I saw this rose bud this morning – one last rose for the season. It’s a delightful surprise and a welcome one.

Well, the remnants of Hurricane Laura have passed through our neck of the woods and today is a bit cooler and a lot less humid. The rain held off until last night, allowing my neighbors to have their graduation party for their son. Yet again, someone had fireworks last night. I think it was the camping facility that is nearby – maybe celebrating the end of the season? Mercifully, they didn’t last too long. But they were loud!

I really love this particular variety of sunflower. There are three more of them, one of which should bloom this week.

Hey, it’s a significant day here at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. Today, we celebrate 15 years here. We moved in on August 30, 2005, the day after Hurricane Katrina hit. Since we had turned off cable at our old place and hadn’t been watching the news and wouldn’t have working cable for another week, we missed most of the news reports and didn’t know about the horrendous impact and damage for quite a while. The next day, which was one of the hottest and most humid days I can ever remember, we drove back to our old place to finish cleaning it out. No a/c, no fans, still embedded in my sense memory.

Happy 15th Anniversary, Mockingbird Hill Cottage! (Though you were simply a cottage in those days, your name came about 2 years later.)

Don finished Hamnet  yesterday. We talked about it for a long time. He loved it. I loved it. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. I finished A Private Cathedral  by James Lee Burke this morning. Excellent. Now we’re starting new books – Don has another one by Maggie O’Farrell, I have The Starless Sea  by Erin Morgenstern.

I’m going to do a bit of weed whacking this morning. I tend to neglect these chores as we come to the end of the summer because I’m not really motivated, but it needs to be done. Don will probably putter around up in the woods.

We had a nice little FaceTime chat with my sister and Little Z yesterday. He’s getting so big! He reported to us on his first week back in school. He told us he was scared for the first day but then he was fine. Both of Mere’s older sons have moved into their own apartments within the past week. Son number 2 has started law school, as well. Lots of changes for my sister and lots of emotions. I have no desire to live in Florida, but I do wish we lived closer to each other. It gets harder and harder to be so far apart.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

I’m not going to lie. I’m more than a bit down-in-the-dumps this week.

It’s been a tough one for me. It’s all too overwhelming at the moment. I still believe in concentrating all my energy on fighting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I think that will be a bit easier now that the travesty that went on for four nights at the People’s House, The White House, is over.

Yesterday, after we journeyed to the grocery store and racked up a big bill (we were out of all sorts of things, including sundries and cleaning supplies, etc.) we came home, disinfected everything, made some lunch and then we attended a webinar from the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA about the changes to health insurance that are going into effect January 1st. Our SAG insurance is supplemental to Medicare. The webinar was very well done and informative, but the end result is that we will have more work to do in deciding what plan, etc., than we did before. Hopefully we can pick a plan that doesn’t involve an increase in our premium because, believe me, we can’t afford it. That being said, we are so fortunate that Don has Senior Performer status. For those who are younger and on active status, the amount of income that needs to be earned to qualify for any insurance has been increased quite a bit. So now, actors have to earn even more to qualify and NO ONE IS WORKING. We’re in the middle of a pandemic.

The union had to take action because of the insane increases in the cost of health care across the board combined with the fact that no one in their union is working. There is no money coming in. I quite understand why they have had to make these difficult decisions, but it makes life even more difficult for members of the union. No one is working. They might lose their insurance.

Anyway, I’m glad we attended the webinar. We have some work to do in the next few weeks, but we have a better understanding of the changes. But the whole thing brought home the fact that we haven’t worked in six months and that we will have another six months – minimum – of unemployment. Having bought a house for the first time in our mid-fifties, we are not in the position of so many people of our age who are paying off or have paid off 30-year mortgages. We will be paying on ours for years. I’m not going to go any further into that except to say it’s tight for us, but not only for us, even more so for our friends and colleagues.

At the same time, I know we’re blessed. The balance I try to maintain about these things sometimes is tilted toward anxiety and worry. But it will tilt back to something saner. I didn’t get to do any work on the dollhouse because of the webinar, so I didn’t have an escape outlet. I’ll do that today.

Plus, I’m reading James Lee Burke, a wonderful, brilliant author, but his stories are very dark.

Anyway, off the top of my head, a gratitude list:

Grateful for my husband and our marriage

Grateful for a roof over our heads

Grateful for (in no particular order) food, power, music, books, dollhouses, animals, birds, butterflies, laughter, Frasier, hugs, paths in the woods, a home that is truly our haven, flowers and gardens, groundhogs, safety after a day of violent storms, a husband who makes me another cup of coffee after I spill mine, a bed to sleep in, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my work whenever I can do it again, my health, health insurance, a spiritual base that keeps me grounded but the struggle is real, for all of you, for the kindness and goodness I see in people despite the nightmare of this administration, for what I must believe will be the triumph of good over evil, for Shakespeare, for words, for poetry, for Gershwin, Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Rachmaninoff, Copland, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Sinatra, Ella, Fred and Ginger, Harper Lee, for sunlight, for the stars that fill the sky out here in the country, for the haunting call of mourning doves, for birdsong, for afternoon drives to other towns, for the memories of my beloved dogs that can make me cry and laugh, for my parents and my brother, gone but never, never forgotten.

I’ll think of a thousand more things after I post this.

Gratitude always helps.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

I love all the zinnias, but this is my current favorite.

Well, I was somewhat successful yesterday with my new way of thinking. But the world intrudes and I find myself enraged by the lies and then I have to take a deep breath and remember my mantra: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

We are currently right smack dab in the middle of a pandemic, a hurricane, an RNC filled with lies and an alternate reality, forest fires, the shooting of an unarmed black man in the back, seven times, and a 17 year old white nationalist and Trump rally attendee carrying an AK15 who murdered protestors and walked away when there were police everywhere. As Rachel Maddow said last night, it’s not only happening today, it’s all happening at this moment.

Don thinks that we’re not wired to take in all of this, that we’re not wired to deal with the constant assault of bad news from social media, cable television, newspapers, radio and 24-hour cable news. I think he’s right. I feel like I’ve been struck repeatedly by a cudgel. Obviously, I haven’t, and I’m safe right here in my home and am not being assailed by hurricanes or ignorant fools carrying an assault weapon. Metaphorically assaulted.

I would say my usual “What’s next? Locusts?” but there were locusts in Africa recently. Let’s not mention the asteroid that is coming our way.

Anyway.

We had some rain this morning. The sun is now coming out but we’re due for intense thunderstorms this afternoon. What we really need is more steady rain like we had for a few hours this morning. We were up in the woods yesterday and the trees up there are clearly suffering from not enough rain. What we do get lately are huge thunderstorms with lots of torrential rain that are gone in 15 minutes. That kind of rain doesn’t really penetrate the ground. We’re were hoping for an all day steady rain, but it looks like we aren’t going to get that.

Let’s see, what else? We’re going grocery shopping this morning. I’m insisting that Don take a break from outdoor work as his knees and hands are sore. I’m going to retreat into the fantasy land of my dollhouse later this afternoon, as well as a good book.

I hope you are safe, that those of you in the path of the hurricane have evacuated. My prayers are with you.

Happy Thursday.