Monday miscellany

in which our plucky heroine makes plans...

Found this madder red yarn in my storage box; it was obvious what it needed to be made into. I have no idea where or why it was acquired, since I pretty much don't wear red. Still, it is lovely and soft, and the alpaca content means it will be very warm. I'll start off with the medium stitch count, and go down at least one needle size, as per my usual

As often attempted, I plan to try and learn at least one new thing with this project, in this case a tubular start for 1x1 ribbing, which will also require me to use Judys magic cast on, which I've never done before. My initial numbers based on the pattern are: 108 stitches - 1x1 ribbing - 28 st/4" over unblocked ribbing... (unfortunately, there is no red yarn in my tablet weaving supply box, as my tinyfolk, (especially Kenya and Nandina), are clamoring for tiny red hats of their own. I do have a cone of undyed yarn, though, which is easily transformed by using food coloring + vinegar.

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A while back, promised to send Mischa some candied orange peel. As the Cara Cara oranges are very tasty this year, I've been indulging self with them, and saving the quartered peels in the freezer. Yesterday they were blanched, and today sliced into strips, and simmered in simple syrup until well saturated with the sugar solution. They drain and partially dry off on a cooling rack, and will get rolled in granulated sugar and finally run through the dehydrator for better storage. I still store mine in the freezer, as they don't get dry enough to be shelf safe for long, but they do okay for the few days it takes to post them to friends. In the Before Times, I would make them for my dad, and dip them in dark chocolate as that was his favorite confection.

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Remember, that even in the worst of times, there may be sparks of beauty, wonder, and whimsy. Don't give up, if you do, they win

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”

- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country 
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Currently taking pleasure in thinking/planning about wardrobe refurbishment, and looking through my resource shelves to find possible fabric choices that coordinate. Have almost completed all of the teal selections (pinafore, plaid flannel shirt, long janes, long sleeve turtleneck); still have the cotton print for a blouse, and a partially finished teal/turquoise batik rayon popover dress that needs reconfigured. Am currently hand stitching some simple Alabama Chanin style reverse applique bands to add to the hemlines on the long janes.

Although there aren't the exact fabrics here I would choose for new pinafores, it is going to be interesting to figure out how to use what is here to create new coordinates to take the place of the worn out clothing. Next up, I think, will be the chocolate brown pinafore, as I do have that linen, plus matching corduroy for edge binding. All that will be needed for that one is for me to create a decorative pocket using the cave horse stencil. Another pair of brown replacement long janes as well. Other than that, there are enough other garments in that colorway still in good shape. Looking further ahead to grey/black/taupe. I've no solid grey garment fabric at all, so a new pinafore will require further thought. I do want to use the asian landscape fabric (grey and black with tiny metallic accents to make a shirt. There is just enough fabric, and it will provide an opportunity to use the set of lampwork glass buttons Ariadne made for me ages ago. 

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February SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	plaid flannel shirt	rice bags	greenwaste bin
2	23 postcards	INTERNET!!	recycle bin
3	teal linen pinafore	hydration station	greenwaste bin
4	bedroom shelves	grey felt slipper	recycle bin
5	tiger pocket	teal turtleneck	greenwaste bin
6	teal long janes	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

Sunday's gratitudes -

- glass fermentation weights, that also keep orange peels properly submerged
- managed to get a bit of a bike ride today, between the rain
- the whistles are gradually disappearing from local little free libraries.
- found a skein of madder red alpaca yarn in one of the yarn boxes. It might need to become a MTI hat...

today's gratitudes -
- being able to use the search function on my blog to find a particular bit of info that one of my sewing nomad pals was looking for
- interesting fabrics on the resource shelves
- the "University of YouTube"

Time of Isolation - Day 2056

Wednesday wishes

in which our plucky heroine is a pluviophile ...

It rained today... not just a bit of drizzle in the morning, and while there was a long stretch of time in the middle of the day when under the grey sky it just felt moist, in the evening I realised that through the sound of the fans was a different and rattling noise of rain on the window awnings, and stepping out onto the porch the wonderful scent of petrichor

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~ so colorful! ~

Decades ago, some yards of this bright rayon came home with me from the fabric store, and became a graduation tunic... Quite a few years later, parts of that tunic joined with other fabrics to become a pieced dress for festive occasions. Back in 2022 a further transmogrification of that now too small garment turned it into what is probably the most colorful garment I own, a sort of huipil/popover top... Currently undergoing a bit of width addition to bring the sleeve hem edges a bit further down my arms; using the last bits of remnants cut into strips, pieced and inset on either side of the neckline. If the world was different, this would still be something to wear to a street fair or festival, but even now it can brighten a video screen, or bring a smile to someone who crosses my everyday path. Long strange trip isn't over yet....

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That was the last jar of pickled beets in the pantry... put up back in 2022, but still very delicious. The Fishwife restaurant's green salads first inspired me to try this; as store tomatoes are so often less than stellar, they garnish their salads with a slice of house-made pickled beet instead. It will soon be time to see if there are good beets at the farmers market, and look up the recipe, and put up at least a half dozen jars for future enjoyment 

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Currently reading "Elderhood" by Louise Aronson, and thinking that there must be ways to be more engaged with the exterior world. Scribal activity comes to mind, as something I once enjoyed and have mostly given up on, but that would reconnect me to the SCA culture that has/had been so much a part of my life for decades...

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"In this life you don't always get what you want, you get what you get..."

~ Cher

I remember this quote from some magazine interview article, and maybe had it posted on a cabinet door in a former studio? During my conversation with Mikki earlier this week, I talked with her about my heart's desire, that I don't get to have in this lifetime. Maybe due to poor choices, or just ill luck, or as a result of some past lifetime where I whinged about not getting to have the things I do have in this lifetime, so I get instead time to be an artisan, but without the responsibility, joy, and effort of being in a family, being part of a household. I'll never know, and like all great griefs, you don't get over them, but learn to live with what isn't there...

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	-	tiger block	greenwaste bin
2	-	bright rayon top width	recycle bin
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
- Past Me made pickled beets, yum
- an intensive lengthy conversation with Mikki earlier this week
- becoming accustomed to my new bicycle seat

Time of Isolation - Day 1843

wishful Wednesday

in which our plucky heroine wishes for this graffiti to be true...

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~ the kindly lie ~

I've been re-reading Super Supportive, and one of the Artonan concepts mentioned in passing is how the "kind lie" is a form of caring...

"Alden was lying. Kibby knew he was lying. But Artonans considered kind lies to children to be an act of love. It was grown-up manners he’d learned from one of the soaps. Not exactly a foreign concept for a human, though the Artonans took it way farther than he ever would have on his own. If Kibby was expecting a loving lie, and he didn’t give it to her, it really hurt her feelings. On multiple levels. It was like in addition to forcing her to have the information she didn’t want, he was telling her that he didn’t care enough about her to protect her".

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There is "radio" on the internet, in a streaming sort of fashion. Not sure if Past Me knew this. There was a mention in the current issue of WW "Best of Portland" that the "Best Medieval Music on a Sunday Morning" was found at 7 am on XRAY. (Music Medieval). Since our plucky heroine is often awake by then, it is now an additional option for an hour long sound track for chores or errands.

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Luann Udell, one of (one, two, three, many) of my favorite artist bloggers, made some very good points in her most recent post, closing with these words:

"We can all be a force of good in the world (which we all need now more than ever!) But know that there are huge actions, and small ones, and every single one is a gift for all of us."

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Today's tasks included tackling Mt Dishmore, then cooking an interesting variant on curry using frozen peas, frozen coconut milk, and an assortment of produce from the fridge, which successfully used a bit of the freezer contents but generated yet more dishes to be washed! One wouldn't think that the modest amount of cooking done here would generate So Many Things that need washing up. Still there are now a few portions of veggie curry and rice in the freezer for future meals.

I rode my bike to various places early today, before a good suggestion sent me to the hardware store (where I should have started my quest in the first place) to find the clamp set to repair my damaged garden hose. Now I can water the baby trees again. I don't know whyever the original builders only put in one hose bib for the entire house! Though K points out that 70 years ago, watering the yard was not as vital, that there was rain in the summer, even if less frequent than winter. Sigh and alas.

The tiger linocut block is a bit further along, and a pattern generated for cutting out the fabric trapezoidal pieces to be printed. Incremental progress is still progress. A careful look at the interminable unfinished raincoat project reminded me that the closure sampling (the next step) need only use a piece as wide as the front facing. It will be excellent to have this completed by the time we do have rain again! Also today I took on a custom sewing job, after being contacted by Terry who got my info via Bolt Fabrics. It makes me happy when someone has a job that is a good match for my skills.

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July SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	Raven scroll	6 prs Beth pants	recycle bin
2	black floral scarf	prune² Wanda plum	greenwaste bin
3	4 jars strawberry- rhubarb preserves	mulch peartrees	greenwaste bin
4	sunblock mitts	Eames top	greenwaste bin
5	catch tarp for porch	filter box legs	recycle bin
6	x	new house roof	x
7	x	defrost chest freezer	x
8	x	repair garden hose	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
- TIL that there are radio stations streaming auditory content online!
- a delicious dry-farmed organic Charentais melon, so fragrant...
- kimchar posted a link to week 2 of the Great British Sewing Bee

Time of Isolation - Day 1829

problems vs predicaments

in which our plucky heroine found food for thought...

This essay is worth the time to read it.

'''...problems have SOLUTIONS and predicaments have outcomes - they are insoluble. So a situation that you can't get out of without miraculous levels of investment is a predicament. (...)That doesn't mean you can't do anything to help - the message of the problem vs. predicament narrative is that you need to understand what you are facing, so you can understand what you are trying to do."

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an installation - sparkling light art in the treetops... hard to see in the daylight, but surely even lovelier at night.

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Cricket stopped by this morning for a short porch visit. I'd not seen her in probably three years; I miss the days in the Before Times when we had adventures and crafting times together, but it was really good to actually see her. Then later this afternoon, Ursel came by. It was sunny enough by then that I had to dig out the porch curtains! And Gersvinda stopped in to pick up Ursel, and we got to see the new weaving/carving project she had just finished. Her brocaded tablet weaving is just exquisite

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~ very small ~

The heraldic lozenge enamel is complete, and ready for me to start the complicated work of building the setting. The entire enamel is about 1" in length, and the tiny cloisonne wire "eye glasses" motif is less than ¼"... Hopefully will be picked up Sunday after 12th Night.

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Finally had an idea for a DIY pot lid storage solution, which has been something much desired for years now. While some of the pot lids, the ones with looped handles, can simply be stored together with their pots or pans that hang on the forged iron pot rack, some of my gear has knobs instead of loops. The big storage challenge is that the kitchen here at Acorn Cottage is small, has little available wall space, and steel cabinets.  I've been haunting the internet looking for solutions on and off also for years, but the commercially available "products" are ugly, and the ones I've tried have significant drawbacks.

So... I saw a website where someone had made a shoe rack by offsetting a sturdy dowel just far enough from the wall to hold the toe end of shoes, and in a eureka moment, it occurred to me that would also work for pot lids. The solution for "no wall space" would be to attach the contraption to the door between the kitchen and the workroom. Now all I need to do is locate whatever framing is inside the edges of the hollow core door, do some cardboard mock-ups to get the measurements right, and decide how best to mount a dowel or dowels in place.

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January SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	blood orange marmalade	bike headlamp	yard waste bin
2	heraldic lozenge enamel	passport photo	recycle bin
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. three separate friends came for porch visits today!!
2. My designerly brain came up with an idea for how to DIY a better system for pot lid storage, a conundrum that has been irking me for years now
3. there were enough Kaffe Fassett scraps that I could cut out many brightly colored 1" squares, to piece a tiny rainbow to decorate a bag to hold the crayons I got for little Liam...

Time of Isolation - Day 1637

septugenaria

in which our plucky heroine says hippo birdy to me...

and how did I not notice that I have the same birthday as Will Stanton? I have read "The Dark Is Rising" by Susan Cooper every year as a seasonal ritual since I was first introduced to it... Now there is also a beautifully done BBC radio drama in twelve parts, and I have also been listening to the chapters as I do my morning chores...

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This is just plain lovely... happy Solstice one and all!

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"And so the Shortest Day came
and the year died.
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year."

~ Susan Cooper

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I ordered my favorite Grateful Dead album "American Beauty" as a CD (from their webshop so as to bypass the Behemoth), and it arrived today, a timely birthday treat!

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I had been really hoping to get one of the pretty koi ornaments as one of my Advent Swap treats, et voila! The silvery colors of this fish are perfectly complimented with the sparkle of the golden and translucent beads.

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some experiments are more successful than others... I wanted braised oxtail for a special rare treat, for dinner tonight, but the store said none available til January at the soonest. (and they didn't have any black cod, which is my other special rare treat)

The butcher suggested using a piece of beef short rib instead as a likely substitute. Cooked with the same recipe as I would have the oxtail, it filled a similar niche for flavor, but shrunk to about half the original size in the cooking! The texture was more like brisket than succulent oxtail.

Given that I almost never splurge on beef, I think that if/when I do that again, I will simply get a tiny bit of bavette steak, cut it into crosswise strips and add it to a veggie stir fry. More bang for the flavor buck, as it were...

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~ Solstice sweets ~

After seeing the little cakes Beth made, I wanted to also make something sweet and sunlike for Solstice, but didn't feel up to making pastry. Karen explained how simple shortbread is to make, and since I'd never made it before, I gave it a try. 1 part sugar : 2 parts butter : 4 parts flour. I used gluten free baking mix, pressed the mixture into the bottoms of silicone cupcake liners, and baked in the convection oven for 20 minutes at just under 300F. Filled them with some blood orange marmalade. I particularly like how the corrugated liners left a decorative pattern on the sides of the shortbread.

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December SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	rainbow cowl tassels	more clothesline	recycle bin
2	85 origami squares	cardboard down	random book parts
3	heraldic potholders	set up paperwhites	recycle bin
4	pine needle stars	grey linen pinafore	yard waste bin
5	solstice sweets	bandanna hem	yard waste bin
6	x	x	recycle bin
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. solstice sweets: shortbread tarts filled with marmalade
2. several short sweet zooms with friends and family
3. Grateful Dead, studio or live...

Time of Isolation - Day 1620

The Quintarian Project

in which our plucky heroine begins a new 100 day challenge...

not a stitch book this time, but rather a set of 5 of the pyramid pouches that I've been so very charmed with recently, inspired by the World of The Five Gods novels and novellas, written by Lois McMaster Bujold. Once again I will be limiting myself to using materials I have on hand, various fabric scraps and other crafty bits, maybe some beads or charms, certainly buttons, and whatever techniques feel like they will add meaning...

~ well begun ~

I'm starting with the Mother of Summer. Her color is green, obviously, and I didn't have much in the way of green scraps. I could have used some forest green as the backing, but since in the book, that is a color of mourning, I went in the other direction. To me the scattered patches evoke a sunny field of wildflowers; the backing fabric is from a much loved and worn out bandana from OCF years ago, and the squares combine floral cotton bits leftover from sewing masks in 2020, some tiny fragments of the tie-dye shirt my friend Aeolus made, and silk from a sample book. 

I'll be working at least 15 minutes each day until August 3rd. The timeline allows me twenty days to complete each one; if I finish before then, maybe creating a container to hold them.

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"I think that... when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed.”

~ Ursula LeGuin
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Today I made good progress on my idea to get access to the Kaiser dental clinic, which is close enough to Acorn Cottage that I can walk, or ride my bike. First, I went there to find out if they were accepting new patients, and if they took folks who were on OHP. Yes to those, but I have the wrong dental plan, as they only accept Kaiser Dental, and they do not accept people paying out of pocket either.

So, I decided to ride my bike to the Office of Aging and Disability to talk to them about changing my dental plan. That was a pretty long ride, but I figured it was better than the two buses I would have needed. I was able to talk to someone there, but their office only gets folks signed up for Medicare or Medicaid or both, and doesn't handle anything past that point, as that is the bailiwick of  "HealthShareOregon", a different organization entirely. So I called them...

That office was shut down for the day for some kind of employee training? or some such, so I took a look at their website, which then referred me to calling my medical plan instead. Which I did, and talked to Moira, who was very personable and wanted to help. But unfortunately the medical plan is not able to change any of the other two plans that are part of my OHP access. At this point it was just about 5pm, so tomorrow morning bright and early I will be calling the HealthShare office, to beg ask if I can change just my dental plan. I am sure it would be more acceptable were I to change to all Kaiser, but I have been using Providence for my medical care for years, since before I had OHP, and the office of my primary care doctor is about two miles away, so an easy bike ride. My goal is to have my various care teams be easier for me to access ie closer to home, so I am not dependent on cadgeing rides or taking multiple buses to get there. We shall see what ensues tomorrow...

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April SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	tiny angora print	computer zone lamp	persimmon prunings
2	5th God bag	blog template	forsythia prunings
3	scroll calligraphy	grey turtleneck collar	yard waste bin
4	Pelican scroll	indigo bunny art	recycle bin
5	grey rose brooch	taxes done	front plum pruning
6	pyramid pouch	redone bag ties	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. I am brave and mighty, tackling the dread bureaucracy on the phone and in person.
2. I made a tasty salad for dinner, and used up some of the veggies before they needed to be sent to the compost bin
3. I didn't let the rain keep me from going out and riding my bike.

Time of Isolation - Day 1390

PMS... no not that kind!

in which our plucky heroine contemplates the overly full resource shelves of textilia...

"Precious Materials Syndrome is a self-diagnosed condition. The hallmark symptom is having a hoard of beloved yarns, fabrics, or other materials that one feels must be saved for a project that is worthy of them, with the result that one’s most favorite supplies never get used and instead get given away after one’s demise to someone who may or may not save them for another 30 years because they are just that good! The only known cure for Precious Materials Syndrome is to make something with them."

~ Kay Gardiner, writing for Modern Daily Knitting
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Time of Isolation - Day 1135

the bitter and the sweet

in which our plucky heroine tries something new...

I am almost done doing my taxes. Still need to do a fair copy of all the pages, make a note of which pages need how many xeroxes to send in with which forms, and, of course, ride my bike to the copy store and then to the post office tomorrow to mail everything in. This year the various Oregon forms were rather astoundingly poorly written and confusing, unlike in all previous years. Or perhaps it was in not having the instructions neatly written out on a paper pamphlet to set down next to the forms and the calculator. I suspect that I am dating myself, and than no thoroughly modern person even bothers with paper forms any more. C'est la vie.

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time in the tinyworld:

The small drawers at the base of the bookcases needed handles. Rather than the expedient of simply gluing beads to the drawer fronts, I decided to use the eye portion of hook-and-eye sewing notions. A bit of effort with small pliers reshaped the eye to something more closely resembling a drawer handle (and not incidentally something that I could manage to grasp).

In order to attach them to the wooden drawer front, eschucheon pins would stand in for tiny bolts. After measuring the pin stems with a wire gauge, and marking where they needed to be located, I chose a matching drill bit to create the holes. The escutcheon pins were trimmed to the same length as the drawer fronts were thick, and a bit of Tacky Glue encouraged the whole thing to become firmly attached. The drawers now embody my aesthetic that combines a modicum of realism with a generous helping of diminutive and whimsical "use what you have"...

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"Don’t be silent but make your art as an antidote to the poison out there. Fill up the spaces with your creativity, your joy, your beauty, your intelligence. Let’s do this thing."

- Shawna Lemay

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I am attempting an experiment: meringue cookies. I have been told that they are incredibly easy. And indeed they only have two basic ingredients: sugar, and eggwhites. We shall see. The recipe my sister sent me has you preheat the oven, and once the meringues are plopped down on their parchment paper cookie sheet, they are placed in the oven, the oven turned off and left closed overnight. Which is why they are called "Forgotten Cookies". I am a bit concerned since I only had normal granulated sugar, not fancy caster sugar, since I had to use an eggbeater (as there is no stand mixer here at Acorn Cottage), and since it is actually raining, and supposedly meringues are happier if the weather is dry. Oh, and I also used rosewater to flavor them instead of vanilla. Because I like it better. My intent is to eat one as dessert tomorrow, with some fruit topping, and to have a few to share with my visitors on Sunday. 

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April SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	tiny Euphorbia	jacket snaps added	yard waste bin
2	tiny moth orchid	moar wood chips in planter	recycle bin
3	Countess scroll	weight closer for back door	-
4	Laurel enamel	tiny drawer handles	-
5	sunflower enamel	-	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - My friend Karen, who kept me video company all afternoon while I whinged and tore my hair out over the taxes. And my vintage eggbeater, which I got at a yard sale years ago, and which works really really well!

Time of Isolation - Day 760

scribal Sunday

in which our plucky heroine spends most of the day with pen and paint...

Today was the remainder of the 48 Hour An Tir Scribal Backlog Challenge, and the 4th one I have participated in. So much fun, doing good by working on the backlog, hanging out online with other artists, and a chance to try new things (which is what I do to challenge myself).

The inspiration for my artwork was a specific Book of Hours in the collection of the Mount Angel Abbey, which had charming sidebar floral decorations that I fell in love with, a calendar section with golden columns separating small landscaped scenes, and even a lion (for the sign of Leo) that I could adapt to become the Lion of An Tir. I thought this style would be a good challenge for me, as I mostly have painted scrolls in an earlier style.

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A detail:
 

(actual width 1")

I cannot yet show the whole completed scroll, because I am slow as a snail and never finish in 48 hours... but here is a sidebar detail I am particularly fond of...

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Isn't this a resonant image that ran across my internets earlier this weekend: "Here’s to sitting in the darkness, then, with beauty and love, just sitting on our laps like cats — an orange one and a gray one." - Shawna Lemay.

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Toothache has come ramping back up again, to my dismay. I do have dental appointments next week with two different specialists. I don't think repeated dosing with antibiotics is an ideal strategy, and hope we can figure out what to do about this... I am tired of being in pain.

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	tiny tulips	more compost liners	yard waste bin
2	tiny crocus	mended gloves	recycle bin
3	yet moar tiny books	more apple pruning	books to LFL
4	little ladle	tiny bucket handle	recycle bin
5	tiny aprons	acquired 2021 tax forms	-
6	x	clock movement replaced	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	-
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - sharing the artmaking online with other like-minded folks is some of the best fun that can be had while isolated at home.

Time of Isolation - Day 742

wishful Wednesday: chaos or community

in which our plucky heroine notices plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Small joys are still allowed, and in this difficult time, may help us hope for a somewhat brighter future. I don't know. Maybe those who are lucky enough to come of age in a bright if flawed world always look backward with regret, saying "we had a chance to do it right" even if all the force arrayed against that was too strong. I have been saying for years, that there are a myriad of ways to run a planet well, why on Earth have the collective we chosen to do it wrong... Still, this is the world we have now. This is the time we live in now. Stay safe, stay apart (for now) stay healthy. Do what you can find to do to shift the balance to sanity. Love.

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~ 100 day creativity challenge - day 72 ~

I think it counts as creativity, as it is a new thing, and besides, I created the stuffing mix from my own imagination and the ingredients on hand! Technically this is for tomorrow. Turkey thigh roulade: I de-boned a turkey thigh, butterflied it, and made a stuffing with sourdough bread, herbs and green onions from the yard, and some of the oyster mushrooms that Nicole gave me earlier this year... rolled the whole thing up and roasted it for almost an hour and a half at 350° in the lil convection oven

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a few weeks ago, I found "Dance The Eagle to Sleep" in a local Little Free Library. It is one of the few Marge Piercy books I'd not read, though I've been around and through her poetry often and some of her novels repeately. It was published in 1970, as a kind of near-future history relating to the new left and countercultural activity, and while some of the language is dated, the concepts dealt with are strongly and sadly still relevant fifty years later down the road

“People were not getting back what they wanted for their sold labor. Taxes grew and services shrank. Prices rose and quality decayed. Everywhere people felt used and betrayed and coerced and cheated.”

"Some of the academic ex-radicals took the position that unrest among the youth would provoke fascism. They wrote about fascism as a dramatic change, a cop d'etat, the Pentagon marching on the White House. None of them imagined that it could come in like the morning paper, that it would be just the same families maintaining themselves in power by slightly different means. No swastikas, no eagles other than the Bald Eagle rendered extinct through DDT: only the American flag. No SS, no storm troopers, no blackshirts: only the regular police armed with tanks and gases and high explosives and trainging in riot control. They did not see that black people and kids already lived their lives in a police state."

 

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November SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	five new dishtowels	restring beads	recycle bin
2	new apron	2 Gigi shirts	-
3	another new apron	x	-
4	two floral dishtowels	x	x
5	three pot holders	x	x
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - I have excellent friends! This morning, I awakened to a knocking on the front door, which turned out to be the postman, who had left a package for me from my friend Luz Clara. She sent me several yards of delightfully striped and patched japanese fabric, very boro-esque. I plan on using it for either a pinafore, or a loose lagenlook jacket. Not sure if I will leave it all black/stripey, or overdye in a light indigo, or taupe. Leaning towards light indigo. As an extra treat, she included a package of titanium strips for making soldering tools, which is a definite impetus for me to clear away the clutter on the workbench

Monday maunderings...

in which our plucky heroine has an old question answered...

All those instances in past years when (in response to various and sundry troublesome incidents) the saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" led me to reply wtf am I going to need to be so gorram strong for...  I had thought that my cancer journey was the answer when it came, but now it seems that was only a rehearsal.

The reality we are in now feels like the sort of apocalyptic SF I gave up on reading decades ago, the sort of stories that end without hope. None of them included it being too dangerous to even be any closer than six feet to our cohorts. Perhaps, somehow, we humans will learn the lesson (cooperate or die) to heal ourselves and our planet, so that our species can continue to exist

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Last night I went to bed, and the AQI had risen to 618. Which is basically off the chart. Overnight went to a high of 688, and currently at 472 is still deep beyond "Hazardous - everyone may experience more serious health effects, everyone should avoid all outdoor activity". I've not been outside at all in three days.

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today's gratitude - I am alive, my relatives and friends are mostly all still alive. Where there is life, there is hope.

"Hope is a discipline, Mariame Kaba said, and it matters most when it's hardest. Right now it doesn't mean envisioning rosy futures; it means knowing that the worst case scenarios are not inevitable, and every day we are choosing together what direction we head in."

~ Rebecca Solnit

hypochondria stay away from me...

in which our plucky heroine is still feeling quite puny...

All I accomplished today was to get dressed, take about a half-walk early this morning just at sunup, and make a very little sewing progress on my floral blouse. Still have a terrible headache, though it was somewhat subdued when I remembered that I could take Tylenol, and took a three hour nap in the afternoon to make up for waking at about 4AM this morning. My face still hurts, I still cannot wear my glasses, and my neck is still stiff. I really hope that all this feeling physically off is a result of my bad fall last week (combined with allergies), and not signs of the virus...

Had a Zoom call with my parents and sister, and while that was being setup, my brother and sister in law arrived with a groceries for Mom and Dad, and actually went into the apartment, just long enough to drop off the food and set up the tablet for Zoom-ing. Seeing half my family in masks felt odd. This whole thing is so odd, but I am starting to feel like life will always be this way.

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beauty in the time of isolation - reset day 8:

homemade butter from dear Heather, a vintage butter dish (longago housewarming gift) from Beth and Karen, and in the back, some fresh veggies from Zabet... doesn't get more beautiful than the lovingkindness of friends

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I've noticed today that pretty much all the rooms here in Acorn Cottage are beginning to show random clutter clumps. This is a sign I have seen before, when I am not coping as well as I think I am. One cure, since the current stressors are not going away, is if I simply pick one room at a time, and actually tidy things back into their places (at least all the things that do have places, which at this point is most of them). I do not need to have random projects scattered about, cheek and jowl with clean laundry, drawing supplies, and the scraps from the last mask making madness... Tomorrow I will start in the kitchen, and if all goes well, by the end of the next week I will both feel physically better and also have a more visually peaceful home again, which will make me feel mentally and emotionally better. I have learned over many years that rather than waiting for feeling better to inspire me to clean and declutter, simply making small changes bit by bit irregardless often has better results.

"Inspiration is for amateurs,
the rest of us just show up and get to work..."

~ Chuck Close
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May SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	collage	bird netting peas	long grass backyard
2	strawberry rhubarb	harvest pea greens	yard waste bin
3	lemon curd	harvest sunflower greens	-
4	x	planted tomato starts	-
5	x	started arugula/cilantro	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - being able to take a nap when tired... Also, getting a letter today from my dear friend Vesta!! I plan on answering her missive tomorrow (so there is even a thing for me to look forward to)

a sunny if silent day

in which our plucky heroine shares some additional options for things to do...

Time of Isolation - Day 4

I am the very model of effective social distancing!
I listen to the experts on the topic of resistance-ing;
I know that brunch and yoga class aren’t nearly as imperative
As doing what I can to change the nation’s viral narrative.

I’m very well acquainted, too, with living solitarily
And confident that everyone can do it temporarily:
Go take a walk, or ride a bike, or dig into an unread book;
Avoid the bars and restaurants and carry out, or learn to cook.

There’s lots of stuff to watch online while keeping safe from sinus ills
(In this case, it’s far better to enjoy your Netflix MINUS chills)!
Adopt a pet, compose a ballad, write some earnest doggerel,
And help demolish Trump before our next event inaugural.

Pandemics are alarming, but they aren’t insurmountable
If everybody pitches in to hold ourselves accountable.
In short, please do your part to practice prudent co-existence-ing,
And be the very model of effective social distancing!

- Eliza Rubenstein

From the renowned fantasy artist Charles Vess:
"Since the next several weeks will be quieter and slower than most for you, perhaps you'd like to read my novel, 'The Queen of Summer's Twilight'. Its all on online and free on my GMP blog. I hope that you'll enjoy it..."

Looking for a fun thing to do while distancing from your everyday life and contacts? The artist Carson Ellis is going to be posting daily "art assignments" and encouragement on her Instagram. I plan on participating...


My friend and author A. M. Brosius has written a number of fascinating and enjoyable alternate future history novels, and a number of them are serialised on his Dreamwidth account. As he recently posted:
"I'm not sayin' that if you're stuck at home for days and bored that you could go to dreamwidth and read the serialized novels that I have posted there. But you *could* y'know?": Chapter One, Book One:

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	candied pomelo peel	back corner fence	-
2	blood orange marmalade	pantry reorganised	-
3	cara cara marmalade	corned beef in freezer	-
4	x	repair dainty bag	-
5	x	x	x
6	x	x	x
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - am grateful for having a separate food freezer, so that I can store food as long as we still have electricity, and that allows me to cook things ahead for when I am finally able to actually eat real meals. The corned beef and cabbage will be later this year, but no the less nommy...

fear is the mind killer...

in which our plucky heroine confronts fears of various sorts...

yesterdays entry from Siderea's journal definitely gave me more food for thought... While I know that numbers can be looked at in all sorts of ways, my gut feeling is that overall the numbers are not benign. While I very much appreciate all that the helpers, the medical personnel, the researchers are doing, I fear that the overall gutted public health infrastructure and institutional lack of concern/awareness of the reality of most peoples lives are going to bite our culture hard. I hope I am wrong, and even more I hope that I and my dear ones will all be here a year from now, doing our best to deal with whatever the next thing to come down the road at us will be... Much love to all of you...

Today I go in for the first of two necessary periodontal surgeries. I've been phobic about oral surgery ever since the botched surgery when I was 14. I don't know what sort of condition I will be in afterwards, so am writing my Monday post now, the night before. I am feeling peculiarly blank, or, as dearlove M pointed out, currently in a state of "fatalistic resignation right now... at some point your monkey brain gives up on "protecting you" via panic"

and... here is some Tina Turner, as a counterbalance:

today's gratitude - today I am grateful for every day I have been above ground ever since my cancer journey.

Friday fragments

in which our plucky heroine continues incremental improvement...

Today* This morning was a respite, it actually drizzled in the wee small hours before dawn, and the early hours of daylight were cool and sweetly grey. I have all the windows open, and am planning a midday bike ride just to enjoy the weather!

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ancient Greek word of the day: κακοθερής (kakotherēs), unfitted to endure summer heat (literal translation = bad at summer)... that would be me!

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Regarding the year long wardrobe sewing challenge, in some ways I skipped July, partially because of medical foo, and partially because the suggested garments** are not part of my wardrobe. I did, however, sew an additional popover dress to my summer wardrobe instead, made from incredibly lightweight silky rayon in a very dark indigo faux-shibori print.

The August suggestion is a skirt, blouse, cardigan set, with high boots, a brooch, and a ring as the accessories. I have planned to sew at least one additional blouse before autumn. I already have several cardigans in different colorways, ditto a pair of tall boots that fit me. Don't ever wear rings, and rarely wear brooches. If I substitute one of my pinafores for the skirt, I'm good.

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	x	popover pockets	plant stand
2	x	x	-
3	x	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - riding my bike again makes me feel like my life is returning to what passes for normal.

* by midday it was sunny hot and very humid, and my ride to the library reminded me all to much of my youth in New England. This season has felt a lot like that, being more humid than usual, and even a few summer thunderstorms, which are really rare here.

** tee shirts and shorts, with sandals and a necklace as accessories...
I have sandals, and am still planning on making a beaded herringbone stitch necklace in my copious free time, but I NEVER wear shorts as a visible outer garment. Just not my style, and the year I made a bunch of tee shirts as part of SWAP was fun, but they languished in my dresser unworn. If it is hot enough that the suggested combo is appropriate, I will be wearing a popover as that is as close I can come to not wearing anything at all and still be street-legal...

irregular spiral

in which our plucky heroine been drifting tidally in and out of sorrow....

Missing the eras in my life that are past, most recently because it is turning towards OCF, and that was the hub of my year for many years, and it is no longer. Missing both intimacy and playfulness. Wondering if the resilience and intermittent calm I have developed is enough of a trade. I feel as if in some ways I have forgotten how to build or have a deep connection to others, wondering if indeed I ever did, or merely imagined it. Not that I am not a good friend and sibling and child of my Aged Parents; the one thing I hope my years have taught me is to be better at listening...  I am grateful to have the privilege of being this age, of not dying from the cancer seven years ago, but as I have stopped talking so much, and listening more, I wish that I had someone to who wanted to know what is in my heart/mind.

"I am no longer that young woman.  I am always that young woman. Everything is lost, and yet nothing is lost, at least as it a part of the person I am -- always absorbing, always evolving."

- R. Mardel Fehrenbach from her blog
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It was a most unrestful night last night, full of nightmares both subtle and direct, and I eventually woke up before dawn realising in the dreamlands that the mushroom cloud to the north was the Pacific Rim letting go and not direct airstrikes.

Time to revisit/refill my earthquake shelf, and replace the stored water in the closet. Other than that, we each wherever we live need to be prepared for the hazards of the natural world, and do what work we can to ameliorate the hazards of the human created one.

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June SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	blue floral blouse	backyard clothesline	dead rope
2	x	x	-
3	x	x	-
4	x	x	-
5	x	x	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	-
8	x	x	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	-
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - the gift of seven years beyond cancer, I never stop being grateful for not dying then. Peace and good journey to my childhood best friend Vanessa, who wasn't given that gift...

Tuesday tidbits

"practice makes proficient" - not perfect, not necessarily progress...
proficient* = competent or skilled in doing or using something

So make good choices about what and how you practice, whether with hand or brain or spirit, because repetition makes whatever you repeat more likely to happen again. Some of the things I have practiced over the years/decades have really made my life easier, like I am much better at soldering than I was when I started. Some of the things I have practiced over the years/decades have made my life much more difficult, like assuming danger all the time, which has limited my life in uncounted ways. We most often think of practice in terms of trying to learn new skills, but we are practicing continually in all the different spheres we exist in. I continue to attempt to notice what I am practicing, and to practice by choice and not by default. This is way harder than it sounds, and is in itself a type of practice...

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Every time I've ridden the train between Boston and points west, this curious structure has fascinated me, and this trip I managed a few decent photos...

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as seen from the train, and enlarged to show facade

The water visible in the photos is Farm Pond in Framingham, the terminal end of the Sudbury Aqueduct, which was built between 1875 and 1878, and was in use for over 100 years. The small building is not an unusual home site, as I had imagined, but rather a "gate house" that houses part of the machinery that controlled the flow of water.
Here is a photo from 1910, looking in the opposite direction, and the rail line is clearly visible in the background.

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May SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	earbud case	replace button patches	chicken house
2	Ursa pullover	pruned parking strip	chicken waterer
3	x	renewed raised planters	lots of yard waste
4	x	plant salad table	paper recycling
5	x	plant tomato starts	-
6	x	grapevine pruned	-
7	x	green onions planted	-
8	x	I-cord edging	-
9	x	x	-
10	x	x	-
11	x	x	-
12	x	x	-
13	x	x	-
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - the internet makes doing research eversomuch easier, as only those of us who grew up before will ever appreciate

*late 16th century: from Latin proficient- ‘advancing’, from the verb proficere, from pro- ‘on behalf of’ + facere ‘do, make’.