Happiness is...

"President Trump is not happy about...."

"The Trump Campaign is not happy about...."

I wish I'd had a clicker and could have counted the number of times I've heard this, and I always say, "Do I give a flying frog if Trump is happy?" 

I'd be willing to guess that we never once heard that about Obama--or probably any President in history.  

But this guy--who has never displayed a glimmer of happiness on his rage-frozen face--rules by Daddy's Emotional State.  Who cares if he's happy?  We didn't sign up to be contestants on his show!

We're all dragged down for living for four years in the pathology of the Trump family.  If anything, it's giving me insight into what it must be like to live in a climate of emotional blackmail and lies.  

Happiness is....the Democrats beating him so roundly, so unquestionably, that there's nothing he (and Putin and White Supremacists and his base) can do to stay one minute past his expiration date. 

Thursday: Just go with it

For the first time since the pandemic started, Elena and I had a play date today.  For a few hours, in spite of masks, it was almost like the days before the virus.

I had been complaining about the terrible paint job a handyman did on my porch chairs and table--splotchy and drippy and streaked. He hadn't used a drop cloth so there were big blue patches on the stepping stones. I'd spent the morning using my new sander to try to get down to the wood.

With Elena's inspiration, we turned it around by going with the flow. 

At first, when she wanted to paint a blue heart on a green chair, I said, "Oh that chair's supposed to be all green."

"Well, now you'll have a heart on your bum," she said, proceeding to spray a blue heart on the seat.

Then she wanted to help sand the table her daddy had built for me 25 years ago.

Instead of painting it, we decided we liked the distressed look and left it that way--still way better than a badly painted table.

I went inside to get us drinks and came back to see that she'd decorated the stepping stones in blue and green and stenciling a heart with masking tape. 

                                         Watching Queer Eye while painting pumpkins.

So--today was a beautiful day!  This kid doesn't get uptight about much of anything--and she taught me to give up complaining and let it be. 

My sanded chairs and table, my green chair with a heart for my bum, and colorful stepping stones--these will always remind me of one of the best days of being with my spunky girl. 

 

Sanity

Everybody is insane, irrational, out-of-control, and totally annoying! 

(Everybody but you and me, we're fine.)

On Saturday I spilled a full canister of flour all over my kitchen floor.  My response may have veered right to the edge of insanity but I caught myself before crossing the line.  

I screamed at the flour, at the floor, and my friggin' ineptitude while employing the other F-word fourteen times at top volume to give the event the gravity it deserved. 

When I discovered that the last user of my vacuum cleaner had rendered the cord no longer retractable and had stored it without informing me of its malfunction, I quickly consulted The Southern Woman's Dictionary of Profane and Obscene Words Only To Be Used When Alone and combined them into compound and inventive multi-syllabic words, an impressive five-minutes' worth.  

(Of course, I didn't actually have time to take this little book off the shelf to consult it; I have it memorized for occasions such as these.) 

I ceased when it occurred to me that Jan and her family might be able to hear, and took it to the safe space of my insentient car.  (One sign of sanity is that you still care a little bit what others think of you--or so says the Owner's Manual of Sane People's Brains.)

In ordinary times, I'm not as much a cryer as some of my friends who are admirably able to produce copious tears.  I see that as a deficit in my emotional range, BTW, but have learned to live with it. 

In these extraordinary times, I cry (and scream)  over literal spilt milk--not to mention moments when the world or one of its inhabitants (most frequently a Trump or Trump-clone type) annoys the hell out of me. Or if someone hurts my feelings, gives me advice of any kind, disagrees with me, or displays his or her own insanity. What keeps me sane is that these crying jags do eventually end and then I feel better. 

I have been known (to myself only since no one else is ever here) to scream invectives at the TV whenever I see the tax-evading, lying president taking advantage of bad old science when it serves him well and willingly boarding the military helicopters at his disposal (without irony) a week after calling those who serve in the military losers and suckers. 

Yesterday I got an email from a designer dog breeder (whose pups cost $6500 plus $500 nanny delivery service) to inform me that she had a litter ready to adopt.  I hate to even concern myself with business while I am praying fervently for "our President and our First Lady...."

I won't tell you what I wrote in response because you'd no longer consider me a nice person and would be justified in calling me a bitch.  

(The Southern Woman's Dictionary of Profane Etc. does include a footnote on page 42 that such words are permissible during pandemics and other national, political, and personal emergencies.) 

2 Things I Learned Today

          1. 

I mailed my ballot on Friday, though I'd thought I might vote in person.  Freda informed me that you "Track your Ballot" by going to the Bexar County site.  Which I did--and the ballot has safely arrived. 

          2.

I've never been very good at spray painting, so I hired Pedro to paint a couple of old chairs for me.  Turned out I could have done a marginally better job myself.  (AND I'd have put down a drop cloth so that the ground wouldn't have a big blue patch on it.) 

So I went to my favorite hardware store on McCullough, and my new pal, the graffiti artist, told me what to do:

Go to Jerry's Art O-Rama and buy yourself the kind of spray paint graffiti artists use and a nozzle called Big Shot.  He demonstrated how to do it a portion of the chair at a time, easy peasy, and to dry each portion a minute with a hair dryer before proceeding to the next part.  With these paints and the wide nozzle, and because they have more pressure than standard spray paints, you don't need to warm the bottom of the can in the hot water before spraying--which, actually, I didn't know you were supposed to do.

On the day before you paint, leave the chairs out in the hot sun all day so that the not-so-good paint can cure before applying the new paint. 

I've been to Jerry's countless times but never even noticed the section with spray paints used by graffiti artists and muralists.  I will go there tomorrow and buy myself a couple of cans.  (Two cans of this paint equals 6 cans of Krylon.) 

      

Two Giants and a Peanut

 

Sunday

My weekend retreat is going so well.  I'm sleeping in the casita on the Murphy bed, was awake and working on my project from 2 to 4.  

I'm decoupaging my gel print circles on a cabinet where I store art supplies.  At first, I didn't think I was going to like it and thought I'd paint over that side of the cabinet, but instead I just kept going and I like it a lot.  Two more sides to go--which will be my Sunday project. 

The weather is perfect for whatever we want to do this morning.  I should walk.  I'm going to glue instead.

Hope you're all doing whatever makes you happy today!

Alnernate puppy choice--from Nellie

 https://homefashtly.net/products/lu

Day's Traveling Companion

 

October 2

 

We don't have these yet--but we have an amazing moon!

October is here

I would like to tell you....

That while some among us are gaining weight and watching too many movies, I'm out in the fresh air walking and occasionally running, three or four miles a day, before coming home and making fresh organic salads for lunch.  That I'm calm and centered and conflict free, balanced and beautiful, and doing Buddhist meditation each morning (before my walk, of course.) That I feel energetic and productive every single day.  

But I've never been very good at fiction writing.