt to address the causes of gun violence in an effort to reduce it, no, instead they have decided the right approach is to give seminars on how to prepare for an active shooter occurrence. As if anyone can prepare for a thing like that. If you're within range when it starts you'll be dead by the time you realize what's happening. So fucked up. And cops getting shot too. There's been four or five in Houston in as many days, at least one dead, maybe two. Just another result of our Republican governor's all guns all the time policies; no permit needed to carry, no restriction or registration of firearms, no limit, determined to take us back to the days of the wild west. Shoot 'em up, cowboy. Yippee ki yo ki yay! This is Texas after all where lawlessness reigns. The other day a little fender bender, cars pulled to the side of the road, dude pulls his gun and a guy ended up dead. It's a race to see what kills more of us, guns or covid because no public health measures allowed here. Doesn't matter which epidemic kills us to the governor who apparently doesn't think there's enough dead Texans yet.

OK, letting go now.

I got the second attempt at the latest crown on Wednesday. It's the old style steel with the porcelain coating and the very strong tenacious glue they used to use so we'll see. So far so good.

Also Wednesday Robin went back to work since she's tested negative for covid and so now that she had to give her sister her car back, I'm taking her to work again. Which is good because it gets me up and moving since I've been so lazy lately.

The sun finally came out, sky cleared up about 3:30 yesterday and today was cold this morning but warmed up to a really nice and sunny day but it's already clouding up again. Not too busy at SHARE today, some new volunteers. Walked the dog the long walk and that is all I accomplished beside pulling up another handful of clover from around the bluebonnets in the front. I'm getting a little restless maybe enough to at least empty the truck load of fallen branches onto the burn pile tomorrow.

general stuff

Missed my day at SHARE Thursday to get my new crown seated. It was 11 on Thursday or another 4 or 5 days before I could get in so I hope they weren't busy (they weren't). The weather was pretty icky; cold, overcast, and wet from the rain yesterday when the front came in so maybe not too many people showed up.

The crown went on and I left though it felt a little high but it's not always easy to tell so we decided to live with it a day or so but after lunch I knew it would need more adjusting so I called and they got me in right away and now it feels perfect.

We turned on the heater last night as the temp in the house had dipped below our heat setting of 68˚. This morning it was 44˚ at 8 AM and supposed to get down to 41˚ tonight so we're have our first days of winter weather. But the sky cleared and the sun is shining so my mood, predictably, has improved.

I worked on the next design for the last stand, or rather I choose my subject and scrolled through many pictures of the comet moth, comet moth caterpillar, and eucalyptus leaves but I selected a few images and am now ready to work on a drawing.

https://pixels.com/featured/comet-moth-warren-photographic.html

I had thought to use the same format as the luna moth with the wings extending beyond the sides but if I do, it will have to be taller as the comet moth's trailing wings are longer.

And really, that's all I have to write about. Politics is too depressing, can't even read Heather Cox Richardson's newsletters in which today's she reports the Republicans are tightening their hold on state and national seats through even more extreme gerrymandering especially in states the Democrats won this last time around and the Senate Republicans have squelched even discussions of the voting rights act through the filibuster for the third time.

This is the happiest thing I can think of right now.

 

slow progress and they're already pushing Christmas

As mentioned, I've been working on the luna moth model. Here's my progress from a few days ago

and current.

I'm dithering about using the tiny wax rope for the veins in the wings even as I put them in. The other alternative is to treat them like the veins in the leaves below, which works fine for the leaves but not I think for the wings of a moth. The problem is that they don't always cast well, the glass not wanting to go down in those narrow spaces and so not filling completely and being bumpy as they are in the leaf of the first trumpet flower piece. But if you don't touch them, only look it's not that noticeable (I tell myself).

It's been so hot and humid but Wednesday morning a promised cold front came through with heavy wind and heavy rain but thankfully no lightning and only an occasional distant rumble. The rain ended mid morning and cleared up to clear blue sky a few hours later. It's pleasant out and should get even cooler as the front moves through.

I had my bi-annual teeth cleaning and exam Wednesday and finally scheduled the second to last crown that's needed. How about tomorrow at 2, she asked. Ulp, well I wasn't expecting it to be tomorrow, but OK. This will make #8 in the past three years or so. Busting my teeth up at sixteen and failing old dental work plus another cracked molar. When I get these last two done combined with the seven I already had I'll have 16 crowns.

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OMG! What a fucking ordeal. This crown is the last molar on my upper left side. On top of that, I have a small mouth so with the drill, the water sprayer, the suction thingy, the mirror, and my overbite I had a hard time breathing. I'd have to stop them fairly often so I could take a few breaths then take a big breath and hold it while they worked. Eventually it got done and it was time to make the temporary crown. It took four freaking tries. The first one came out incomplete. The second one cracked as soon as the assistant told me to bite down on it. The third one, which they had the dentist come in and do the adjusting also cracked the third time he told me to bite down on the red paper. More grinding endued. And finally a different assistant made the fourth temporary which finally succeeded. And that whole part of my head aches now that the deadener has worn off. This is not a reflection of the skill of my dentist which I told him at one point was being tested, but more to do with that particular tooth, broken and worn down and hard to get to. And to top it all off, they had the TV on the Hallmark Channel which was showing Christmas movies. In October. Before Halloween.

Seriously, What. The. Fuck.

edit: success was only temporary, the temporary crown broke into pieces during dinner last night.

 

the body, imploding it is

Biden has been President for a day and a half and already Hannity of Fox has declared Biden's first week a disaster, the new Q-Anon Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed articles of impeachment against Biden, Texas AG Ken Paxton is gonna sue to stop Biden's administration's 'lawlessness', and the 'rules don't apply to me' new Representative Lauren Boebert has introduced legislation to reverse the federal mask mandate, Ted Cruz is babbling about Biden caring more for Parisians than the citizens of Pittsburg (the very people whose votes he tried to dismiss) by rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and McConnell is already whining and demanding that the new Senate give precedence to the minority's concerns (you know like he did for the last 10 years...not). Well, the Wacky Right may not be happy but the majority of Americans are very happy. Not just happy, relieved, weightless.

And then I went to get my eyes examined today.

The last time I had an eye exam was five years ago and I got glasses in order to pass the eye test to get my driver's license renewed which glasses I lost two years later during the flood and never replaced simply going back to drugstore cheaters. I have felt that in the last year, my eyesight improved. I know longer needed the magnifiers to be able to read my book. Today, the eye doctor confirmed that, my eyesight has indeed improved. But not for any good reason. I have cataracts forming and that's what cataracts do, improve your eyesight until the day your eyesight crashes. Left eye worse than the right eye. I could go ahead and get the left eye done but since they prefer to do both eyes a month apart, I should wait til fall, make an appointment with an ophthalmologist and plan to have cataract surgery next December/January. I kind of expected the cataract news as my sister had hers done when she was about the age I am now and there have been a few times when I have detected a faint gray smudge when looking at a bright sky or a well lit white ceiling. If that was the only problem, not that big a deal.

But...

I also have macular degeneration. Fortunately not the kind that hits and deteriorates quickly so that you have to get shots in your eyes every month. Apparently, my last eye exam a faint spot or two had started to show up in my right eye (I don't remember being informed of this) and now 5 years later my left eye has caught up to where the right eye was then and my right eye has gotten a little worse. This form is a slow degeneration and he figures that it will be 15 years or so at this rate before my vision is seriously affected. Good news is that he thinks by then they will have treatment for it as it's something researchers are working on. And there are steps I can take; wearing a hat and wrap around sunglasses every time I'm outside, eat dark leafy greens every day preferably a cup's worth, and avoid smoke of all kinds. Folks, I like dark leafy greens...mustard, collard, spinach, even beet greens...and we eat them often but if I have to eat a cup's worth every single day for the next 10 or 15 years, that's gonna get old fast.

So three years ago, afib and flutter. This year my blood sugar is pre-diabetic, my teeth are crumbling, and now my eyes are crapping out on me.

Update on the teeth. The broken pieces from two of my front teeth weren't bits of my teeth but old fillings that failed though I don't remember the original restorations. The tooth in between had some decay and a veneer that no longer covered the tooth completely due to receding gums but didn't need a crown, however, if I did all three in a row now he could get rid of the gap that had developed between my two front teeth. So vanity won the day and three and a half hours later I left with three temporary crowns. When I get the permanent ones I will have a total of 14 crowns with at least one more in the future.

They weren't kidding when they said getting old ain't for sissies.

and the sweating has begun

...in January. It got up to the low 70˚s yesterday and since the birds and the spring weeds and the freeze damaged shrubs are convinced it's spring...in January...I decided to go ahead and move the hibiscus to its new location, something I wasn't going to do til next month. I moved it from the circular bed where it was crowded by the plumbago on one side and the confederate rose on the other where it wasn't doing well to the corner of the long daylily bed behind the barn next to the concrete apron in the back. 

It will get plenty of sun there and the most brutal kind, from noon to late afternoon summer sun. I had already pulled the cosmos out so first I had to improve the soil which precipitated a trip to the feed store for dirt and compost and fertilizer and work the compost in before I could replant it. The next thing along in that flower bed is the pink angel trumpet and it does not like that late summer sun but it's probably too big to move.

I also cut back both confederate rose bushes as they were already showing a bit of new growth and then cut up the branches to make a tidy pile. So Tuesday started out nice enough and then just as I was finishing lunch two small chunks broke off one of my front teeth. About two weeks ago, a bigger chunk of one of my other front teeth broke off but on the backside. My teeth are a mess from an accident at 16 that killed all 4 bottom front teeth and damaged the rest. Over the years I've acquired 11 crowns, other cosmetic repairs, and I forget how many root canals. I had an appointment with the new dentist for the second opinion next week but now with this second tooth breaking apart, I called my regular dentist and they can see me today. The second opinion on those other teeth can wait.

And then two  of the crystals broke that I bought at the Thieves Market in Portugal when I accidently knocked them off my desk.  I had them out contemplating whether to hang them from hooks in the window or  use them to make a mobile so that along with my teeth pretty much ruined what was left of the day.

I spent over an hour this morning on twitter reading the news and people's relief that Trump is gone, a man who ruined his life and lost everything because he couldn't take a joke when Seth Meyers and Barack Obama roasted him at a White House Correspondents Dinner, and a pitiful leaving it was if anyone could ever find it in themselves to pity him. Not me. The military refused to give him the traditional send-off and he and Melania left the White House at 8 AM for the send-off he planned for himself that apparently only his family and a handful of staffers could be bothered to attend.

In just an hour from now, Biden and Harris will be sworn in and the nightmare of the last four years will be over, the promised violent protest to Biden's inauguration folding like a cheap tent with the FBI actively arresting them and Trump started throwing them under the bus. Of course the 25,000 armed national guard troops minus the 12 with links to the far right white supremacy on site might have had something to do with that. Where's all those militias with their big talk of a new civil war? And Q-anon folks who have spent the last two weeks buying up CB radios and stocking up food are mystified and incredulous that they got played, that Trump didn't issue the call.

Biden and Harris have such a big job ahead of them and hopefully they will get some cooperation from Republicans. McConnell, soon to be minority leader of the Senate, came right out and blamed the attempted insurrection on Trump but of course they aren't all giving up as new Senator Hawley has already objected to a quick pass for Biden's DHS pick because Biden wants to allow our undocumented citizens a path to citizenship.

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It's done. We resisted and survived the last four years, our democracy has prevailed. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are in the house!

one tooth shy of a full set

I finally bit the bullet and went in and had my relatively healthy loose tooth with it's gold crown pulled, fourth tooth from the center upper left (this is the tooth that would glint when I smiled for pictures). It's been loose for years, at least a decade, maybe even 15, maybe even longer. It's been loose but stable in that it never bothered me, never the source of pain so I ignored it. Long about last May though it became unstable, shifting around and if I wasn't careful when I ate it would become misaligned and then I would bite down on it and oh man, that was like an electric shock to my brain. Then it would firm up some, then get even looser, then firm up some, over and over but the last month or so the firm up stages shortened from a couple of weeks to a couple of days and finally it was impacting my ability to eat and I was afraid it was either going to come out while I was eating or in my sleep and I would choke to death on it. I mean this baby was loose. I could waggle it all around and up and down. I could have pulled it myself if I wasn't such a coward so I checked out my insurance which only covers an exam, x-rays, and a cleaning every six months and that's it. Any work that has to be done, I pay. And what's up with that? Why doesn't health insurance cover dental work when bad teeth can affect your heart. Why do we have to get separate insurance to cover restorative work. OK, rhetorical question...money. Isn't that the reason for everything here in this country?

Anyway, I went in yesterday morning, they took x-rays, the dentist numbed me up, wiggled it once, wiggled it again, gave a little pull and it slipped right out. 

The only thing holding it in was the gum, he said, and showed me the x-rays...all the bone had disintegrated, and because it was spreading to the two teeth on either side, a bridge is not an option as it would cause those two teeth to become loose as well. After the extraction the assistant took a full set of x-rays and I went back this morning for the cleaning and exam. I have two teeth that need immediate attention, two new crowns if the decay under the two damaged old ones (and I mean old) hasn't gone into the root. Only one of them bothers me so I'm getting that one taken care of next week and I'll address the other one in a month or two. And since I now have insurance that will pay for cleaning twice a year hopefully that will keep the periodontitis from getting worse.

Now that it's not raining every day the road crew is back at work. Monday they used the big heavy roller vehicle to flatten out the worst of the washboard and ruts and today they were dumping bank sand on top of the previous layer and grading and flattening it.

Besides the mosquitoes which are horrendous out there, the white ginger really liked all that rain. This is the fullest bloom I've had all year on it.

I don't know if the rain brought these on or if it's just their time of year to bloom but the bromeliads I took when our stained and fused glass artist friend Gene lost his studio several years ago and was given 2 months to vacate the property and he was just going to abandon them because he had far too much other stuff to deal with are blooming. They're all crowded in two pots (he had them in the ground) and when I get around to repotting them, I'll separate out several to give back to him.

I also dug up his bird of paradise which is sending out three bloom stalks right now and I took a big staghorn fern (he was giving away all his tropicals and orchids as well). I split the separate staghorn plants and once he was settled returned one to him as well as one of the bridal bouquet plumerias as it was his that I took my cutting from. He finally got his new shop/studio building up and is in the process of getting the bathroom in and all the electrical, thinks he might be ready to come get all his equipment and supplies we've been storing for him by the end of the year. Once all his stuff is back where it belongs maybe I can get the three shop bays cleaned up and reorganized after Harvey since I haven't so much as hosed down the floor since it flooded.

OK, I'm off to yoga!