Flyer and sailors

Soon to be fracked from sides and below

Malibu tourists now bring their own porta-potty

Solitary Heron, Left behind Weeks Ago

First sourdough rolls after House Tenting

This was the first chance to make sure the Sourdough Starter was alive--after the tenting and roofing. It is alive and refreshed.

Today everyone knows who Beto O'Rourke is--the man running against Ted Cruz

My cousin Jennifer posted on Facebook his reply to a question about how wrong it was to kneel at games in protest to killing of unarmed black men and women and black children. I would not find it again so I just looked on Google for Texas politician and kneeling. This thing has gone viral, they say, and they mean viral.
You can see Beto O'Rourke's answer by going to Google and putting in his name.
It is the most eloquent speech I have heard from a politician in a very very long time.
It may bring tears to your eyes.
What a man. Now, here is a Texas Maverick.

Cutting Lauren Bacall and John McCain some Slack about their Age at Dying

If you have lived through 11 months of being 89, you are in spitting distance of a great goal, 90. The papers should have hedged what they said about Lauren Bacall's age. Dammit, she almost made 90. And to call McCain 81 at his death a few days before his 82th birthday--that's like a really lousy umpire saying, Tough, but one tip of a finger on the plate does not count. When you are old, you look ahead for the next milestone. My Aunt Essie, who lived in three centuries, but not very long in 2 of them, always looked ahead to her next birthday, starting the day after a birthday. 

McCain--A Hero, and a Maverick Manque in Different Senses

I don't know how to get the accent in manqué--Oh, it got there!--and now that I have checked the derivation I want to acknowledge its period of meaning lame-handed.  I did not want to make fun of the brutal history of his captivity and the enduring aftereffects. At his best, he was straight and honest, but it needs to be said that whatever happened under that mesquite tree in Arizona during the campaign was one of the worst things that ever happened to this country. Out there, he offered Sarah Palin the chance to run for Vice President. That "under the mesquite tree" moment led to the shamefully named Tea Party (what an insult to the men of 1773!), to the exciting of racist Evangelicals, and, quite directly, to Donald Trump. No hesitation later on, no mumblings and grousings about where other Republicans were headed, nothing could alter that decision to make that offer to so incompetent and erratic and hate-filled a woman.  He legitimized ignorance and hatred--and greed. No one should have to suffer as he did in North Viet Nam. I am older than he was, and hope against hope that I never suffer more than the TB I had for 2 years in the 1950s. No one should suffer the way he did in his last years.  He was a hero, but not a real maverick. A real maverick makes the right stands and keeps making the right stands. He was a hero, yes.

Forest fires from British Columbia to Mexico

Constanza the Michelangelo of Drywall--The Boveda Restored

Boveda---Bo VAY tha--vault

2 find the bunny shots

Nearing the end and nearing the end

The new roof, all done and mainly swept up.

From n LR balcony looking at n edge of garage next to parapet. Bird-blockers are going in to prevent nesting.

From LR balcony; corner of window below is to my study. Manuel is a genius.

From the Parapet looking south at start of work on garage roof

Ran early so I could return to Iron Labor's Lullaby on garage outside my windows and the little peak just above the south corner

Looking down from living room balcony.

The Rock at 1045

Beauty of construction

Happy surfers

Every triumphant day is to be cherished. It may be the last.

We have been so pressured not to have extra food around when poison was coming to fight the termites and we have been so busy sweeping after the roofers that I resorted to cornbread in order to have something quick and good. Today I mixed and kneaded dough (no pause in between) and put in the refrigerator in 3 big bowls for 3 hours while I went to the computer and the beach.   The last thing my brilliant historian biologist neuro-scientist Cockerham cousin said to me by email last night was, "I sure would like to see Sumter's speech" (in 1798 that is). So this morning like a good cousin I looked and tried another way and thought a bit and tried another way, and hip hip hurray I got the middle part of it and then after a while I got it all. I may never have this double triumph again so I am enjoying this one. And the bread may not have been the very best bread ever made, but you could not prove that by us. What a relief to have the time to cook right. Retirement!

The Rock at 830 this morning

Explaining how the Termite Tenters kicked down the mighty elevator door

It now begins to seem that one of the workmen had on his Bucket List the desire to be intimate with two other masked men in a little elevator while still wearing their steel-toed boots.
There seems to be no other innocent explanation.

Not fiddling but working on the roof today

Some of the action on the roof today

more damage from the termite tenters

The steel-toed tenters joyriding in the elevators who kicked the elevator door off the hinges also (the elevator man pointed out today) cracked the wall.

Now we can carry things to the 4th floor.

Agile and confident workers

Men with more strength and balance than some of us

They are working without scaffolding. I would last on the south side about 15 seconds.

New Roof Coming--This is not a whale spouting on the left

It's dust from sawing a tile.

The Rock at 830 am

Now that everyone is dying it is time to reveal a secret life

Nocturnal Haven of the Rufus-Eyed Hover-Bird

Rufus-Eyed Square-Clipped Hover-Bird

Attack Dogs a Mile into No Dog Beach, Looking for Old Man

Garage roof, without Mexican Tiles after 29 or so Years

Some people don't want light beside the monitor

KCS Telegrapher Gene Gibson visiting Telegrapher Hershel Parker in Singer, Louisiana, early in 1954

Gene, born in January 1935, died at 83, 8 August 2018. I am 10 months younger.