some good stuff

It rained every day for 5 days, two of those days all day long. This is most welcome as we are still recovering from last year's terrible drought and it's been a long time since I can remember getting rain so many days in a row. One of those rainy days I happened to walk out into the garage and noticed about a dozen large earthworms making their way across the concrete. 

Not the brightest bulbs in the box as I noticed several dead shriveled up earthworms already littering the floor. I scooped them up and put them back outside on the ground.

I think Big Mama has learned how to get back in her pond by herself finally. Thursday she was out in the yard when we left to go in the city for the day and forgot about her til the next morning when Marc saw her in the yard and put her back in the pond. Saturday morning I noticed she was out in the yard again digging a hole. When I got home from working at the antique store I went out to get her. 

I couldn't find her anywhere and was scouting outside the fence when I looked over at the pond and there she was, her head sticking up out of the water looking at me. Marc says he did not put her in.

We got notice that a proposal has been accepted. This will be a very nice job consisting of two 3/4 lite doors and the shower door and big window in the master bath. It's nice to have some work come in finally this year. The two big walls? I have no idea what's going on with that. My liaison is on vacation and I'm hearing nothing from the project manager.

And of course winning the first place prize at Archway Gallery's annual juried exhibit the beginning of this month. Also on the art glass scene, we will have at least three pieces in a show opening in early October at Morgan Contemporary Glass Gallery in Pittsburgh PA.

The last grandkid visit starts next Wednesday. The grandboy is bringing a friend with him for the first few days. How much do two 15 yr. old boys eat?

And the last good thing is I don't think my pinky toe is broken after all. I was pretty sure it was Saturday night after I stubbed it earlier in the day helping my sister move furniture around in the store.

redux

I'm still thinking about this voter ID thing that is being debated in court now even though the Justice Department had already ruled that it imposed an undue hardship on the poor, the disenfranchised, and the elderly. Our state attorney general, Greg Abbott no relation!, still saw fit to sue the government over it.

Our Republican dominated state government, the one that slashed funding to volunteer and regular fire departments, that gutted education, and refused federal funding for health care for the poor and as a result our state burned during the drought, our schools and educational system are the worst in the country, and our population has the least access to healthcare despite having one of the leading medical centers in the country; this Republican government has a new plan.

Now they want to require a special 'free' voter ID card, justifying their new law by saying they need to combat voter fraud. When I think of elections here and those in certain other countries that purport to have an elected government through voting, I can't help but think that whatever voter fraud goes on here is negligible in comparison. If voter fraud was such a problem, I think they wouldn't have to force it. And they are having to force it.

So tell me. Which is worse? Allowing that no system is perfect and keeping an eye on known weaknesses and perhaps have a very small percentage of fraudulent votes get through, or, instituting measures that would engender a loss of 18%* of the poor, minority, and elderly voter block.

The latter is voter fraud as far as I'm concerned, another attempt to marginalize the opposition just like they do with redistricting. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against trying to do something about voter fraud, but I'm certainly not going to take their word that it's a big problem just because they say so and I'm not really seeing any evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Republicans are very good at the scare tactic. It's what they do. Every time the population gets restless they drag out some bugaboo and whip up a good ole hysteria about it to distract us, while they plot against our rights and freedoms. And enrich themselves at our expense.

Like our attorney general Greg Abbott no relation! who was jogging on a stormy evening and a tree fell on him in a freak accident and he became a paraplegic who sued the homeowner and won a multi-million dollar lawsuit, went into politics, and pushed through tort reform to prevent exactly what he got. He got his so, who cares, right?

And if they aren't scaring us then they are questioning our patriotism or our sexuality or accusing us of acting on feelings instead of thinking because surely if we were thinking, we would think the way they do.

Well, the thing is, liberals do think. We are intelligent, we do read, we do consider, we do understand. We just don't agree with conservative conclusions or agendas. We think they are ruining this country, have ruined this country.

They have certainly ruined this state.

*http://www.thenation.com/blog/166741/doj-blocks-discriminatory-texas-voter-id-law

 

voter ID or voter fraud?

I foolishly let myself get drawn into a FB 'conversation' over the continual efforts of the Texas Republicans to institute a new voter ID card to combat 'voter fraud' in our state. The Justice Department has ruled against it as posing undue hardship on the poor and minorities, infringing on their constitutional right to vote but that doesn't stop our state attorney general from filing a lawsuit against the government over it, his 24^th, incidentally, against the government since he took office in 2004.

The reason the republicans give for the new ID card is to prevent voter fraud. The problem with that is that the percentage of proven voter fraud in our state is so small as to be negligible, except perhaps in some local elections where only a small percentage of the population votes in the first place and the races are sometimes decided by a few votes, as pointed out by a proponent of the law.

The effect of the new voter ID card will be, in fact, to disenfranchise many thousands of legal, law abiding voters.

This was my comment :

I've always had to show an ID to vote, we already do have to show an ID to vote. that's not the problem. the problem is they want to change it to a state issued picture ID. that means a lot of people won't be able to vote that have been able to vote in the past. for some people getting a state issued photo ID is not easy or even possible. the new restriction will make it extremely difficult for the poor and disenfranchised and students and elderly to vote. and there is no reason for this new restriction since there has never been any problem with voter fraud. hell half the people in this country don't vote anyway. the only reason I can think of for the republicans to push this new restriction is because they don't feel like they can win in a fair setting so they are trying to make it harder for people who traditionally don't vote republican to vote at all. and that is not what America is about. voting is a constitutional right. all those people who would be turned away at the polls because they don't have the new 'proper' ID, all those people who used to be able to vote, will still be held by the results of any election, an election they were turned away from participating in. and if you think getting this new free state issued voter ID from the DPS is easy, try being poor with no driver's license so you have to take the bus, you have several children at home that you will have to take with you or find a bay sitter except you can't afford one, you will have to take a day (or two if there is a big crowd at the DPS) off work which you can't afford even if your boss will give you the day off, and you have to have proper identification like a birth certificate that you don't have a copy of. this new voter ID that the republicans have tried to impose and was struck down by the Justice Department is unnecessary. it will impose undue hardship and obstruction on legal voters. Prove first that there is a problem, that there has been voter fraud and by that I mean voter fraud that wasn't purposely perpetrated by a republican to prove that there is voter fraud.

To which he dug up a few statistics stretching all the way back to 1948 to justify the need. The number of fraudulent votes this new law might possibly prevent is miniscule compared to the number of legal votes it will prevent. And besides, it's not the poor, the minorities, the students, or the old people who commit voter fraud. It's the cronies and the funders that have a personal stake in the outcome who commit voter fraud and those people will find a way, new ID card or not.

So I asked him...

burning down the house to get rid of a few roaches is an appropriate response in your opinion?

Perhaps he didn't like my analogy which I thought was quite apt. Taking an extreme approach to a minor problem that ultimately doesn't really address the problem but causes all kinds of damage anyway,

because this was his reply...

The courts will decide this one. We are living in two separate universes. thanks for the debate. Adios.

Well, fella, the Justice Department has already decided it but our state continues to waste everyone's time and money to pursue it and I thank the powers that be that we do live in different universes because yours must be a pretty dismal place unless you are one of the chosen.

an unexpected outcome

I think I'm finally recovering from my three weeks of visits. What I thought would only take a few days turned out to take nearly a whole week but today I'm feeling like doing something. Unfortunately, that something will probably not be something that I want to do but rather something that I need to do and that something is clean house.

I'm afraid I have slipped back into my more slovenly ways.

When we moved into this fresh new clean house I vowed not to let it get away from me. And I succeeded for a while but apparently, you can't really change your nature. Nature always wins out.

One of the reasons I am feeling more energetic, besides just days of being a slug, is because of what happened last night.

Months ago, our friend Gene encouraged us to submit a piece to Archway Gallery's annual juried exhibition for Texas artists. Archway Gallery is an artist owned gallery in Houston, a very nice space with some very talented artists in all types of media.

Last week we had to take our entries for jurying by the current director of the Houston Center For Contemporary Craft. We got the call on Thursday that our piece had been juried in and they encouraged us to attend the opening which was last night.

The first thing I did was to check that they had our names spelled right on the tag by our piece. Yes! You wouldn't think I would have to do that but for some reason, both our names are frequently mis-spelled at shows.

After saying hello to the artists we knew that were part of the gallery I noticed there were name tags so I went to get mine and Marc's. They had one for Marc (spelled correctly) and then they had one for Ellen Albert. Well, they got three of the letters right anyway. I just cut off everything past the A.

I hadn't really paid any attention to the particulars of the show, only deciding at the last minute what to submit so I was a little surprised to find, once there, that there were awards.

So the time came for the director to read the juror's comments and to announce the awards. I thought maybe we might get an Honorable Mention, (our usual place though we did get 3^rd once).

They called out all 7 of the Honorable Mentions, then 3^rd place, then 2^nd place and I quit listening, turning to head deeper in the gallery where Marc and some friends were standing and then...was that my name?

Did he just say my name?

Why, yes he did! First place came with a $500 check and an invitation to show in their next exhibit.

I'm still dumbfounded but it has certainly put the spark back in my creative endeavors.

Now if I just had a maid.

grandkid visits - week 3

Once again Tuesday week found me in town making the switch, dropping Robin off and picking up Autumn.

Autumn, also 14, is more reserved than her twin, but is very funny when she clowns around. She wants to learn to draw and by that she means not just draw pictures, but really draw things so they look accurate. I have a drawing program on my iPad which all three girls used extensively during their visits, each having their own album, but Autumn chronicled her visit in hers.

Here's a few of the 42 pictures she drew.

She had only a couple of projects for her week. We listened to music and sat up late every night. We had a slumber party one night since I fell asleep next to her on the futon while we were talking in the dark.

We made baby monsters.

She had me turn her school uniform sweatshirts into zippered jackets. It remains to be seen what the school uniform police will think of that.

She made cookies.

I made her two pairs of shorts.

Unlike her younger sister, she isn't really interested in learning to sew, just in the product. So while I sewed, she did this...

and this.

We went to the Freedom Fest here in Wharton and she walked on water

and bungee jumped.

And we saw the fireworks display, all 8 minutes of it.

We babysat my sister's two little dogs over the weekend while she ran around the yard refusing to let me take her picture.

She wanted s'mores sans the graham crackers (I blame the commercials for the kids wanting to eat these terrible things) but since it was too hot to have a fire in the little pit outside, she tried melting the marshmallows with a match.

When that didn't work, she melted the chocolate and marshmallows in the microwave.

OK, that wasn't such a good idea.

It seemed like the week had just begun when it was time to take her home.

Whew! 

 I'm bushed and glad the grandboy still has a week or two of summer school before his visit.

place holder...

...while I get my post about the third visit ready

the sunset Wednesday week

a field sunflower

the sunset last Saturday

a baby anole giving me a wary eye

one of the rabbits that live in the Wild Space

the sunset Tuesday night

one of a pair of blue dragonflies that visits the pond

big mama showing off her ornament

minnows in the small pond

zen beans

grandkid visits - week 2

When I dropped off Jade, Robin had her stuff in the truck in a flash and off we went.

Robin, the youngest, is 11 this year and will be making the transition to middle school in the fall. She was pretty quiet while she was here, calling her mom just about every day. She loves her mom.

We played Gin and Rummikub, both at which she beat me consistently, though I did manage one win or two.

We made monsters.

She made a strawberry pie and helped with dinner.

We sewed. Of the three girls, Robin is best at the sewing machine.

We went to see Brave.

We picked figs from my neighbor Frank's trees.

She watched a lot of TV on my computer.

We had a lot of fun and the week was up in no time. Took her home Tuesday and returned with Autumn.