still hot but changes in progress, annoyed Cat, more cards, and maybe a ray of hope

I’m happy to report my reaction to the second shingles shot was minimal. I woke up about 4 AM the next morning feeling achy and a little chill. Not having chills but I turned the fan down from high to medium, took some ibuprofen and I’m fine today (Saturday) though I do have a red and sore area on my arm in the vicinity of the injection site. The All Knowing Oracle tells me this is a common reaction.

Things are happening that denote the start of the changing season even if our highs are still in the 90s albeit the low 90s. Of course the ‘real feel’ temp is always over 10 degrees hotter. The tallow trees have been dropping leaves for a couple of weeks now, 

I noticed last week that the snow-on-the-prairie was blooming with it’s tiny flowers and white leaves, bloom plumes are emerging from the clumps of pampas grass, 

the beauty berries are purple, foliage all around is looking tired, and it’s dark by 8:30. Yesterday (Sunday) and today, a bit less hot staying in the high 80s but will zoom up high 90s this week before dropping back to low 90s. Still, it’s September and the summer did not seem to drag on. I don’t think we had an actual temp in the triple digits this summer.

Cat always wants out in the morning and back in by noon or earlier and then spends the rest of the day inside. This morning (Saturday) I let her out as usual and as usual when I venture out after breakfast and emerge from the garage she runs up to me from the deck in the front where she spends her outdoor time and I let her in. This morning I didn’t pause waiting for her but went straight to the backyard looking things over when I heard her meow at me from the driveway. Instead of going and letting her in right away I continued my meander around the yard and when I was over by the zinnias she came running towards me and let out this long indignant howl and when I looked at her she ran back to the garage. Hey bitch get your butt over here and let me in.

I’ve done three more cards but I’m starting to get carried away. The azalea took way too long and is too big, well it’s not too big just too big for the purpose of these cards which is why it took so long plus I kept making adjustments to the colors (not to mention I painted the wrong side of the card). The point of these cards is to minimize my time investment, small fairly simple designs, two hours or less. The black eyed susans took a little over an hour so I’ve decided to keep the azalea, send it to one of my friends. I’ve done seven so far. If I do at least two a week I’ll have them all done for the little expanded market day. It’s more likely I’ll only get 15 or 20 done by then.

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There’s been some question the past few days about whether or not Trump had died or was whisked away to the mini hospital in the basement of the White House, if he had had a stroke or heart failure because he had not been seen for about five days. Being the media hog that he is who loves nothing more than to talk about himself to the press and air his grievances while claiming to be the best at everything this is highly unusual. Finally a pictured appeared Sunday of Trump leaving the White House for one of his golf clubs, of course since that’s all he does except for when they hand him more EOs to sign or he’s indulging in one of his cabinet ass kissing sessions. Looked pretty bad as he ignored the press. No telling what’s going on and the White House certainly won’t tell us the truth but if he is getting more incapacitated people are starting to speculate on what a JD Vance take over would be like. Some people think it will be worse because Vance is smarter than Trump and I thought so too at one point. Now, though, I’m thinking maybe the whole MAGA movement might unravel quickly. MAGA is a cult of personality, without Trump, there is no cult. Vance may be smarter but he is also unlikeable, has no people skills, no charisma, has basically been side-lined since the election; he may be a willing puppet but I don’t see him inheriting Trump’s following. I think maybe that while Trump’s core refuses to blame Trump for the deteriorating conditions in this country they will have no problem blaming Vance. And with Trump gone, so will be his hold on congressional republicans, at least the more moderate ones, and we might start seeing some push back from them. One would hope anyway. It’s one ray and I think I’ll hold onto that for now.

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A few random photos:  I noticed this spiral of green lacewing eggs,

Another praying mantis, this one on my sister’s Mexican bird of paradise (pride of Barbados),

which is still in full bloom. She has a different variety than mine. Her's comes out later and fuller, blooms earlier than mine and blooms longer. Mine is already done blooming.

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.

sewing and voting

Early voting started here yesterday. Marc went and voted, I voted today. 

We are both sick of the non-stop political ads on network TV, particularly the ones for Ted Cruz here in Texas who is weirdly obsessed with transitioning and is claiming in his ads that his opponent is in favor of schools transitioning little Johnny into little Joanne during lunch without parental consent. First of all, no one is performing transition surgery on children and certainly not school administrations that require a signed parental consent form to give your kid an aspirin or put on a bandaid and that are already underfunded. And second, transition is a long process involving chemical, social, and psychological steps before final surgery. That republicans are promoting that schools are whisking your kids away and performing surgery on them without parental consent is patently absurd and yet, here we are.

Two weeks left until Election Day and the mainstream media still refuses to accurately report on Trump’s worsening dementia or his plans to turn this country into an authoritarian state; his desire to round up and punish everyone who he feels is against him using the armed forces against American citizens, his so called ‘enemy within’ straight out of Hitler’s playbook; his intention to revoke the legal status of immigrants and ‘remove’ millions of legal and illegal residents which he admits will be bloody. And then there is the plan to implement the heinous policies of Project 2025. I don’t give much credence to polls because I think they are heavily influenced by who pays for them, who conducts them, and who they call but, Jesus fucking Christ, it is still unsettling that they continue to show this as a close race.

I didn’t intend this to be a political post so moving on…

Last Saturday Jade arrived around 5:30 for help making her vintage clown Halloween costume. She had the pattern and everything else necessary for us to make it. So Saturday night we laid out the pattern and got all the pieces except for the ruffle and hat cut. Sunday was a long day of pinning and sewing and altering and by 7 pm we were both tired but we had the basic costume made and the fabric for the ruffle cut out and hemmed. 

Monday morning I gathered the ruffle while Jade cut out and sewed the hat and then we sewed on the pom poms and were done.

As long as I have my sewing machine out I decided to remake the blue patterned skirt I made two years ago to wear to my great niece’s wedding. I’ve never been very happy with it because it’s too full, the material being a little over 4” wider than what I had used with my other skirts. So I’ve almost got it taken apart enough to cut out 4 1/2 inches which may not seem like all that much but I’m hoping I’ll be happier with it. 

I might even make the new skirt out of the fabric I bought over a year ago. Similar batik pattern, different colors.

Cat on the sunning platform in the old turtle pond. She thinks she’ll have a better chance at getting a leopard frog from there I guess.

been busy preparing for the hard freeze

I’ve been more or less MIA since Wednesday. I say more or less because I did upload my last post on Saturday. Last Wednesday was such a clown show in the House it just grabbed all my attention and Thursday I’m always out of pocket because of SHARE which was a food delivery day from the regional food bank, our new Elder while putting boxes on the storage rack wants to make sure we know…

Friday I spent the day working on my post which I had intended to post that day but, oh well. Which brings us to the weekend. Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday I spent getting ready for the arctic blast that is sitting on us right now. I pulled the big potted plants that would withstand a light freeze into the garage and put the big tarp up and across everything. I harvested the rest of the cauliflower, broccoli, 

most of the mustard greens and lettuce, and the two ready cabbages and covered the rest of the cabbages and mustard greens (we’ll see if they survive). I covered the ponytail palm, the bougainvillea, bird of paradise, the begonia, and the yesterday today and tomorrow, pruned back and covered the porterweed and the yellow angel trumpet, brought smaller pots of flowers and plants in the house, filled the bird feeder. 

This silly thing was blooming yesterday.

And worried about Momcat and the kittens. I had brought 3 boxes home from SHARE and put three ragged towels in them and put them and a basin with kitty litter in the shed behind Pam’s house but didn’t intend to lock them in until today as it was only supposed to get down to near freezing Sunday night. As I headed over to feed them around 4 I checked the weather and now it was going to get down to 29˚ Sunday night so I moved their food and water dishes from under the porch to inside the shed and they all went in to eat and I shut the door. It was 25˚ when I got up this morning. Well, damn. I hadn’t plugged in the small radiator heater Pam has in the shed for her plants because I didn’t think they would need it last night. 

I went over to check on them after breakfast and after the icy drizzle had stopped, hauling the heavy duty extension cord over with me and plugged it into the outdoor outlet on the back of the house and when I opened the door of the shed they were huddled in the boxes and the water in their dish was frozen. I put out more food, cleaned the litter box, plugged in the radiator and arranged the boxes around it (but not too close) because it’s going to be even colder tonight and colder still tomorrow night, like 18˚. Momcat immediately wanted out. Sorry Momcat, not til Wednesday. I’ll go back and check on them this afternoon.

I had brought in the prunings from the yellow trumpet flower yesterday, one of which had an open bloom, and put them in water to root like I did last year and last night as I was sitting at my computer the flower released it’s wonderful lemony scent.

There was another thing that happened last week besides the clown show in the House. Marc’s mother died Tuesday night. She had been in hospice care at home with her youngest son providing care which he has done for the last ten years or so, moving in and putting his life on hold when their mom started to decline. Al was with her when she passed. She was 92. We were hoping that this year would easier than last but it has started out with another death in the family and next week Marc has cataract surgery. I don’t suppose at this point in our lives that any future year is going to be eventless. 

But here’s one small success, Cat finally succeeded in snuggling up to Minnie.

actually getting off my butt and doing stuff

The weather peeps say that yesterday, Friday, was our last triple digit day of the year and sure enough today's predicted high is a mere 98˚ (currently 99˚ at I PM) and this morning was, dare I say, almost pleasant? I mean I didn't ooze out a single drop of sweat while I was out watering. High temps will slowly diminish over the next two weeks to the low 90s with lows in the mid to low 70s and on the 23^rd, gasp, a high of 86˚. I think I'll just swoon if that happens.

Yesterday I finally got the piece for the gallery boxed up and ready to send. It'll go out Monday.

I had gone over to the shop to get boxes and packing material and determined that none of my boxes were big enough or square enough and no bubble wrap so I grabbed the scale and the big bag of shredded paper (old shredded records from SHARE) (I'll take that to the recycling center I told them, that being my shop for packing material) turning my back on the last big box of miscellaneous foam pieces from previous years of sending to and receiving work from galleries that are no longer existent. A trip to the Evil Empire and I had bubble wrap, tape, and three different sizes of boxes that surely would do. And yes, I used the smallest box and the biggest of the three but I had to cut down the height of one by 5” and the other by 7”. Anyway, this was probably the fastest I have ever packed up a piece. That shredded paper is genius. No dicking around with foam, cutting it down or finding shapes and sizes that were usable, no fucking peanuts to bag up and stuff in. A 2” layer on the bottom, the bubble wrapped piece with more stuffed around the edges and a 2” layer on top, done. Same for the little box inside the bigger box (I always double box my work when sending it to the gallery).

Well, Cat did not learn her lesson spending the night outside Monday night. Wednesday evening sitting on the deck with Cat stretched out nearby

when my neighbor (the Wicked Bitch of the West's son) pulled into the empty lot next door with his big truck and trailer. Cat is easily spooked and she shot off the deck and under the house and would not come when called. So she spent another night outside but I had once again propped open the garage door and left the light on and when I got up Thursday morning and opened the door to the garage, there she was on the mat. She's shown no interest in going out since.

I finally got some caulk in my constant battle to outsmart the ants. I've actually gotten kind of blasé about them. They've been in the trash can in the kitchen the last two mornings so I moved one of the ant baits there which they got all excited about and today there were far fewer. Regardless, the afternoon's activity is caulking all around the pocket door casing between the kitchen and the activity room. Which I did and man was that a chore, mostly because the side with the door only provided a slot about 3/8^th of an inch access so I had to use a putty knife to slide it in there with caulk on it and goop it in there as best as I could without really being able to see what I was doing all that well. So it ain't pretty on that side but you can't tell unless you look in there with a flashlight.

After breakfast today I drove out to the Peach Creek Market just down the highway. It's recently been bought by a new guy and he's expanding what they offer bringing in locally grown produce to augment the peaches, pecans, local honey, all kinds of canned stuff...pickled everything and sauces and oils and stuff like that. Today I got peaches (unprecedented to still have Hill Country peaches at this time of year but apparently spring was late and the trees flowered late), okra, cucumbers, and garlic. Then I went next door to the new seafood market that recently opened and got a pound of medium sized Gulf shrimp. I guess gumbo is in our future.

Despite the horrible heat the yellow bells are blooming, the porterweed just finished a round of blooms, the pink trumpet flower shrub thing, andthe rangoon creeper.

summer chores, Cat, more daylilies

The peacock was back in the yard on Friday. Minnie wasn't exactly sure what to think of it, she kept her distance while she followed it barking, herding it out to the street while it made strange hooting calls.

It took me three days to get the yard mowed with the little electric mower with it's 14” cutting swath, or at least the 150 feet of it that the cord would reach. Really, there was only another 10 feet of so that I would have mowed. Friday I did the front, Saturday and Sunday the big backyard. Saturday was hot and humid and even though I took a water and cool down break, I got overheated. Fortunately, Sunday was cooler but it didn't stop sweat dripping off me. I'm not doing this again. Mowing is Marc's chore so if there isn't a new riding mower by the time it needs to be cut again, I'm getting the guy who cuts the shop yard to do it. The only reason I did it in the first place is because of the mosquitoes loving to hang out in the tall grass and since I'm the one that spends a lot of time outside, I'm the one they're attacking. I also got two mosquito traps (mixed reviews on if they work or not) and mosquito dunks for the four ponds and the one rain collector since it appears the minnows aren't eating the larva faster than the mosquitoes are hatching.

(most of) the big backyard 

Taking the picture above, I'm standing under the magnolia tree by the corner of the garage with a maple tree and the barn to my right, there's another big pecan tree and the west flower bed to the left not shown.

Cat has decided, at least for the time being, that's she's an indoor cat. All that rain and lightning and thunder we had kept her inside and the first day or so after the last rain it was pretty wet out there. Ever since she has shown no interest in going outside. I hold the door open for her and she just looks at me like, are you nuts, I'm not going out there. Previously she would spend about half her day outside.

Yesterday I put up corn. My neighbor Jose who works on a farm came by Sunday evening with a car load of sweet corn to give away. I guess the farmer he works for sold as much as he could or maybe he just let Jose load up to distribute as he saw fit as a perk. Anyway, I took three dozen. Gave my sister and daughter half a dozen each so I have two dozen to blanch, cut off the cob, and vacuum seal in amounts of two servings. I'll also get some corn from another neighbor's brother when he harvests next. I don't buy corn from the grocery store because I don't know where it came from or how it was grown. I want to see worm damage. If a worm won't eat it, neither will I.

Corn grown the way it's supposed to be grown, worm gets some, people get the rest.

That took me basically all day, had about 5 minutes to change for yoga and just as I got in the car Abby called and asked if I would lead the class, her son wasn't feeling well, so I did that.

Some of the tomatoes are starting to show some color.

A few more daylilies.

the deplorables, the box, the cat

I see Trump's glee club, the same handful of wackos and deluded, is still flooding twitter with lies and accusations. It's pretty much all the GOP does now. Now they're demanding the DOJ release the affidavit that led to the request for the search warrant because they're never satisfied. The DOJ has requested the court not release the affidavit because it would identify their sources and hamper an ongoing investigation which is probably exactly what the Republicans want. After screaming about how the DOJ and the FBI treated a former president so unfairly, accusing them of political retribution to take Trump out so he can't run for president again, now they're screaming that if it was so urgent, a matter of national security, what took them so long? I kid you not. There is no winning with these people, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The kiln had run through it's program yesterday but I didn't open it, giving it another day to settle. I finished the major and minor grinding on the crab and corals, the minor grinding is smoothing off any sharp points and roughness on the castings. I reshaped the rocks a little bit so that they aren't a smooth curve but dip in a little here and there. I like that better. Next is the polishing but I don't think I'll need to do too much of that as they came out pretty clean. And of course if the body of the box cast well, then I'll have more major grinding to do to take off any excess and flatten the bottom. I aggravated the recurring injury in my shoulder doing the previous major grinding so the week or so off waiting for the frit to arrive and the box to cast was beneficial.

Checked the kiln and the box body looks good, what I can see. Marc is de-molding it for me. I don't think I could have done a better job of calculating the amount of frit. It has just enough extra to keep the bottom edges from being rounded so I'll have some excess to grind off but not much. It won't be as dark as it looks encased in plaster...I hope.

CleoCat's appointment to be spayed is tomorrow. I called the vet this morning and told them she is definitely pregnant, at least 4 weeks. She said they could still do it if I wanted. Well, I don't want a bunch of kittens I can't get rid of. So I'm going to take her in and tell them that if she's too far gone to do it safely then I'll come get her.

This is one pissed off squirrel. You should have heard it expressing its displeasure after CleoCat chased it up a tree this morning.

 

further developments, current progress, the cat

It was reported that 12 House members met with Trump Tuesday night after the search of MAL to assure him that they still supported him and urged him to run again in 2024. Twelve. Trump has his 12 disciples. If that's not proof he's the anti-christ I don't know what would be.

In further developments, Merrick Garland held a press conference after two days of hysteria from the far right wackos accusing Biden of politicizing the DOJ and the FBI to take down his political rival, calling it a raid...show us the warrant!!!...explaining that the DOJ sent a subpoena to Trump last June to return the rest of the documents and Trump ignored it, hence obtaining the warrant to retrieve the other ten or so boxes of secret and classified documents. Garland explained he cannot release the warrant unless he gets a sign off from a judge. Trump, however not only has a copy of the warrant, he said, he has a list of the things the FBI took and Trump can release them anytime he wants. Since he hasn't, Garland has petitioned the court for permission to make the warrant public. So now with that wind taken out of their sails, the far right wackos are now claiming that the FBI planted those documents, that they refused to let anyone observe the search, when in truth, two of Trump's lawyers were present during the search and Trump and his family watched it via the close circuit cameras at MAL. Today Trump, after a leak revealed that the boxes contained classified nuclear documents, has called it a hoax. Next I'm sure he'll be calling it an unfair witch hunt. But now the question becomes what has he already done with the information and what did he plan to do with it in the future? It's very possible that he's guilty of selling or giving the information to either Putin or Saudi Arabia which is undeniable treason and espionage. He's already shown that he's willing to take down the country to get his way.

To be fair, it's pretty much the same 8 or 9 Republicans flooding twitter with their insane accusations and lies, throwing everything and anything on the wall in their panic to see if any of it will stick in an effort to gin up the outrage of Trump's base. One man found out the hard way yesterday that you don't try and fuck with the FBI.

I was all set to go over to the shop after breakfast to work on the little crab some more and start the more delicate cold work with my diamond bits and polishing points but just as I was ready to change into shop clothes, it started raining and then it started raining hard. While it only rained for about a half hour or so it was enough to derail my plans. According to the tracking number for the frit I ordered, it should be delivered today so I'll try and get the last mold filled and in the kiln after lunch.

I didn't get any work done yesterday as it was my SHARE day but here's my progress from Wednesday. I got all the major grinding done on all the little corals though I still have some to do on the crab. They're just sitting in their positions on the top. I'm wishing now I had shaped the rocks a little differently so that they morphed into the top a little more seamlessly.

Update on the little cat. She goes out every morning with the dog and stays our for a couple of hours and she comes back in. She sleeps in my chair during the day, sleeps with me and the dog off and on during the night. I guess we've decided to call her Cleo, or maybe just Cat. We've resisted the name Cleo because we had a cat when the kids were still kids named that and she was kind of weird, had her maybe about 4 or 5 years and one day when she was laying down, she rose up to sitting suddenly, coughed, and then keeled over dead.

Anyway, I'm more and more convinced she's pregnant and her nipples are becoming pronounced. Cats gestate for two months about. The first picture I took of her on the seat of the lawn mower was June 11^th. She let me touch her for the first time on July 8^th and that's when I started feeding her. The 17^th is when she came in the house. The 19^th is the day she came in and stayed in for about a week before she showed any interest in going outside again. During all that time I never heard any kind of cat in heat noise, not even during the weeks she spent outside before moving in. If she was already pregnant June 11^th she should pop any day now. If she was just pregnant when I started feeding her she's got another three weeks to go. Her appointment to get fixed is next Wednesday so we'll know for sure then.