Misfits, Haptic and Hue

I listen to several podcasts regularly, some because they're accurate news reporting, in the absence of balanced mass media coverage, some for other reasons. 

One textile-related one is the great Haptic and Hue, created by Jo Andrews, a weaver and textile historian, a monthly event you can follow anywhere you find your podcasts. I use Spotify again, now that they've stopped running ICE job ads.

Today's episode is a moving account of textile scraps used to identify foundling babies in the eighteenth century. 

The illustration is the general purpose one, not specific to this month's episode. 

And it's Misfits day, rainy, not fun for the driver, Jeff.

Here he is, a bit wet, unloading cheerfully. I notice the van is scraped and dented all along this side, maybe a casualty of icy weather. 

There was a great price on strawberries so I stocked up, one for the fridge for smoothies and sauce, note the sugar there, that's why, two for the freezer, maybe frozen dessert, who knows.

Cans to share with the food pantry, I have a heavy bag to take in, must get onto it, Bananaz for breakfasts and smoothies. 

Flour, finally, so I can bake bread, no whole wheat available but I have some to mix in, and I'm planning on baguettes, from Baking on a Budget. 

Yogurt, my staple, with fruit, blueberries or strawberries, no other veggies because I have various greens in the freezer.

I'm well stocked now. I'm planning on red lentil tofu, already have supplies, including the soy sauce and ketchup I got recently. 

And I have rice, which I keep forgetting to use. With tofu cubes and green vegetables, and a sauce, that's an easy meal or two. Next week there will be shrimp and tuna. I seem to have lost my taste for chicken just now but there's plenty of protein in my plans.

This afternoon is about listening to rain and reading 

Which I've been awaiting for ages, an epistolary novel by an old woman corresponding with various people. 

That's about all I know of it, except that I like the epistolary, letter,  form a lot, love reading between the lines. 

My favorite part of Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon is the opening chapter of letters, full of different perceptions of Harriet and Peter's wedding.

I have high hopes for this first novel which made a hit.

Speaking of hits, Ursula (means little bear) one of the upstairs bears, with Pink Rabbit, found out about Pony. Nothing would satisfy her but to have a ride. 

Pony's a nice character and was quite happy to meet someone smaller, because she's feeling a bit towered over by the downstairs bears.

So the result was a ride. And maybe a permanent home with Ted, Big Ursy and Pony, sporting pussy hats 

On a serious note, here's an explainer about why many women prefer the bear. In real life.

Happy day everyone, speak up! 

Still there, still fighting 

Fall trees, ivy and Misfits

Windy chilly walk on Thursday morning, the kind you tell yourself you'll be glad you did, which I was. There was what my weather app calls a moderate wind and I call a howling gale because I'm out in it.

I often like to bring home a souvenir of a walk if I didn't feel like going out, and in the middle of my purloined ivy, now taking root, is a new, paler, bit from a different area, this morning's haul.

I might develop a collection of ivy for hanging all over the house this winter. There's plenty growing in the trees, English, not the poison kind.

Misfits was having website issues today, a lot of difficulty getting in to track my box, and I noticed Rameer working endlessly on his screen when he came to deliver. 

So here's this week's food. Extra cans for the food pantry, carrots for soup along with the pumpkin still out on the step, very small potatoes, fine for my purposes, though, for roasting to go with mushroom omelette, mushrooms sliced in freezer, eggs you see here.

Apples and blueberries, staple fruit, yogurt to go in desserts, on soup, and maybe in a vegetable curry. Fair trade sugar for desserts and Handsome Son's tea.

All good, prices still manageable, organic food. And Misfits is now handling bananas, big news. I ordered for next week. I haven't had bananas in years, because I shop at Misfits and they haven't had any before. I hope they become a staple.

And here's beautiful fruit, and vegetables cooking ahead.  

I find that's helpful for making other dishes, when the vegs are partly cooked. They taste good, because not overdone, but they're easier to use. 

Partly boiled potatoes make great roast potatoes, crisp outside, fluffy inside. And partly boiled carrots make a rapid soup or anything else -- maybe mashed for cake.

Happy day everyone!  I now have the Bananaz theme going on repeat. Until they release the Epstein files.

Has there ever been a modern tv viewing mother feeding her baby a spoonful of mashed banana who didn't sing along Bananazzzz Dumdiddledumdiddledumdiddledumpty...?

My flag doing better now, more hopeful 

 

Misfits and more good news

I was up about five on Thursday, still dark and the full moon lighting up the street. I love to be up to see the day arrive while I drink my coffee.

 I'm still getting good news of elections from all over the country, typically too local to make the national news, but significant. Like Chris's report on the Idaho school board election, which I passed on via Spoutible.

Quite a few school boards have tossed rightist book-banning Moms and rejected new similar candidates, replacing them with blue candidates. 

Sheriffs, too, one local to here, Bucks county. Voters replaced the sheriff who had got into an agreement to assist ICE,  with a new younger man who plans to rescind the agreement as soon as he takes office. A Democrat. In red, affluent, Bucks county.  More and more news like this is coming in, a definite blue wave. 

I wrote to Schumer and my two senators urging them to hold fast, never surrender, and I'm hoping they won't give in to the emotional blackmail of hunger and soaring health premiums -- as you read on Wednesday, this is hitting my family -- but force accountability.  Election Day showed we're in fighting mode. Ooh, a pome! I'm doing my best to help on the hunger front.

And Misfits arrived. I messaged Haleem the driver warning him his usual entrance road is up for repairs, finally, and giving him a heads-up about another entrance to the development.

And here's the doings. Extra canned goods for the food pantry, this is a permanent part of the planning, apples for mid morning, blueberries and yogurt for desserts, yogurt also for sauces and maybe a bit of pastry.

Chocolate chips and dried cranberries for granola to happen today, tuna for tuna melt, peanut butter to sub for tahini which I don't like. This works in sauces and hummus with the chickpeas you see there. 

The garlic paste you saw recently is working well, anywhere garlic is needed. I'm making some good garlic bread -- garlic paste and butter toasted on whole wheat bread. I chunked that up to add to spinach and scallion salad. Some garlic roast potato dice. Maybe garlicky game hen. Hm. 

I expect I'll use it, too,  in the hummus I'm thinking about. Maybe I'll make crackers, using some yogurt, to go with. 

Lunch Thursday was raw spinach torn up, with roasted potato dice, mushrooms and scallions with garlic paste, olive oil and  feta cheese crumbles on top. Dessert was one of those apples, crisp, juicy, just right. 

And I made granola, oats, walnuts, dried cranberries, chocolate chips 

And as usual I'm reading a lot at once, just taking a look at Marc Freedman, How to Live Forever

It's about old people leaving a legacy of teaching, and encouraging younger people.  

I think it's a good thing in itself, but I wonder if that legacy thing is more a male idea. What do you think? I don't think in terms of legacy, and I don't know how commonly women do.

I'm noticing in other books that nonfiction, other than science,  from more than a couple of years ago, doesn't fit with our social reality. Quite a few assumptions don't work any more, in this age of fear and chaos. 

So when I see a publication date a couple of years back I read with a bit more scepticism. So much has changed, not for the better. Our optimism has taken a big jolt.

But this one doesn't date

Just started this. The cat, on loan for two weeks, is prescribed by the unusual therapist as a treatment for burnout in a Japanese corporate job. We'll see how it goes. It's very popular -- long wait. Hm, wonder why..

Out walking, I met a little black and white fluffy barky wagging puppy. That was a Good Thing. 

Happy day everyone, anyway, for now let's never mind legacy, just enjoy today!  Here's a nice picture, sez

Frogs, nuts and Misfits

This morning's pond walk yielded one tiny turtle swimming towards me, little head above water, body maybe four inches long and round, until he got close to the shore. Then he saw me and did a quick u-turn. He may be young but he's smart. No pictures, he wants his privacy.

And there's a frog sitting on the side, behind a screen of nuts. Those nuts will all fall to squirrels. Humans don't stand a chance.

Misfits was welcome today, definitely low in supplies.

Canned food for the food pantry, from their list, beautiful brown eggs, the kind with golden yolks which stand up when you break the egg. The shells are sturdy and take a bit of breaking, too 

Strawberries at peak, also blueberries, to accompany yogurt and granola for breakfasts.

Yellow potatoes, for roasting with the chicken thighs, mushrooms to be sliced and sauteed for omelettes, bread for chicken sandwiches and egg salad ditto.

All very simple and good food. Next week I'll stock up on green vegetables, some big rescued spinach coming, which would otherwise be juiced or land filled, too large for the retailers.

I already have sardines and tuna, also various beans. I think I'll do okay, with very little prep.

Another friend, in her sixties, has just bought a single story house, reluctantly leaving her beloved big place because her knees won't do stairs any more. 

She's postponing joint replacement, and I'm encouraging her to reconsider. Life is so much easier when you're not hurting. And it's hard to be fit when you're in pain. But she has to decide. I know what it's like to feel too rotten to think about surgery, though. 

Currently I'm reading a Donna Leon 

A Refiner's Fire,  

I just started it and I may postpone my viewing of Season Six of Foyle's War until I finish the Leon.

Gary is off away tomorrow, family time in Florida, for a week and a bit. Maybe  I'll get my contractor friend Mike to replace the front door lock then,  much less activity, more focused. Now Gary wants to replace my front hall flooring to match the kitchen.. Today has been punctuated with visits ranging from discussing morning glories to my holding a piece of plastic in the wind on the back window of his Beemer because it leaks and he's trying to get it replaced. He needed a second pair of hands to get it in place.  He doesn't want rain to get in while he's away. Always something.

Happy day everyone, be friendly to your neighbors. You never know if you might need a hand with a plastic sheet in the wind. Or three sheets in the wind.

Today is Handsome Partner's anniversary, as well as Handsome Son's birthday.

New mugs for old, Misfits and Confessions of an Old Blogger

My favorite Chinese porcelain mugs, which I've used for years, are now chipped, not good, and my antique little blue and white rice grain bowl fell in the sink yesterday and is now three bits. So I thought it was a message.  

I'd finally, reluctantly  have to replace the cups. But not with the lovely china teacups I see online. In my hands these days, china would have a short life but a merry one.

So I decided unbreakable was it. And found on Etsy a couple which match my unbreakable plates.

They're on the way and I think even I will be able to handle them.  I like the shape, and the design. I wonder if there's a matching teapot..

Misfits today

Cherries because we haven't had local ones in years owing to late frosts, Swiss cheese because it's been a while, celery likewise, good in stock and soup. Butter because I'm getting low, muesli because I liked the last lot, bread because I'm still too lazy to bake, mushrooms because I forgot I  already had some, tofu for maybe crisp sticks, diced tomato and yogurt because staples here.

In other vital news, I've been interested recently in discussions in the blogosphere about blogging and how and why, and notice quite a few bloggers used to write professionally. Including this one.

When Handsome Son was a baby, it became clear there were pressing reasons for me to be home to attend his early developmental struggles. I needed a way to both use my other skills and earn while doing it. Otherwise I'd have had a breakdown in short order.

I took to writing short pieces, 1,000-2,000 words, on spec, on a wide variety of subjects, also short fiction and funny verse. At that time there were many print publications to try for, and I soon had a couple of dozen short articles in submission most of the time. 

I sold a lot, sometimes two and three a week. That's a lot in the world of multiple rejections.  It paid handsome son's medical bills. At that time pre-existing conditions were excluded from insurance. So it was great for my sense of accomplishment and good for the family income.

The only hitch was that the only time I had available to write pieces uninterrupted was  usually two to three am, that is not a typo. Handwritten to avoid disturbing the house 

My daylight hours were spent keeping son alive and safe.  I don't remember when I slept.

But while tending him in the day, I was composing in my head and could get it written down at warp speed at night when there was time to safely focus. 

I was a rapid typist and could rattle out a piece in minutes at any chance I got next day. I'd already edited and rewritten mentally, then during the middle of the night I'd written longhand, so typing it up, manual typewriter, was speedy. 

During this period I wrote a novel, blessedly unpublished.  I also co- wrote a book on learning disabilities. My chapters were later used in a textbook for graduate students in special education. I donated rather than sell them, though the publishers wanted to pay. I don't think it's right to capitalize on a child's disability.

Blogging is really an unpaid extension of all  that activity, and for similar reasons. During Handsome Partner's last years, he could not be alone, and I was tied to full-on care as his disability progressed to the point of quadriplegia.  

The first blog, Field and Fen, I started in 2008, just to stay connected with the outside world and share my ideas and experiences, later to share the reality of home hospice care, to help people wanting to understand it and to be supportive. 

At that time I had been a serious exhibiting artist for many years, and continued making art, so I also started an art blog, Art the Beautiful Metaphor, a joke about soccer the beautiful game, which nobody got!  

That blog is about exhibits, my process and all kinds of related thoughts. Both blogs had followings, some people following both. It kept me in the art swim.

I combined the two blogs a few years ago, to simplify things since I had finally closed out my exhibiting life, with a terrific purchase prize out of a regional exhibit. The buyer was a public collection, nice way to end. Exhibiting takes energy I wanted to use for other purposes, though artmaking continues.

Beautiful Metaphor is still open to read, though I don't post there. https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com

Then, after Handsome Partner's death, I got out again and found new friends.   I found myself creating and writing yet another blog, as well as the other two, this one about the doings of  my chapter of Embroiderers' Guild of America. 

Picture-heavy with my pictures, I wrote about current works, meetings, parties and road trips. After a few years I moved on from the Guild, but the blog remains open to read at https://princetonega.blogspot.com

So that's this blogger. I still think and write at warp speed, usually straight onto the post with a few edits, on one finger, onscreen keyboard! I usually have a bunch of ideas and just pick ones that seem timely or  fun to read, or at least interesting. I aim to entertain! I certainly entertain myself.

Happy day, everyone! Enjoy what there is to enjoy today.