Sundries, Heated to a Crisp

That's Bob standing next to a gigantic self-sown squash plant that is swallowing the compost pile. The leaves are like three feet across. We sure hope the squash itself is edible after all the energy expended in the prodigious growth!
I'm not going to post and re-post the pictures from the many days that the thermometer registered well over 90 degrees and frequently topping 100. The last two weeks... ay!!Suffice it to say that a day of mere mid-80 degree weather would feel cool and lovely. Don't expect any original thoughts until such time.

Another angle of that man-eating squash... Sus-Squash! It grows about four feet a day.
So I've been rendered stupid by the heat (and I know I have company!) and this blog posting will reflect that. I could continue to rebuke the current administration at every turn, (and they deserve active rebukes when you consider Federal troops being deployed the West Coast, the continuing surge of  COVID 19, rethuglican members of Congress refusing to extend increased unemployment compensation... the list goes on and on) but might sick up all over the keyboard. I will not even add more as steam will begin to billow from one ear and blood will trickle from the other one. (Although on a happier note, the ringing in my left ear that has persisted for a million years now is suddenly... GONE! Even if this is temporary and it returns, having a few days off is heaven!)
Oh and I bought a horse:

How's that for a non-sequitur?

My good friend Laurie (Hi Laurie!) bought me this inflatable horse last year for my birthday. I blew it up and installed it in my studio and promptly freaked Robin out; dogs can be very conservative! Bob observed that this particular horse is very well-behaved and low maintenance!
More on the actual horse in my next post! I am starting on that string of polo ponies I threatened to buy!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here I am, shilling for generic beans on my birthday but NOT in violation of any ethics clauses! You always suspected that Ivanka and I had plenty of things in common...
So, yes, it is my 64th birthday and thanks to Climate Change, it's almost impossible to consider doing anything besides hunkering down in the bedroom bunker with the air conditioning at full tilt. And thanks to COVID 19, I wouldn't want to venture out to a plague-infested restaurant anyway. Better to stay put in these times of strife!

Here's our un-retouched proof of the climate crisis: no wonder I'm melting!! Over 100 degrees and it's not even afternoon. I still recall Mommy telling the story of how Daddy tried to take her out to dinner while she/they were "expecting" me. Mommy told of how I was late (I didn't want to come out into this cruel world- I must have known how shoddily artists were treated!) and her ankles were so swollen she couldn't get her nice, strappy sandals on. She was pretty miserable; such a happy memory!
So happy birthday to me! Not all is awful as I've already had many nice wishes for best returns of the day and there's an evil, store bought birthday cake with, yes!, FROSTING!!

 And Bob's creating a magical garden gate for me and I bought a bunch of marked-down plants at a nursery the other day, and I've been to see the ponies recently so I can't complain.

(Yes, my lower leg should be further back but probably no one but me and my riding instructor would notice that!) That's Candy the Quarter Pony. See? I even get pony rides for my birthday. Now onto that cake and ice cream and party hats...

Driveway Moments

As many of you who have visited us (in the past, obviously. We no longer "visit", do we?) know, we have a long and treacherous driveway. Torturous, really.There I am above, attempting to not fall into one of the many( and very deep!) holes that decorated our driveway. As we share the driveway with our neighbors, we often shared thoughts as to how we needed to get together and fix it up.
Bob- and myself in a far more limited capacity- had wheel-barrowed many a stone to try and fill the larger holes but it was beyond our abilities. We had discussed getting a pick-up trucks worth of gravel and filling holes- or more radically- purchasing a dump trucks worth of gravel. (The cost is NOT in the gravel, but in the delivery.) We assumed we'd all get together and spend an afternoon spreading gravel (such fun!!) and split the cost. Our neighbors volunteered to call around for pricing...

Picture of "the old driveway" complete with central raised strip of grass.
Imagine our surprise when I was told by A + K (names hidden to protect the identities!) that they'd contacted a local company and the entire driveway was "being done"; and not just dropping a load of gravel, but leveling and scraping and pounding and packing. We contemplated the cost of such a lavish operation (initially considering maybe $200 each for the gravel) and expressed our concern.
"Not to worry!", exclaimed A + K; they were paying for the whole thing!!!
My goodness! Such good neighbors! I hate to consider what it cost... but they had wanted to (gasp) pave the driveway when they moved in, and I'm sure that was prohibitive. So this was a happy conclusion and they said how appreciative they'd been when Bob snow-blowed and weed-whacked the entire length of the driveway many times. Wow! There are nice people out there!

So one day, enormous equipment got dropped off. I don't know about you but I'm so super excited and thrilled by big equipment. (Like when we went to the gravel pit that time: see blog post from several years back when we made the terrace.) Oh boy! Early morning progress!

Lots of beep-beep-beep back up noises and huge dump trucks and piles and piles of gravel...

Nothing for scale, but these were BIG piles- heaps! Several men with shovels began dancing with a bulldozer type appliance and they spread it all out and then pounded the hell out of it. This took hours. I was in my studio- which is right off the driveway- and it felt like the house might cave in. That would have been an interesting side effect of getting that perfect driveway.

I think this is the thing that made the house shake. It was all very amazing. I couldn't help but wonder where our neighbor's two kids were, though. As a kid I would have been out there watching... better than t.v.! But maybe modern children are different.

Maybe this isn't the most dramatic picture, but it's lovely! Beautiful! No bone-jarring, frame-bending catastrophe to negotiate...  It's a pleasure to sail up and down the driveway now. If only we had somewhere to go; seeing as how the pandemic still rages and we're being stay-at-home conservative.

Patriotic Interlude

I had another theme/story in line for this posting. But then I realized that it's the Fourth of July and extreme times call for us patriotic artists to do our duty. Therefore, I shall rant and wax leftist on this Independence Day.
We forgot to get hotdogs so we will be dining on hot Italian sausages and baba ganoush this holiday. I think mixing things up and exploring the diversity of our American food heritage is a healthy way to celebrate the Fourth. And what more perfect way to wash down all this Internationalism than with (British Imperial) Gin and Tonics?
Oh, and the piece above? This is what The Orange Menace calls "never trump" republicans. And also the occasional (lucky) member of the press corps. Hahahahahaha! Human Scum? I got news for you: all the "human scum" we'll ever need resides in The White House! And very happy to report that this brand-new piece is in an exciting and important on-line exhibit! (*1)
So here we are, with 60+ % of Americans thinking the country is a mess- and a fine mess it is! A death toll over 125,000, Corona Virus, high unemployment (due to the COVID 19 pandemic), a racist xenophobe in the White House... the only bright spot is the rethuglicans cozy with The Orange Menace giving into the hoax and coming down with COVID 19. (Thank you Kimberly Guilfoyle!) And then we have the charming, newly-arrested Ghislaine Maxwell. Where do these people come from? Human Scum to be sure! For some reason (several hundred really big ones) she disgusts me even more that Jeffery Epstein; perhaps because she referred to the young women (girls!!) that she procured for Epstein as "nubiles". Yeeeeeech!! What kind of miscreants are these people? Of course everyone is placing bets on how Ghislaine commits "suicide"...
Oh please! I don't seem to have a single good thing to say; everything seems pretty messed up out there. But have a safe and healthy holiday! Don't attend any suspicious political rallies, especially ones thrown by science-denying, no mask-wearing, non-social distance-keeping thugs who've been sprayed odd colors. I think you know who I mean... Human Scum!!!!

(*1) https://sites.google.com/…/artistsreacttothepandemicge…/home
A wonderful show full of the work of amazing artist activists! Can only imagine what The Orange Menace thinks of artists like us!