Celebrate and...

 I've now been on my diet for 3 months - it will be 13 weeks this coming Wednesday.  Weight Watchers + Ozempic (for what is now true diabetes, but should also help with the weight loss...)  A couple weeks after I started dieting but before I went on Ozempic, I was at an appointment to see the nurse practitioner who specializes in hormone imbalance/metabolic issues and she weighed me - I had lost about 9 pounds in the first two weeks.  But I've dieted often enough (and known people who diet) to know that the first 10 lbs is usually water weight than comes off when you start eating better, so I didn't get too excited.  Two weeks later, I saw her again and I had lost a whopping one pound in that 14 days!  Oh boy... what a disappointment, but not exactly unanticipated.  Last time I tried WW (which was back in 2018), I don't think I ever got much past that first 10 pounds...

So I've been avoiding the scale.  I didn't want the disappointment of knowing all my hard work isn't netting much and I didn't want to give myself an excuse for giving up.  But I've been very good and very meticulous and mindful.  I've noticed little changes in the way clothes fit me, but nothing that screams WOW.  And as far as seeing any changes - nope!  But my mantra right now is "if I keep at it, sooner or later it's got to work."  

Today, a little mishap caused by my older cat, Pearl, when she fell and knocked over a cup of water I keep in the bathroom next to the vanity for the cats - water ended up under the vanity.  So I got out a towel and dragged the scale out from under the vanity to clean up the mess and when I was done, I thought "Well, it's out and maybe it's a sign that it's time to face the music..."  I held my breath and stepped on it - I'm down 26 lbs from my starting weight!  I was shocked.  It's incredible that I can't see or feel it other than a slight difference in how things are fitting - not that things are "loose", mind you, just different!  Well, that calculates out to 2 lbs a week, which I've always said was about the max I prefer to lose so that it comes off in a healthy way and so maybe my skin can spring back at least a little... I have a long way to go, but at least this gives me hope that I can do it.

Something I won't dwell on for too long - OMG my hip has been KILLING me!  Dr. Corey, my chiropractor, says it appears to be my psoas muscle is shortened and probably spasming.  So I'm trying to do some exercises I found on the internet that are oh-so-painful!  But you know what seems to help even more?  Something I learned from my spiritual guru, Abraham... "Act as if"... in other words, when I get up to walk, I DON'T allow myself to "gimp."  No matter how bad it hurts, walk as if there is no pain.  And if I can consciously do that, the pain is far less!  This came out of an observation that it doesn't bother me as much when I am at work.  I think when I'm home, I'm far too focused on it, which exacerbates it! 

Joe Dispenza tells his story of healing himself from severe spinal injuries with the power of his mind.  He was apparently badly injured in a biking accident and refused surgery that would leave him with permanent chronic pain and instead used his mind, focusing on the "feeling" of being healed and whole - in other words, you get what you focus on or think about.  If all you can see and feel is what IS, you will get more of what IS.  If you can see past what IS at what's possible, tricking your body into feeling what you want, that state of wholeness has to follow.   It's very "heady" stuff that essentially is about the power of the mind.  So it's what I'm trying to focus on.  Seeing myself fit.  Seeing myself pain-free.  Seeing myself with clarity and youth and energy.  

And before I "blog-off" (tee-hee), I wanted to show pics of a dish garden.  Every year for the last few, the DM cactus club has been having a field trip meeting at a very nice nursery in Norwalk called Bedwell's.  We create a dish garden, so I've got 3 now and I just brought the last one in today, snapped some pics as it looks really fabulous.  Here is the whole thing (closeups to follow)...

I couldn't get the top of the tallest plant in the photo, but here is the top with some detail.  This is Senecio crassissimus, commonly known as Vertical Leaf:

It's been out in full sun, thus the red edges.  It's one of the neatest of the Senecios IMO.  Next we have Sedum burrito, the smallest of the Burro's Tail type succulents...

When you have a pot full of this, hanging, it's quite impressive!  Next is Crassula spiralis 'Estangol'...

I'll keep my fingers crossed that it stays this compact through the winter, but it's not likely here.  And last one is Senecio jacobsenii...

A lot of people call this the cascading or hanging Jade, but it's not in the same genus.  It's another one that looks pretty impressive when grown hanging.  All are doing very well.  I will photograph another dish garden next time.

And fall begins?

 Well, we should be seeing some fall weather, but so far, it's been HOT.  Here it is, October 4th (the big "10-4") and it's almost 90 degrees and windy as hell.  But I guess today is the last of it... they're predicting the low 80's tomorrow, then possible storms tomorrow night brining in a cold front that will give us a fall-like high on Monday of the low to mid 60's.  YAY.  I'm tired of heat!  Tomorrow, I will make it a point to get the second east window shut in the greenhouse (I shut the other one a month or so ago when we got cold temps at night...)  Then, if the night temps really go down, I'll shut the south window.  Because the north window is easy to use, I then use that one to open and shut as the weather permits in fall and early spring. The other three are challenging to open and shut, so they get opened when night temps are above 45 and shut when night temps fall below 45.

Today was the last day we will be doing the farmer's market.  There are 2 more weeks of it, but I think it's going to be too cold early in the morning and I just don't care to be freezing my ass off out there!  So I will be giving the last of my "extras" to Michelle.  She runs a plant booth the first week of September at the Holy Cross festival.  I've been giving her plants for the festival for years, and this year I told her that early September is a little too early for me because I'm selling at the farmer's market that goes on for another month.  I asked her if it would be ok if I gave them to her after the festival, and she could winter them over until the next year.  She was fine with that, so now I can give her a lot more.  If she has the room, I think this will really benefit the festival, and it's a lot better for me!  But it's nice to have someone to send my "extras" to because I have trouble finding space for everything in the fall!

I have a lot of catching up to do with posting photos of my most outstanding plants this year.  I spent a lot of time blogging about (or should I say "bitching about") the things that were disrupting my life.  Neighbors, health things... So on to that more fun task!

The Hoya we used to call 'Dee's Big One', now called skinneriana, was one I got from a Florida plant friend quite a long time ago - maybe 20 years or more.  I grew it for a long, long time and when it didn't bloom for me, I got rid of it.  I got another one about 4 years ago in a trade.  It bloomed at long last!  A nice bloom, too...

I have no idea why it's happier than it was before, but I'm not complaining!  There was only the one bloom, but that's ok, too...

Recently, as I was watering plants, I found flowers on a Sinningia I got from Karin, my Plattsmouth plant pal from the cactus club.  This is one of those Sinningias that develops a caudex and it seems a little easier to grow than the fuzzy leaved one I've had in the past.  Here it is...

The leaves are highly textured on S. bullata, and you have to be careful not to let it get too dry or the leaf edges turn crispy.  I hope I can maintain it through the winter - you have to be cautious about giving too much water to caudex plants in the winter or the caudex can rot.  But I can always cut it all back in spring if I do end up with crispy leaves in the winter months...

I enjoyed the unusual flowers on two different weird plants recently.  First was Cynanchum marnieranum.  Many Cynanchums are strangely leafless plants with long hanging stems and are grown mostly for their weird flowers.  I've been reading about some that have leaves, and I think I'm going to go on a hunt for some of those to grow.  Anyway, here's the weird flower of marieranum...

And just so there's no doubt that I love weird, here are the flowers of Ceropegia ampliata...

The smaller one has yet to "open"...But the bigger one is about 2.5" long to give you an idea of the size.  Ceropegias are some of the most other-worldly flowers I've personally grown.  Everyone seems to know of the one they call string of hearts, C. wooddii.  A photo of its flowers:

This photo is from the web... I grow it, but I don't seem to have any of my own pics of the flowers, probably because it's so common and flowers so profusely that I haven't bothered... But I think everyone has grown this one at one time or the other.  Probably my favorite Ceropegia flower is C. radicans...

They call them "parachute" flowers and I think this one illustrates that name best of all!

My Haworthias came in looking like a million bucks this year!  Which proves, in my head, that you really can't get "too much" rain.  C&S folks would have you believe that too much rain will rot your plants, so you should cover them at a certain point.  I don't, never have, and at the end of a particularly rainy summer, they always look great!  Not that I haven't had losses due to rot.  It happens now and then.  If I kept plants soaked with tap water, they would surely rot. So there is definitely something different about rainwater. Whatever it is, the plants absolutely thrive in rainy summers!

So back to my Haworthias.  I'm going to how some photos - I have around 40 or 45 (36 according to my database, but there are several lumped into one species because I'm a sucker for every variant of that species!)  So here are the ones that really knock my socks off!...

First, here are some of the maughanii and truncata and hybrids of those two species that I can't pass up:

They hybridize these like crazy and 15 years ago, they would sell pups for a ridiculous price, some over $500!  The great thing about Haworthias is that they stay relatively small, they grow slowly and they're perfectly happy on a north, east or west window sill.  In habitat, they grow in shady spots, so they don't need lots of light to thrive.  There is nothing interesting about their flowers and they are all exactly the same - they shoot up a tall flower spike and little white flowers open along the top of the spike.  Many growers pull the flower stalks to force the plant to put it's energy into the plant itself rather than flowering.

Other Haworthia that are looking awesome... H. emelyae comptoniana:

H. reticulata v. hurlingii:

You can't tell from the photo that this is one of the tiny Haworthias - that pot is at most a 2.5" pot!  And we have H.pygmaea 'Love Heart':

H. cooperi - I grew this one for years but I think I lost mine in that bad hail storm a couple years ago, so I just got a new one:

A nicely variegated one - it didn't come with a name, but I think it's a form of H. cymbiformis:

One with a lost tag, but I'm pretty sure it's a form of H. emelyae, and maybe even another clone of emelyae comptoniana - there are a lot of them with slight differences:

This is a particularly interesting one... H. magnifica atrofusca.  The leaves grow in a less symetrical way than most Haworthias, but it's the pink tones that make it particularly beautiful!:

This MAY be a splendens hybrid:

And that's all I'm doing today.  My back is screaming at me so it's time to go ice!  More next time!

 

 

Reflection and other stuff...

 As I drive, which is what I do two days a week for Enterprise, I often find my mind wandering about, from "what do I need to get done this weekend" to "where did the time go?"... which leads to (mostly) fond past memories.

One that specifically came to mind a couple days ago was the amusing way I met a guy I dated very briefly in high school.  My parents divorced in the summer of 1984, which was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.  We ended up moving to Harlan, Iowa, which was about 50 miles from the farm where I grew up. We lived across the street from the city pool, so I spent a lot of time there that summer.  The house we rented went up for sale and within a couple months, we had to move and found another house right down the street.  Fall came and I started school, and one day I walked up to the pool just to get out of the house (teenager angst, I suppose!) and just sat on the bleachers, taking in the nice day and probably ruminating about teenage things.  (I was just a month or so short of 16...) There was a boy riding a bicycle around the gravel parking lot and after a while, a Mustang pulled in the parking lot and stopped.  The boy on the bike rode up to the car and I could hear him chatting with the guy in the car, though I couldn't hear the content of the conversation.

After a few minutes, the boy came over and got off his bike, came up the bleachers (I was sitting at the top) and said, "The guy in the car asked me to find out your name."  Cute, I thought... he must be shy.  I told the kid my name and he ran down, hopped back on his bike and rode over to the car.  A minute later, he rode back over and sat on his bike at the bottom of the bleachers and said, "He wanted me to ask what your real name is?"  I had no idea what he meant.  I just said, exasperated, "That IS my real name!"  And off he went to report back.

The Mustang pulled closer and the guy got out.  He was tall and cute with a mop of curly light brown hair, and he made his way up the bleachers and sat down next to me.  I don't remember exactly how he said it, but it was something like, "I'd really like to know your real name."  I just remember feeling really confused.

As it turned out, he had just broken up with a girl named "Denise".  They had been dating a long time, and everyone knew them as a couple, and he thought I was screwing with him when I told him my name.  I explained that I was new in town and I had no idea who this other "Denise" was (she was either one or two grades ahead of me...) and yes, it was my "real" name!

His name was Don and we started "dating", though I use that word very loosely since my mother never really allowed us to "go out".  He had graduated from HS that spring, so he was 3 years older than me and she kept a tight rein on our relationship.  He spent a lot of time at our house and we would ride around in his Mustang.  He was a great kisser - he told me he learned that from the "other Denise".  LOL!  

Well, it was a short-lived relationship.  I think as soon as the other Denise heard he was "dating", she set out to get him back.  And one day, probably 6 or 8 weeks into seeing him, he came by and I hopped in his car in the driveway.  He said she had left a mixed tape (remember those?) in his car with all these love songs and, well, he decided to give it another shot with her.  I was a little hurt, but I didn't show it and told him, "Sure, I understand."  And I gingerly got out of his car, waved "goodbye" and walked in the house, not looking sad, not looking back.  Of course, I spent a minute or so crying in my room, but in all honesty, I didn't have time to get really attached to him.  Of course, one always misses a cute boy, and we did have some fun.  He was into stock car races and even helped on a pit crew, and that was one place my mom would let us go, so I have some fond memories from that time.  

It feels like two lifetimes ago!  I have so many fun memories of that time.  We had grown up on a farm, living a very sheltered life, and I was discovering that life in town, having contact with more people, was far more interesting!  I had been in a very rural school where most of us were farm kids, and I only had a couple real friends.  Since I'd grown up with them, I had never really learned how to make friends and it was a little tough for me as I was somewhat shy.  But a girl named Tracey was kind enough to befriend me and kind of help me navigate the bigger school and introduced me to a few classmates.  Though we didn't really become buddies, Tracey was really instrumental in helping me adjust to the new environment and I was grateful.  She was more the studious academic type and I never really liked school.  So it really wasn't in the cards for us to be pals, but I found others that were more like me - just trying to get through to graduation and get on with life.

////////////////////

I started the above on 8/22 then got sidetracked.  Probably bringing in plants.  I usually start with the lower-light plants in late August, mostly Haworthias.  I've got most of them in now and need to start on another group, BUT...

Yesterday was Saturday and I was at the Farmer's Market.  I'd gotten my plants unloaded and was going back to the car to park it out across the road and I was distracted and didn't see the curb and took a dive into the parking lot.  Went down on my right arm and got a little "road rash", my right knee and skinned it good.  And I twisted my left foot.  A few people came and helped me up - it was so embarrassing.  Not so much the fall - that happens.  But at my weight and with my joint pain, I can't get up on my own without something (like a chair) in front of me, and it was embarrassing to have people have to help me up.  I said, "It's ok, I'm ok!", dusted myself off and moved my car.  Walked back to our table and arranged my plants and then sat down.  Once I sat down, I started to feel the pain in my foot and I knew pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to put much weight on that foot.  Karin, the friend that lives there in Plattsmouth, had her husband bring me a set of crutches.  At the end, they helped me load up (which isn't much, thankfully...) and I managed to get home and in the house.  Oh, did it hurt all day.  And it wasn't much better this morning.  I suppose it's going to take a few days to get better.  But I also have some back pain, which doesn't surprise me, and a spot on my right hand (thumb joint) that's tender.  I guess I'm lucky it wasn't worse...

But being alone, I can't stay off the foot.  I have to eat.  I have to use the bathroom.  But honestly, if Mark was here, he'd be doing his think the basement and I'd pretty much be on my own anyway, so in reality, it's probably not much different than if would have been 5 years ago.  But maybe at least he could have gone and gotten dinner so I didn't have to spend time putting something together to eat.  Well, at least peanut butter toast is eay!

A lot has happened in the last few weeks.  I've got a BP cuff setup that transmits my BP daily to my doctor.  I've been using that a few days.  I decided I need to do whatever it takes to lose weight to fix all that ails me.  I've apparently reached the A1C that makes me diabetic instead of pre-diabetic.  My joints hurt.  If I get enough weight off, it could potentially reverse the diabetes and, obviously, my joints would not hurt as much.  And my BP would probably come down.  So I've been back on WeightWatchers again.  And I went to a Nurse Practitioner down in Plattsmouth who specializes in hormone therapy.  (Merry & Rick go to her.)  She says with my metabolic issues, I could diet until the cows come home and I won't lose any weight!  So she convinced me to go on Ozempic, which she said is actually easier on the kidneys than the Metformin I've taken for several years.  So I'm on the low starter dose for a month - it's a once a week injection, which is why I avoided it for so long.  But the "needle" (I'm calling it the "pricker" 'cuz it sounds less scary!) is so tiny, I didn't even feel it.  I take my second dose tomorrow, which will be my first time doing it by myself.  I hope I don't forget a step!

So I'm hopefully on the road to a healthier me.  Not that I've ever considered myself "unhealthy", but it has been a disconcerting few months and I really want to get back to feeling good again.

Oh, and tonight, I go to the sleep clinic overnight and they fit me for a c-pap.  It was determined that I have "moderate" sleep apnea - I learned this in my pursuit to find out why I've felt so tired and lethargic.  Doc first tested my thyroid, then had me do a home sleep study.  I was shocked when they said I have sleep apnea.  And I dread the idea of having to wear one of those contraptions, but I've talked to a lot of people who use them and I have yet to have someone say they hate it.  Most say they can't live without it.  One guy I work with actually bought a small generator so he can still use it if the electricity goes off!  A cactus club friend said her husband was shocked the very first night at how well he slept - had no idea he wasn't sleeping well until he got it.  And I've read a lot about it and apparently a lot of issues can be traced back to sleep apnea, like lethargy, brain fog, early dementia.  I even read one study that says your face changes as your body starts getting better sleep - less bags under the eyes, skin tightens, color returns, skin looks less aged.  Apparently, oxygen levels drop way down and having mor oxygenated blood keeps us younger longer.  I'm all for that!

Last weekend was the Des Moines club's show & sale... well, actually, now we call it a "display" and sale, because it's not a judged show.  Members bring a few of their best plants and we have a display table for the public to ogle.  Then we had 2 vendors - one we get every year from Oklahoma, Chaos Cactus, and a local greenhouse/nursery, Bedwell's.  Chaos has a nice variety of not-so-common stuff.  Bedwell's is more of the common stuff, but they specialize in artistic and interesting dish gardens.  They plant in all kinds of interesting things like old shoes, a football, fancy serving dishes, hollowed out drift wood... things you would never think of often times.  Oh, one good one was an empty can of peas with one of the plants the string of pearls, which look like peas!  Cute.  And then club members sold plants as well, and we have a member who like to make weird pottery.  Very expensive weird pottery!  

I rented a car to drive over, but it turned out to be a shitty car. First, it wasn't a nice SUV like I wanted - it was a compact SUV.  I could deal with that, but then the cruise control wasn't working right.  I set it on 74 and it would fall back to 68 and go up to 77 - it drove me nuts, so when I came back Saturday, I turned it in and drove my own car on Sunday.  

Well, since I'm moving so slow, I should probably get started on my prep to go to the sleep study.  I need to be there by 8:00 - that's going to be a long, boring night.  I doubt I sleep much - it's why I don't travel.  I just don't feel comfortable when I get out of my environment.  Oh well, tomorrow is a holiday and I'll take a couple naps!  

And speaking of the holiday, it was Labor Day FOUR YEARS AGO that Mark died.  I can't hardly believe it's been that long!  Of course, Labor Day in 2021 was on the 6th.  That's the weird thing about losing someone on a holiday like this one, that falls on a different date each year.  You actually have TWO days that "feel" like the "death-iversary".  It's something I had never thought of until it happened to me...

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...

============================

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...

 That last one must have been from a month ago... I was having trouble getting any of the fence companies to come by or even call me back.  One made an appointment and then didn't show.  A second one made an appointment for 10 days later.  Well, in the meantime, I decided to have my lawn guys put in some of those cheap fence poles along the driveway and... voila, it stopped it!  Of course, they're still parking on the lawn, but they're going in over the curb.  YAY.  Between the posts and the labor, it cost me $120 to do this, but it's ugly.  The fence guy showed up and I decided since this is working, I'd put in a fence instead of a gate - 16' will cost me (sit down...) $1600!  $100/ft.  Is that crazy??  Sounds like it to me.  I could have saved some (about $300) if I went with chain link, but that's not pretty, so I went with this:

It's not actually iron - he says it's aluminum.  Imagine how much iron would be! Yikes!  Anyway, it'll stop this nonsense and look nice.  But it will take a couple months to get it installed.

But on a (hopefully) positive note, I emailed the property manager a couple days ago and asked him to please send someone over to mow the grass over there.  This is what I said...

"Can you please send someone to mow the lawn at 4204 Pacific?  (I think we both know they are not going to do it...)  It's now 1.5-2 feet tall in the back, and probably on the 42nd St. side (which I can't see...)  Of course, where he parks looks ok from my house - nothing to really mow there - but I imagine the other side with the tree needs it, too.

A neighbor was complaining to me about it and talking about calling the city.  I told her I'd see if you can't take care of it, because I know if that happens, it's the owner, not the renter, that gets that bill...  no consequence to the jerks that won't do what they're supposed to do!  (I'm so sorry you're stuck with these people as well...)"

His reply was "This may be the last nail required to close the lid on their lease."  Oh boy oh boy!  I sure hope he follows through because I am sick of these jerks. The view of their back yard from my GH is pitiful.  I'm not implying I have a perfect yard - it can get a little cluttered after a windy day of blowing things around.  But at least I keep it mowed and trimmed.  

On to other things.  Johnny Sortino's, a pizza joint that has been in Omaha for (I guess) 60 years, is closing this next week.  It makes me feel sad because it's the very first place Mark took me for dinner and was always one of our old staples.  And I've been trying to get over there for a last pizza and they haven't been answering the phone.  So today I drove over there with the intention of going in and waiting for a pizza to go and there was a line out the door and into the parking lot with nary a parking space.  It was 3:00!!  Well, I can't stand around that long with my hips/back/knees, so I turned around and came home.  I'm so bummed.  Their closing the 24th, so I'm hoping I can get over there on a weekday before that happens. They're closed tomorrow and Monday, so it'll have to happen Tues., Wed., or Thurs.  

I'm working on the cactus club newsletter early... Kathy, the prez, thinks I should get it out early to get RSVPs for the picnic... our June meeting is at her house and we do a potluck with the club buying chicken, so she needs to know how many plan to show.  She still has illusions that our club has more members than it really has.  I hear her talking to people about how we usually have "15-20 members show up to meetings."  NOT.  Our whole membership is about 19 - some of those are "family" memberships, but the spouses only show up to the Christmas party, so if we have 10 at meetings, we're doing good.

Anyway, my point of talking about the newsletter was to say that I have to come up with at least one article every month and it gets harder and harder to do that.  In the 18 years I've done this, I've written about every kind of plant I grow myself, so that last few years has been taking info from the internet about plants I'm not as familiar with.  I think it's about time someone else did this for awhile, but there's a snowball's chance in Hell of anyone else offering to do it.  It was about 5 years ago that Des Moines lost their editor and asked if we could do a "dual" newsletter "for a while" until they could get a member to take it over.  Well, that hasn't happened.  They're very grateful and complimentary, but it IS more work because I have to get info from 2 presidents, and I feel like it needs more content.  **SIGH**  I like that it gives me a creative outlet, but I don't want to get so I dread it every month.

My plants - there were losses due to my lack of enthusiasm over the winter.  But I'm trying not to have regrets.  I had too many over-sized plants that were making me feel a little smothered.  I'm going to take cuttings from my largest Crown of Thorns and sell the big ones before winter.  I don't want to be overflowing the GH.  I want to be selective about what I keep this fall.

I've got everything I plan to put outside out now.  Well, except the one Epiphyllum that bloomed recently.  Now that it's done, I'll put it out.  When I pulled it to go outside, out popped a big ol' bud that was facing the window on a bottom shelf.  I didn't want the drastic change of going outside to make it drop, so I left it to open, and here's what it looked like:

It's one I got from Dave Shorney, a member of the club who passed a few years ago.  It's Epiphyllum 'Raspberry Ribbon'.  So beautiful!  But now it can go outside.  

I've planted most of my pots with stuff this year.  I'm feeling a little more ambitious about the outdoor flowers this year, but whether that will last or not is questionable!  I actually spent about 10 minutes weeding in my Lily of the Valley patch this afternoon!  I wish I'd gotten a photo when they were blooming - I just love those tiny sweet flowers.  That patch of Lily of the Valley was here when we bought the house in 1987 and it's very thick this year.  I've planted other things in there over the years, so there's a couple nice Hostas.  But Columbine came and went and I see little signs of it but it doesn't do much.  Then right in fron't of the GH, I planted this...

I had to look it up - it's called variegated Ground Elder, and it says it's an invasive species.  It has filled in beautifully and is starting to get up into the Lily of the Valley, so I suppose I'll start digging it up when it spills over in there and I can always sell it at the Farmer's Market.  I just love it, though.  It's so lush.  I'm very fond of anything variegated.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And that was 9 days ago, and today is Memorial Day.  Update... the neighbor's managed to get my other neighbor's nephew to mow their lawn.  He was over mowing for Marcy and Terrance apparently approached him and offered to pay him to mow his yard, which was 2' tall in the back by then.  His mom came over and helped him.  They didn't do a great job, but it's at least whacked down.  We'll see if it was a one-time thing or if they come back to keep it decent.  I have no idea where that leaves Rick (the property manager) and his position on eviction.  I'm feeling less hopeful about that...

As for Sortino's, Sat. was their last day and I never did get over there to get a "last hurrah", a pizza at the very least.  Fri., I called 79 times and it was busy every single time but one, and that one time it rang about 30 times then on came a recording..."this business is not accepting calls, please try again later."  And when I drove by at about noon to hopefully order and pick up later, the line was clear around the building!  That business is a gold mine - after this crazy last month, they could probably sell it for a fortune!

Everything I put in pots is doing well.  I planted some Marigold seed in the grow bag in the corner out front and also put my biggest VooDoo Lily out there.  Well, the tip got damaged and I wasn't sure if it would grow, but it either continued to grow and you can't tell it was damaged, or it spit out a new tip.  So the slow process of that umbrella of foliage has started.  Maybe next year it will bloom for me.  But there are several baby Marigolds growing now, about 2.5 or 3" tall.  They will bring in that orange Mom loves so much...

Some photos...

I have two pots in front of my raised bed that sits under my picture window.  Right now, that raised bed is a mess.  All but one of my pygmy Barberry bushes have died.  And the one that's left looks like shit!  So right now, it's mostly a weed bed - I will have my lawn guys pull the weeds when they come by this week.  I have a new front window on order, and once it's installed, I will have that are landscaped with some new bushes, have it filled in with additional dirt and rock.  But back to this pot, the Sedum (which is species kamtschaticum) is one I put in another pot up in the raised bed.  Probably 5 years ago, I found this flat of mixed Sedums for $20 - it was a beautiful mix and I loved that look!  So I came home and put it in a big shallow pot I got from Kathy, one of my plant buds.  She says she gets these pots from her son who has a ranch out in west Nebraska.  (I think she said he gets something in them from the feed store...)  Anyway, eventually, this Sedum choked out the rest of them.  And then about 2 years ago, I moved some of it into this pot in front and it's been spreading ever since.  So I just put a Coleus in there with it.  I try to buy at least one Coleus every year.

This pot...

...sits next to the other one.  I know - I should remove the clover, but I love clover and will leave it until after it blooms.  I just looked it up to see what species are native to Nebraska and this one is Oxalis stricta.  It gets yellow blooms which are just lovely!  At one time, I tried to get more oxalis in my back yard and actually bought and scattered seed.  Either the grass chocked them out or they didn't have good germination.  Anyway, I put two nice flowering annuals in there that are both budding up.  I believe the dark one is a Dahlia.  The other might be African Daisy.  I didn't save the tags, so I'm going by Google's ID feature.

I won't show a photo of a pot out in my landscape by the GH - I put two different Begonias (tuberous types), one with red flowers and one with yellow.  Those big, rose-type flowers.  I'm going to wait until they're more settled in and have grown to post a photo.

Out back, I have a big pot on the patio that has chives that come back every year - about half the pot.  I planted some basil seeds in the other half of the pot.  Have they come up?  I thought they had but I looked closely - the leaves definitely didn't look right so I broke a couple off and they had no smell at all.  They were weeds so I pulled them.  There are some other tiny seedlings in the pot, but who knows if they're basil or just more weeds.  I suppose I'll just buy a plant and put it in there and if the seeds germinate, they'll just fill it in...

In the other pot I planted the second small Voodoo Lily (a different species) but there is no signs of it coming up yet.  It's been cold and wet, so maybe it's just not ready to grow until there's more heat.  I also planted these tiny (TINY) Sempervivums - the whole mother rosette is about the size of a dime at maturity.  It gets these tiny ball offsets all the way around and they come loose from the mother.  When the pot is full of the tiny rosettes, and the baby plants detach from the mother, the little "balls" roll down the pile of mature plants, looking for a place to root into the soil.  Karin (the friend who grows them) says they spread pretty fast and they are winter hardy.  I've also got some of my Drimiopsis bulbs in there, hoping they will get some size to them so I can sell a lot of them by summer's end.

Down by the fence, I have 5 grow bags I've tried growing veggies in.  This year, I'm just putting in pretty stuff.  I got some horsetail reed in one.  Another the Cardinal vine.  One has a native plant whose name escapes me, and it's doing kind of so-so.  And the other two need something in them.  I may try to find something perennial to put in those two.

I planted several things around the generator.  My only criteria was that it wouldn't get too tall, so I got a couple different species of Ajuga.  The rest were just eye-appealing plants.  I have somethiing called "Jacob's Ladder" that I got from Kathy a few years ago that I planted right next to the deck - they sure do fill in slow!  And there's an old Hosta there, too.  One of the plants I added is a SUPPOSEDLY winter hardy, a cool pure white Senecio.  

So, I feel like I've accomplished a lot this year and I'm hoping to keep everything watered so they get settled in and then come back next year looking fabulous!  It's all about patience when it comes to cultivating a nice landscape and I've never been as good at the "outside" gardening as I am on the stuff in the house!

Continuing driveway saga and more...

 The irritation continues and gets worse.  A couple weeks ago, the neighbor's only vehicle got stolen right off the street in front of Marcy's house.  At 7:30 that morning, I hear a raucous BANG-BANG-BANG on my front door.  I was still sleeping, or more or less dozing in my chair in my easy-going wake-up process... and came popping out of the chair, looking out the door and there was Terrance.  I cracked the storm door, in my jammies mind you, and said "what's up"?  He said, "Sorry for getting you up (at least he could tell!) but our vehicle is missing and I'm wondering if you saw anything overnight?"  I glanced over where it's usually parked (facing the wrong direction) and said, "No, I saw it there when I went to bed."  I wish I'd thought to say, "Did you check to see if it got towed for facing the wrong way?"

Anyway, he was wondering if I had cameras that might have caught the perpetrators, and I said I do have cameras but they face my door. A day or so later, they were out front and I asked if they'd heard anything about their vehicle and they said they found someone a few doors down that had a camera that caught someone pulling up in a light colored sedan and a few minutes later, both vehicles driving off.  Of course, no clarity on the license plate.  

Within several days, they show up with another vehicle I suppose they bought to replace the suburban - a chevy equinox, I believe.  It's kind of loud, like the muffler is going out, so I hear it every time they start the car.  And they went back to parking on the lawn and coming through my driveway.  Last Sunday, he knocked on my door and I came out.  "What's up?" He says, "I just want you to know I'm going to be parking in the yard again.  I'm afraid to leave it on the street since it was stolen out there."  I told him it didn't seem likely it would happen again since I've been here for 38 years and never heard of ANY of my neighbors ever having a vehicle stolen... unless of course he thought it may be someone he knew messing with him.  He told me they moved here from Spencer, Iowa and really don't know anyone...

I said, "Well, you DO know it's illegal to park on the yard, don't you?"  He shrugged and said, "The cops told me they really can't do anything about it."  I said, "Well, whatever, just don't use my driveway."  He said, "How am I supposed to get there?"  I said, "Over the curb, of course."  "I'm not gonna do that."  I said, "Dude, it's MY driveway, stay off it!  You don't have the right to damage MY driveway!"  Of course, he launched into that spiel about just driving over it for one second and how can that do damage.  I said, "OMG, didn't you read my email?"  He acknowledged he'd read it - I explained all of that in there - what a dunce!  "I said, "Oh, are you offering to help pay for the damage when it's time to fix it again?"  His moronic response was, "Are you going to help pay for the damage to my car from going over the curb?"  I said, "It's MY FUCKING DRIVEWAY and you do NOT have the right to use it!"  To which he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, I'm gonna."  And he walked away.

I'm surprised I didn't just explode and make a terrible mess all over my porch!  My BP was probably off the charts.  What a entitled fucking prick.  I came in and called the cops to see what I can do.  They suggested I call the mayor's hotline and report the parking on the yard, which will start a process of stopping the behavior.  I did that the next morning - they said first, they send them a notice to stop.  Then they ticket them.  After that, they tow them and will continue to do that until it stops.  And you can believe me that I will be calling every single time I see them on the lawn when it gets to that point!

And as if all of that isn't bad enough, it seems they have had more people move in with them.  Now there's some guy who comes and goes who has a pit bull that gets tied up in the back yard.  He drives a big old suburban like vehicle.  And there's a mini van, both of which are packed in the "driveway of death".  And now there's someone who drives a Jeep renegade staying there as well.  I have no idea how many people are living over there now, but I would say more than 4 adults and I have no idea how many kids...

Tomorrow, I'm going to call a fence company and see what it would take to have a gate put across my driveway.  Yes, it will be a HUGE pain in MY ass to have to open, exit, park, close and lock it and leave, and do the same thing in reverse when I come home.  But it will be so worth it to win this battle!  Today is Easter Sunday and he has come and gone at least a dozen times - I'm sure he's really fucking up that lawn royally as it's been raining all day.  I haven't been hearing back from the property manager and I'm pretty frustrated with him not helping.  With a little luck, maybe he's trying to evict them...

***************

And now it's Monday and I woke to the news that the Pope passed away overnight.  This is quite a shock after he was well enough to offer a blessing on Easter Sunday and make an appearance in the Pope-mobile.  Then he dies overnight, as if he was holding out for Easter.  I think this is evidence that we do have a hand in when we transition.  I think Mark's mom did the same thing - she was in the hospital, and it really didn't seem like it was that dire.  She had ALS and had fallen, but I honestly think she saw that fall as the beginning of the end and took it as an opportunity to "get out" before it got worse.  It was Dec. 19th, and we had the holiday party at our business that night and we went - I felt I should be there as one of the owners, and Mark said he would go as well since his mom had Bernie there with her.  We saw her the next day (which was Mark's birthday), but she had fallen unconscious... I don't remember what their explanation was, but I remember wondering if she would be going home...  We went back the next day and things were the same.  We spent some time there and stepped out for some lunch, but when we got back, she had passed.  I think she had held out to get past Mark's birthday (imagine having that memory every birthday for the rest of your life...) and waited until we weren't there.  

Anyway, I find it fascinating that he made it through what he perceived as the most significant religious day, then let go to join Jesus within hours.  WOW.  I am so happy for him to have made the transition, but terribly sad for the world losing such a good man.  He made the world a better place, defying the religious right who condemn people for being WHO they are.  It seemed like we were moving in the direction of tolerance, and then Trump and his cronies have pushed and pushed to exclude everyone who isn't what THEY perceive as "normal". I imagine the Pope had a lot of frustration at the backsliding of our country.  We can only hope they choose another progressive Pope!

I guess I didn't get back to this one or get it published last time, so I'll do it now so that I can start a new one...