Reality Setting In

 On Monday this sign showed up on the property. A sign like that is never good news. I took a picture of it and went inside to call the number. 

A meeting was held on Thursday, after only four days of notice to the tenants of the property. A developer, who has no connection to the property asked the city planning commission for permission to tear down the apartments in order to build more student housing. There is almost no rental housing in this city that is not designated as student housing. But without allowing input by any of the tenants who attended the meeting, they decided on a 7-2 basis to give the permission. Mind you, the developer does not at this time own the property. Apparently the owners and the management partners of the property were as blindsided as the tenants were. 

But here is the down low. The apartments are very old and not in the best condition. The rents are the lowest in the city that isn't low-income subsidized housing. The land under the apartments is likely worth more than the complex itself.  Our eviction is pending. 

By law they have to give us 60 days notice and pay our moving expenses. But we still have to find affordable housing in a city where that doesn't exist. 

A tenants union has organized. I have my doubts that it will be effective against the mindset that poverty is a criminal offense. Those planning commissioners are up for re-election on Tuesday. We will see how that goes. I do not hold out hope.

The reality is that I will most likely need to move sooner rather than later. My lease is until the end of January. That means that they either have to extend my lease at the end of November, or let me know that they won't be extending it. Even if they extend my lease, with a letter they can cancel it at any time as long as I am give 60 days to vacate. I have not been looking for housing in this town. There are a few towns on the other side of the state line that are reasonably priced. It is about 40 miles from here. I have the income and credit score that renting elsewhere shouldn't be a problem. Or I could go north to the town where I was originally attempting to relocate when I came here. There are several apartment that are well within my reach. But they are farther away from my children. 

Having so much recent experience with moving I feel confident that I can pack everything in my apartment and be out in two weeks. I don't think moving, other than having to pay the expense of it upfront to be re-imbursed should be that much of a problem. But I just don't want to do it

My plan is to stay here until I am told that I must move. Then I will move to be out on the day they tell me is the last day I can be here. 

Damn! I am tired of having to start over because of other peoples stupidity.

Dumbty Trumpty

Another morning I wake up and pray "Please God, just let him have died during the night." Another morning I turn on the television news only to find out that Dumbty Trumpty is still on the wall....

Well Damn!

Long Sleep and Laundry

I turned the air conditioner down. I needed it a little cooler so that I could sleep. And I did sleep. I slept for sixteen hours.  When I woke up it was in the very early hours of the morning and I was starving. 

I should have made eggs. I have a very lot of them. But I really wanted spaghetti and I had some hamburger meat thawed out. So I made it and ate a good bit of it. While I was eating I marveled at how indulgent I have become. If my children had ever asked for spaghetti for breakfast, they would have been given a lecture on how busy mornings are and handed a glass of carnation instant breakfast and a piece of peanut butter toast. 

When the sun came up I went outside to see the morning and found out that even though the temperatures were still warm, there was a nice breeze. It felt pretty decent. I almost decided to take a walk, but there was a growing mountain of laundry that was crying to be washed. I decided to be responsible and wash the clothes. There were five loads and that didn't include the bedding that I will do on Monday. The laundry room is less busy on Mondays. 

On one of my trips to the laundry room, I met Shequan and offered her one of the cartons of eggs. I was so happy that she  took it. She seemed happy to get it. That is 18 eggs that I'm not going to have to worry about eating or going bad. 

After all the clothes were washed folded and put away I was exhausted. The heat had gotten to me again. I took a cool shower and decided to take a nap. I was shocked when I slept for another six and a half hours. I just don't do well with heat, even with air conditioning. 

When I got up I discovered a couple of packages at my door. They had been there all afternoon. One of them was a birthday present. My middle child sent me an Echo Show. It took me a minute to get it set up but only because I forgot my Alexa password. It turned out that I didn't really need it. I only needed to put in the code that was sent to my email. 

The other package held some charging cords and a new planter for my ginger plants. I replanted them this evening. I'm hoping that I haven't killed them by moving them, but if I did, I will just get another ginger root and try again. I am going to have to get a mat to go under the plant for when I water it. 

The temperature heated up after the coolness of the morning and hasn't let up since. Even in the middle of the night the temperature in in the mid 80's and the humidity is high. I keep hearing that next week the jet stream will move and a polar vortex will reach the deep south. They are saying that it will be the beginning of fall. I am so ready for it. 

Show of Vanity

I have my groceries delivered these days. It seems like such a novel service now, and almost indulgent. Until the last few years the service hasn't been available widely. 

When I was a child, my grandmother would have her groceries delivered as a way to show off her affluence. The neighbors would see that Mrs. Foreman has her groceries delivered and wish they were as well off as she was. She would only have items delivered that she could be sure of the quality, like canned goods, bags of flour and rice and Wonder Bread. But then she'd tie a silk scarf over her curlers and put on her sunglasses to go into the next town over to get meat and produce where she could choose the quality of it for herself. She claimed she preferred the butcher or the green grocer there. We all knew that it was all vanity with her.

For me, it's not a matter of wanting to appear to be rich. Without a car, I have no other means of getting my groceries, especially in the kind of hot weather we have had this summer. When the weather turns cooler, I can walk into town and shop at the grocery stores there. And I am sure I will enjoy doing that. But I am awfully glad that I live in an area where I can have my groceries delivered. 

The grocery store made a mistake when it fulfilled my order. I usually order two, eighteen count cartons of eggs. They sell them in bundles, but I don't order the bundles as the bottom carton usually has broken eggs in it. Instead I chose the single cartons and order two. The store delivered two of the bundles. I already had a partial carton of them, so now I have seven dozen eggs. I like eggs. I use a lot of them, They are a cheap source of protein, and very versatile... but seven dozen eggs is an awful lot for one person. When Jerome and Shequan get home from work today, I will see if they might like some free eggs. Otherwise, I will be eating a lot of egg salad in the coming week. 

I also had my birthday cake delivered with the groceries. It is waiting in the refrigerator with the abundance of eggs. I will enjoy it on Saturday after I get home from whatever outing I decide to treat myself with. The birthday cake and day out is my show of vanity.

Latch Key Kids

It's still hot. There is not relief in sight. The latch key kids made their own relief:

They got off the bus and headed straight for the pool. They dropped their backpacks and kicked off their shoes before jumping, fully dressed into the pool. 

That was over an hour ago. They are still there. Nobody has bothered them. Who can blame them?

Haphazard Gardening

I ordered a few rosemary plants when I first moved in. It was the dead of winter and nobody had them. When I was finally able to get a couple of plants, they died right away. It was disappointing to say the least. In early June I noticed that there were some really healthy plants in the kitchen garden at the coffee shop. I snapped off a couple of sprigs one morning while I was there. Probably not the right thing to do, but it didn't hurt the plants and nobody seemed to care. Rosemary takes a long time to root, several weeks. And when it does you have to wait until there are secondary roots before you plant them. I was finally able to plant them a few days ago. I'm hoping they will thrive. You can root rosemary, it's just not easy. 

I bought some avocados back in February. I have always been told the ones you get from the grocery store won't root, but I proved that theory wrong. I tried with four pits and all of them have produced a tree that is thriving. That really surprised me. I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with four avocado trees in a two bedroom apartment. 

I bought a bunch of green onions from the grocery store, but the ones that came in my delivery were already starting to wilt. I put them in a jar of water and they perked up. They perked up so much that they rooted within a couple of days. I've been eating from those onions since April. 

I had so much luck with the onions that when I had some leftover basil from a clamshell that I bought for a recipe, I decided to see what would happen if I put it in a jar. That was just a few weeks ago. I have even used some of what I've been growing for a salad when I friend came to visit. And it's thriving. I'm sure that I will eat a few more meals from it.

I had some ginger root that had started to put out eyes. Since I'd already had some success with the onions and basil, I wondered what would happen if I put it in a pot. To my surprise it has started to grow. Since I planted it without knowing much about it, I have asked Alexa about it. Turns out that ginger is pretty easy to grow, but I'm not doing it right. I'm going to have to replant it in a different shape pot. If I give it a few months I might not  have to buy ginger anymore. 

I have an ivy plant that I snapped off of a tree outside of the fence around a neighboring frat house. It's doing well, but I won't be eating it. And I have some mint that I've grown from seeds that I use in tea. And I have the caladium and a philodendron.  

My apartment garden is taking off. I have a tendency to collect plants. 

Hell is Burning

Another post complaining about the heat. But there is not much else going on. My air conditioner got turned up another notch to try to conserve my income while keeping my apartment livable. I am really appreciating my decision to purchase and hang thermal blackout curtains for the windows. It only takes pushing them open a hair to immediately feel the difference that they make.

The forecast had originally had a cool off starting on Friday. That has now dissipated, and we are expecting temperatures near 100 degrees with high humidity through the end of the month. I wish I could promise that I won't be bitching about the heat until then. 

I have decided that I will spring for an Uber on my birthday and  take myself somewhere that I can get out of my apartment for a few hours. I thought about going to a movie, but I can't find one that I really want to see. The only event that I'm really interested in is the Storytellers Festival in Tuskegee. But it is an outdoor event.   Maybe I will take the shuttle into Atlanta and go to the Aquarium and the Coca Cola museum. That will be a really expensive date though. Maybe I should just find a place where I can paint some pottery or something. 
 

Themes for Today: Food and Sadness...

So I went to the arts center this afternoon to see Spitfire Grill. For amateur theater, it was very good. But I was told by someone in the audience that this performance was by the amateur amateur theater. The university has another group that are the true amateur theater for the city. I really don't understand that. It was a great performance.

Afterward I came home and was feeling sorry for myself. Mostly it was because I had no one to go to the theater with me and I ended up talking to the arrogant nincompoop who decided the performance was second rate. But also because I would have liked to go downtown and enjoyed a hamburger with someone. But it was too hot to walk downtown and I had no one to join me. So I went home and made myself a cheeseburger and tater-tots and was watching Survivor when I got this text from Mollie: 

It made me cry. But I didn't want to tell her that I was feeling sorry for myself, so I just told her I was eating a cheeseburger and tater-tots while watching Survivor. She had no answer for that. 

Apparently watching people starve on television makes me hungry. The women in the group kept talking about chocolate...And of course, a lot of the focus of the show is food, or the lack thereof. So I kept thinking about the box of brownies that I have in the cupboard. I really don't need to bake them because in a few days I'm going to order myself a birthday cake, and that made me sad because I really don't have anyone here to share a pan of brownies or a birthday cake with. And being sad and hearing people talk about the chocolate they want to be eating kept me thinking about the brownies... until I made them...

I put some chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and pecans in them. They are really good. And I'm still watching Survivor...

Heatwave

It's as hot as Hell! I'm sure that everyone is sick and tired of listening to everyone else complain about the heat. It is after all the middle of August and supposed to be hot. But we are all complaining anyway because it is as hot as Hell! We have been under a heat advisory for the better part of a week, and it keeps getting extended. For now, we will be under it until Monday night. But I have no real hope that it will end then. In fact, looking at the forecast, it appears that it is only beginning then and will get worse for the better part of next week when it will be hotter than Hell. 

Heat has always made me sick. It is the one trigger for my heart condition that I am absolutely certain of. I have had cardiac events on at least four occasions that were triggered by it. So I am sitting inside my apartment hiding from it. I have had adjust the temperature on my air conditioner in order to avoid bankruptcy, I had a plan back in February to save money while the electricity bills were small to pay for the larger summer ones. But best laid plans often are often a source of divine derision. It's not really that I'm sweltering under my air conditioning, But my home is warmer than I like it to be. I would really like to see this heatwave move on out and let us start moving into the cooler weather of fall. 

I do this every year. I tire of the heat of summer long before it leaves and in February I will be searching the trees for the first signs of redbuds that will herald the beginning of spring. 

My birthday is next week. I was hoping that the temperatures would be below 90 degrees so I would feel like getting out of the apartment to celebrate. Right now, I don't think that's going to happen. 

Last year at this time I was blogging, complaining about the heat. It was hot then, it's hotter now. A month later I went to a reunion hoping to wear a white shirt and a red sweater that I bought for the event. It was nearly 90 degrees that day. I didn't wear the outfit. I thought I could wear it on Christmas. Christmas day was nearly 80 degrees in north Georgia. I wore the sweater anyway. It's the only time I have worn it. I bought a black sweater at the same time that I bought the red one. I have never worn it. I'm hoping that I will find occasions to wear them both this fall and winter. Maybe it will be a bit cooler. I can only hope.

Puzzled Again

 My friend De came to visit last week. It turns out that she likes to work puzzles. She worked the bee puzzle in a day and a half. I kind of helped a little. I'm nowhere near as good as she is at working them. But I didn't want to let it go feeling like it was an ability that I had let go to the wayside. The owl puzzle is nowhere near as difficult as the bee puzzle, and it took me twice as long to work it as it took my friend to work the bee puzzle. But I did manage to get it done. It helped me to think that maybe I'm not silently falling into dementia after all.

Today was my son's 47th birthday. It is his first with his new wife and family. I hope that he enjoyed the day. I tried calling a couple of times, but only got his voicemail. I and his siblings sent birthday messages on the family chat that he responded to. And I checked my Amazon account to find out that the gift I sent did actually arrive. 

I was going to spend the evening at the local theater for a performance of The Spitfire Grille, but it was thunder storming and I just didn't feel like getting out in it all. They will have performances tomorrow and on Sunday and I will attend one of them. So, I stayed home. I dusted and vacuumed the carpets and sprayed an anti-allergy air freshener. Not that my place was dirty, but I feel like if I stay on top of it, maybe I won't suffer from allergies so much this fall. 

I have been binge watching Survivor because Mollie said that she and Chris have been watching it. I watched the last five seasons and to be very honest, I just don't get it. I can't for the life of my understand why people agree to be placed on an island, starved and forced to perform meaningless exhausting and humiliating tasks and psychologically bullied for a chance for any sum of money. And the reality of it is that they probably won't get the money. Only one of them walks away with the prize. I have dealt with emotional and psychological abuse. The harm will outlast the money if they get it. I always judged the ancient Greeks and Romans for their love of blood sports. I looked down on the people who frequent rodeos and bull fights. But it seems that I am no better than them. The entertainment of movies and television shows seem to come at a harsh price for those who earn their living making them. 

Restricted Substances

I got a text yesterday from my son. He asked me what my mailing address is. I looked at the text and thought, umm...no. Not only did he have an apartment in this complex a few years ago, he is on the lease for my apartment. There is no way that he doesn't know the address here. So, I gave him a call to ask what was up. It turns out that he did send the text. He had just forgotten what my apartment number was and was somewhere that he couldn't look it up. He will be 47 soon. The brain fog is hitting him early. 

My grandson's medication is extraordinarily expensive and while it isn't the kind of medication that you can just order online from Canada. But it has made him learn how to game the system for other medications that he needs.  Georgia is a shitshow medically, and won't allow a lot of medications to be sent there. They don't want anyone to be able to cut Big Pharma, or the insurance industry out of the picture. But it is legal for the medications to be sent to Alabama. Like I said, he is on my lease, so it isn't like we are doing anything untoward. 

There is a big part of this situation that makes me frustrated. Why on earth do we all have to jump through hoops and play games to get the medical help that we need?  I have friends who live in Canada who are thinking about moving here and I have asked them why. In all the years that I have been alive I never thought it would come to this. But they are young and building their family. You can't get pregnant here. It is dangerous. You can't get sick here. It doesn't even have to be a major illness to bankrupt you. A bout of strep throat will cost you hundreds of dollars before your insurance company will even begin to pay for it. And here we are, the country that exports medications all over the world, and we have to devise schemes to be able to afford the ones that we need to take. It's all a bunch of crap. And sadly, nothing will ever be done about it. 

The only upside of this situation that I can see is that my son will have to come regularly to pick up his meds. And that is a plus for me. But Damn it! This shouldn't be this way.

Cleaning Woes

My friend De is coming to visit again today. My home is mostly clean. It always is, but I scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen floor anyway. Generally, if someone walked into my home, I wouldn't be ashamed about how it's kept. It isn't hard with just me cleaning up after myself. This apartment is set up in a way that doesn't frustrate my efforts. 

I have a pile of laundry that needs to be done, but the laundry room has been out of order since the weekend. I should have taken care of it before then, but who knew. I hope they get it fixed soon. I really don't want to have to put my clothes in my wagon and walk them into one of the laundries near the university, but that may be what needs to be done. I wonder if I could get an Uber to take me. 

Another Month Down

The end of July is here and my mood has gotten better thinking that soon summer will be over and the cooler weather of autumn will be with us. But of course, my mind still has PNW expectations. I am sure to be disappointed as summer in the south drags her heels into the dog days in September and refuses to leave until well into October. 

Now that I am an old lady and summer vacation from school no longer applies to me, I like fall much better than summer. I'm already looking forward to the leaves changing colors and the fall festivals. I might even buy myself a pumpkin or two to decorate my area of the porch.

I braced myself for a bout of depression after the wedding that has not materialized. I'm not counting that out quite yet. My kids have been active on our family chat, sending pictures of dogs and gardens and even pictures from the wedding. That has done a lot to buoy my mood. 

I'm not really impressed with the wedding pictures so far, but they aren't the ones from the photographer. Mainly from people standing behind her taking phone photos of  the poses she set up. I'm sure her pictures will be better. To be honest, I was quite shocked that people were doing that. I thought that it was quite rude as she is paid to take the pictures. They were pretty bold about it, not even trying to disguise the fact that they were doing it.  Maybe wedding etiquette has changed and I didn't get the memo. Anyway, here is one of the pictures that I have worked on a bit with an editor. 

Puzzled

Do you work puzzles? I used to always have one going somewhere in my house. I used to always have one going in my house when my kids were young. But over the years since they have left the nest, I have fallen out of the habit. I have a few that I bought and never worked. I finally opened one and got it started. I think that over those same years I lost the brain cells that had me successful in working them too. This one is a thousand pieces and is already a challenge for me.

Roller Coaster

I disappeared again. I'm sorry. It has been a bittersweet few weeks and it has kept me busy, and tired and achy.

A week ago Wednesday Tim and Emily closed on a house. It is a nice house. I am glad that they got it. On Thursday Tim and I spent a very long day packing his apartment getting ready for him to move. On Friday we went to Georgia for the wedding on Saturday. Jack and I came back on Sunday. On Tuesday, Tim and his new family, Emily and Nathan and I continued to pack the apartment. And on Thursday Tim and I along with two young men that Tim had mentored in Boy Scouts finished the colossal task of getting Tim packed into the moving van and the apartment closed out. I have come to the negative conclusion that I never want to go to another wedding and I never want to move again. 

On The Wedding: 

I have never really understood the need for the formal ceremony of weddings. It seems like a major cause of stress and a mammoth waste of money to me. I am sure that the practice began with families being pressured into showing off their worth by spending resources that would have been better reserved for daily living. Now little girls are brought up with the promise of a big day set aside to focus entirely and lavishly on her. Everyone, and I mean Everyone would be better off if people just signed the legal agreement and moved in with each other. This spending tens of thousands of dollars on a single day is Just Fucking Nuts!

There is only one hotel in the small town that the wedding was held in, and it is a basic Quality Inn, clean and comfortable; not luxury, but not bad either. It took Tim and Jack and I four hours to get there. Traffic was terrible and we were glad when we finally arrived. Mollie and Chris arrived about an hour after we did. The flight from Chicago was stressful and they had to drive through the same traffic jams that we did. After they arrived it was great. We all had dinner together and relaxed, enjoying the company. 

I woke up on Saturday morning to find that the refrigerator in my room had leaked during the night and a puddle had formed on the floor in front of it. I didn't think too much of it. Those things happen, but I knew that everyone would be in and out of the room  all morning and I didn't want anyone slipping on it, so I threw a towel over it to dry it up. We all had breakfast in the lobby and went back to our rooms to get dressed for the wedding. 

Everyone was gathering in my room to leave for the church together. Just before we were walking out the door, Ex arrived. He had driven all night from North Carolina and had not bothered to make a reservation at the hotel. Very, very typical for Ex, I was not at all surprised at his failure to plan ahead. But his shortsightedness had left him with no place to shower or change for the wedding. Since we were leaving I offered him to let him use my room. I had just gotten extra clean towels from housekeeping, so there was plenty. What happened next reminded me why I was glad that we are divorced. Instead of just saying thank you and accepting the hospitality, he pointed out that the refrigerator was leaking. And it wasn't just The refrigerator was leaking, it was Your refrigerator was leaking, as if my offer was less valuable because I had allowed the refrigerator to leak. I laughed it off, told him that the refrigerator belonged to the hotel and that I was taking no ownership of it whatsoever. Then I handed him one of the keys to the room and left, leaving him to decide if he wanted to accept the offer or find somewhere else to get ready for the wedding. 

I have been working with a counselor who has been helping me to understand the emotional abuse I have encountered during my life. I am almost embarrassed that it has taken me so long to recognize it. I understood the overt abuse in my relationship with Ex a long time ago; things like him refusing to leave work to take me to the hospital when I was in labor. But there was so much passive aggressive abuse that I never caught on to. And that abuse, subtle distain toward me allowed other people to treat me poorly also. I was rather shocked when I was confronted with it again over the refrigerator. And I had hoped that confronting a bully, even with kid gloves would be the warning shot that would let him know that the behavior wasn't allowed. It did not work with Ex. He wasn't openly abusive, it was more the annoyed pause when I asked a question, or the eye roll when I made an insider joke with my daughter. After getting home, I felt really bad about myself again, even though I had done nothing that was overly embarrassing. It took another session with my therapist to begin to understand the way Ex had undermined me. Sadly, I'm not even sure if he understood that he was doing it. Broken people break people. It's what they do, and in ways we are all broken.

On Moving:

I stayed with my son for eight months before moving into my apartment. I understood then the amount of things that he had crammed into the apartment that he was living in. But packing it all up and moving it has me with a whole new understanding of it. His home is kept clean and mostly organized, but I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to have more than I am actively using. And above all else, I never want to move again as long as I live. I hope that he and Emily will never decide to move again either. 

I spent all day yesterday resting and recovering from the past week. I also spent it contemplating the emotional roller coaster that I have been on. For now, I am happy to be alone with my thoughts. But I know that soon it will hit me that I am totally alone. I think I will take this one day at a time.

Passive Aggressive Tendencies

My neighbor made a comment that I was not intended to hear about all the white people moving in and "gentrifying the place". She made the comment after she had been told that her rent would be raised. And she made the comment not remembering that I have a doorbell that records what happens on the porch. (It is only activated when I am not at home and want to keep an eye on my door. I don't use it to spy on my neighbors.) The comment still bothers me. She spent the next week or so throwing cigarette butts and beer bottle caps around the shared porch. I finally got tired of it and went out to sweep the porch while she was outside talking on her phone. I didn't say anything to her, I just swept them up and walked them to the dumper. Later that afternoon I bought a plant to put outside my door. This is honestly as close to gentrification as I can go in a rented apartment. I can't upgrade the windows and replace the siding. But we don't need to toss trash around and make the place look like a slum. I must have made her feel bad because she has stopped her childish fit. I'm not generally passive aggressive on purpose, but sometimes it is the best course of action.

Another Early Morning Walk

The summer heat is on us. With highs in the mid to high 90's I have given up on walking any time after 8:00 am. But my brain and my body have conspired against my circadian rhythm to make sure that I am up at 5:00 before the sun has a chance to turn on the sauna. For the past week or so I have been up and walking. I really do like walking at that time of day. The only people who are out and about are a few regulars who like me, prefer to get their exercise before there is a danger of heat stroke. They have even started to greet me when we pass. That is one of the differences between the PNW and the Deep South. People here are so much friendlier. Saying hello to a stranger isn't considered creepy.

The flowers here seem to like the rain and humidity we have been having. For the longest time I was walking down streets that didn't seem to have flowers and now they are everywhere. Not like they are in the PNW. Here they are a product of landscaping, In the PNW poppies, lupines and primroses grew wild anywhere they could. The roadsides were full of them. In this Auburn, someone plants and tends them. But at least they are here.

 

Happy 4th

 Happy 4th.  The weather has blown up my plans. The city is using the University transit system to take people to the park where the festivities will be, and I had plans to use it. But man plans and God laughs. The heat will remain in the high 90's throughout the day, and we are expecting thunderstorms to begin in the evening. Oh well, I have hotdogs and hamburgers, watermelon and a cheesecake. I will stay home in my cool apartment and celebrate alone. 

Honestly, I am afraid to get back out in the heat. Even going out in the early morning hours to avoid the worst of it didn't keep me from getting heat sickness. It was only 78F when I was walking, but the humidity was in the low 90's. I have just never been able to handle he heat. 

I hope that the skies will be clear enough that I will be able to see some of the fireworks. If there are any frat boys still around, I'm sure they will be blowing up the neighborhood. 

Fifty years ago, I celebrated standing on the Hollywood Boulevard bridge in Hollywood Florida with people who barely will even talk to me now. The reason they don't want to is because I called them out on the Q-Anon garbage that they have been preaching from their pulpits and worshipping Drumpf as if he was Jesus himself. Sadly, I doubt there will be anything to celebrate in the next few years. Those same people are hell bent on destroying the country. 

Book Club and Good News

Well, the book club was a rout. The book was so good and I was looking forward to hearing what everyone else thought about it. I had good hopes for a lively discussion when I found out that the moderator is a literary professor from the university. But the questions she started with were basic to start with and there were a couple of women who dominated the conversation talking about anything other than the book. At one point one of them literally talked over me to talk about someone helping her tie her shoe in the grocery store. And more than half of the allotted time we had the room we were discussing what books we would like to read in the future. The book for July is Where Men Win Glory, and I'm not so sure that I am that interested in reading it. But I have already bought it and will give the book club another try. 

Next on the agenda for meeting friends is the Cookbook Club. They meet next week. Everyone picked a recipe from the Parks and Rec cookbook and will make a dish to share. I am making American Italian pasta salad. I was going to say that I at least will not be going expecting an intelligent discussion. But that isn't nice. Actually, most of the seniors in this community either have taught at the university or went there and stayed in the area. 

In happier news, Tim and Emily put an offer on a house, and it was accepted. They will close on July 20. Which means they will have to forego the honeymoon that they had planned as it would have them in Palm Beach when they need to be in NW Georgia. I suggested that they should consider the train ride between Denver and LA in the fall instead. Both of them were very interested in the idea. They will be busy for the foreseeable future moving and getting their new house in order. I guess I should start looking on gardening sites to see if I can find a couple of those hydrangeas.

Tales From the Insomniacs

I didn't really sleep on Sunday night. My sleeping schedule is backwards again. But not sleeping had me up at 5:00 when it got light outside. Once again it was in the mid 70's while I was walking, but the humidity was very high. It was nice to get one more walk in. But I'm afraid the heat dome is fully on us now, so at least for the next week or so, a daily walk may be difficult to get.    

Walking in this neighborhood takes me by several of the frat houses. One group of them is clearly owned by the same group, whether it's the University or a private owner. But they all are fairly new, similarly built and have beautiful landscaping surrounding them. They have gorgeous hydrangeas planted in the gardens. When Tim and Emily move into their new home, I hope I can find one like it to give to them to start off the gardens that I am sure that Emily will be planting. 

Speaking of the new home, they have found one that they have put an offer on. I hope that the offer is accepted without too much drama. It's a nice house. It has plenty of room for the to spread out in and a fenced yard for Emily's dog to run free in. It's well within their budget, so I think it will work out well for them. Of course it doesn't matter what I think. At this point it doesn't matter what Tim and Emily think; it matters what the current owners think of the offer Tim and Emily made.  So, fingers crossed. But wouldn't that yard look nice with a couple of those light pink hydrangeas in it?

After I got home from my walk, I finished reading West With Giraffes for the book club this afternoon. I hadn't expected to like the book as much as I did. It started off on a bad foot, for me. But it is a really good book. Surprisingly, one of the geographic locations in the story is an area that I spent quite a bit of my childhood in. The main road in the area is the Lee Highway. I lived a block or two off of it and never knew that it was called the Lee Highway. I also didn't know that the road started in DC and went all the way across the country. Surprisingly, the main character in the book has the same sentiment. The character grew up near the highway and was unaware of it's importance too. 

So according to the description of the book club, we are going to have a thoughtful discussion of the book. I am looking forward to having that discussion. But it is late, and I really am sleepy now. Maybe I will be able to get some sleep and be awake for the book club this afternoon.