well, I'm happy to report that I'm in a much better mood... I think it's primarily because the heat wave has broke.  On Sunday, it topped out at 95 degrees.  And it was a relief, let me tell you... I know, 95 a relief?  How sick is that? 

Regardless, Monday was mid-80's... and Monday night it got down to 59.  I actually was a little bit chilly when I got up.  And it felt WONDERFUL. 

Today, Tuesday, high 80's... and I'm feeling just fine. 

Now... about that last post... afraid I didn't come off too well in that... Sorry... not perfect... You will be glad to know that church guy and I are just fine.  He's back on his meds.  I read my scriptures in church.  Everybody survived... actually I went over and stayed with above-mentioned church guy over the weekend.  It's not that I'm a self-centered, foul tempered uncaring person... well, a little, but I was having my own issues that particular day. 

In preparation of my move, the large, hard to handle cactus are gradually being distributed among various plant sitters.  That way, there won't be a mad rush to move several hundred pounds of well armed botanica all at once. 

Hildy is blooming for her host.  She always was an accomidating house guest, and I may have a bit of a problem getting ole Hildy back...

I have not had a good day. 

A flea market day at the end of the month is rarely much fun... add in that everybody has been spending all their money on school supplies, and the heat is sapping whatever energy everyone has left, and it just doesn't add up to huge sales... but still, we were busy in a very strange way...

It started when one of the local 'homes' stopped by with a busload of people that are 'challenged'

They bought a few things.  And paid for them with an astounding collection of pennies, nickels, dimes and the occasional quarter.  And some of that change was... sticky...  lets just say that the hand sanitizer was very popular today... 

And while this was happening, a church guy has been having a battle with depression issues, which I'm afraid to say I strongly suspect are more about his sense of drama than any real issue I can see... and after about the 4th text telling me about his total inability to sleep the night before, I responded that I was perfectly willing to cure his insomnia by knocking him out cold with the nearest heavy object.  (I can be very warm and nurturing at times... with proper warning, When I'm not driven to distraction.  And provided you're a cactus and not a full grown person who has stopped taking their medication.)     

And of course, about 20 minutes after that, I recieved notice that the church would very much like it if I would read the Biblical Scripture during church service.  Now, those of you who remember the Archangel Gabriel moment, may remember that these things always seem to be thrust upon me when I have just said or done something that is most vehemently Not Christian... and threatening to knock someone unconscious would probably qualify for that.    

And to top it all off... Little Bit... which is what we call one of our regular customers behind her back, came in at exactly 15 minutes to close, and began her favorite tactic of placing items priced at 10 dollars on the counter and announcing she was only paying two dollars.  It hasn't worked at any time in the last 2 years, but she keeps trying.  Gotta admire her persistance, God love her. 

She invariably pays the marked price... eventually... and I was 30 minutes late getting out of there. 

I have one nerve left, and I would strongly advise anyone out there to STAY OFF OF IT.

Last night... a small miracle occured...

It was all very confusing... I walked out of he house this morning and the first thing I noticed is that it didn't seem quite bright enough outside.  And it wasn't as hot as usual...

then, I felt something on top of my head.  A little cold spot suddently appeared... then another and another... on my head, my shoulders, my back... I looked up and something hit me in the eye...  not unpleasantly mind you, but still, it was jarring...

turned out to be... WATER. 

What is this?  Is my neighbors sprinkler system being a little overzealous?  No, water is coming down everywhere... terrified I ran into the house and turned on the TV...

Turns out that this mysterious phenomenon is called 'rain'

seriously folks... rain for the first time in well over a month feels miraculous.  And you have no idea how good 85 degrees feels when it's been in the mid hundreds for weeks on end.  It lifts your soul not to be oppressed by the very air that you're trying to breath.

so yep... it actually hit 110 degrees in the Dallas Ft.Worth Metroplex today... unfortunately I missed this great historic event as I was driving up to McAlistar Oklahoma... where, at 3 PM it was a mere 107... HAH... I laugh at 107...   WIMPS.

Raced back to Ft. Worth, because I'd been invited to dinner at one of the church guys house.  

Now, this particular church guy has these dinners almost weekly.  I enjoy the company.  I enjoy the food... usually, but we'll get to that...   I don't enjoy the wine. 

He invariably serves chardonay. 

I hate and despise anything chardonay.  Now yes... I will admit that there are very subtle nuances to it's flavor... sometimes its a hint of kerosene.  Sometimes it's turpentine... on one very memorable occasion, I would have sworn that someone had poured a glass of chilled vintage gasoline.  But, according to my tastebuds... it's all distinctly oily and petroleum based.  It doesn't taste like anything that should be in my mouth.  

I have tried every subtle way of letting this be known.  I have had loud, easily overheard conversations obout the lack of merit of chardonay... I have taken one sip, sat the glass on the table and drank water for the rest of the meal.  I have even, three weeks ago, brought a fairly espensive bottle of wine along... that is still sitting on that mans kitchen counter...

Tonight, as I was speeding towards Ft. Worth and dinner, I made a quick call from the road saying that I'd be about 15 minutes late.  I texted another guy that was going to be there and said I'd see him there but I was running late. 

I get there... only 10 minutes late actually, go to the table, and commence to dig in.  Or try to.  What's this? 

"It's Moroccan Chicken..."

"There's chicken?"

Then the guy who I had texted said... "Oh, well we figured you weren't coming, so I ate it"

"I said I was gonna be late..."

"We didn't think you'd make it back from Oklahoma this quick."

"I drive places quickly for a living." 

Blank stares all around.

Finally, after a little digging, half of a chicken thigh was located.  There were also four chunks of potato and some carrots with what appeared to be onion gravy on them. 

I was offered cous cous which I declined.  I've eaten a lot of cous cous in my life, but I have to admit I've never tasted any of it.  Evidently, the tastebuds that taste petroleum in the chardonay also refuse to acknowledge the mere existence of cous cous.  I also didn't eat the pita bread, but that's because I'm not a bread eater.  We didn't have one of those families that had bread on the table at every meal.  Actually, it was rare.  I evidently just don't have the habit of it.

And then, of course, the inevitable glass of chardonay.  I'm afraid that after the polite sip, setting the glass down was a bit of a thud, followed by a lunge for the water glass tho... this glass was distinctly on the chilled gasoline list.

Anyway... excused myself as soon as possible and headed to the nearest fried chicken joint.  It may not be "Moroccan" but it's damned good. 

I had a few drinks and I think I woke up in hell...

No, really...

Today the weather man was predicting 106, but the temp officially reacged 107 degrees, and the thermometer in my back yard read 113.  We're not even going to talk about the heat index.  Tomorrow... they're predicting 110.  Please God help us all...

Now, I know what some of you are thinking... you live in Texas... what are you griping about.  Trust me, these temps are record breaking.   The usual case is a few days hitting a hundred in July... we've now had aproximately 30 days solid of it... and there's no summer storms.   There hasn't even been a heavy dew.  There are big burned patches by all the highways.  Even the cactus are suffering, many look like half inflated balloons, and no amount of watering seems to be helping. 

Yesterday, I washed a pair of jeans, put them on a hanger, and hung them from the eaves of my house.  They were dry in 15 minutes and I'll swear to it in court on a stack of bibles. 

I'm pulling every trick I know to keep cool and hydrated, but I think I may be losing the battle... 

Everyday, I pack a little cooler with frozen bottles of water and bottles of fruit juice.  Juice is better for you than those sports aides which are full of corn syrup.  And they taste better.  (Quite frankly, I can't choke Gatorade down.)  And if you buy the fruit juice in big bottles or in frozen concentrates, then refill bottles at home, it's much cheaper, and you're saving the landfills from all those hideous single serving bottles.

I also take frest fruit of somekind.  A banana is good... most fruit juices don't have the potasium that you need when you're that hot, and a banana can replenish you.  Sometimes, I take cherry tomatoes... I can eat them like grapes and they're a great potasium source too. 

I also take peppermints.  Those little startlight mints actually make you feel a bit cooler.  Of course, Altoids can give you a cold jolt!  Some people almost find it painful! 

I also pack a plastic bag with 3 or 4 wet bandanas in there... if you get too hot you wrap a wet bandana around your neck and you feel much better.  Lately, I've been putting a capful of rubbing alcohol in the bag with them... it helps.  I also keep hand sanitizer in the truck... it's rubbing alcohol too... NowI know... they say putting rubbing alcohol on your skin will dry it out.  Listen, I'm sweating faster than I can drink sometimes, my skin is consequently extremely oily.  If it was 70 degrees... I'd worry about drying my skin out.  It's bloody 106 already! 

Every day when I come home, I take a special cool bath... now, this is gonna sound strange, but I'll explain it... Three or four inches of cool water with two capfuls of mouthwash in it.

here's the thing... the blue mouthwashes, like Scope, (although I tend to buy the store brands that are identical but cheaper) contain Eucalyptol, Menthol, Methyl salicylate and Thymol, in addition to alcohol.  Eucalyptol and Menthol are both great for cooling down the skin, and these ingredients are all stong antiseptics.  What most of us smell like when we're skanky sweaty isn't our sweat, but the bacteria growing on our bodies and feeding on the sweat... now, I don't claim to smell like a rose, but I don't smell as bad as I used to.  No, you're not going to sanitize yourself, everything is diluted in all that water,  and it probably isn't advisable to sanitize yourself, but you will seriously keep it under control, and when you're sweating buckets, that's neccesary. 

Then I do a quick rinse, again cool water...  quite frankly when it's this hot outside, the water that comes out of the tap marked cold.... ain't cold... but again, hot showers actually promote bacteria growth, and quite frankly you're sweating when you go in and with a hot shower, you're sweating when you get out. 

And... a cool shower actually feels good.  I know, there's all sorts of jokes about cold showers, but it ain't any colder than jumping in a swimming pool. 

And now... that's more information than any of you needed to know about my grooming habits.  LOL

a random post about nothing at all...

you ever had one of those days when living in a cardboard box under the highway actually sounded like it might be a good idea? 

I mean, I always assumed that the homeless were under the overpass because they had no other options... It's starting to dawn on me that at least a few of them may be under there because they needed to get away from this batshit crazy world we live in.  

Well, I had that feeling today.  For a few minutes at least.  Then it dawned on me... I couldn't live in a cardboard box.  I'd have to have plywood.  Which entails finding some plywood, some 2 by 4's and some nails... and then it all started to look like an actual project, and I have to many projects already, so there we are.

we're on the 28th day straight of over 100 degrees outside, with absolutely no rain, and that's probably got a lot to do with my grumpiness.  Because, somehow, even with no rain, we're still getting high humidity.  Don't know where it's coming from.  There is a tropical disturbance on the coast, that might give us some relief when it makes landfall... the church guys are praying for it.  I don't quite know how I feel about praying up a tropical storm over Corpus Christi... but on the other hand the beach bums should be prepared for hurricanes so they're on their own. 

Now, this is a blog about gardening, right? 

Got nothing. 

How about a cut rate decorating tip... go to your local thrift store and get cheap florist vases that are either colored or painted glass... gather them in a group in the middle of a table, put a tea light in each, and they suddenly turn into really cool 'lanterns'   They're deep enough to protect the flame if you put them outside for garden parties too... not that there's any garden parties happening in this heat

sunflowers in the morning....

So... I know it's not the prettiest pic around, but I've found, as I've gotten older that pretty doesn't always matter to me anymore.  I really really like these wild sunflowers... 

I don't know for sure how they origionally seeded in my yard, but these are the wild variety of sunflower that grows in fields throughout Texas... not so much in cow pastures, as cattle seem to delight in the seedlings in the spring. 

Usually, In the spring, I have hundreds of these seedlings along a wooden fence and I fastidiously clean them out to one or two plants.  This year, I got delayed, and they were 3 to 4 feet tall before I got to them.  A few got crowded out naturally, but the rest came up and were blooming before I even had a chance to think about thinning them, and the flowers were so cheerful perched above the velvety green leaves

 that I left them thinking they weren't doing any harm. 

Now they're going to seed, the leaves are browning, and they're decidedly ugly, weedy looking things anywhere from 4 to 8 feet tall... and I would definitely be out there with machete in hand if it weren't for one thing...

Every morning, I sit and watch cardinals, song sparrows, purple finches (they call them purple, the males have a raspberry red head and a decent little chirping song) and the mourning doves come and have their breakfast.  I've even seen house wrens and mockingbirds come down and search out insects, and particularly the ants that seem to colonize the stems.  It's really quite fascinating to watch them. 

I used to put out bird seed.  But the Grackles and English Sparrows would attack the feeders.  These two species don't seem to be bothering my sunflowers. 

So yes, the sunflowers, at this particular stage of their life, look ugly and weedy.  But I'm leaving them.  I enjoy them too much...

Cactus flowers...

finally... something plant related!

and a cactus plant at that... although, it is one of my old faves... and by checking my stats... I can also see that it's one of the most popular posts I' ve ever made too....

Hildy... aka Cereus hidmannianus... will be opening her blooms tonight... 

and I still haven't got a camera.  will have to see what we can do with a porch light, a flashlight and a cell phone... but we're gonna give it the ole college try...

WORE OUT

I swear, there are times when I go to work just to get some relaxation! 

Of course, as soon as I swore to myself that I was going to get back to blogging more, and had even gone so far as to make a separate blog for my devotionals... (see last post)  the blasted modem on my computer decided to develop schizophrenia.  It would connect, then it would disconnect, then it would connect again... basically flipping on and off like a demented strobe.  Quite maddening. 

I was really looking forward to the July 4th weekend... I had been invited to a party for the fourth that promised to be fun, and it's traditionally a good weekend at the flea market... I dared to hope for a little fun. 

Then a friends father passed away. 

The funeral would be on Sunday... they had the choice of Sunday or Independence Day... if they wanted anybody to show up, it had to be Sunday.  It was also in a small town in east Texas, about a hundred miles away. 

Now, this particular friend, his wife and his daughters had been a huge support for me when my Mother passed, and there was no way in hell that I was not gonna be there for them.

It was not the most pleasant experience, well, it WAS a funeral, but it was definitely an interesting one in a kind of lugubrious way, and I'm actually working on writing it up into a short story, so I'm not going to go into great detail now... but I will say this.

I have mourned among the rednecks.  And then, I ate catfish...

The Saturday before was pretty standard at the flea market... only a few minor squabbles.

The party with the church guys was more fun than most people would probably think... I mean... for most of us, myself included, a room full of Christians is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think party, but we're a fun group.  And when one of said Christians if trying to figure out the best way to make mojitos, it helps.  We couldn't let his various experiments go to waste, now could we?

But... I'm tired.  Way too tired.  I need some sleep...