I am halfway through Demon Copperhead. It is not a likeable book, but it is extremely well written. Just as David Copperfield put a face to the ugliness of poverty, this book does the same. While Damon seems to have landed into a good situation, I have a feeling it is not going to last.
It reminds me of the story of Sherman Alexie. I mean, he did it. By virtue of his brains, he got himself out off the reservation. He was a novelist. A screen writer. A film maker. He was married to another native professor. He had two kids. He was living the dream. Until he wasn't. His life imploded. Reading about it, I understood it. He was raised watching people lead self destructive lives. Recklessness, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, overdoses. This repeating pattern lay dormant for a while, and then it raised up once again. Consciously or subconsciously, who can say? But he fell back into the old ways and self destructed.
It's hard to feel worthy when you have a childhood of feeling unworthy. That part I know to be true.
Anyways, he seems to have picked up the pieces and reassembled his life. Good for him. Not everyone can.
So anyways, I'm reading Demon Copperhead. Barbara Kingsolver is such a powerful writer.
Grouted the tile today. Tim did the last receptacle. Now he is back to hooking up the lights. Progress. Ever so slowly, but progress all the same.
Guess who showed up today? Gaza. We seriously haven't seen her for weeks. She's like a wild animal, growled and hissing and spitting. For their parts, the kittens seem to take it in stride. They don't approach her, but we had a nice game of laser tag, and they played unconcerned while their mother yowled like a banshee from the food dish.
Fajitas for supper. I wrote my nightly quota of post cards. To bed early to read some more of my book.
Man. I lead a boring life.
I feel a lot better after the debate last night. I was at my son's house when the Trump/Biden debate happened, and I watched about 10 minutes of it. I just couldn't bear to see any more of it. Biden should have won that, but he didn't, and no amount of excuses re: why he wasn't on game can explain why he lost to an undisciplined, dishonest man.
So, I went in to the debate last night feeling as if Harris should be able to hold her own, but...
I was much relieved to see that she did hold her own. Tim and I both watched it. I was pleased to see that he was fact checked. That whole bull about 'the baby is set aside after it's born while the parents decide whether to have it killed or not' has made me sick ever since the first time I heard him say such a thing. Linsey Davis pointed out at the close of his response that 'killing a baby after it is born is not legal in any of the 50 states'. When he talked about Haitian immigrants eating pets, Tim laughed in disbelief. I mean, that has been debunked. David Muir matter of factly pointed that out that this claim is not true according to the city manager who responded to their investigation.
He lied 33 times during the two hours. He refused to answer pretty basic questions: Do you support Russia or Ukraine winning the war? Do you wish that you'd done anything differently on January 6th? You have said multiple times in the past few weeks that you lost the 2020 election "by a whisker", "just didn't quite have the votes". Do you believe that you lost the election. ("I never said that. I was being sarcastic.")
At the end of it, I thought that Harris had done a good job.
But of course, at the end of it, Trump declared himself victorious, and refused a rematch. "Once you've won, what more is there to prove?" he asks, which reminds me of the 'never play chess with a pigeon' adage.
Oh, and my felting class was fun. I forget who asked, but it was dry felting that we did, and we made a silly little figurine, but it was fun and it is something that will be interesting to experiment with.
Today, 3 of 4 kittens came out front of the garage when I called, and for the first time, Possum approached me outdoors, meowing. They are getting there, which pleases me. They do love their laser dot time. It does tickle me that for all his professed dislike for cats, Tim is quite interested in their progress.
I spent the day cleaning the excess thin set between the tiles in the pantry in preparation for grout and then I cleaned and organized things, taking tools down stairs that we were finished. It was a joyful moment taking all the drywall tools down and putting them away.
We had a trash can of left over tongue and groove pine boards. Tim wanted to just throw them on the burn pile, but I kept thinking that someone who is crafting, or whatever, might want them. I posted them on a local 'helping hands site' and they were claimed in the matter of minutes. We met for pick up after the guy got off work, and that was that. More junk cleared out.
I chopped two gallons of green peppers today for the freezer. They joined the two gallons already in the freezer. My $14.00 purchase will keep us in green peppers (for cooking) for the winter. I have about 20 quarts of stewed tomatoes in the freezer as well. I am well satisfied with that.
So that is today. I need to take a shower and then unwind with my quota of post cards for the night. I have also got a book to read before the 19th. Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead.
I've really been feeling blaaaaaaaaaaaah...
I know that a big part of it is all this political stuff, all the hysteria. One poll tells predicts one thing, another says the opposite. It is a toss up. I found myself getting sucked back into facebook. I run a private group for people to discuss the current outrages. We blue dots need to stick together. But once again, I have discovered that FB is simply not a good place to spend a lot of time, especially if you're trying to avoid hysteria.
Television is hard, because Pennsylvania is a swing state and the PAC ads are awful. A Republican PAC is really trying to hammer home the fact that Kamala "lies...a LOT" and another ad tells us that she is a poor speaker. As if running the ad over and over again will make us forget who the incoherent liar really is.
The Atlantic cover for the month of October:
Justin Metz, the illustrator drew on the theme 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. I think it is very effective.
On top of the whole political uncertainty, there is the added stress of working day in and day out with Tim on the new house. Building the house has been an adventure, and it is a good thing. I know that it is, but working day in and day out with your husband can get aggravating sometimes.
He has ideas. I might have different ideas. The thing that annoys me is that when he has an idea, it is the way it is done. That's just how it is going to be done. But if I have an idea on how things are done and he has a different idea, he will simply argue it forever. I've given in sometimes. I'm not getting the kitchen sink that I want, for instance. He has one that was put away some time back. It's an okay sink, brand new, black composite. So. I gave in on that. But there are other times when I don't want to compromise. For instance the microwave and the cupboard above the stove. We hashed it out. He argued. I refused to budge.
I think it's perfectly fair, since I do the cleaning, that I be allowed to have my way on it.
I thought it was settled.
Yesterday, he told me about a microwave he wanted to buy for above the stove. (!!!!!) I told him that I did not WANT a microwave above the stove, and explained myself once more. He said, "I don't think you understand..." and I said, "I don't think you understand..." and he said impatiently, "Well you'll have to show me, because I do not understand what you want." I said, "you most certainly do. I showed you and you showed me where you could wire in the microwave with no problem at all."
He was irked and I was irked and...well...now you know why the hell I need time away sometimes. The week before last, I drove tomatoes to Danville to meet up with my daughter-in-law and the granddaughters. Last week, I pulled water chestnuts. This week, I'm taking a felting class. It helps. Just getting away sometimes helps.
There's a lot of uncertainty right now, but there is one thing I AM certain of, and that is that there will not be a microwave and cupboard above the stove.
Today was a lazy day. As John Gray phrased it, a mooching day.
Tim was going to watch his football games for the day. I had spareribs in the crockpot for supper. There were kittens to take care of, and so I hopped into the car and headed to the new house to feed them.
Because I had nothing on the agenda, I had the opportunity to seat myself on the garage floor, and take my time with them. One thing that I have learned to do is to call them as soon as I arrive. I want them to know that I am there and to meet me in front of the garage, and they are getting pretty consistent about that.
Once I see them waiting for me, I gather up the stuff and head down to the garage. I take my time unlocking the door and getting myself and their meal inside. I sit on the concrete floor and I pour the dry in, and take my good old time adding the milk and stirring it up. I talk to them quietly as I'm doing it. Once that is done, I open a couple cans of cat food and dump that it. I stir it some more. Today, Possum could not wait. He was right there eating while I was still stirring. I could have reached out and petted him, but I didn't. (Andrew had it right when he said, "Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.")
Possum is the bravest. He's always the first one out front waiting for me. He's always first to the food dish. He seems interested when I talk. I think if I can convince him that I'm no threat, the others will quickly follow suit, hopefully.
In any case, once Possum started eating, Sigh was right there too. Mini and Tiger watched from the back ground, and I felt sorry enough for them that I eventually I moved the dish a couple of feet further away from me. Soon all four of them were eating.
The thing that I noticed is that they are not quite so wary. In fact, today, a couple of the kittens were eating with their backs to me, something new because generally speaking, they keep a very close eye on me even as they eat. I even sneezed once, and they paid me no mind.
After they fill up on food, they always have a leisurely face wash. Today, I pulled out a laser, which is something new. We played 'catch the red dot' for a while, and all of them seemed to enjoy that.
I haven't seen Gaza for a couple of weeks now.
After a half hour of playing with kittens, I unloaded some tile from the back of the car. Last night, I'd seen someone advertising boxes of 4 1/4 in glazed tile to give away. They'd bought a house, and the boxes were left behind in the garage. They wanted to clear it out. They live 5 minutes from our house, and so we headed right out.
They pulled a plain white tile out to show us and said, "I'm betting these are from the 80s." Now, they probably weren't wrong, but it was a plain white tile, with no design or pattern to date it, so age did not really matter. We took it all. They were glad to be rid of it, and we were glad to have it. It matches with some plain white tile we have in our garage.
Once I finished putting the 'new' tile in the basement, I headed to Albert's. He had no peppers or onions today, but is going to the auction tomorrow. He will pick me up a half bushel of peppers, if he can get them. We blabbed for a while in the cool breeze. His tomatoes looked so nice that I picked up a couple pecks for $5. Look at the size of these:
"This is probably the last auction I'm going to," he informed me. "It's getting late in the season."
I said, "Where has summer gone?"
I had a bit of a nosey around and saw this:
I stopped in to the grocery store and was amazed to see this:
I processed another large pot of tomatoes just to keep myself busy while Tim was watching his football.
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Yesterday was an odd, odd day. After a rainy night, we had a rainy day. It was gray and strangely lit when I got up. It poured heavily. Stopped, the sun came out, it got dark again, it poured. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
I spent the day cleaning the kitchen, mopping and refinishing the kitchen floor, vacuuming, putting the office back together again after the picture window replacement. It was a busy but satisfying day inside getting things done which needed to get done and smelling the simmering spaghetti sauce which, in Tim's mind, tasted every bit as good as it smelled. (I have freezer meals to put away, too).
Today is my son's birthday. 38 years ago, he was not yet an hour old and I was still marveling at the newness of him. All these years later, he may not be new, but I marvel at him still. He is a fine hardworking man, responsible, a good father, a good partner.
Tim has been looking quite forward to this day. Football, football, football. The day and the television will be given over to him. I am making him barbecue spareribs, a favorite.
Me? I will head to the new house to feed the cats, and to marvel at my tile floor in the pantry. Maybe spend some time sponging off the thin set goobers in preparation for grouting (tomorrow).
I will stop in to see what Albert has for produce. I am hoping to buy all the green peppers and onions he has, and then I will come home and chop aforementioned vegetables, put them into freezer bags and put them away for winter. It is such a time saver to be able to pull a bag out of the freezer, give it a good thump on the table to break the pieces up, and then shake out the onions or peppers that you need for the recipe, as opposed to stopping and chopping them every time. I cut some of the peppers and onions into strips for fajitas and stirfries too.
So that is my Sunday, with all my big plans.
What are you up to in your neck of the woods?
Tim's been steadily working on receptacles/sockets/powerpoints/whatever they are called where you live. He has put up a the light in the pantry. He has installed the fan/light in the bedroom.
Laundry day, cleaning day, vacuuming, bed changing, roast vegetables for supper. Tim got my car put back together and you cannot tell that it ever was in an accident. I will be glad to have my own wheels again, I guess, for all my insistence that we did not need a second car (because we had a car and two trucks).
Tim worked on the electrical stuff again. He has not gotten the supplies to install the ceramic tile, and I think that it is because he's decided he would rather do it himself. I will take that up with him again later.
We bought supplemental insurance today for the first time. I was a little surprised that the charge for it was nothing. They do a $50 payback, which actually covers the cost of the plan. The excess results in a smaller monthly medicare payment, which is deducted from our social security. Long story short, we get extra coverage and extra money in our retirement benefits.
They've been doing a lot of calling to tell us about our benefits. It comes in labeled as 'potential spam'. I never answer those phone calls. I just let them go to voice mail. They invariably seemed to call while I was driving the car, and so I never quite got around to calling them back, usually because by the time we got done at the end of the day, it was too late to return the phone call.
Today, I was available and so I took the phone call. They wanted me to subscribe to their mail order prescription program. I'm not averse to that, but I spend $19 a month on my two prescriptions, and so, I wasn't sure that it would be worth it, once the shipping was processed in. Turns out both prescriptions are no cost, and the shipping is free.
Those two things alone add about $60 to our monthly income. Tim should see about the same added. That's pretty amazing to us.
We drove up to Levi and Mattie's today. The bumper cover for my car came in a huge box filled with bubble wrap. I knew the kids would be delighted with it, and they were. It was a nice visit on the front porch watching the sun go down. The girls picked me a bunch of peonies with the lacy tops of asparagus tucked in. I also left with a bag of tomatoes. Mattie's about sick of them. She said she's canned over a hundred quarts of tomatoes. She canned apple sauce yesterday. She was canning pears today.
Did you see that the stable genius has admitted that he lost the 2020 election "by a whisker"? why is this not headlining on every single news agency? He's really angered some of his far right backing. (Spare a moment to shed a tear for White Supremacist Fuentes who was punished for terrorist activity and just discovered it was for no good reason...Poor dumb bastard.) Last week's announcement that the tangerine man is voting no on Florida's 6 week abortion ban has angered some of his evangelical backing. (FYI: There is a facebook post called Evangelicals for Harris on facebook, and they have funded some pretty good advertising.) He's been playing to his base for so long and now, suddenly, he's alienating even them. His campaign seems to be unraveling quickly of late.
It was a pleasant end to the day. We came off the hill in the dark. Tim is watching football, and I will go to bed and read a book.
Good night, good people.
Tim worked on receptacles today. I vacuumed plaster dust from the pantry, in preparation for laying the tile floor, which I am quite excited about.
There really was not much for me to do today, but my sister has enough green beans and has been trying to give them away before she pulls the vines, so I picked a half bushel of green beans.
The tender beans were cut to size. I will blanch and pop them in a ice bath in preparation for the freezer tomorrow evening.
The too large beans were removed from their leathery pods. Toss in some onion, celery and kielbasa, and let the thing simmer on low in a crock pot for the day, and that will be supper tomorrow with some garlic bread.
There were some tiny beans which I saved too. Those I sauteed whole in bacon grease, with a generous handful of garlic, some black pepper, and a smidge of salt. I actually found this recipe online and it sounded fast enough and easy enough. It is what I ate for supper, and lo...it was good!
Tomorrow will be a different sort of day. I am meeting up with a group of people at the local river outfitter. We will be taken down river and dropped off to work on a section of river to pull water chestnut, and invasive that clogs a river and makes kayaking and canoeing difficult. That's this week's adventure. Also a foraging opportunity. I will probably bring home a couple dozen of them, because we do like stirfry in this house.
So. That is the plan for tomorrow. It gives Tim a chance to continue on with the electrical stuff, which is pretty much a one man job. The wires are run, but he's putting in the receptacles, hanging ceiling lights and fans.
By the end of the week, I'm hopeful to have the pantry floor done. It will be the first completed floor.
Sunday afternoon, we celebrated Labor day with my brother-in-law's family. My newlywed nephew was up with his new wife from Virginia. They were married over the summer down there, a wedding kept purposely small, and so I was really happy to be able to give them a wedding present.
He has a hereditary disorder that caused him to lose his eyesight over the course of a few years, and life has been hard for him. He met a lovely woman, a widow with two beautiful daughters, and it makes me happy to see him happy again after years of struggling.
He's even regained his sense of humor. He said, "She wanted to tan a little for the wedding and so I went with her to the tanning place, and the woman said 'Have you ever had issues tanning before? I always ask when I see freckles.'
Tommy said in mock total disbelief, "Wait!!!! She's got FRECKLES? I don't know. That might be a deal breaker right there..."
I said, "Boy, it's easy to see why she fell for you."
Tommy's son, Lincoln had a birthday coming up, so we celebrated that too. He is turning 13, like William.
The party is a giant pot luck. Everybody brings something to share. Our contribution was a crockpot full of Italian sausage with peppers and onions and tomatoes. There were buns and mozzarella cheese. There was bbq pork and meatball subs and all manner of salads and trays of corn on the cob. Nobody went hungry, that's for sure.
The main event though, is the bonfire in the evening. This year's was huge. William was mesmerized. He likes nothing more than a good fire.
It was a fun way to spend an afternoon.
One exciting moment: William has long despaired about being short. I've told him right along that he will sprout. Both of his parents are giants, so that's a fairly safe bet. We haven't seen a lot of William this summer, but at the party, I noticed that he looked a lot taller. Yep. He's had a growth spurt over the summer. If he grows another inch or two, he will be taller than me. I think that he was quite anxious to return to school for that one reason alone.
Today, we worked on a different house: our current house. We had a picture window to fix. The police took estimates of the damages, but realistically, I don't see how we'll ever get the money back. I mean, these are kids. You cannot get blood from a turnip. Probably 20 years back, we had a batch of boys smash mailboxes. They, too, were ordered to make restitution. We received two payments of $1.25.
So. We're not holding our breath on getting any money at all.
The estimate from the glass repair place was an eye watering $450, but compared to the price of a new picture window, well...it sure was the lesser of two evils.
Then, Tim happened to see an ad. A guy was remodeling the house, and he had torn out a vinyl picture window. It was a very nice window, double paned, vinyl cased. It was the same size as our broken window. He drove up to look at it. It was in perfect shape, so he bought it for $125, a considerable savings.
That's what we did today, which was fine. I'm still not feeling really energetic. The window was extremely heavy, but we got it in. Tim said, "I think this glass is a lot thicker than the old window." I said, "Hopefully it is thick enough that if some stinker throws a rock at it, it will bounce it right back to them."
We went down to the new build to collect the tools for the job, and to feed the kittens. No sign of mama today either. It makes me wonder if mother cats go off to have their kittens away from the others. I don't know. But the kittens are much more sociable without Gaza around. Possum, especially. He comes when I call him. He won't be petted yet, but he's very interested in people.
In any case, it is the first day of September and it feels like fall. It is cool and overcast. Tonight there are frost warnings.
We got a base for the sink, but after placing it, have decided that it won't work. We will either adapt it, or take it to an Amish craftsman to make some changes. I think we could manage the thing ourselves, but Tim wants it done by an expert.
Yesterday was a strange day. I poly'ed trim boards while Tim drove the tractor to my nephew's machine shop for a repair.
I felt strange and light headed. It just felt as if I was moving underwater.
I worked and felt like crying and I really had no idea why but by lunchtime, things were not better, and I was starting to feel nauseous.
So. It was not a productive day.
Tim has one of his trucks pulled out of the garage, and so it gives a wide open bay. I walked down to feed the cats. I do not feed them until they actually come to the dish, trying to force the 'taming' process. I sat down and called and called. Finally they came. First Possum. Then Tiger. Then Sigh (who has blue eyes) and finally Mini, the biggest cat who looks so like mama that I have trouble telling them apart. But sure enough, there was no heart shaped patch of fur, so it was the kitten.
They scampered around nervously, but they did eat while I sat back and watched and didn't seem too troubled by my presence.
We came home early in the afternoon, and I lay down and slept, The nap did me good, I think. I felt much better after I woke up.
It was a quiet night, and we went to bed early. I was awakened by screaming. The neighbors were going at it hammer and tongs. I couldn't hear him, but I could hear her. I could see him, sitting on the bed. It looked like he was folding clothes and packing. She was shouting "GO! Just GO!" (among other things). Their bedroom window is perhaps 20 feet from our bedroom window, and I felt like a peeping tom.
Tim went to the computer. I went back to bed and turned on my reading light and finished my book. "The Same as It Ever Was". It was a book that I identified with quite a lot. I can't say that I liked it, but it was real, and I understood it, from all the angles. There is nothing new under the sun.
Six hostages found in Gaza, dead.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Biden vows that Hamas will pay. I like Harris' take: Israel has the right to defend itself, but how it does so matters. She advocates for two states. It would solve the problem wouldn't it?
I read that fully one half of Ukraine has been destroyed at this point.
There is nothing new under the sun.
August is gone. September is here. The seasons change. The sun has seen all this before as well.
