About Pony, Misfits and insurance

I had quite a few suggestions for names for Pony:

Polly 

Pollyanna 

Dapper

Sweetie

Stitches 

Penelope

Percival 

Poindexter 

Pedro

Pooky 

Zipper

Valentine 

I studied the choices, remembering dear old Pony, who lived at the convent where I send the knitted gloves and socks. That was his full name, so I considered it.  

He had a nice paddock where he received his fans and treats, when he wasn't out having illicit adventures in other people's gardens.  And this weekend,  along came Bad Bunny.

So we have Pony Bad Bunny.  Pony for short.

And I got a response from the insurance people confirming that the reason for the sudden premium increase for the house coverage was the cancellation of the auto coverage.  I'm deeply suspicious that the increase is almost exactly what they refunded when I cancelled. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Misfits seems to be an afternoon delivery for Ronald.

I usually try to do a bit of catch-up before deliveries. I had a piece of good ginger in the fridge, and wanted to be sure to process it before it got dry.  Not cheap.

Enter the microplane and paring knife, and now I have two containers of ginger in the freezer ready for use 

Minced probably for cake, diced for Wil Yeung recipes. I don't bother peeling since the skin has a lot of flavor and works fine.

Then Ronald arrived with a small order this week, in a rental van, I wonder if the pink truck came to grief on the ice.

The "meet the family" card back there is about eggs, which I didn't order this week. Maybe it's to remind me.

Canned goods plus honey for the food pantry, honey for me too, Rockit apples like little jewels, olive oil because I'm clean out, blueberries to go with the yogurt, yay my favorite yogurt was back in stock this week, green olives because that sauce was great and I'm up for making it again, only with the "right" olives, tuna for tuna melt and salad, different ketchup because the other wasn't available. 

I already have things like diced tomatoes chickpeas, cannellini beans, so I'm catered for.  It's all good. This evening dinner will be i stew of chickpeas and diced tomatoes flavored with that olive sauce.

Happy day everyone, congratulations to Minneapolis for apparently defeating ICE. For now.

When we get rid of this brutal bunch, we'll have people like those brave souls in Minneapolis and other cities to thank for showing us how it's done. And we will never forget the people who gave their lives and health and safety.  

To honor them, we'll keep pushing,  in every way we can think of. As exhausted, traumatized families eventually get back from concentration camps in Texas to home, they'll still need help.  Local organizations will still need donations. We're not at the end, just at the end of the beginning. 

Still my flag. We'll retrieve it from the mud and clean it up.

Kitties and textiles of yore

While I was editing, I came across these old pictures of the dynamic duo assisting in the textile studio.

Just to show my helpers at work.

There was a Hajii Baba Rug Club presentation today by Jacqueline Simcox, researcher, writer and dealer in early Asian textiles, of which I selected a few images, the captions not needing any help from me. She wrote the book in the first slide.  

Many of the works she showed included pearl rondels - those circle shapes around the borders of a lot of Asian woven garments and hangings, and animals. 

There were interesting versions of lions by weavers who had probably never seen them, but, undaunted, they did them anyway. Their mythical animals such as dragons, including the five clawed imperial dragon, were more assured. 

wonderful rendering of flowers here

This is a meditative mandala

yellow being the imperial color, this was a court garment

and here a diagram for people unfamiliar with embroidery, of the stitches used in the last piece

The last piece is an archery armguard, probably only symbolic, maybe for funerary rites. Actual armguards would have been leather. This one depicts the winged horse Pegasus, made a thousand years after the story originated, this one even with the snake from which Pegasus was born.

A lot of color has faded, purple fading to brown, reds sometimes vanishing, but indigo tends to persist. Where pieces have been kept away from light, the colors are vivid, madder red included.

More humbly, my home cotton spinning is in progress. The last time I tried to spin cotton from, probably over processed, roving, it was impossible. 

Two other, more experienced, spinners had given up on it before it came to me. I ended up using it to stuff comfort dolls, since it was clean and nice to handle. 

But my own minimally processed cotton is working fine. The thread has nups here and there, little lumps, but I'm not going for perfection, to put it mildly.

Happy day, everyone.  

Very cold here, snow due tonight, meanwhile I'm making soup. Stock from veggie bits, potatoes, red lentils, later I'll blend, then add chicken bones from those thighs a couple of weeks ago, take them out,retrieving any meat, then add pasta. 

And I've been reading about Christianna  Brand for a while so I'm trying an e-book.

Stay warm if applicable, stand with Minnesota 

Sez Ted and Big Ursy