Friday, 15 September through Friday, 20 October, 2023
I left Cedar Hill State Park two weeks earlier than I'd planned, mostly because the ants drove me out, but also because of my lousy internet reception, plus lack of access to reasonable shower and laundry facilities. Actually, I went to a laundromat in Cedar Hill once, but the only public showers were in the campground, and those were so basic (i.e. dating back decades) I didn't want to use them. This combination of stresses had all gone on so unremittingly for so long that I was verging on half hysterical by the time I finally decided to head east again. "Hysterical" meaning my brain synapses weren't connecting to each other, so rational thought was becoming difficult.
When I got to Mt. Pleasant, I again intended to stay only a couple of weeks, but getting myself pulled together was a bigger project than I'd expected, and I ended up staying 3 weeks beyond that. Here's what I did during that time.
In the town
Not long after we got into the area, I took Dext to that pleasant ½-mile walk around a little trout lake in a park where we've often gone before. This time, though, it was easy to see the results of the lack of rain they'd had here: the lake level was noticeably lower, with lots of exposed pipes and extended shoreline. Quite a few turtles live here, and when we were here before, I saw them sunning themselves on rocks. But this visit, those rocks were a long way from the water, and instead the turtles had climbed up the struts of the bridge that crosses the lake. It was funny to see them perched on diagonal 2x4s - I wouldn't have thought they could even climb something like that, but there they were, close to a dozen of them.
A couple of weeks later we got 4" of rain overnight - lasted for hours (along with lots of thunder which scared Dext, and I had to pull his bed over by mine so he wouldn't just sit there quivering). The next time we went to the park, the level had risen substantially and pipes that had been exposed were almost submerged. Besides the bridge, there are a couple of platforms built out for people to fish from, and after that rain I noticed that one of them had sunk so much the lake was starting to cover it.
The next time we went, we saw people from a company called Foam Masters - "We Raise Concrete" - who were starting work to lift that platform. Their trucks say they can raise the slab foundations for homes (that's the "raise concrete" part, I guess), but I'm not sure how that translates to a wooden platform that's sinking into mud. I wanted to ask them if they were going to insert foam into the mud to support the struts, but their equipment was so loud I didn't want to scream my questions, so we kept going.
A busy street corner that I pass every time I drive to or from the main part of Mt. Pleasant has this sign displayed:
On one trip to town, I stopped at the T-Mobile place here to ask about my hot spot. After much consultation and head scratching, they figured out the problem: I didn't have the plan I thought I did, and I was way over the allowed usage for a couple of months, making my signal spotty at best. When I first switched to T-Mobile, I'm sure they told me I could have the same plan I'd had with my previous company, which was that any unused data (or whatever it's called) would be rolled over to the next month. Since sometimes I go quite a while without using my hotspot at all, I've never run over my quota before.
But the people at the store here broke the bad news that that's not what my plan is with T-Mobile, which is why I'd been running over my allotment. I agreed to pay an extra $5/month to get some extra computer time, and I'll also pay more attention to my usage when I'm not on a campground wifi system. It's nice to know what the problem was, though I wish somebody had told me earlier so I could have solved it earlier.
In the campground
One day I was working on my computer when it suddenly got this weird frozen screen and looked like it had been hacked again. I remembered my brother's advice to take the battery out to reset it and tried to do that. But that involves unscrewing 9 tiny screws on the back, and some of them were in so tight I was afraid I was stripping them. The nice woman at the campground office suggested I take it into the Staples store in town to their computer guys, which is what I did. One of the nice guys there spent a really long time trying to figure out what was going on with it and finally came to the conclusion that it was a fake hack and nothing was really wrong. Just to be sure, he ran a virus scan that took quite a while because it covered a very long list of possible viruses, but my computer came up clean, which was really nice to know. And after all that, he didn't charge me anything. Incredibly nice.
I had my birthday during this time, and I celebrated with some Pacific salmon, champagne, and a really rich chocolate torte. It was all so great I was ready to have another birthday again really soon.
The sparker on my stove stopped working. When I light a burner, I turn on the gas and turn another knob labeled "spark" that apparently strikes a flint or whatever the modern substance is. Well, it still makes the noise of striking, but the gas doesn't get sparked. I had to go back to doing it the old fashioned way with Blue Diamond Kitchen Matches ("Strike On The Box"). It's been a long time since I lit a gas burner that way, and I'm a little afraid of gas so it spooked me. I was lucky to have the matches - I bought them from the campground in Duluth, MN, when I couldn't get the charcoal lighted on my grill (I'd bought a steak for my birthday).
Instead of trying to catch up my blog posts, I spent a lot of time reading the judge's final judgement in the case of Irving v. Penguin Books Ltd. and Deborah Lipstadt. That's the case the movie Denial is based on, that I've mentioned several times. Since I'm not Jewish, it might seem odd I find that case so compelling. Just recently FL Gov. DeSantis said it "doesn't make any sense" for former Ambassador Nikki Haley to say George Floyd's death should be "personal and painful" for everybody; after all, he said, neither she nor he had anything to do with it.
In the same way George Floyd's death should indeed be personal and painful for all of us, so should the rewriting of history that Holocaust deniers are attempting. David Irving has spent his life revising historical facts to show Adolf Hitler in a positive light; that of course would include denying the idea that 5 to 6 million Jews, along with many millions of other ethnic minorities, were killed due to his policies. I guess I'm drawn to this movie/story because I admire Lipstadt's courage in taking on this battle, and of course I like a happy ending, which this story had.
The judgement addressed all the arguments and evidence that had been brought during the weeks-long trial, not just the snippets in the movie or even the extended versions in the book. I was astounded at the complexity of the case, impressed with the judge's ability to sort through it all, and intrigued with the striking differences in procedure between British and American courts. Anyway, I read the 350-page judgement over several days.
I also wasted a lot of time (though it was very entertaining) reading articles about Trump's various legal problems and the Republicans' upheaval in the US House over selecting a new Speaker, having dumped their previous one for the first time in history. Their current candidates seem to be: Steve Scalise (who described himself as David Duke without the baggage); Jim Jordan (still dodging the sex abuse scandal of young athletes when he coached at Ohio State), and Donald Trump (who says he doesn't want the job and anyway can't hold the office because House rules prohibit a Speaker from being under indictment for a felony). I'm afraid with all this, we're likely looking at a government shutdown in 45 days when the current continuing resolution (that got ex-Speaker McCarthy ousted) expires. Not something I'm looking forward to - I still remember upheaval from previous shutdowns.
But I did get some things accomplished. I made reservations for much of the next several months, and worked out driving directions for my trip back to Murphy, NC.
I heard a British meteorologist deliver a weather forecast by saying "There will be a bit of sleety stuff in this [system]" and also "venomous thunderstorms," which is actually how Dexter looks at them.
For the best part of a week during this period, I felt pretty poorly. One day I couldn't even keep food down, followed by a couple more days of limited intake. I was running a low-grade fever off and on, and taking a lot of naps (which I never do). I also had almost zero energy, needing to stop and rest several times during walks with Dexter. A shame to have that taking up my time, but it was lucky that I'd started re-reading the Harry Potter books, so I had something that kept my brain engaged just enough for me to handle it.
Despite the very warm temperatures we were still getting, one morning when I woke up feeling shaky and nauseous again I turned on the heater and put on a flannel shirt and covered my legs with a blanket. After a while I started feeling better.
During this time I went to the post office with my brain feeling really scattered: as I was walking out, I was checking that I'd gathered all my belongings and asked another woman if she could see my glasses - which she pointed out were sitting on my nose.
We had a lot of birds hanging around. Every day I heard a lot from a very chatty Mockingbird that seemed to sing all day. I really do love them. In the wooded area of the campground I saw a Bluebird, a lot of Cardinals and Blue Jays, and a Hairy Woodpecker. They really liven up the landscape.
One day, some stupid update that Microsoft sent to my computer completely changed the photo editing process. Changed it to something I found almost impossible to use without a whole lot of extra time and work that I hadn't had to do before the update. I did an online search to find out what I could do, but none of the advice did what I needed. Very frustrating.
One day I was extremely productive. I filled the RV's water tank, cleaned the AC filter, cooked a chicken in the crock pot, cleaned out/reorganized the basement storage area, dusted off the ceiling where the AC has been throwing dust around, fixed some wires in the top of the kittens' crate - they were sticking out and I was afraid they'd hurt the little guys, and mended the broken latch on the heaviest drawer in the cabin (big nuisance, big project, but I did it).
Trip to Tyler
Mt. Pleasant is a very nice place, but it's missing some services I find important. As we did the last time we stayed here, we took a drive down to Tyler one day. We left the KOA before 7:00 and were back in our campsite by 3:00. In between we went to a grocery store, a PetsMart, the nice dog park we visited before and, most importantly, the recycle center.
At a church, I saw a sign saying they'd be hosting photos with Santa Claus on September 30th - and a full month before even Halloween seemed excessive to me.
Tyler has almost 14 miles of brick streets, put in at the turn of the last century to pave roads to assist storeowners (dirt streets kick dust onto the merchandise and get muddy when it rains). Now they form part of Tyler's Historic District (on the National Registry) and are a very attractive area. Apparently, local residents adore their brick streets; maybe I would too if I were driving a normal vehicle but in an RV, they're pretty uncomfortable. Still, they look nice (and they don't get muddy).
I've discovered that in east Texas, coarse ground pepper is an exotic spice. Everywhere else I can find it in McCormick's bottles with all the other spices and pepper versions. Over here, though, nobody sells it. I tried 2 stores in Mt. Pleasant (no luck) and 2 in Tyler, finally finding it with other exotic spices in glass bottles by Morton & Bassett. And with an exotic price to match. Between the pepper problem and the nonstop religious radio stations over here, I can tell east Texas isn't an area I'd likely be happy living in.
On one of those religious stations I heard a man talking about God's plan for how to manage your money. I didn't realize until I looked it up that that's actually the approximate title for several books on the subject. It sounds a little strange to me, but I'm sure some of those authors are sincere.
I saw a billboard with a drawing of a pregnant woman and the legend "For the Very Young at Heart." It was sponsored by the Women's Health Center, which says they offer family medical care, including "pregnancy testing and counseling."
Tyler apparently has distinct Asian and Hispanic populations, based on the signs and business I saw driving around town.
Tyler has a business called Gleaux Car Wash. Their website doesn't say who the owners are, other than that they're "local" but with that name, I wondered if they'd come here as refugees (so to speak) from one of the hurricanes that have devastated Louisiana in the not too distant past.
I stopped for gas at a Murphy Express station, where they charged me $2.99/gallon. Across the street - literally on the opposite corner - Shell was charging $3.39/gallon.
I saw a sign touting the local UT Tyler Health Science Center, saying (I think) that in 2022 it was a nationally ranked teaching hospital. When I looked that up to check, I learned that whatever it was in 2022, for 2024 it's been ranked as a Best-In-State teaching hospital. Considering the number of major teaching hospitals in Texas, that seems an amazing designation.
Despite the persistent drought in east Texas, today's drive was really pretty, with lots of green trees and green grass all day.
My critters
I found a note about an incident from many months ago, though I can't quite remember when it happened. But I don't think I've mentioned it before so I'm sticking it in here now. I think the kittens were still fairly young. Early one morning, I heard a terrible racket coming from the bathroom. When I got there, I saw Bucky had gotten his head stuck inside an empty Clorox Wipes container that I'd put into the recycling bag. I'm sure it scared him, and I got it off him as quickly as I could, but it was really pretty funny and I was sorry I couldn't stop to get a photo of it.
One day I was cleaning out a box I keep miscellaneous stuff in and found the collars I'd bought for the kittens many months ago. They'd worked the collars off in less than 24 hours, and I decided not to try again for a while. Well, it seemed like now was "a while" so I put them on again, and this time they left them on. In the meantime, the bell on Jimmy's collar stopped dinging for some reason - now it just makes a sort of muted clatter - but that actually helps me know which cat is which without looking at them.
On our first walk one morning, both Dext and I could tell a skunk was in the campground - the smell was too strong to ignore. Dext decided it was good for him to bark and try to chase it - and immediately I took him back inside for a half hour. Partly because the campground didn't want to hear a dog barking at 4:00 AM, and partly because the very last thing I needed was to have Dext actually find the skunk, and partly to give the skunk a chance to get away. And it worked.
One day I hung towels on clothes hangers across the door to block out the blazing sun. (Pre-kitten, I would have strung up some twine to hang the towels from, but Bucky kept eating the twine.) If I hadn't seen this myself I wouldn't have believed it, but I saw Jimmy sit on the top bunk and reach over, grab the closest towel to pull the hanger closer to him, and take the clothespin off so he could play with it. I absolutely believe Jimmy has almost no brain, so seeing this kind of maneuver stunned me.
Speaking of Jimmy, he's developed a new trick. When the critters are all on alert because I'm fixing them food, he uses his front paws on the front bench seat to raise his head up, and then he rubs his head on Dext's chin. Sometimes Dext ignores him, but a couple of times I've seen him decide Jimmy's a toy and he pounces and paws him a little, which always unnerves Jimmy (he can dish it out . . .).
I remembered I had a photo from the early days with the kittens, showing them in their crate, and for comparison I took this photo of what they look like now.
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| You can see by his eye that this is Jimmy, but both kitties are packed in that carrying case. |
Remember this photo? One kitten has his head draped over the neck of the other kitten, and both fit inside the crate so easily you can hardly see the sides.
You can see that, as far as size goes, the kittens have almost grown up. But not as far as their personalities go, and maturity is still a Utopia I wait for.
Here's another view that shows proportions:
You can see he's not likely to take up much room in that carrying case/crate.
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| I think that's Bucky. |
They just keep growing. Sometimes when I'm dumping them in the crate at night I think that it's not really fair to keep them there overnight because of the obvious lack of space now that they're nearly full-grown. But then I think 2 things: that they've slept together in this crate every single night of their lives, and that they'd drive the other 3 of us crazy if they could run loose all night ("run" being the operative word). Plus, they don't complain about it.
Speaking of "nearly full-grown," here's another comparison shot:
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| Bucky is draped over the water bowl, as he always does, and Lily should shove him out of the way but never does, while Jimmy waits his turn. |
And here's one more set of comparison photos.
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| I think that's Bucky, though it's not easy to tell in that light. |
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| And I think that's Bucky again on the dashboard, with Jimmy on the seat. |
Life is really different now that I have much larger moving bodies to avoid when I'm trying to walk across the floor, and much safer for these little guys.
Things I ran across
I heard on the radio that Hopewell Earthworks in Ohio has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As far as I can tell without reviewing every post, when I spent my month in Ohio I didn't visit this site, managed by the National Park Service as a National Historical Park. Apparently, around 2,000 years ago, scattered communities of indigenous people came to this area to build sacred structures - geometrically precise squares and octagons that align with movements of the sun and moon.
UNESCO said these structures are "among the largest earthworks in the world that are not fortifications or defensive structures." They say the Grand Pyramid would have fit inside one of these Hopewell structures, which is a pretty clear example of their size. Under Pres. Trump, the US had withdrawn from UNESCO, but Pres. Biden has put us back in - and we've now been rewarded, I guess. This news is enough to make me want to go back to Ohio to see what I missed.
When I was in the post office, I saw a poster for a postage stamp honoring Edmonia Lewis. I'd never heard of her, looked her up, and learned she was apparently an unusually talented sculptor in the mid- to late-1800s. And at least as remarkable as her talent was her heritage as both a Black American and a Native American, neither of which would have made her path easy in those times. You might want to take a look at the blurb the USPS wrote about why they chose her for a stamp. https://store.usps.com/edmonia-lewis
Reading the history of Edmonia Lewis reminded me of Elizabet Ney, another female sculptor, from the same time period. In fact, Ney was born only 11 years before Lewis, and the 2 women died within 3 months of each other. I would have thought they might have met, but Lewis did most of her work in Rome, while Ney worked in Germany and in the US. These 2 women, both sculptors and both so talented that the 19th century world was forced to deal with them on their own terms, is remarkable.
I saw an Arkansas license plate that said: HUGACOW.
I don't have access to NPR in Mt. Pleasant, I'm sorry to say, but while I was still in the Dallas area I listened to the live broadcast of part of a hearing in the Texas State Senate. This past May, the Texas State House voted 126 - 23 to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. Those totals included 60 Republicans voting to impeach, with only 23 voting against it, and considering how thoroughly Republican this state is, those totals indicate just how likely Paxton was to be guilty of the 16 charges of misuse of public office.
Today I listened to a very clear exposition on the Senate floor of exactly how Paxton had done what he's accused of - and it was pretty flagrant corruption. Despite the views of House Republicans and the evidence they presented, the Senate acquitted Paxton of all 16 charges. Many of the votes were quite close: 14 (convict) to 16 (acquit), but they still agreed to let him skate each time. I found myself completely disgusted by the morally impoverished state senators who voted to acquit. The evidence was there, the crimes were flagrant, and they didn't want to vote against their good friend who raised money for them. Paxton runs for reelection next year.
