side eye and laying low

We’ve been in a news blackout since shortly after the election. The TV is off until later in the day when all the ‘news’ shows are over. We’re not totally ignoring what’s going on, just sick of the appeasing in advance mainstream media who only seem to find fault with democrats. While I’ve been keeping a side eye on the republican creepy clown show and the devastation they plan once in office with not one appointee actually being qualified for the intended office (if you want to destroy something put idiots and enemies in charge), via social media accounts that refuse to appease and actually report what’s going on, I’ve not wanted to get down in the muck to write about it, for now at least, trying to enjoy the last few weeks of an administration that actually cares about this country and the people in it. Although I have to say that the thieving drunken rapist Hegseth getting his mommy to make phone calls and do interviews to tell everyone that, really, he is a very good boy and promises not to drink if appointed to head the vast military complex is the height of infantilism. What is this, the Romper Room? And he’s complaining that he’s being ‘Kavanaughed’. By that I guess he means people are pointing out his drunkenness. Well, Kavanaugh got the appointment so there is that.

It’s been cold here, dipping down in the 40s at night with highs varying from 40s to 60s and will continue in that vein so, yeah, it’s what passes for winter here. Our 5 days of predicted rain materialized one day of light rain and drizzle. Almost an insult. We do need rain.

Another busy day at SHARE yesterday. We filled 41 food orders, our second busiest day since I’ve been there I think. Our busiest day? The Thursday before Thanksgiving. I had not asked how many food orders we filled before I flew out to get to my mammogram appointment (which if you recall was postponed to the next day because their computer system went down), so I inquired yesterday. 61. Busiest day ever. For now. A year or two into the next administration might put that number to shame.

I haven’t been doing much otherwise, walking the dog, going to yoga. I’m working on a new drawing but I won’t post a picture yet because the person for whom it is intended reads here sometimes I think and I want it to be a surprise.

I don’t even have any good pictures to post. Here’s Cat laying on some paperwork I needed to fill out

and a garden spider who set up housekeeping over at Pam’s house.

puttering, flowers, and alone time

Kind of a slow day at SHARE last Thursday. Most first Thursdays of the month usually are and we figure that’s because people got their government assistance. Even so we managed to pass on most the perishable food stuff and milk and a lot of the bakery goods which is all ‘sell by’ or marked down donations from Walmart and the area dollar stores that comes in in the morning. Those that did come in for food got a lot of extra stuff. What doesn’t get given out or we have no room in the freezers, volunteers can take for themselves or to give to others. I generally take left over stuff that won’t keep til next week to a family on the street.

Thursdays are always a busy day for me but this past one was especially so. Besides my usual routine I got another roll of the super strong black gorilla tape to re-do the black formed plastic shield under the engine compartment of the car. Marc had run into one of the concrete barriers at the ends of parking spaces and tore it up so that part was hanging down and dragging on the road surface which I did not know until I drove to El Campo that evening for yoga. I could hear a scraping sound so I pulled over once I was in El Campo and looked underneath and it was all bent and torn and shredded from being dragged for 13 miles. Later back at home I did my best to tape it all back together and to the surrounding frame. 

Since Marc was leaving on Friday for Dallas, a 5+ hour long drive and with the wear and tear and rain and dirt on my repair over the last year or so I wanted to redo it. So I did that. Then I wiped all the bird poop off the car and washed all the windows inside and out. 

This weekend is the Bar Mitzvah of our great nephew, Marc’s sister’s daughter’s son. All the family here was planning on going, as were the twins in Austin, so I opted to stay to feed my cat and dog, Robin’s cat and the boys, and the three wildlings. That was my excuse though I have other more personal reasons. So Friday morning Marc took off for Dallas giving me one full day, Saturday, and the lion’s share of Friday and Sunday to have the house to myself, some alone time (one of my personal reasons).

I puttered around in the yard yesterday, potted up some things, cut up some large branches, one that fell and others I cut off the native pecan in the back that were hanging so low they were almost touching the ground, did some watering over at the other house, fed all the cats, fixed myself a big salad for dinner. More of the same for today. 

Some of the day lilies are putting up bloom scapes but all the different varieties of amaryllis are blooming. 

And one new iris blooming over at Pam’s and some of these are coming home with me.

elders, pecans, and kittens

Thursday at SHARE one of the boys, the 18/19/20 something kids they call Elders, asked me if I was excited about christmas as the other asked if I was ready for christmas. I gave them my stock answer…as ready as I ever am. Which is to say, not at all since I don’t do christmas. It’s just easier to brush off the inquiry with a false impression than to get into why I don’t believe in or do religion especially with ardent young men who are out doing their ‘good work’ knocking on doors which is part of what they do when they aren’t volunteering at SHARE and in fact were on my street Friday afternoon. I saw them as I was crossing back over from Pam’s house. Apparently they weren’t having much success as they asked me if I knew anyone who would want to hear about Jesus. Since everyone I know is already a believer or they aren’t interested, perfectly happy with whatever alternate beliefs they hold or none at all, I told them "no, no, I really don’t". I can’t imagine there is anybody in this country who doesn’t already have even a rudimentary knowledge of Jesus since it’s so pervasive in our culture and society.

We get new Elders about every couple of months as their church shifts them around to other locations and, it appears to me, are kept a close eye on, I guess to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow of their Mormon teachings. They used to show up in T-shirts and jeans but the last month or so they’ve been showing up in their uniform…black pants, white shirt, and tie. This week was a food delivery day from the regional food bank in Victoria and so it was very busy getting it all sorted and put away and consequently we had a veritable mountain of boxes piled up. When I empty a box, I collapse it immediately, takes 10 seconds, and take it out to the main storage area but I’m about the only one that does that. Just about every week I tell the boys that if they are in-between, sitting around waiting for the next car to pull up for their food or whatever they’ve been asked to do, to collapse the boxes so that I can take them to the container for recycling. Thursday I didn’t. I just went out with my box cutter during a break in food orders, and started in on the pile without saying anything to the boys who were sitting around also not doing anything during the break in food orders. After I’d dealt with a few of the boxes one of the boys came over and started helping and then when we were nearly done the other picked up a box or two. I wonder if next week they will just do it or if I’ll have to remind them again.

The weather is being schizophrenic these days which is usual for this time of year. Wednesday and Thursday were lovely, Friday was overcast, colder, wet and icky. It rained off and on all day. Saturday colder but sunny. I’d been planning to make another foray into the backyard of the vacant house across the street and adjacent to the shop property to pick up more pecans. There are three big trees back there and the ground is solid with them that no one is picking up, in fact I don’t think the people who lived there ever picked them up but I could be wrong about that. Since I knew the weather was going to turn I finally did it Thursday after lunch filling up two of my bigger metal buckets. As soon as the kittens saw me back there they came running up and meowing but no hissing this time. Sorry kids, not feeding time yet. These are the pecans I have picked up from my yard, about 160 pounds, minus the ones I’ve shelled (about 40 pounds giving me 20 pounds of shelled pecans).

These are the ones I’ve picked up from the two neighbors' yards.

I’m having a hard time getting this post finished and published. I’ve been working on it for 3 days now. I write then change my mind and take stuff out, change day names from yesterday to whatever it should be, add stuff in, and then just peter out and walk away. Another cold but clear day though we’re on a warming trend now after last night. And speaking of last night, an update on the socialization of the kittens. The ground was wet from the rain so I didn’t want to sit and offer food in my hands. When I walked around to the back porch they all came running out, running right up to me, no hissing! I squatted down and coaxed them to me and the brown tabby, he’s such a handsome fella, finally came up to me and let me pet him and stroke him and scratch his head and then the gray tabby who is very vocal also let me stroke him quite a bit, all before I got the food out of the shed. This is major! Since Momcat has been fine with petting that just leaves the female who looks like mom who has been the most skittish. Still waiting to hear from SPOT about getting them fixed but they are still working on it, apparently had some other kittens that took precedence but I think they have been dealt with now.

One last picture or two. Atmospheric conditions were just right for contrails the other morning. This plane was streaking across the sky above three other fading contrails, one above the cloud, one at the bottom of the cloud, and one beneath the cloud (the second picture).

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.

volunteering and giving the people the finger

Miracle of miracles, Rocky showed up Sunday and the shop sink is finally hooked up and no leaks and the cold water line is hooked up to the cold water faucet handle. The last thing that had to be replaced was the male end of the hose. So have I been over there since to finish setting up the room? No, no I have not. I thought I would go over there Sunday afternoon but I was still worn out from Saturday and Monday I did another section of the front fence and another section of the side fence and that was enough. I was going to do another section on both fences yesterday especially because another front came through but I had a meeting at SHARE in the morning and then my weekly grocery store run and then did the dishes which had once again piled up and then lunch and then I couldn't take the floors one more day so swept and vacuumed and that was enough. By the time it was time to walk the dog it was drizzling so we power walked to the end of the street and back and it started raining a little harder before we got back and today it is cold and windy and wet. Currently (as in when I wrote this) 44˚ out there (real feel 33˚) with a high of 59˚ and possibly more rain so it's a good bet I won't be out there today either.

The meeting at SHARE was to get the input of the volunteers and board members about re-opening fully starting in December. I think I mentioned that SHARE not only distributes food but also clothing and household goods and in some cases financial aid. They have only been distributing food since they closed because of the pandemic and not nearly as much of that as when they were open. They were serving 30 – 50 families a week (only being open one day a week 9 - 2) before covid. But food is piling up, storage space is limited, there are two grants that have to be used for food during a certain time limit or the remaining funds have to be returned, and with the cold weather moving in they are getting requests for sweaters and jackets and blankets. So a plan was formed, plastic shields are being erected, only two in at a time with a ten minute time limit, masks, gloves, hand sanitizer all required and available, everyone else will have to wait outside or in their cars til it's their turn, food will still be picked up by vehicle by the back alley door as it is now keeping the clients restricted to the front of the building. We'll try it for December and see how it goes. If any of the volunteers get sick (and they are older folk who have the time to volunteer), then SHARE will have to close again for two weeks.

I've been asked if I would train to be an interviewer. I've been working in the back refilling the white baskets which I like doing.

the food station I work/ed, mostly canned and some packaged foods (it's a panorama hence the distortion, the counters aren't really curved)

Interviewing happens in the front and while they have been closed it's all been being done over the phone but when they reopen in December it will be done in person albeit with a plastic shields in place and masks. I'm not sure why I was asked or if I was the only one or if others were asked and declined, maybe because I'm the newest volunteer and the 15 others already have their niche. To be perfectly honest, I would not like to do that but I guess they really need more help with that especially when they reopen in December. Plus, the time commitment will increase. I've been spending an hour and a half to two hours, until all those picking up food had come and gone but when they reopen it will be four or five hours and if I'm interviewing that's a lot of time for possible exposure even with all the precautions. So the question is, am I doing this to make myself feel good or am I doing this to help. The answer is I'm going in today at 12:30 to start training for interviewing.

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Well, now that McConnell has rammed through Barrett for the Supreme Court ensuring, they hope/think, that the ACA, legal abortion, and same gender marriage will be overturned and that they will be able to steal the election which they will contest unless it's an overwhelming landslide for Biden and maybe even then, McConnell has sent the Senate into recess without taking up relief for common Americans because he wants Biden, if when he wins, to have the worst possible mess to clean up and if Trump wins, well, there will never be another relief bill unless it goes to big business. If we don't take the Senate as well as the presidency, nothing will change. McConnell will block everything just as he has been doing.

And Trump? On the campaign trail whining about all his grievances, threatening violence against Democrat governors and 'predicting' Biden will be assassinated within 3 weeks and leaving his supporters to freeze in the dark after his rally in Omaha. Literally. Supporters parked in one lot at the airport after getting the runaround, were bussed four miles away for the rally after which Trump got on his plane and left with no buses to return the mostly older people to their cars in 30˚ weather with a much lower wind chill factor. You can read the story here but you know what the real pisser is about this? They will all probably still vote for him, even the ones who ended up in the hospital.

Six more days of uncertainty.