Data Centers in Space? ....nope.

 Pipe Dream! Peter Zeihan explains why in detail! So MANY reasons!

 

Baby Monarch caterpillar eating like crazy

 

Though I just saw a Monarch butterfly on this plant yesterday - today I noticed something had eaten holes in a few milkweed leaves  I looked closer and someone had apparently laid a few eggs weeks ago, because one had hatched. Maybe the egg for this little caterpillar came pre-installed on the plant when I bought it! Excited.

Monarch on the milkweed!

 

Since I moved to a condo; I've been missing the idea of seeing Monarch butterflies. The place I left had a wild and weedy front yard with 20 plus milkweed plants. My dilemma now\was: where could I plant some milkweed where landscapers wouldn't weed-wack it?  It had to be potted....

The first week of July I finally bought one native milkweed plant in a pot at a local nursery. I re-potted it in a larger container and set it in the sun near my deck. This morning as I was drinking coffee, taking in the breeze, planning the day, an orange blur fluttered past! This gorgeous Monarch zeroed in on my lone milkweed plant and spent around 20 minutes investigating every leaf. Nothing like some unexpected nature to make your day!

I'm hoping eggs were laid and we might see a caterpillar or two later in the season! 

Callous behavior towards customers & no common sense by Veterinarians in two states

It's bad enough that medical care in the US is so expensive that people regularly go bankrupt and lose their homes to predatory collection policies at for-profit hospitals. But now private equity firms have begun buying up vet practices - and why? They see easy profits - vet care costs have increased 60% since 2014 according to PBS (see link at the bottom) which beats the heck out of inflation.

This month I am aware of two - not one but TWO - people of limited means, living only on social security and insured by Medicaid being taken advantage of by veterinarians perhaps from avarice, or by rigid adherence to the idea of always doing all the procedures you can just in case. (An affliction human medicine also suffers from....) Some sensitivity to people's financial situation should be a factor as well. If they can't afford it, what alternative approach might be presented?

One person's 16 year old cat had stopped eating and cried constantly in pain. The vet did several thousand dollars of x-rays and blood tests ON AN ELDERLY CAT THAT WAS CLEARLY SUFFERING whose owner was on Medicaid. Instead of advising that a clearly suffering 16 year old cat that stops eating for three days, is telling you something about their will to live -- that the kindest thing is to do, is the really the hard thing -  to stay with her and hold her in your arms while she is medicated across the rainbow bridge, and have the last sight and sound she experiences be her beloved care-er, comforting her with pets and soft words.

And this literally poor pet owner leaves her crying kitty in the vets care,  goes home and her pet dies all alone at the vets.  The next day she is called in, not to pick up her kitty - but to pay a $2,175 bill. This fragile elderly person on Medicaid...  

NO COMMON SENSE. NONE.  

For the other person, the vet is still pushing dental cleaning, dental xrays, dental work, more blood work & kidney tests on a 16 year old cat who is already on palliative care and is comfortable - a cat that is eating, sleeping,  peeing and pooping, going out and laying in the sun on the porch, laying in her dads lap - still enjoying life. But of course who doesn't want to spend more time in the hospital being stabbed and probed, far away from your human, and the house and yard you have always known and loved - just in case they can find something more expensive to treat and bill your income poor human being for??  NO COMMON SENSE.  While she is enjoying her life -- LET HER LIVE IT. 

Allegedly it's all the interests of your pet. But wouldn't you know - many local vet practices have been bought up by giant corporations whose policies and procedures are not to do the kindest thing in the end - but to make you pay them every last cent they can possibly bill you for....

PBS on private equity buying vet practices

A country in free fall

"We are in free fall off a cliff here. I don't know where we land......The kind of authority that this administration has claimed for itself and exercised -- over Congress, the Supreme Court, the States, the American People, citizens, immigrants, and aliens alike -- is without precedent in American History - the end."

 -- American Political Historian/author Jill Lepore

Preferences of my 7th decade

 - a response poem to Patricia Smiths poem "Medusa" 

Too Much Drama, 

all those hormones

the burning and bravado

followed by anxiety and self-doubt.

I don't miss them,

not even a little

The old gods have feet of clay

and petty, vengeful hearts.

Explosions of thunder,

stabs of lightning

seem relaxing by comparison.

I'd take a solitary sunrise

seen through thistle and milkweed in the meadow

or a humming bird busy in the red bee balm

a wood dove on the roof-line....

 -- Mad Mar Mistryel Walker, July 5, 2026 at a "Sunday Writes" session led by Faith Vicinanza at VSG Gallery.

I also have an old Medusa poem:

 Love and Mirrors 

 When courting Medusa, don't call her by that name. Let her have her delusions as she allows you yours.

Let her have her memories of a time when soft hair cascaded down her back and men reached to touch her cheek.

When you come to take her, lose the mirrored glasses, close your eyes tightly lest she see the snakes reflected, transmogrify to marble, cold statuary in your garden of love.

And who would be Medusa then? Or was it you all along?

-- Mar Mar Mistryel Walker (p22 - from  my first poetry chapbook Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding (Puzzled Dragon Press, 1998)

Nachos for breakfast & so lucky to have them

This morning I got up shortly after 5, was up, dressed, caffeinated and out for a walk by 5:30 am. The air was breezy and comfortable -65 degrees out - a balmy day in a heat wave. I walked for a full hour - more than usual and came home hungry.

Poking around in my kitchen looking for some breakfast - I came across Mexican corn chips and oddly they were calling me. I spread them on a plate and decorated them with southwest style diced tomatoes, a mixture of black beans, brown rice, barley, peppers, onions, spices and a sprinkle of pepper jack cheese. 

I slid them into the microwave with anticipation and was not disappointed....

So yes, (maybe for the only time in my life), I had Nachos for breakfast. Lucky I am to have a meal at all, a natural place to walk and a present peace however long it lasts. So much of the world is in rubble, in danger, cold or hot and hungry and thirsty, worried, fearful.   

I'm not powerful or influential. I'm not even particularly friendly or social. not a person who is necessarily agreeable. There are people who would say I'm a total shithead And nobody is reading this for sure. 

I can't do much, but stay informed, vote, donate to aid orgs, help when I'm able. The news, both local and global breaks my heart. 

Age-related Downsizing - Relief!

Before I moved (back in February,)  I lived in a 75 year old 4 bedroom house whose systems were aging poorly. I didn't choose it, I didn't buy it. I'd inherited it. 

I deeply appreciate my good fortune. That said, I've come to realize how much of my life energy was consumed by memories of the past, sorting the piles of  memorabilia inside, by worry about what to junk, what to keep or give away, what problem to fix, when to fix, the order of fixes, prequals to each fix, and researching contractors and their proposals. It was endless and I was out of my depth as a elderly female never involved with the building trades. As just one person taking up so much space I didn't need - well that bothered me quite a bit also....

I admit I enjoyed the front yard: having coffee on the bench in front of a dwarf lilac I had planted for my Mom. I even enjoyed mowing, snow shoveling, shrub trimming in the front yard - up to a point.  But trying to contain poison ivy, invasive weeds, an out-of-control hedge, a half dead blackberry patch and an overgrown uneven backyard became too much - tics, thorns, yellow jackets, large fallen branches, etc...  

Combine those stressors with the increasing traffic in Danbury! There used to be shortcuts I knew to avoid  jams. But there has been so much construction - so many new apartment complexes in all those formerly under-built areas -  even my back roads were crammed with traffic most of the day.  And My location was at the top of a steep circle without sidewalks or shoulders - not a safe walking spot especially in winter. My habit had been driving somewhere else to walk.  But now the traffic - and crazy stressed drivers - ah well.

After 11 years of fence sitting about leaving, my move was sudden. On New Years Day I had no inkling - it wasn't on the agenda.  By last week of January I'd made an offer and was packing like mad. By February's end I'd secured a new home.  I moved into a 1 bedroom condo in a 55+ complex with various places to walk to without driving and a little garden area right out of my door, a landscaping crew and enough units that local contractors consider it a "market" and are familiar with the units and the rules.  

The house went to flippers, who gave me a detailed repair plan, and got a bargain for their trouble.   

No regrets. Just immense relief and time to think about other things.

 

Time Rolls, yes it does, no one stands against it

You’ve got one life - do what you can while you can! Friendships, institutions, traditions you rely on appear then vanish! Disasters happen! Defend yourself as best you can!

Life is messy and difficult, so beautiful and brief.  Be alive until you aren’t- don’t give up contributing to the human story —even if nobody seems to hear, offer up your heart!

The backhanded non-apology....

 Got creeped out recently on the phone when a computer voice interrupted  - - "This call is being recorded!"  I said what the heck is that? And it suddenly said it again. I insisted the caller turn it off and said little after that. As always when I don't know how to react -- I don't. 

The next morning I woke up already a bit freaked out thinking about it. This person I was talking with posts nearly everything she does on Facebook - lots of selfies with groups of people she knows and places she's gone. Has to always have a social plan to go somewhere or be with someone. Hates to be alone. Also talks endlessly about what this or that person said to her - no matter if the conversation was yesterday or 60 years ago.... 

When I texted her saying to record someone secretly is really a betrayal of trust (also illegal which is why the app alerts people!)  Rather than apologize, she turned it right back on me - saying the presumption and assumption of malice in my reply was shocking and calling her mean was hurtful. 

But I never called her mean. I had asked what she planned to do with the recordings -post them to Facebook? She's pushy rather than mean, kind of bullying the reluctant into doing what she wants, or repeatedly asking very pointed questions for personal info which I had always found troubling.  Being more or less easy going I'd  awkwardly blurt out the answer and be filled with regret afterward. 

But recording me was a bridge too far. Way too far. And apparently there were two recordings - which she stated and claimed to have deleted, saying they were "gibberish" anyway. So she reviewed them before deleting. To see if they were useful? To see how the app did at recording? 

No regret was expressed. "I'm sorry you feel betrayed," she said. Not sorry about what she did, just sorry I found out and felt betrayed....