Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Another foggy morning. At one point, I looked out the window at the fog and then heard the honking of three Canada geese I could see flying overhead. It was lovely.

I plan on a somewhat lazy Sunday. Oh, I’ll wash the bedding and work on the dollhouse. But I’m going to take it mentally easy. Yesterday I was glued to Twitter because I was fascinated by the discrepancies in various statements about OM’s health. I was also, along with seemingly everyone else, trying to put together a timeline as to when OM knew he was positive. I hope this is wrong, but it increasingly appears that he knew something by the night of the debate. He arrived too late for the required COVID test and was held to the “Honor system.” That’s rich: the man who has no honor. This is just speculation on my part, but it’s also speculation by a lot of people I respect. Hopefully, I’m wrong. More will be revealed. It always is.

Anyway, that’s where I was yesterday. And that was fine. But today is for resting, reading, and laying more of the wood floor in the dollhouse.

I’m starting Robert Galbraith’s (J.K. Rowling) Troubled Blood. Ahem…it’s 927 pages long. Okay! I’ve read every book in this series and I love the protagonist, Cormoran Strike. So I’m in. I loved The Library Book  by Susan Orlean. It’s a fascinating history of the Los Angeles Public Library and the fire that all but destroyed the main library in the 1980s. Along the way, Orlean touches on the history of libraries all over the world, the mystery surrounding the fire, and on librarians themselves. It’s a great read and I recommend it highly.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

This maple is behind the house. Isn’t it glorious?

It’s colder now and I suspect our warmish fall temperatures are gone. Today is sunny and beautiful, so I can’t complain.

Both of us were tired yesterday, having stayed up way too late on Thursday night. So we took it easy, but we did do some exploration on the property, trying to find the pipes that mark the property line. We have a new neighbor moving in to the south of us. Our elderly neighbors that lived there previously have moved south to be with their children. Anyway, this guy stopped by the other day and wanted to post no trespassing signs on his property (due to the people from the large campground nearby that trespass on his property.) He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t putting anything intrusive up that we’d see from our property.

That set us off on a bit of an exploration, but I think it will be better to wait until early winter when a lot of the vegetation is gone. One pipe has always been clear; it’s between our property and our neighbor’s to the north. Don found the pipe that’s at the other corner and I’m happy to say that the old stone foundation there is on our property. I always thought it might be our neighbor’s. I love that foundation. Anyway, it was fun. The remaining pipes are at the back of the property and some of that is overgrown, so, again, we’ll wait until winter. I hope this made sense! (I also found the surveyor’s drawing of the property after digging through the drawer that holds all the house/mortgage stuff.)

We’ve been keeping track of the news. I watched Nicole Wallace and Rachel yesterday. The reckless behavior, the arrogance of not wearing a mask and the flaunting of that choice, the decision to gather people together outdoors in order to celebrate the hurried nomination (during the middle of an election process that has already begun) of someone unqualified for the Supreme Court; those attendees jammed together with no social distancing and the vast majority not wearing masks – all of it carries a cost. And we’re seeing it. I’m not sure I believe this is karma. Rather, I believe these are direct consequences of willful ignorance and arrogance, of deliberately misinforming the public, of worrying more about a campaign than about lives. The list of those who have tested positive after attending the event in the Rose Garden is getting longer by the minute. None of that had to happen. They have endangered the employees of the White House, the Secret Service, every attendee at a rally, family, friends, supporters.

Not to mention the millions of people who can’t be rushed to Walter Reed, who don’t have the resources to be treated, who are facing the real possibility of losing their health insurance if this woman is confirmed, all those who died alone without the presence of a loved one, all those who, for whatever reason, believed him when he said the virus was nothing to worry about and proceeded to act accordingly.

So yes, I guess you could say it’s a karmic payback, but it’s really a direct result of their actions.

It’s terribly sad and enraging at the same time.

Stay safe.

A brief statement on the latest news: We have reached the point in a presidency that has been full of lies where one of my first responses to the latest news was to doubt it. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but when the boy cries wolf repeatedly…well, you know how that tale goes.

The recklessness of OM and his administration is well documented. Crying hoax, making fun of those wearing masks, downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus. Just this week, the T family took their masks off at the debate despite the request from the Cleveland Clinic to wear them, OM went to fundraiser in NJ yesterday despite knowing Hope Hicks had tested positive. How many people at the White House have been endangered? How many people at the Fund Raiser, the debate?

I don’t wish anyone ill, but I will admit I don’t feel a lot of empathy at the moment. Over 200,000 Americans are dead because he was more worried about his reelection campaign than he was about the welfare of the people he had pledged to protect. And he spread and continues to spread disinformation about the virus.

Okay. Moving on.

The top of the back forty. Yesterday was beautiful and the fall color was extraordinary. I’ve taken lots of photos and I’ll share them with you over the next few days. It’s raining today. We need it, so I welcome it. But it feels damp and cold!

The Zoom meeting with former students and Rick was wonderful. It started at 9 pm and it went on until well after 11:00 – way past my bedtime. It was so wonderful to talk to them. We shared memories of Ben. We caught up with each other. I’m so proud of these people, these extraordinary human beings. They’re out there doing wonderful things. They’re smart and compassionate and loving and just plain good people. And we laughed a lot. I brought Don in for the last part of it, as he knows all of the students.

Then the news broke about Hicks having COVID, so we were up way later than we usually are.

During the day, I worked on the floor for the dollhouse.

I’m doing wide plank floors with craft sticks. I have some wide plank floors in the bedroom of Hummingbird Cottage. This is slow, painstaking work. I stain each stick separately as I learned long ago that assembling the floor, glueing it down, and then staining it can cause it to warp. So, it’s one at a time. I have to cut off the curved ends of the sticks and measure and cut each plank separately. This took me a few hours. I like thick wood floors. I think they look better – there’s a texture there that you can’t get with a thin laminate or veneer. More later today.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.