Plain, very plain, and just plain exciting

Yesterday turned out to be plain. I did cut the terrycloth for future towels, you'll notice that the spare room bed, last week my diy workbench, is now my cutting surface

And hemmed a hand towel now in use in the bathroom.

 The one it replaces will go down the animal kingdom as a floor cloth.

 So I now have a stack of plain sewing to attend, in uncreative moods.

And then I moved outside to sort the outdoor storage closet next to the front door.  Found myself in a shouted convo with several neighbors doing distance chatting, while I sorted. Not much to discard, it turns out to my surprise, but a couple of handy discoveries.

The reason I can't just toss or donate garden tools, which is most of what's there, is that I keep them for any neighbor to borrow and return. Bulb planters, dibblers, trowels,  spades, bamboo canes, sisal string, clippers, all that.

 So there's a fair bit of rummaging when people are looking for a tool, and I sometimes have to sort it. It's generally understood that there's no need to ask, just borrow, then return clean when you finish. It saves people from buying their own, no point. But people don't always remember where the tool was and stuff gets mixed up.

Not in the mood for walking yesterday, so I did Eight Pieces of Silk, chi gong exercises, which I haven't done for a while. I have an ancient videocassette of Renee Ryan teaching a class, outdoors, grass, trees, a little wind.

It's a great series, with stretching, firing imaginary arrows, punching, all very interesting,while she explains the point of each one.  You can find various versions on YouTube if you like the idea. I find that I'm calmer, and the day after, much less creaky when I get up.

 I also often do one of the exercises while I'm waiting for the microwave. Or a yoga move like Tree Pose. My kitchen window faces the street and I've often wondered what passing neighbors think of these moves.  I have Indian and Chinese neighbors who are probably familiar with them and shake their heads over my poor form.

It was good that I did calming stuff because in the evening my son who lives two minutes away, messaged to say he might call out of work today, a cold, maybe a fever, but he had no thermometer. He'd been unable to buy one. Out of stock.

Since he works in a supermarket that's been mobbed recently,  the fever was a sudden cause of alarm, so I went through my bathroom storage in search of a backup thermometer. I found one, the old fashioned kind with the mercury column you have to shake down, and peer at to read.

So, I said don't go away, I'll bring it to you. This involved my first trip in the dark in the new car, trying to find the headlight switch, all that. Got halfway there and realized I'd left the thermometer on the counter.  Back again, out again. Nervous, me? Nooooo, I do calming exercises..

Then I didn't want to go in his apartment, handed him the therm. and waited on the landing looking through the storm door while he took his temp. He couldn't fathom how to angle the therm to read it, so I threw caution to the winds, took it, showed him, read it, normal, no fever after all, then explained how to shake it down.

 And had to do it for him, since  he couldn't master the whipping wrist action. Just flailing it about vigorously doesn't work. Nowadays even doctors don't always know, what with high tech thermometers that read it to you in several languages and offer you a cup of tea while they're at it. Then I came home and scrubbed up like a surgeon.

So no fever, no dry cough, and he's fully equipped with cold remedies. If he's home today, he can probably do some work on his second job, a high tech one done remotely, using the equipment he has.

 This was his full time  work until the recess closed the company he worked for, and one of the partners retained him to work part time in a new project he'd started from the ashes. No chance of a return to full time in high tech, no matter how skilled, for a 50 something.

 So he,  philosophical as ever, after years of searching and temping, cut his losses, got hourly work in the supermarket. It's a union job. I think it's the Brotherhood of Meatcutters, or something.  And, true to form, never a word of complaint, just puts his head down and gets on with it.

So that's where we are.  Hoping for the best. As always.