Cattleya, 20+ years old, in one of my pots. The light is intense today.
Watching Star Trek Enterprise episodes on Netflix. How the ethics of empire have changed! Remember the Prime Directive?
Day after chemo! Feel OK, thanks to all the nice drugs they give me. They will wear off soon, and I won't be feeling so great, but it will be because of the chemo--not the cancer--which the chemo has bested, at least for the time being. So in a couple of weeks, the team will decide what to do next. I will be getting cataract surgery, which I'll have to fly to Honolulu for, but they will pay for everything for me and Terry to fly over there and will put us up overnight in a hotel, since I won't be able to fly back right away. If Kaiser is willing to spring for cataract surgery, I guess they think I'll be around for a while longer! This is very good news, for them and for me. Profits all around.
Trump rants on, but I don't care today. He is such a miserable person. Who would want to be Donald Trump? I believe no one will ever want to be, or aspire to be, that kind of person ever again. He is even losing his base of "deplorables" now. His threats make me yawn. After all, I was around for WWII, involving the actual U.S.A. atomic attacks on hundreds and thousands of civilians and the thrills and chills of the cold war nuclear threats, including that never to be forgotten Cuba missile crisis.
Other matters: This piece from Slate is the best critique to date of Wonder Woman and a real shocker. Koch Brothers were big investors in the film and made a fortune off it. I thought it was totally phony. Little girls liked it, and they are darling and all, but let's face it: They don't have a lot of worldly experience! Moana is a much better role model for them. It's all kitsch, really.
It's clear to me that the attack on immigrants is designed to decimate the "illegal" middle class people who have been successful in the U.S. The ones I have read about, including two cases on the Big Island, were well known to authorities and thought they had a solid status as tax-paying citizens and heads of families and had been trying for citizenship but were blocked by their original sin of coming over the border without authorization. Looking way back to the 80's, many immigrants were taken off guard by the amnesty Reagan offered to undocumented workers. I was teaching English as a second language to groups of Mexicans, then mostly young men. Their bosses liked them because they worked hard for low wages and never complained. To them, an underclass of hard-working, uncomplaining, insecure workers was a godsend.
This case, as reported on in SF Gate, really worried me, because the deportee is an oncology nurse. Several of the oncology nurses at Kaiser here are Filipinas, and they are the greatest. Luckily, they were born here, may go back several generations. They are doing life-saving work while raising families of successful, well-educated citizens. They have all those good values that Trump and his kind pretend to honor.
So how about a nice couple of orchids:
I call these hotel pillow orchids. They are full-sun loving vandas with pencil shaped leaves.
They are lovely and in this climate need little care. I have been able to "rescue" most of my orchids from the flagrant neglect they suffered while I was so ill. More to do, of course. I just concentrated on this one task and got it mostly done.
Terry and Julia hired an enormous dump truck yesterday and hauled 2,100 pounds of detritus to the green waste! It's from two 1/3 acre lots, one our residence and the other our rental, only a few months' worth. Mary and Jim, who live in Puna on one acre of lava, have created a tropical paradise using green waste mulch and other enhancements to build up soil. Another win-win all around.
Going to visit friends this afternoon. Have a good day!
