John Edwards

I never trusted John Edwards.

There was something smarmy about the way he looked.

When he denied the reports from, say it, the National Enqirer . . I wanted to believe him. But I didn't.

There was something about the way he looked. The way his eyebrows raised and his eyes slanted. His hair. Way too perfect.

So I believed the tabloid reports, in spite of Edwards' angry denials.

And today, it came true.

Now Edwards says the baby isn't his. He says he didn't pay the woman off.

But those denials are coming in the wake of his other denials. And there are already reports coming out that seem to deny the truth in both of them.

John Edwards. Just another in a long line of sleazy politicians who think . . as he himself said . . that they are "special", and above it all.

When will they learn?

When will we learn?

Close and closer

The yellow roses are for Meggie, who said they're her favorite.

The big red hibiscus is for me.

Tropical!

Roses and reverie

I'm sorry.

I just can't stop photographing SWMBO's roses.

The Dollmaker

We had a wonderful visit this afternoon from a very talented lady: The Princess.

Well, she's not really a princess but she does have an amazing talent. Mary Ellen Frank, living in Juneau, Alaska, has become a highly acclaimed dollmaker. She takes as her inspiration the Native Americans who live in her state. The doll's faces are carved from wood and animal fur is used to make the clothing.

By the way, that's the BRD holding one of Mary Ellen's creations and ME sits in the background.

This is another amazing creation by Mary Ellen.

She had just attended and demonstrated her art of making leather faces and hands at the annual conference of the National Institute of American Doll Artists in Las Vegas, Nevada.

She had come to Prescott to visit a mutual friend and took a few hours to visit us today.

It was a pleasure, Princess!

Rain, rain, rain

The monsoon hit our town today. This is taken from the front of our house at the height of the rainfall.

The pictures are larger and more effective if you click on them.


Heavy rain in a short time in the desert does not just soak into the earth.

Through the front gateway you can see our front yard flooding.

This is the drainage ditch in front of the house.

Too much water for the culverts under our driveway.

Our home is lucky. It sits up at street level. Our neighbor's house is lower and we worried that they might have water inside.

Additional run-off ran down one side of our house where it was blocked by leaf debris from exiting under our back fence.

The run-off was diverted alongside our back fence.

Until I got out there in the rain with a fork hoe and cleared the debris so the water could exit.

We love it when it rains here. SWMBO pretended to be worried but I loved it.

It was fun!

Oh, relax, willya?

Yes, my blog was blocked last night also. As were many others. But it was not . . . as some of my friends have written . . . a monstrous, evil plot against bloggers. It was just one of those damnable technical glitches that happen from time to time.

To make things worse, this morning my Internet Service Provider was defunct. So I couldn't receive e-mail, bring up the Internet(s), or even get the ISP offices on the telephone. Busy, busy, busy.

So I went to the grocery store and spent some money. When I returned, I had the Internet and e-mail again. The Internet was very slow all day but seems to be getting back to normal now.

BUT IT'S NOT A CONSPIRACY!!!

It's just technical stuff.

As I said on a comment to one of my blogger friends a few minutes ago, it is bizarre how dependent we have all become on something that didn't exist ten years ago.

So I say "relax". Read a book. Watch an old movie on t.v. Take a nap. (I think I did all three today.) It will all be o.k. eventually. And even more than eventually, pretty darned quickly.

Reminds me of when I lived in Mexico. When a storm would blow up, the power would go off. We learned to live with candles and quiet. And it took a lot longer down there to restore our "normal" life than it does up here in the U.S. of A.

Busting into Bloom

One of our hibiscus plants on the front patio got a taste of water the other day and it responded gratefully and exhuberantly this morning. Normally we get one to three blooms a day, if any. This morning, there were nine fresh blooms on the plant! (Not all visible here.)

On closer examination, the flowers have a strange other-worldly appearance. But I've loved hibiscus blossoms ever since I first saw them in Mazatlan, Mexico, many years ago.