Life is better...

 I did end up talking to Matt, my money guy, and he assured me things were ok in the money department, so I looked at the last two months of statements and overall, it was a little up.  A couple of bad months made me afraid to look.  And since then, it's been up a little more.  I'm feeling some relief, but I'm not giving any credit to Trump.  In fact, I would say it's up in spite of Trump and all the crazy shit he's doing.  

So money is ok.  And, PRAISE THE LORD, my neighbors moved last week!  You can't imagine how much relief that alone brings me!  They perpetuated a lot of angst in me.  I've been home (not working) the last 3 weeks because of excessive sleepiness.  When I was driving one day, I couldn't hardly keep my eyes open and actually opened my eyes one with the realization I had dozed of for a second.  That scared me!  So... time to figure out what's going on.  I went to the doc and she tested my thyroid.  That's ok.  And next Monday, I do a sleep study.  I don't think that's going to tell them anything - I sleep just fine.  I'm thinking maybe it's a virus, or maybe I had another bout of covid and didn't know it (I didn't the first two times), but maybe I was left with the extreme tiredness that so many people experience for a while, even months and months, afterward.  I think it's a little better, but I'm still finding it awfully easy to doze off if I'm just sitting.

A crazy few days... I've had the opportunity to use my generator THREE times in the last 36 hours or so!  Night before last, there was a windy rain that blew through and just as I was coming upstairs at 10:30, a transformer exploded about 50 feet from my house and off went the lights.  Of course, the generator kicked in after about 10 seconds.  It came back on about 5 hours later.  Then last night at about 8:30, I was downstairs watching TV, no wind, nothing and the lights blinked off.  On came the generator, and a little more than 2 hours later, just before I went back up to go to bed, it came back on.  Then last night, I woke up to rain hitting the west windows in my bedroom and a few minutes later, ka-blewy, transformer blew again!  It was off a couple hours again.  So a total of 9 hours in about 36 hours.  I'm feeling more and more like this was a good investment!

My Hoya kanyakumariana is blooming!  Last year was the very first time and I think it was just the one umbel I got.  Well, this year, I see all kinds of teeny-tiny peduncles!  The flowers are like a tiny version of carnosa flowers.  The whole umbel is about the size of a quarter:

Marco, my bud in Florida, nicknamed this one the "corn flake" Hoya for its wavy edges.  It's a perfectly descriptive name and a lot easier to say than its botanical name!  

This one is Hoya sp. aff. vitellina.  This is such an old plant and so rootbound, I really do need to just reboot it.  I'm going to take some cuttings and do that before fall.  I'm just waiting for some stuff to finish rooting in my two tubs.  Anyway, the flowers are really such an amazing butterscotch color, but unfortunately, they don't look nice and compact like many Hoya flowers:

And a most interesting phenomenon that happens now and then, more often with a few species like kerrii, is buds maturing as new young buds form behind  the soon-to-open buds:

This is Hoya parviflora.  This delicate little Hoya has long slender leaves that are slightly succulent and make a perfect hanging plant.  It did ok for me, but never really grew much and certainly never bloomed for some years.  A lovely lady from my cactus club passed away - she and her husband, Claude, were very active in the club and Claude was kind enough to give me some nice seashells they had collected over the years when he heard I enjoy growing small plants in shells.  I put parviflora in the shell I liked the best and (yes, literally) asked Carol Ann to watch over this little gem.  And boy, did it take off and thrive!  It started growing and looked absolutely perky!  Call it coincidence if you want, but I truly believe Carol Ann is bringing me this bit of joy through this plant!  Anyway, for the very first time in the 13 years I've had this, it was budding up!...

And the flower itself did not disappoint - it's every bit as special as the plant itself:

Tiny furry discs with a blush corolla and mauve edged corona.  And as near as I can tell, there are 32 individual flowers in the super-tiny umbel!  

Here is Hoya juannguoiana, a big-leaved Hoya that is quite a site to behold. The leaves start out rubbery and mature into super-succulent.  The markings are subtle, the consistency gives it real eye-appeal...

It has been pretty good about blooming:

They're very pretty flowers that remind me of the very stingy macrophylla - a skosh darker, but that same gradient look.  But once they reflex back, they aren't nearly as pretty:

I rebooted my old (VERY old!) H. pubicalyx 'Pink Silver' this spring.  Oh, how I hated throwing away that huge old plant, but it was looking tired and stressed, so it was time.  I took a bunch of cuttings and rooted them in some perlite (fast rooting, strong/healthy roots!) and plopped them in a good-sized EA pot.  And at last, they are starting to grow!  I found at least seven new growth points with tiny leaves starting!...

But uh-oh, aphids!  I have fought those little motherf*ckers all winter long, in my kitchen on a nice Dischidia ovata I have growing in the window.  Teeny-tiny ones.  I've been hitting every plant I find them on with a dose of tree and shrub that I usually use for mealybugs.  I hope it poisons it for these little assholes too!  They are a nuisance!  They go for the new growth and supposedly you can just hit them with a spray of water.  But I did this before I took the photo and there are still some of those little f*ckers still hanging on!  So I hit it with a spray of alcohol and added some of the T&S to the soil.  

Well, the sky is getting a little dark so I better batten the hatches before the next storm rolls in.  I didn't think we were supposed to get anything until tonight after dark, maybe even into the middle of the night.  But this time of year, when the atmosphere is unstable, a storm can pop up anytime.  So enough for today!

T-Rump

This was started in early June and left as a draft... I'll go ahead and "publish" and move on!

My BP has been high.  High to the point that my doc doubled my main BP med in early April, and then again last week.  I was taking a very low dose of Lisinopril, 5 mg., now I'm at 20.  Why?  I'm guessing the state of our government is a lot of it, but it's probably also the trouble I'm having with the neighbors, though that's been a bit better since I put in the stakes.  But with how Trump is ruining our country, I'm just terribly concerned about where we're headed.  These outrageous tariffs are going to stress the budgets of working class to the point of ruin.  Of course, Trump doesn't care - his mountain of money won't be much less because of it.  And when I hear him blathering along about... well, ANYthing!!... he sounds like he's totally lost it.  Doesn't his incoherence concern anyone else?  Doesn't anyone else feel like the man is losing it?  And he seems bent on taking away all of our basic liberties.  This whole thing with Harvard, NPR, this "big beautiful bill", and so many other things.  Is everyone so scared of this man that they can't stand up to him?

So I'm lying in bed early this morning, I mean EARLY, like 5 am... I've been scared to look at how badly all of this has affected my investment money and thinking I should go talk to Matt, my money guy.  I want to ask him, point blank, "Soooo, what do you think of that fucking prick Trump now?  Still think he's the guy for the job?"  He's another one of the smart and seemingly decent folks who has bowed at the Trump altar.  I know there are people out there who can not, under any circumstance, admit they are/were wrong.  And you have those who would never, ever vote for a Democrat, even if Satan was the Republican candidate.  But come on - can't these people see how he's tearing apart our country, trampling all over our constitution?  

Anyway, this line of thought led me to how this is affecting my friends who were living by the skin of their teeth before this all started.  One friend has relied on Medicaid - she has been having some health issues and thank God she's had it!  And that's probably going away, or at the very least being gutted to the point she's probably going to be royally screwed.  Another friend can barely afford her rent, and when one little thing goes wrong that costs her money, she desperately calls me to help out with her rent.  She owes me close to $1000 right now and I doubt I'll ever see it as I see things only getting worse.  But if I say "no", she'll probably be on the street.  She has 3 adult children, none of which are exactly financially stable... and no one else.  She's from Germany and what family is left is back there, and she hasn't even been in contact with them for years.  She's eligible to go on SS, but they tell her she's not an American citizen.  She came here in late 70's (her dad, who was never married to her German mother, was a serviceman at Offutt AFB) and she relinquished her citizenship to Germany.  It's unclear what it will take to get her on SS, but I'm sure it will require a lawyer for which she has no money, and I don't really care to foot that bill.  I can only hope that when her health starts to wane that one of her kids will take her in...

So I worry about friends whose lives could be devastated if this inflation continues, if services continue to be cut.  If one of them became homeless, I'd feel kind of obligated to take them in, but I SO don't want that!  I'm finally living a quiet, stress-free, peaceful existence and I have no desire to bring someone into my life who will cause drama.  And you know that being friends with someone does NOT mean you would be compatible when it comes to living together.  Boy oh boy do I know that!  I always said it would be a lot easier to love Mark if we'd had separate residences!  He turned me from a sweet, loveable and always kind person into a nagging shrew.  If we could have had a duplex, his side & mine, where he came over for dinner, maybe to hang out for some TV or some "jollies" then went home, before he could make a mess at MY place, I wouldn't have had so much resentment and pent up fury.  

Mark was one of those "old school" guys who thought housework and cooking is "women's work."  But he also wanted the financial benefit of having a "working wife."  I would ask him to help with this or that around the house, and his response would be "yeah, yeah...later!"  And "later" would never come.  I can probably count on two hands how many times he, for example, washed some dishes, or cleaned a toilet, or (heaven forbid) vacuumed a floor.  Yet he was really good at leaving his clothes on the floor (with a hamper a few feet away).  He liked to have a Mt. Dew after work.  Would he put the can in the trash?  No.  If I didn't do it, at the end of every week, there would be a dozen Dew cans by his chair.  Ashtray... he would only empty it if it was too full to use.  Bluntly, he was a pig!  I got so I didn't nag much - I just shut up and did what I could, which meant the house was messy most of my working life.  Because, god-damn it, I WAS TIRED TOO!  And those few times that he actually DID something were only because periodically, the "steam" would have to release and I would blow my top and become that crazy shrew that threatened him, "Get the fuck out!" or "I'm leaving!" or something that would make him realize that I'd gotten to the end of my rope and he'd better do something to appease me. The man was the laziest SOB and oh boy, he was all mine.  (Can you hear me gritting my teeth as I say that?)

So thank you dear husband - you managed to "fix" it so that I will never, ever consider letting another man in my life!  I will never take the chance of ending up with another lazy SOB that's looking for a "mommy" to take care of him!  And I guess my point was that I really don't want another roommate, period.

Since I went on a rant (who knew I could still have so much resentment after nearly 4 years!), I will now count my blessings.  My house is now relatively tidy most of the time and I SO appreciate it!  Life is pretty easy-breezy right now.  I have everything I want for the most part.  I continue to improve and upgrade the house, and that makes me feel good.  I try to have a plan for "the next thing" to have something to look forward to.  And work is still good - I enjoy my co-workers and the drives that get us out of the city.  And my friends bring joy to my life.  And that's my rampage of appreciation for today...

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That was a week ago.  We are now firmly into June - where does the time go? I've noticed many of the fields are not planted, yet usually are by now.  What's that about?  I have a theory, but I'll wait a bit to share it in case they fill in...

I'm waiting to leave for work.  I'm working the airport today and they've been hounding us to "go in at your regular time!"  Back when I started, we worked the airport 9:00 to 6:00, so that's how I've continued to do it.  But some of them go in uber-early, like 6 am, when they're just opening, and leave early.  I'm a 10 o'clocker, so since the call to "go in at your regular time", I've gotten there between 9:30 and 10:00 as I would at 9W (our main hub).  But Todd, our often chase driver, still comes in early with the excuse that "you have to be there early to get a gate card" and he leaves early.  He will likely get "a talking-to" eventually, maybe. He's such an otherwise great employee, they might be wise just to let it go.

I'll be leaving in a couple moments, but when I get back to it, I'd like to talk about Anne from our cactus club... Anne is probably one of our elderliest members - a Jewish lady that was a child who survived the holocaust.  She is a kleptomaniac. This has become abundantly clear when we have meetings at member's homes and she "helps herself" to plants and cuttings of plants.  She has ruined show-quality plants for Kathy by taking a "snippet" out of the middle.  One time, at another member's house, she attempted to take a nice Desert Rose by popping it out of the pot and into her bag!  A member who saw her do it asked her if she had permission to take that and when she said "no", she made her put it back.  We sent her a letter from the board telling her this was NOT acceptable behavior and that she was not allowed to bring her bag to member's homes anymore.  We were surprised when she showed up at the next meeting... we kind of assumed that she would be ashamed and not return, at least for awhile.  Well, this last weekend, we had the meeting at Kathy's house and she came in without anybody noticing that she brought her bag.  And off she went, stuffing it with "goodies" again.  Ken, Kathy's husband confronted her and said, "You're not supposed to be doing that!"  To which she replied, "I know."  We ended up sending her a letter telling her she's suspended from the club for the rest of the year.  We'll see how things go next year...