The limelight hydrangeas are starting to appear. That doesn’t happen until mid-summer. Are we there already and if so, why is the summer going so fast when we’re social distancing and every day seems somewhat the same? I don’t expect an answer. This is, as the King in the King and I says,”a puzzlement.” (I played Lady Thiang many years ago, so I heard this particular song many, many times.)
I got going early yesterday because I wanted to beat out the rain. The big garden bed was getting really overgrown and I hadn’t weed whacked in ages. (Hyphen? No hyphen? I don’t know.) After finishing with said weed whacking, I started to prune a lot of the plants, pull weeds, cut back prickly plants, etc. Because the temperature was lower than it had been, I assumed that would make doing these jobs much more comfortable. Wrong. It was unbelievably humid out there – tropical storm humid – and I was wringing wet and exhausted. After I finished, I took a break, drank tons of water, and then went back out to put everything away. I never got to the mowing. It would have been too much.
I did virtually nothing for the rest of the day.
It rained all day long and into the night. We’re due for more storms today and there’s another heat advisory in place. Very humid. I swear, it’s like August around here.
Anyway, I’m glad I got the work done, but boy, was it exhausting.
The we watched the news programs last night and I became so enraged about Trump and William Barr and Roger Stone that I could barely sit still. The blatant corruption is stunning. I’m so sick of it all. I feel like I’ve aged faster than I normally would have because of all of this crap, day after day, year after year.
Then there are the horrific COVID numbers throughout the country. And it didn’t have to happen. But we have a malignant narcissist who is quite probably a sociopath, as well, sitting on his duff in the Oval Office, tweeting, conspiring, stuffing his face full of junk food, and not caring about a single human being other than himself.
So as the day ended, we declared the weekend to be a news-free zone. I am going to retreat into the world of dollhouses and tiny things. Things I can control. Happy little make-believe lives and pretty houses.
I finished Faith Fox by Jane Gardam. Truly excellent. Now I want to immediately read another one by this but the only book I have on hand is the third book in her trilogy, and I don’t want to read it out of order. Quality problem, of course. I’ll be forced to pick something else from my TBR pile.
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday.
I just started a 30-day trial of Kindle Unlimited—jury’s still out in that. But I did get a copy of Devoted by Dean Koontz, an author I have never read. It’s kinda strange, mystery, bit of science fiction, anyway, it’s keeping me interested. (There is a dog involved in a strange way and that’s what initially drew me in—that and the fact it was free.) I know he’s a famous author, but unknown to me. Have you read any of his?
I haven’t. But I have one of his books on my Kindle, as well. Let me know what you think, Shanna!
Stay safe.
Well, a mixed bag. I liked the story, fantasy though it was. It was a fast and easy read which I was ready for. Reminds me a bit of Stephen King in that he can tend to let his inner teen-aged boy take over when he gets into gory details. Easy to gloss over those and sometimes kinda funny, too, when not revolting. When he got toward the end he seemed to run with it, a bit too fast, maybe. He writes from a place of love for dogs, which I like and I’d read another from him, though not too soon or too often.
Hmmm. Probably won’t read him. It’s funny, I know he’s really popular but I’ve never had a real inkling to read his books. I’m not even sure why I have one of his books on my Kindle! xo
I’m an elementary school teacher, waiting to hear from my district how we are going to attempt to teach next fall. Earlier in the week I had a bit of a panic attack from all the conflicting news about schools (and colleges, since I have one daughter still in college). I cut myself off of everything except my local newspapers and I feel much better. And watching Monty Don last night helped too. I will stick with gardening shows this weekend. :)
Monty Don always helps, Linda! That calm voice and those beautiful gardens! Stay safe.
I wondered if you were watching any of it last night. I could feel my BP rising at an alarming rate. Again, if we are ever in a time of normalcy again, we MUST get some checks & balances into all of these processes. I remember studying in history classes how those were our sving grace ~ that is why we had checks and balances. Now, we discover, they are not (OR the horrid idiots just know how to work the system so much better to their benefit). I keep waiting for an adult in charge somewhere to tell everyone to sit down and just stop it, and remember we don’t do things like this. But, sociopaths obviously don’t play by the same rules the rest of us follow. Just disgusting. And he keeps that waste of skin out of jail cause he might get “the virus”, while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. “If they die, they die”, I guess, is his mantra.
You’re absolutely right. This can never happen again and we have to put laws in place that will ensure that. We also have to impeach or indict Barr.
Stay safe, Chris.
On my goodness Claudia, I feel exactly the same way! This has been the longest year and the only light in the tunnel is waiting for November when we can vote this disgusting thing out of office. I try not to get so upset but then they start to talk about opening schools here in Florida and I go over the top again. We have grandsons in school here in Hillsborough county and to make it worst one daughter teaches elementary school here and our other one teaches elementary school in Georgia. This stupid president acts as if the children, teachers and staff are all expendable just so he can “help” the economy and get more votes in November. Thanks for giving us a place to vent and reinforce that we are in this together. Stay safe and enjoy your beautiful garden!
It’s very worrisome. I’m worried about my little nephew as well, who goes to school in Florida as well.
Stay safe, Janet!
Hi Claudia, here’s to a pleasant weekend at your beautiful home, it is a lovely haven from the chaotic world!
Take care…
Thank you, Kelly! Stay safe.
I need to ration my exposure to the news as well. How I’m going to last another 3 1/2 months I don’t know. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder who the heck that hag is. Just have to hope the Republicans are all voted out of power and unable to help him when the law relentlessly pursues Trump once he’s out of office next year. Saw a tweet that said Trump’s “presidential library” will be the book cart he pushes around prison consisting of unread copies of “Art of the Deal.” Ha!
I’m retreating to the craft room today too. With the kitty sleeping at my feet I spend some of my happiest hours up there.
Take care and stay cool.
Kay
I saw that tweet, too. That’s something I’d like to see – Trump pushing around his little library of a ghost-written book.
Enjoy your craft room, Kay!
Definitely not the news I wanted to hear yesterday either. Such slimy tactics.
I love the vision of the Orange one’s library cart library from Kay.
Your garden is so fabulous. Mine – might as well live on the moon – what the gophers don’t dig up, the deer knockdown and eat everything – deer-resistant plants do not exist! They lay in my backyard with an upset stomach. Thank you for those gorgeous photos of lush greenery, Claudia. Wonderful respite.
I saw that tweet the other day and it made me laugh out loud.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Martha. Stay safe!
Oh it’s dragging by until the election. We went “out-of-town” for the first time in three months, to get our taxes done. We saw people stupidly not wearing masks, drove past bars and restaurants that were open…and crowded….it was so discouraging. But this will pass, better days…better days. And vote blue.
It’s very discouraging Melissa. I understand. Stay safe!
yay you for getting any work done in such hot, humid weather! glad you’re taking a break from the humidity … and drinking lots of water.
glad you are taking a break from the news, too. long years ago i stopped watching the late news … i tend to fall asleep faster without all the sad and scary stuff being put front and center in my brain just before going to bed. also, all you east-coasters deserve a lot of credit for being able to stay up until 11:00 pm just to start the news!
glad you had some rain. hopefully it broke the humidity, at least for a while. we sure could use some here.
my body and attitude do not function well in hot, humid weather so i am grateful for air conditioning and a ceiling fan. enjoying a nice breeze from the fan right now after making trips to three stores to get groceries, etc. for family members. glad to have visited some today and talked with others by phone … best part of my day (and life)! need to find something quick and easy for dinner, then iron some clothes for the week ahead and hopefully do a bit of painting. didn’t cut my hair yet … maybe tomorrow.
hope you all stay safe and cool! and enjoy the dollhouse work.
kathy in iowa
Yes, it certainly makes for better sleep!
I am like you. I have a hard time functioning in this weather! Air conditioning is a blessing, for sure.
Stay safe, my friend. xo
Sounds grim, Claudia. And you’re smart on the news moratorium. Sometimes we have to get away from it. All that and the heat and just the hard garden work doesn’t make for fun. Time for a break. Working with small things, I think, will help.
I had my first big Covid meltdown today. It stemmed from having to turn down an invitation to our baby grand’s second birthday party (thrown by his mom’s parents) because they are inviting many extended family and we frankly are worried about their commitment to safety. This, after telling my cousin I couldn’t be at his daughter’s wedding, doctor’s orders. And of course, Rick doesn’t feel he can go to either or should because he doesn’t know what he’d bring home to me. So it’s not just my life I’m messing up and missing out on, but his. We finally decided to go for a ride and I said “take me someplace I’ve never been — I’m getting so tired of seeing my zone.” It helped. Oddly enough, we found a tiny store in the middle of nowhere that was like an epicurean bait and tackle shop. Stonewall Kitchen things, sardines, capers and anchovies, fancy corn chips and salsas and very expensive wine and craft beer. But if you were looking for a can of tuna, a box of mac and cheese or a bag of oreos you were sorely out of luck.They were enforcing masking and we were the only ones there so I went in. The first store I’ve been in since the last grocery trip March 16. I went nuts buying chocolate sauce, chocolate covered cherries and malt balls, funky spices for bread dipping… I guess I needed it. It was just nice to see groceries that weren’t already bought for me.
The drive was a long one and it helped. Back to the lake where I’m reading Love and Ruin, a fictional bio of Martha Gellhorn by the same woman who wrote The Paris Wife. I’d rather read a real bio of her but it’s pretty well written and whets the appetite to know more. Tonight we watched a depressing netflix film about Cezanne and Zola. Now I’m ready to crash. Too much sad for the day and no, I’m not going to look at news!
Hope tomorrow is better.
Oh, jeannie; I can so relate to what you said in your comment, “Rick doesn’t feel he can go to either or should because he doesn’t know what he’d bring home to me … so it’s not just my life I’m messing up and missing out on, but his.” I feel the weight of that all the time with my own husband, how his life is curtailed to protect me since I have the underlying health issues although he doesn’t, at least not to the degree I do. And, ” It was just nice to see groceries that weren’t already bought for me.” I so GET that because I was just talking here on the blog about my own meltdown on Friday and the feeling of powerlessness. (I doubt that’s a real word; my point is, how I’m living [confined to the degree that I am] is not empowering, so I have to find any little way or activity TO make me feel empowered and somehow be less dependent.)
Vicki, you so perfectly express all my thoughts. I needed to read that today. Not alone.
I’m sorry I spelled your name wrong!
I prescribe a meltdown for everyone. I do think it’s a normal and somewhat necessary reaction to this strange time. We’ve been isolating for four months. How can it not have an impact, even for those of us who are introverts?
Glad you weathered the meltdown and bought some yummy treats besides.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
I suppose triple-dippled malted milk balls don’t solve things — but they make dealing with them better. Thanks!
My mom used to send me back to college with a big container of malted milk balls. I loved them!
…and the nightmare continues. Sadly, there are so many buying into this fool…will we ever be free from Trump’s madness ?……… I am aging fast!
Me too. Today he is accusing Obama of things that Trump himself has done. He’s insane, of course, and the king of projection.
Stay safe, Marcy Ray.
Nodding my head in agreement with every sentence, Claudia; as a friend and I spoke about on the phone Saturday, this past week has been one VERY difficult news-week. Feeling so much frustration over stuff that affects us but also so much of which we have no control over except our vote in November.
And with Covid, the health experts interviewed on TV are saying that we can still turn this around but we are running out of time, since we’re still so far behind the winning virus and I think we all just want to scream in despair of WHY are labs struggling and WHY are the tests not accurate; HOW can PPE be running low AGAIN; HOW has any of this/all of it gotten so out of control that contact tracing can’t even happen; just so many whys but of course they’re all saying that, with a national crisis, we need to be led from leadership at the top; a federal/national response for a national problem. (So, when there IS no leadership, this is what you get, and it’s going to be horrifying how many people will die between now and the time when somebody new can take the helm.)
One disease specialist or doctor (losing track of who’s who now, but so glad that so many noted people are speaking up) said something to the effect, “The captain has jumped ship and it’s every man for himself.”
Scary thing, though, and I’ve heard this FOUR times this week as I yet learn of somebody else I know of (in my deeply-affected SoCalif) who now has Covid (it’s happening, this is real, that by the end of this epidemic, we’ll ALL know of someone who got really sick or died with this virus), these are people who’ve done all the right things to NOT get infected and STILL they’ve turned out positive, all of whom say they have no idea where and when they could have possibly been exposed which of course then reminds the rest of us to really double down and be extra-extra careful, more than ever. As is so often repeated, don’t lose your vigilance; we’re “Covid-Weary”, but don’t let your guard down. Mask up, wash hands/use sanitizer, disinfect stuff even if you’re sick of doing it, physically-socially distance yourself; don’t go out in public (in the midst of other humans) unnecessarily. We have to keep finding ways to live with Covid because it’s with us for what could be a long while, but you just can’t afford a slip-up.
Hard to know what it’s going to take to smack some sense into people who keep violating the rules. Apparently risking their parent or grandparent wasn’t enough of a worry. It was still happening at midnight and I don’t know if it’s still going on here at 2am-ish Sunday but, two doors down from me, good-sized party with young people, teens and younger 20s. Fire pit and music going; cars parked up and down the street. Lots of music and what is likely mingling, people packed into a backyard on the warm summer night; it’s been fairly loud and they sure sound like they’re having a good time. What d’ya want to bet that any of them are wearing masks?
Our beaches in my vicinity are back open (after closure on the 4th) and while a TV news reporter is doing a ‘live’ shot from the scene, in a mask and talking about masks and distancing, clusters of people are behind him, walking back and forth & here and there on the sand, not wearing masks and, again, wanna bet those groups are all in the same family? Of course they’re not and therefore not physically distancing but instead just going forth with their weekend, and ‘business as usual’ as if this were the summer of 2019 and not 2020.
Can’t beat your head against the wall. Apparently there’s no stopping it. At least in the U.S.
It’s heartbreaking. Truly heartbreaking. And now we’re supposed to applaud His Orangeness because he wore a mask yesterday? Four months too late.
Stay safe, Vicki.
Yeah, I guess he finally found one that didn’t mess up his hairdo too much.
What’s major-league pissing me off is now the attempt to discredit Dr. Fauci. It’ll never work; Fauci is too well-regarded. Had just been reading again how Trump can’t stand it if he gets (what he feels is) undermined or overshadowed by anyone else; he has to be solo in the spotlight.
Typical Trump. And it will backfire. Fauci got the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W for his work with AIDS.
xo
Humidity and I never did get along and now it saps me even worse than before. Even tho we are blessed with central air (at my insistence a few years back–my asthma and a cat with asthma made it a true necessity), you can feel the weight and toll it takes on your body. Escaping with a glass of iced herbal tea or lemonade to a tiny dollhouse world of our own making is just right. I saw a deco red cough and chair by Arlette–I think you bought a couch from her that was spectacular. This set was a little pricey for me, but worth every penny I’m sure. I tucked it into my Etsy cart, but … someone other lucky collector got it. Now I think of it as the one that got away–a red and black deco living room would have been fab! But then I see some beautiful browns, oranges, and gold. Do I want a mantle or a bar? I don’t usually put bathrooms in my doll houses but a few of the deco bath furniture sets are so dang cute: Turquoise, pink, mint green…very tempting! This someday house might have to have a John. LOL. Stay safe and as sane as possible. Right now I am clinging to the polls which show about a 70% disapproval rating of our rat in charge. Happy Sunday.
Curious: where are you seeing those deco bath furniture sets? I’d love to see them! Stay safe, Nora!
Same weather here. But this morning I woke up to cooler temps, a breeze and sunshine. Lovely!
I don’t watch the news. Haven’t in many years; it’s nothing new for me. I subscribe to news feeds through FB so when I’m scrolling, if there’s something that catches my eye, I read it. Otherwise – news free. Causes way too much anxiety.
I still can’t seem to settle with a book. I’ve been reading the same one (a deep, non-fiction one called The Divided Mind) for a couple of weeks. I think I need to switch to something lighter.
Cooler temps here as well, finally! And lots of rain for the past two days.
Yes, switch to something fun and lighter.
Stay safe, Melanie!