A little late getting this post up as I SLEPT IN!! I am a happy camper. The time zone changes I’ve been dealing with – while only an hour difference – have seriously screwed up my sleep. Now, thank goodness, I’ll be in the same time zone for the foreseeable future.
The UPS truck arrived in my driveway yesterday morning. The driver was bring my new iPhone to me! Did I absolutely need a new phone? No. But I’ve been looking at the larger sized phones and coveting them. While we were in Chicago, my nephew (Mere’s eldest) showed me his iPhone 7+ and I seriously began thinking about a new one. I also knew that I was eligible for an upgrade on November 23rd. Mere and I (and Don, for that matter) said we wanted a larger screen with larger fonts and bigger pictures. Yours truly used to say that I didn’t want or need a bigger phone. Oh yes, I was quite vocal about it. The photo below shows my ever-evolving thinking on that subject:
On the left, the iPhone 4. Middle: iPhone 6. Right: the newest phone, the iPhone 7+. I never buy the current iPhone; I always upgrade to a slightly older model to save money.
I love it, of course. Now I can’t imagine how I got by with a smaller one. Isn’t that always the case?
Oh, before I forget: Don got through the day yesterday. His voice was much better. My wonderful sister called to check on him in the morning and when we talked about steroids, she said he absolutely should take them, that they would really help, so I called him and passed that message along. He got 3 pills, two to take yesterday and one for this morning and then he’ll be done. He thinks they really helped. (They’re still recording and will do another stint in the recording studio today.) Thank you for all your positive thoughts and prayers! He sounds a lot better.
I put this maranta in my grocery cart on Sunday. I like to rescue plants from stores like Lowes and my local grocery store. This one needs humidity and it’s always dry in here during the winter, so she accompanies me into the bathroom when I take a shower.
My sansevieria is going to flower again this year! There’s another flower stalk on the side facing the window. Hey, Mom and Dad, your baby is thriving!
Still hanging in there despite freezing temperatures. Oh, pansies, I’m going to plant more of you in the spring.
The living room yesterday afternoon. The light that comes when the trees are bare is so bright. I love it.
I’ve been having some trouble with AOL lately. Judging by the complaints I’ve seen elsewhere, I’m not the only one. Anyway, I subscribe to the email version of this blog via three different email addresses: gmail, AOL, and Yahoo. I get the gmail and Yahoo posts like clockwork. But delivery to the AOL address has been all over the place; sometimes it comes on time, sometimes it comes 10 hours later and sometimes it doesn’t arrive at all (like yesterday). Hopefully, AOL will get its act together, because it’s my main email address and I don’t want to have to deal with changing to another one. So, if you subscribe via AOL and haven’t been receiving posts lately, that’s why.
If you don’t like political commentary, stop here. I’m currently careening back and forth between happiness at being home and despair about the country. Last night, despair won. When the people running the country defend a pedophile in order to keep power, we are in desperate trouble. When that sorry excuse for a man calls a sitting Senator “Pocahontas” (meant as a racial slur) in the middle of a ceremony honoring Native American heroes while standing in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson (of Trail of Tears infamy) – there are no words. Well, there are words, but I can’t print them here. But don’t let that distract you from the battle over the tax bill and net neutrality. Make your calls. We’re in a battle between the 1% and the rest of us. And I’m pretty sure none of my readers are in the 1%.
Happy Tuesday.
I am so glad Don is feeling better!
I, too, rescue plants from the stores. I even have been known to take home outdoor plants on their last legs. I always coax them back, even when they look like a stick with a leaf!
It’s hard to ignore them, isn’t it? Hurrah for the plant rescuers!
Ugh. That man. I really hope that democracy and humanity can survive him.
But I’m so glad that Don’s voice is cooperating! How well I remember the pain of being a singer with a gig, but no voice —hot honey and lemon overload. Yikes! (Please keep us posted about that cast album.)
Your new phone looks a lot like mine, but I never had a smaller one and so I can’t imagine that one would work for me and my senior eyes.
Having done musical theater for years and also professional singing (weddings) I used to deal with this a lot! It’s a terrible feeling!
My mom, in the 1940s, was a professional wedding singer, too! But she drew the line at funerals; it was too emotional for her.
No to any funerals. I have never had to do that, thank goodness. But I cried at the weddings I sang in – often.
I’m glad to hear Don is feeling better. I’ve enjoyed reading about your trips and seeing all the pictures. I love the picture of your living room. Your home looks so cozy and warm and as for your political commentary, I agree with every word…..even those words you can’t print. Thank you for taking the time to write this blog. It is the first one I read every morning. Take care.
Thank you for your kind words, Lorinda. Means a great deal to me!
I fought for years with not getting a smartphone, but necessity won out I have a 6+ (I think?). I like having a smartphone and can no longer imagine carrying a dumb phone again but I don’t upgrade. I’m fine with what I have. Glad Don’s voice is better and he was able to participate in the recording.
6+ is probably close if not exactly the size of the 7+. Since I started with the iPhone 4, I’ve had to upgrade. You would be shocked at how small it is. Hopefully, I won’t have to upgrade for a long time! (Don is up next – next year)
am very glad to hear of don’s improving health and voice, that he could sing on the soundtrack! and that you slept in and got that larger phone.
and that light in your home, the blooming plants are lovely! i know you appreciate it all and nurture such things. thanks for sharing. :) my new place has great sunlight for having mostly western-facing windows and i love it, but i am not good with plants so just have a handful of pathos or philodendrons growing in water-filled jars.
your home looks so charming. since i don’t have an instagram account, will ask here … would you please add (if you want) a close-up sometime of what’s behind your kitchen table … the blue rack with things hanging from it? i find inspiration and enjoyment in the little details, learning what people like and choose to display in their homes …. thanks, claudia!
and definitely a 99%-er here! i am a social worker in a non-profit. i can pay my bills, but would appreciate a raise as i haven’t had one in more than six years (why am i still there?!?).
and grateful to have a job.
anyway, onward!
kathy in iowa
There are pictures of that wall somewhere on the blog, but I will definitely take a picture for you – soon! You could probably transplant those rooted cuttings into soil – especially pathos and philodendrons that are very hardy and don’t mind under watering.
thanks for the tip. i am not so much an under-water-er as an over-water-er and end up with wilty yellowed leaves and root rot … so i just keep them in water, try to add a little liquid fertilizer every once in a while and hope for the best. :)
i’ll look back on your blog, claudia. thanks.
kathy in iowa
Don’t bother looking back, I’ll take a picture today and it will be in tomorrow’s post!
You can definitely underwater pothos.
haha … already searched on your instagram page and found them (jumping jacks) so no photo needed now! thanks, though, very much.
xoxo
As you so often do, you gave me pause about the Pocahontas thing.
I have just gone back to read/refresh about the Trail of Tears and simply had to quit because it is so, so upsetting. And, for me personally, it’s such a perplexing heritage/lineage I have. My great-grandfather was named for Andrew Jackson. Yet he married into a family who had 100% Cherokee ancestry. I have two ancestors on the other side of my family who were named for Henry Clay (senator, among other things); Jackson and Clay apparently hated each other. This is all pre Civil War. My Henry Clay-named ancestors married into a family with Creek lineage; Creeks were a major force but not part of the Five Tribes. Henry Clay was apparently liked and admired by Abraham Lincoln (yet Henry Clay owned slaves!)…
…but I’m no great authority on American history, having really only studied it in junior high (in high school, we seemed to start our history classes with the late 1800s rather than the early 1800s, so I have some big gaps); and I didn’t study American history in college (for the brief time I actually WAS in college). I need to remedy this…get some self-education on the history of my own country, which can be as baffling as the history of my complicated family.
Anyway, I get very confused with my ‘roots’ when trying to understand why some of the family owned slaves yet weren’t against the abolishment of slavery; why both sides of my family have strong Native American connections yet one would name a kid after a guy who supported ‘removal’ of them from their lands. Can’t go back to the times, to my ancestors’ likely limited knowledge of ‘the real story’ of what was going on in their country (they weren’t ‘big city’ types but mostly living remotely on southeastern farms in rural territory; they weren’t unintelligent, but just WHAT kind of ‘news’ actually finally got to them?). You only have to start reading to realize that those ‘times’ in our U.S. history were as troubled then as now.
The things that have been done in this country; the Trail of Tears, the internment camps during WWII, etc., are horrifying. Such sadness based on nothing but ignorance and fear.
Yes, I’ve tried really hard to put myself in the mindsets of the day. I will call them “Indians” although that is of course not a correct term, but for the sake of description old-time (I don’t at all mean to be disrespectful) – they had intruders on the lands they’d had for centuries; who WOULDN’T defend that? They had a life that worked out just fine for them, living and working and moving with the seasons/nature. Settlers like my own ‘white’ ancestors came in, never probably having the full picture of what was going on but instead excited about a new life somewhere else and the possibility of actually owning land, consequently frightened of marauders such that they then put up their OWN defense of their crops & homesteads. I have a lot of substantiated, written history of my family and they saw a lot of horrible stuff done to settlers/farmers on ‘Indian’ land, by ‘Indians’. They wrote it down, very descriptively. A lot of killing. Yet they intermarried; they took on “Indian” wives, so go figure; it’s such a twisted scenario.
But I will stand up for my “Indian” ancestors every time because their tribes got a raw, raw deal; it’s unconscionable. These death marches where they were taken to land they couldn’t do anything with, away from their sacred burial grounds and familiar places to camp along creeks or where they could hunt. There were enough intelligent MEN running the government who clearly knew right from wrong, trying to eradicate or get a whole ‘race’ of native peoples out of sight; out of the way. So it was about power and greed and supremacy. Sounds all too familiar. It troubles me so much.
And you’re right; similar with the Japanese internment camps. We’ve discussed that here before. Stalwarts of the early days of our town, never asking for anything from anybody, never looking for a handout, the Japanese immigrants who farmed land nobody else wanted and made it prosper here, only to have it taken away in WWII when their kids even went to public school with my own relatives and were more “American” than “Japanese”. My Scottish great-aunt (as well as other neighbors) would go to one faraway camp to visit and try to help with anything their former Japanese neighbors needed – what was allowable – and 60 years later, she’d still cry over the utter desolation of the camp, where it would get too hot and too cold in the California desert, the people living in uninsulated buildings, so primitive, trying to garden in sand to have something green growing; something green to eat (agriculture had been their life). One of these people recently died in his 90s and there was a long obit about how it happened that they had to leave and be in the camps, not complaining, but just detailing their life away from home, and how many eventually did come home, here, to my town – to nothing; their livelihoods gone; evaporated (not all, but some) – having to start all over again after so much hardship of the previous years. In his case, he was allowed to join the U.S. army and fought in Italy even while his family back home was interred. Mother would try to explain to me about the mood of the country with Hawaii being attacked; everybody was scared and bewildered, not unlike what happened to us on 911. Again, all so troubling; trying to make sense of any of it. In vain.
(By the way, I was watching an old series rerun on TV last night; show was always filmed in NYC. They were out on a boat on the Hudson and there in the far distance were the twin towers. I thought to myself as I have before, out here on the West Coast and so far removed, yet not, from what such a landscape/skyscape must have been like for New Yorkers – only to have it be erased from view. Can’t wrap my mind around it to this day. And what that ‘erasure’ meant in terms of loss of life.)
Change subject, I forgot to say that it was good to hear of Don feeling better. I want my own copy of that cast album; I love Jimmy and anything/everything about Margaritaville!
I live in the nuttiest part of the nation. Last week today, we were in a bad heatwave for Thanksgiving. This morning, we awoke to damp/cold 40 degrees at 7am. Yet at 1pm, we’re hot/try with Santa Ana winds and 80 degrees (but at least it’s not 100 degrees like last week). It’s really hard on the ‘ol bod; this is when people get sick; the weather is too up & down, blankets on/blankets off and jackets on/jackets off. I was working out there this morning at 6:45 with a heavy jacket, my fingers freezing (trash collection day). Now, I have the a/c on, have been doing errands in a hot car while my face is as red as a beet, and I moved from hot/cozy morning coffee to a late-lunch, very icy smoothie. And I’m barefooted with a tank top on. It’s crazy. My poor animals get on their winter coat only to be miserable and trying to find shade. We finally, finally turn ‘autumn’ in November and get a hint of fall color. But, this year, the leaves barely began to turn red/orange while still somewhat ‘glossy’ only to crisp up to nothing and be already blown off the trees from all this easterly wind. There was really no ‘season’ at all – and I have an outdoor African succulent that stops blooming in September, yet it’s almost December and I have blooms. Again, craziness. Even the squirrels seem confused; they’ve been out after dark, chirping…which, around here, is definitely NOT normal. We need rain in SoCalif again SO badly, too.
Well, enough of the weather report…
My eyes are so dried out with lack of moisture and too much wind, that I typo’d above by saying we were hot/try when I meant to write hot/DRY. My eyes blur. I was driving home and you popped into my mind, and I thought, “Claudia would HATE this wind!” I know you might recall it from as far south as San Diego; I think you’ve mentioned that before…
I hated the Santa Ana winds. They were very, very hard on my allergies.
xoxo
Yesterday’s performance by Trump (and that’s what it was–for his base) was a disgrace. I can only imagine what those poor gentlemen standing there were thinking. Every single day it is something else.
And I too have been having issues with AOL. A nightmare; sometimes things go through, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they take forever. I am a freelance editor and use AOL for my work address; my kids tell me it flags me as “old” before anyone even reads my e-mails…they are probably true.
I know. I’m sure it flags me as old, as well, but changing my email address would be a big Pain in the Tush.
I have never been a depressive person but lately I struggle with this sick feeling of despair about all our futures and esp the future of my kids. I simply cannot wrap my head around what is going on and I write and make calls to our nut job Dean Heller but now I get no response. He used to carefully explain his point of view but now he’s running large expensive ads gearing up , probably with the aid of Adelson and he can’t be bothered with a liberal . I cannot listen to it anymore on tv only read it in print ( thank heaven for Guardian and on line Maddow) yet every night I went to bed with Charlie Rose to be informed and now….well I was blindsided by that and my sleep is even more disrupted… I’m not so sure we’re going to be ok in the end. So much hatred and selfishness out there. History repeats .
Me too. I feel despair and anger and rage – a lot of rage. I don’t know what is going to happen but the country I have loved has disappeared.
I am also on AOL and that explains the late delivery! I awoke this morning mentally composing a letter to my Congressman about the rich embarrassment that is the Cheeto in the White House. Not a calming way to wake up at all. Got the Louise Penny Glass Houses book at the library to settle the heck DOWN!
Louise Penny will help. I just put some Diana Krall on the stereo. That helped me. Too bad I can’t play it 24 hours a day!
I rather fancy a phone with a big screen – I imagine the keyboard would be better for my sausage fingers! I am glad Don is feeling better.
Mr Trump and his entourage are pure shocking (as we say in Scots). Beyond belief but unfortunately all too real. I hope the tide is turning soon. I surely must! x
I pray it is, Christina. It’s getting very, very scary here.
Three years is a long way to go yet. He better not get re-elected; I can’t imagine myself continuing to age in my ‘golden years’ with him in office for another 7 years. I think I would be just too worn down from daily despair. My current mood is that I just keep turning off the news, although I’d said I’d try to remain vigilant. But if I don’t take a break from vigilance once in awhile, it’s too stressful and is too greatly affecting the quality of my life.
He’ll be out before then, I think. Whether because he is forced to resign or articles of impeachment are filed, I don’t know. But I would seriously doubt if he’s in office for 3 more years. Every once in a while it’s find to take a break. But we do need to remain vigilant. We need to fight. Just as those who have gone before us fought for what was right.
Glad Don’s feeling better, and he was able to record! It seems that sansevieria likes sunlight…do you think it requires sunlight to bloom? Good show!
We pleasantly spent the day putting out our outdoor Christmas lights, and cleaning up some areas in the yard. It was a nice diversion to the muckety muck that surrounds that man. He is an embarrassment of a president…and is too full of himself to seem to care how he hurts others. I only hope that someday, we as a country, will be able to recover from him.
Hope you have a pleasant evening! ;)
I don’t know – I only know that both Mere’s sansevieria and mine (both from my parents) bloomed last year. I haven’t checked with her yet on this year’s bloom
I hope we can recover. Today I feel as if we can’t. That could change tomorrow.
that room.
that gorgeous lived in and loved sunlit room!
and stella holding court knowing full well how beautiful and special she is!
the wood floors. the unmatched furniture. the warmth everywhere you look.
it has heartened me greatly today.
and…
” Such sadness based on nothing but ignorance and fear … ”
just what we have that is unleashed now. has it always been just simmering under the surface?
I pray not.
I remember learning the song that is the mighty and moving words on the base of the statue of liberty. like your singing at weddings… it never failed to bring tears to my eyes.
and now…
I feel that it might never have even represented America at all. you chose the word…
and it’s a totally relevant one… “despair.”
but we will never ever give up. I must see ‘the darkest hour.’
perhaps his stirring words will help me. xo
Thank you for your kind words about my home, Tammy.
We will never give up. Because then they will have won. And that cannot be allowed to happen.
The cottage looks simply happy today in that picture! Made me smile! Also happy that Don is feeling better and was able to sing. Yay!!
You are right. There are no words. I don’t know how much more of this we can handle. He is an embarrassment to our country and to each and every one of us. This tax madness is laughable. The rich surely keep getting richer, the rest of us……….. who cares, I guess. I know who terrorizes ME, and “it” looks like a cheeto – as someone said above. I am sad that the Middle Class has been beaten into oblivion. I wonder how the 43% of people who did NOT vote last year are feeling….. so many (too many) people have absolutely no idea of what is happening in our country. It is a disgrace. But as “it” said… “I love the uneducated!!”
I hope you had a grand Tuesday, Claudia. Getting enough sleep always helps. We are enjoying an absolutely beautiful sunset this evening!! They can’t take THAT away from us ~ yet, at least. But maybe they can tax it somehow in their outstanding tax plan.
Those who voted him in will be the first to suffer if this tax bill goes through. As always, they vote against their own best interests.
Very glad to hear that Don [& his voice] are feeling better! As for the political commentary – and I know YOU know this – but bring it on! I miss all the respectful, mature, ADULT debates I used to have with GOP friends, but these days that doesn’t happen much. When did so much of the country become so middle-school in their behavior? As Bill Maher often says, when did people come to believe they should only have to listen to or hear things they agreed with? When were we promised we’d never again have to hear only those things we WANTED to hear? I don’t get it. I know my parents’ generation didn’t experience this. Maybe you had to live through the Depression & WWII to honestly know how lucky you were? I don’t know. Heavy sigh.
PS – if I WAS in the 1%, I can honestly say that I’d be completely OK about paying more in taxes. I’d even feel LUCKY. Because I’m bright enough to know that I couldn’t possibly BEGIN to spend all my billions on myself. The sheer joy of being able to give my $$ away would be indescribable. Have you noticed that most of today’s 1% are heirs? The children of those who actually MADE all that money? They’ve never known a “normal” kind of life – only one STUFFED with privilege and luxury. Not one minute’s worry about the future, of how to pay for X etc. That must be what makes them so overpoweringly greedy. They haven’t the first clue about how lucky they are. Peace.
#Resist
I would be too. If I had that much money, I’d be donating a lot of it to charity and would be happy to pay taxes.
I am home! So glad to be back and Annie is snuggled up to me. She forgave me pretty quick for leaving her for so long. Good news my plants survived. I’ll give them some TLC tomorrow, I am so excited to be home and now to get out my Christmas decorations. Tiger called me while I was gone and told me he missed me, made my heart happy! I need to get up to speed on this tax mess. So glad Don is better and coming home soon! Hugs!
So glad you’re home with your Annie! Little Z called tonight and left a message: “Hi. It’s me. You’re supposed to be home.” Cracked me up.
Happy to hear Don is better. As a speech therapist (now retired), I saw patients with his issue frequently. You would laugh at my phone. It is a really old flip phone. I am the only one at a party or a get together not staring at their phone. #45 makes me crazy. Every day I say it can’t get any worse, yet it does.
I’m a voice coach. Same thing. And I have suffered from it (as an actress) myself. Thanks, Sandy.
So happy Don is feeling better. Isn’t it sad how both sides are defending or making excuses for these low life men in their parties ?!
Marilyn
No defense for this behavior. And now it’s Matt Lauer! The list is endless.
Yeah, I just finally allowed myself to read about Matt Lauer. I didn’t want to. I haven’t watched the Today show in years but I used to be glued to it in the days while I was getting ready to go to work in the morning; it was always on in the background. I remember the first time I saw him do the news on Today. He was borrowed from the affiliate in New York while somebody was gone. He had hair then, kinda slicked back and the most sparkly eyes. I walked by the television and said to myself, ‘whoa, who is that cute guy?’ That was somewhere between 1992-1995. He was a flawless news reader.
And I actually always thought Charlie Rose was classy (his PBS show) although I’d heard on authority that he was quite arrogant with subordinates; rude & unfriendly. I really never knew who he was before 1989 but I worked for a guy who knew him from early-1980s overnight news (I didn’t like that ‘boss’ of mine so, now, it’s rather telling for me, that they knew and seemed to like each other).
It’s an avalanche; a reckoning in general. Overdue. My husband comes home from work every night and asks me, “Who got fired today?”
(Some of these guys got old, are dead; they got away with it in the workplace or anyplace. The creeps.)
I had heard rumors of Lauer playing around, but had no idea that he pulled this crap in his professional life. What an ass. And Charlie Rose? I was shocked. Now, Garrison Keillor has been fired. We are definitely having a reckoning and it’s about time.