I almost missed this beauty. It was peeking out from the yarrow in the memorial garden. I don’t get many roses from these bushes – maybe one or two – but when they do emerge, what loveliness! They are almost always accompanied by these little bugs.
Well, all I can think about right now was last night’s January 6th Committee hearing. I hope you watched it. If you didn’t, watch it online. There is nothing more important than what is happening in the hearings: the systematic laying out of facts about January 6th, all of them leading to the ringleader, Trump. This is the first in a series of hearings where the committee will unveil what they have discovered.
The video of the attack on the Capitol, taken by a documentary filmmaker, was absolutely horrifying. The evidence that Trump knew he had lost, had been told that he lost by advisors, but kept inciting his cultists no matter the evidence was chilling. Equally chilling are his words about hanging Mike Pence.
These are facts. Those who blindly follow Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories won’t let themselves be swayed. That would be admitting they’d been taken in by a conman, a carnival barker. They’re lost.
But for the rest of us who value truth and the Constitution and our democracy, this evidence is chilling. And it’s just the start.
Bravo to GOP Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom are risking their careers in the pursuit of truth.
It was riveting. We’ll be watching the next hearing on Monday at 10 am.
The word “patriot” has been bastardized by those who are anything but patriots. But I’ll invoke it to say that I believe it’s our patriotic duty to watch these hearings – to bear witness. Just as I watched the Watergate hearings (Watergate seems like child’s play now) I will watch these hearings. Yes, it can be upsetting. You should be upset.
And please, if you’re going to say “It won’t make a difference” please don’t. It’s defeatism, which isn’t helpful. The fact is we don’t know what will happen. But it’s clear to me that the Committee is skillfully and painstakingly laying out a case against Trump and all who enabled him.
It’s all Don and I can talk about this morning.
It’s a gorgeous day and I can hear a bird singing right outside my window. I’m reading The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George, trying to finish it by tomorrow because I have another book waiting for me at the library.
The puzzle I’m working on is the hardest I’ve ever encountered, so it’s very slow going.
I will post Don’s recipe for sugar-free apple pie over the weekend.
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
Love the rose…my fav flower…have a good good day…
You too, Brenda.
Stay safe.
I watched the hearing also and am glad to see it being laid out fact by fact calmly and clearly so it is recorded for history and those involved can’t hide behind their lies anymore. We need those involved in the conspiracy out of politics.
Yes.
Thank you, Ellen.
Stay safe.
I did watch the hearings. I agree, we need to bear witness. I hope it sways some people but since Fox News didn’t broadcast it I’m afraid those that really should see it won’t.
I’m trying to give up sugar so I’m looking forward to Don’s pie recipe.
Take care
We’ll never sway the Fox Propaganda viewers. It’s the saner GOP members that we need to sway.
Stay safe, Marilyn.
I am hopeful after watching the first Jan 6 committee hearing. The facts are being carefully laid out, and, I think the accompanying video is a great reminder of those facts. Even though I know what happened on Jan 6, I still found the hearing last night compelling. I sincerely hope that skeptical minds will be changed…after all, I am an optimist at heart.
Pretty rose…glad you were able to find it. Enjoy your day! ;)
I think they’re handling it perfectly.
Me too – Optimist.
Stay safe, Donnamae.
My husband and I were riveted by the hearing. Liz Cheney’s opening statement was nothing less than a masterpiece. These hearings are important historical records of the crimes committed by Trump and his minions.
She was brilliant.
Thanks, Terri.
Stay safe.
I watched the first Jan 6 committee hearing last night, and will be watching each subsequent hearing. Powerful, coherent, dignified, chilling, riveting… a substantive, lucid, methodical, disciplined presentation of findings. Findings that are damning of Trump and his enablers & supporters. Potent revelations of how robustly aware Trump was that his claims of a stolen election were baseless. I expect much more to be revealed in the hearings to come.
The video of the attack on the Capitol presented last night was as shocking as when watching the attempted coup in real time Jan 6, 2021. Liz Cheney’s statement that “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.” is a powerful reminder that Trump’s ultimate goal was the overthrow of America’s constitutional order.
I disagree with Liz Cheney on a wide variety of policies/issues, but I will stand with her any time to support and defend the US and our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Stay safe and well.
Exactly. It was the goal of regime change. That’s what fascists and autocrats do.
Agree. I dont’t at all agree with Cheney on policy, but I praise her for her principled stand.
Stay safe, Amy.
i didn’t get to watch all of the hearing last night, but appreciate what i saw and agree about its importance. i wonder, worry and pray about the outcome, what will be done with this information. also the future of this country and what that could mean for the world.
sorry … not trying to be a bummer. just the optimistic part of me sometimes gets covered by depression.
…
glad you found the rose. it’s beautiful (what else could it be?!?)!
good luck with the puzzle. hope you’re enjoying it and the book.
after a couple days of little progress, i got a lot done this morning (getting rid of stuff, gathering items to donate, a bit of cleaning) and that feels so good! i have always tried to get less-fun tasks done early so they don’t spoil the rest of my day and even though i now have lots more available time, i will keep that schedule. :)
thanks in advance to you and don for sharing the sugar-free apple pie recipe. i am determined to quit eating chocolate (day 20 … hooray) and eat much less sugar (also day 20) with the goal of going sugar-free. thanks for the inspiration, claudia!
enjoyed some rain last night and now an overcast morning.
hope you are all having a nice day. stay safe!
kathy
You’ll never know it’s sugar-free, Kathy.
Stay safe.
Claudia, what a beautiful picture of your rose…and the bug! Gorgeous color!
I, also, was riveted to the Jan. 6 hearing and plan to watch the others. I agree with all you said. We can’t have Trump as a viable candidate for 2024…
Apple pie is my favorite! Looking forward to Don’s recipe!
We cannot. I hope he’s been indicted and awaiting trial by next year.
Thanks, Barrie.
Stay safe.
I totally agree! We watched and I am glad we did. So much info coming out. We had no idea they had attacked on more than one side. It still makes me cry and I get so angry. But we will continue to watch. It is our duty!
It is indeed.
Thanks, Kit!
Stay safe.
I haven’t watched the hearings yet but plan too. Why can’t we get a leader that is sane AND able to run the country efficiently. With Trump we had craziness but a booming economy. Now we have a nice guy but a horrible economy. Please can we find someone with both sets of skills!
Agree that the economy is troubled, but inflation is world-wide. Biden is doing everything he can, but there’s a war in Ukraine, a pandemic, and problems with shipping and the supply chain. Gas prices are high for several reasons not the least of which are the oil companies, but they are not controlled by Biden. He inherited a mess and he has done extraordinarily well considering what Trump left him. He has also rallied the rest of the world leaders in support of Ukraine.
Thanks Darlene.
Stay safe!
I see this where cowards in my town will display it in their rear yard behind fencing where it can still be seen waving high at their roof height, alongside our American flag, another type of flag that says “Fu*k Biden.” I resent this. If you have something to say, say it; put it out there, like a big sign in your FRONT yard. Be loud; be proud; grow some. It may be their freedom of expression and opinion, although it’s not mine … but the U.S. flag is my flag too and maybe I don’t like it being flown right next to one which is disrespectful of our sitting president. I’ve seen this flag-duo also fly from the motorhomes parked on the beach road (which used to fly flags of their fave sports teams instead). It pisses me off every time I see it.
I know someone who lives in a HOA-governed neighborhood and the neighbors are currently going up against their Association to get another neighbor in the community to take down his ridiculously-large “Let’s Go Brandon” flag which is on a tall pole on his property (against the rules of their Association). The people who live across the street say that if it’s not taken down soon, they’re putting up their house for sale. They’re fed up to come home from work every night and have to see this as they drive in to their driveway. Clearly, sentiments run deep, both ways.
I feel Joe Biden is doing the best job he can with what’s been in front of him and what IS in front of him; it’s an overwhelming job to run the U.S. when there are ‘way too many/so many problems, domestically and globally.
I’ve seen a few signs like that around here. They’re offensive – along with the jacked-up pick up trucks with big flags waving (sometimes Confederate flags.)
We may differ a bit on our politics, but you are so kind with your words. Thank You! I love your blog!
Please pray Trump does not run again! I couldn’t take all that comes with it again!
I will pray, Darlene! Thank you for your kind words.
Stay safe.
They did an outstanding job of presenting the facts, last night. I watched the insurrection live (on TV), on Jan. 6th, and I was still brought to tears all these months later. I have so many emotions…….shock, anger, disgust, fear for our country….lots to deal with at this time.
Thank you, Claudia, for defending Pres. Biden. He is doing the best he can, with the absolute mess he was handed.
I saw it live as well. I turned on the television and yelled to Don to ‘Get out here! They’re attacking the Capitol!!”
I agree about Biden. He has done remarkably well and the list of his accomplishments since in office is quite long.
Stay safe, Susan.
dear Claudia/Don — I can’t say I enjoyed the proceedings, but SO glad to know the facts. tRump, with his influence has to be shut down — hoping these hearings will enlighten others to see him and his followers for what they really are — worthless windbags who have caused so much hatred, distress in families, in our nation. tRump spent 4 years lining his pockets w/our money, putting all of us in danger — Mr and I are hoping for a conviction. Will Justice Dept be strong? All of this brings back all the “old memories” of Watergate but we think with a difference — this makes Nixon & associates look like bumbling amateurs. I felt literally sick listening to the officers who were trying to keep peace, but totally overwhelmed by the rioters. Rioting men & women were a disgrace — as WAS their leader. Stay safe
Millions of us want to see Trump pay for his seditious actions and for a host of other illegal things he did while in office. Surely the DOJ senses that. Sigh. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Stay safe, Linda.
Claudia thank you for defending Biden
Yes he inherited a mess.
I just pray the Justice Dept will do their job.
What Trump did was chilling.
It was absolutely chilling, Linda.
Thank you.
Stay safe.
Can’t wait for the pie recipe.
I love how you can identify all the plants and flowers of your property, like the yarrow. I can’t even count on ten fingers how many times my husband and I drive by somewhere with a fruit or vegetable or flowering plant or flowering tree, wondering “What IS that???!!” I try to write it down, then look it up with imaging later online. I did this just this morning and learned of a tall mature tree here in Southern Calif called a pink trumpet tree; pink pompom blooms high in the sky. I’d love a redbud tree and I also want an ornamental cherry. (I want, I want, I want … but what do I really need??!!) A flowering crabapple? Please, yes! I was also recently fascinated with a sweetgum tree I don’t ever remember seeing explode with red/deep-fire-orange like it did about six weeks ago where planted; it’s very, very old. I also miss the lacy, weepy Calif pepper tree which was once on the hillside next door to us; I wish a previous homeowner had never removed it; wasn’t hurting anything up there and was beautiful. Some say it’s an invasive species but it’s as much ‘California’ to me as a eucalyptus, a jacaranda, an oak tree or a sycamore (or I guess a palm tree!).
I can’t respond on the Jan 6 televised hearings. I couldn’t watch it ‘live’ so I recorded it and I am very anxious to watch them soonest. I remember being glued to the TV set with the Watergate hearings back in the day as I was home with my folks, not out on my own yet, in a semester I didn’t return to college, trying to figure out my next steps. But as you’re saying, the Jan 6 revelations are probably nothing like Watergate.
Back to gardening/landscaping, I stopped the car and stared a long time today at my neighbor’s front yard. She’s in her 90s and has had to leave for assisted living away from home. I’ve talked of it before; it’s a beautiful place where she’s gone, but it’s not home. I had lived next door to her in 1992, then again from 2013 by coincidence and ever since. Her yard was her thing more than anything else and she spent hours upon hours beautifying it; about two-thirds of an acre, which is a lot of land/lot for a tract house from the 1950s. She knew the name of every-single plant and tree in her yard, just like you, Claudia! Her favorite color is purple, so she planted a jacaranda tree in the front yard and all kinds of other blue-purple plants; she even painted her house blue-purple which caused a lot of controversy, back in the day, for the neighborhood.
Anyway, her house is now absolutely dwarfed in tree growth and plant growth, front yard and backyard. Too overgrown; she got old (did I say she’s now in her 90s), then dropped the gardener; let it go. You can really only see her garage from the street, not the house. The house now sits half empty, never a light on, nobody around; I’m hoping there won’t be any kind of vandalism or theft as it sits unattended, week after week, no security alarms, in the dark of night with zero activity. I know the house is soon to go up for sale, and one can be pretty-much certain that someone will want to ‘unearth’/’uncover’ the house so it can be seen and, frankly, be more safe and visible (and easier to work on, with painting, etc [which it needs]), so there goes the towering jacaranda and these two mega-huge plants (above the roofline in height) of which she was so enamored although I don’t know their names; like gigantic banana trees or something. There’ll be a lot of change, so I have to prep myself mentally for it.
I’m gonna miss that jacaranda; I remember the day she planted it. Some of the jacs around here have already gone past their bloom whereas others are popping out royally in our heatwave, like hers. (Purple royalty!!) She planted a lime tree in the front yard (is so green and shiny) and I’m also gonna really miss those delicious limes in my fruit-infused drinking water; she was always so generous to say, “Help yourself.”
I know that time marches on, but it’s all making me feel wistful. We have two major changes in our neighborhood (which has very little turnover): The only other house of 50 (in a circle) still owned by the original owners besides mine … the adult daughter has to move to the East Coast where family is located because she’s alone and ill in her mid-70s now. I’d do anything to buy her/her parents’ house in my old neighborhood here because it’s completely untouched (or so I hear) from 1955 but immaculately kept. (Her parents were my parents’ ‘contemporaries’; this woman is mine; we babysat for the same families in the 60s although she’s a few years older than myself. Like, this one particular family with kids would hire her for nights when the parents would do date-night; but I’d get the days because I was a still a quite-young babysitter and not yet ready to do nighttime sitting.)
Anyway, her house is of my childhood, the exact-same model/floorplan as mine, and I’m betting hers has the original formica kitchen countertops (forest green or sunshine yellow) and maybe even the original bathtub like mine (pink or blue). Somebody’ll come in and ‘modernize’ it, so all that vintage-y stuff will go away. Then, as I said, there also goes too, at likely the same time, my elderly neighbor’s home to someone new after 30 years; it has the original minty-green fixtures of bathroom sink and tub from the 50s. Good stuff was put in these old tract houses when being built which today would be considered upgrades/options to pay xtra for, and if they’ve been well taken care of with little change in ownership, it has all held up. We lost two other ‘original owners’ homes on our block in the past couple of years; it’s the end of an era and I’m all that’s left. I don’t like the feeling. I once knew every family in all 50 houses; those days are gone along with my youth!
I don’t know why all this makes me so nostalgic and somewhat sad but I guess it’s passage of time and the fact I’m getting old(er). Change is getting harder for me. And I miss so, so much of the past (in general), as we often mention here. Time skews our perception, but it seems like previous years had less stress and more quality to life. I just happen to be in a town where my ancestors and extended relatives had/have lived for over a hundred years and I’m just of the opinion that the living got worse, not better; once a humming town, now a dead one, even though it’s twice the size in population that it once was (of my best memories … I’ve had all of my life to observe it and see the change). For sure on Main Street, but a lot of Main Streets across America have suffered over the decades, replaced by the strip malls, chains and big-box stores.
I miss the guy at the cobbler’s shop who could fix my handbag strap or a snapped leather dog leash; the lady at the exceptional jewelry store which had been in her family since the 1930s when she was still a little girl. I miss the bakery on the corner. The guy who fixed clocks and wristwatches. The general store/feed store which had the guy in the rear who would sharpen scissors. The high-end shop with toys (handmade diminutive soldiers crafted from lead, very intricate), table linens, household decor and kitchen textiles; much of it from Europe, so well-made; unique stuff at Christmas, very collectible. The flower shop with the kitty sleeping in the front window. My favorite dress shop of all time. My favorite shoe store of all time. The photography studio. The nice men’s shops where I’d buy my dad a new necktie for Father’s Day. The old community bank from the late 1800s which is now boarded up (has incredible marble flooring, all to waste). The pharmacy which had anything you ever needed including a perfume counter with the nicest displays. The old 5&Dime which precluded today’s dollar stores (and which had much better stuff to buy!). The little news stand with all the magazines and newspapers and comic books for sale. The frame shop which had a mini art gallery.
Big sigh.
xoxo
They are far, far worse than Watergate.
Stay safe, Vicki.
Unequivalantly laying the blame at TFG’s door was a surprise to me. I knew it, we all knew it, but hearing it from Liz Cheney somehow was a gut punch. I think his incitement of the insurrection with his Big Lie is the most un-American, anti-democratic thing since 1861. I checked in with Fox “News” so see how they were spinning it and it was all blather about partisanship. But the facts that the committee presented last night were so chilling that no one who truly cares about our country can turn a blind eye to the fact that TFG knew he’d lost, knew what he was doing and did it anyway. Shame on those who ennabled him.
Thank heavens for roses and little bugs to keep me grounded.
I know. I need pretty flowers and growing plants to keep me sane.
Thanks, Roxie.
Stay safe.
Watched every minute of it. So well done and awful to watch all that violence again. Thank God he is not our President anymore. I think Biden is doing a good job with what he walked into. We hit 114 today in Phoenix! Hot, hot,
hot! Take care!
Stay cool, Deb!
And stay safe.
Riveting. Absolutely riveting. I watched every second (and some in replay) and was so impressed by the logical, well stated way in which the material was presented. I think the that material will increase in interest as each installment comes and I hope viewership does as well and people don’t get fatigued. (I am already sensing Ukraine fatigue). I don’t agree with most of Cheney’s thoughts but at this she is just brilliant — a crisp, effective presenter with great conviction. Kinsinger, too, though we’ve not seen him much here yet. This is one of those things we must all watch; unfortunately, many won’t.
I feel for Joe. He was handed a mess; then Covid came. And Ukraine. But I think he’s done well and at least it’s civilized!
Thanks, Jeanie.
Stay safe!
Thanks,Claudia,for once again writing with so much intelligence and heart.Yes, I watched and will continue to watch. Gardens,books music keep me sane!xo
You’re welcome, Annette.
Stay safe.