If weaving be the food of love, eat on.

Saturday has been about cooking and weaving, the food being vital support. Weaving is labor intensive.

I roasted a tray of diced chicken breast, hot chili dice,  scallions, carrots, mushrooms, onions and chickpeas, with red chili  oil, shawarma seasoning mix and seasalt. 

This was an interesting lunch, full of flavor, just hot enough and plenty of textures. I'll get three more meals from it. 

I fitted this into a day of thrills and spills weaving and reweaving and learning the meander pattern. 

First I had to study how to load the shuttle, it's different from the open ended ones I have. But what a great tool. So much easier to pick up pattern threads. 

And here you see an interesting discovery. When I chose pink pattern threads, I thought they'd stand out subtly against the variegated yarn. 

Then I had to choose the weft thread and, thinking the variegated yarn would confuse the design, decided on the white you see.

And here's what happened. The pink pattern threads, supposedly the main event, blended in and the white, weft, thread stood out. It's a kind of negative space effect. Very clever if I'd intended it. But interesting, anyway. 

I'll continue, because my skill level is starting to get going. I love the shuttle, very friendly tool.

No time for walking aside from a meandering to the mailbox, to find it packed with election material. We have a primary coming with a cast of thousands running to succeed a great member of the House, Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Our mail in ballot looks like a CVS receipt. For them as don't know, CVS is a pharmacy famous for its yard-long receipts for the smallest purchase.  Usually a ballot has a few names for the primary. This one's a free for all.

Happy day everyone, and I wish you the pleasure I'm getting from my new weaving caper. So much to learn.

Voting, hats on, tattie scones

I got my mail-in ballot filled in, ready to take to the dropbox Tuesday when I pass by there anyway.

And found a simple recipe for potato scones, aka tattie scones, from the nice Baking on a Budget man on YouTube.

How you melt butter when you don't have a microwave and you're boiling potatoes for mash.

I also ground up some flaxseed to add in to the mash, butter, flour, salt and pepper. You just mix, form a flattened ball, roll it a bit, cut into equal parts, fry in a dry pan.

I added a pat of butter each. With the sharp cheddar and spinach, it worked out well for a lunch when I couldn't think what to have. Yogurt beaten with lime juice, then strawberries added, for dessert.

The scones will work for practically any meal. I'll probably fancy it up a bit with spices next time. Meanwhile I have four more in the fridge.

I notice that for the first time in many years of growing, my Korean spicebush, viburnum carlesii, has put out berries. It's been flowering for years but I don't think it's got all carried away like this before 

And, out walking, another beautiful day, I spotted this holly and those reddish leaves might be poison ivy. If so, here's the holly and the ivy.

The hat is coming along, now bound around the cut edge. 

I used some bias binding I had lying around, and stitched both sides at once, to save stitching twice around. It works pretty well. 

The binding means that when I attach the two parts, crown and brim, I'm stitching fabric to fabric, so there's no fraying of the straw. It's protected in a channel of tape. 

There another option too, next hat I try. That's to just cut and bind a brim and pull it on over a silk headscarf. I might try that look.

About health, I continue walking, as I said above,  exercising to yes2next, and visualizing. 

Visualizing is becoming more and more fluent and full of movement and color, faster and more spontaneous than when I started.  I swim, fly, glide, swoop, like a bird that can swim, great adventures. After about 15 minutes I tire and taper off.  

It's very calming, despite the drama in the narrative, very steady slow pulse when I stop.  I really recommend that anyone who can visualize, not everyone has that brain kink (!), might try it. In these days of panic and fear, it's very useful.

October seems to be the Month of Doctors. This week the cardio, just wanted a follow-up after the hip surgery, next week the dentist checkup,  following week the hand surgeon about my jerky finger, then the month finishes with the dermatologist.  All this for a basically well person. All covered by insurance, too. All within a few minutes drive. The dentist office is a bit beyond my comfort range, and I may get help with a ride. 

Happy day everyone, I hope you have the medical care you need, or can find it.  Everyone should.

Yes, everyone should have everything, sez Ted and Big Ursy 

Planning ahead, winter edition

Thinking about reading, especially enjoyable on my Kindle, I reacquired a complete Austen, and now I've added a complete Dickens.

He wrote enough to keep me occupied. I really liked Bleak House best, read on my own time. Now that they're not set books for school, the kiss of death, I hope to enjoy revisiting others. No exam looming at the end.

I'm not really worried about running out of things to do, what with the knitting and stitching and other fiber adventures. 

And the occasional musical interlude, like this one, through which I stumbled rustily.

For them as wants to know, today I'm wearing the little jacket I hand stitched from homewoven fabric Joanne gave me. 

It's soft and friendly, very nice to wear, and I think of the weaver every time I put it on. 

In other planning, my ballot arrived. The joy of being able to vote for a woman for President.

And our county literally sends every election on request including the little known Fire District. All counties don't do this. 

I'm showing you my lineup so you can see, in the blue column, the lovely racial and gender intersections in my region.  

I'm undyingly proud of being part of the group of activists who made mail-in universal in NJ, who got ballot cure -- the ability to correct a mistake without voiding the vote -- and drop boxes, to work around the USPS. Yay us. Or rather yay Winn Khung, grassroots leader. 

Misfits and ballots

 Yesterday's misfits box was smaller, but still great quality

and it came with a bonus item, tzatziki

I don't usually bother with tzatziki because it has cucumber, which I don't much like, but I tried it and it's very garlicky, spread on pita bread, it's fine. 

Once in a while an unordered item finds its way in, possibly a marketing idea, because it's something I've never ordered, like this. I expect the theory is that once tasted, I might order it.

And the bag of onions reminded me about onion bhajis, which I plan on as soon as I get chickpea flour. I'm thinking of them with the shrimp of last week, now in the freezer awaiting a good idea or two. The tzatziki can be a good dip for the bhajis.

My mail-in vote arrived, has been filled out, and mailed back. 

Our state legislature, school boards and fire commissioners are all up. I was careful not to vote for a candidate for school board who, I think, has an agenda which has more to do with control than with education. I read about him. No. I suspect him of running as a fake Democrat, ready to "turn" Republican once elected. It's the new thing.

I was a good foot soldier in the push to establish universal state wide mail in, dropboxes, and ballot cure, the right to correct a mistake on the ballot. You have to do it in person in front of the County clerk. It saves losing your vote over a clerical slip. If there's a clerical snafu, they notify you and give you the chance to fix it.

 Winnowing is done for now, the little table picked up last evening between showers, by a freecycler who sent a very appreciative message this morning. So my house is more orderly, and there are several happy people out there with my stuff, people whose partners are no doubt saying more stuff? You needed more stuff?

Another exciting day of rain today, and a text telling me my covid booster was cancelled yet again, so I booked yet again. I got a spot very locally, though, where I got the rsv from a very competent pharmacy tech. So I'm hoping to get this done with.

Happy day, everyone, the puzzle answer was

ROUNDABOUT

but you knew that.

What Mrs Dove did, and voting

Yesterday I opened the patio door thinking to do a bit of weeding, and disturbed Mrs Dove when I got too close to where she was sitting. She flew a couple of feet away and I saw

A few minutes later she came back to continue sitting.  She and her nest are concealed by the henbit that I'd planned to clear a bit. So I'll leave it until the family's fledged. 

She doesn't mind me if I don't get too close. Doves are calm birds. I expect she's a descendant of the ones who were hatched years ago in a hanging plant on the front porch.  The nest is just a few bits of grass chucked together, as you see, but anyway it can't fall any further, being on the ground. We don't have any outdoor cats, so it's pretty safe.

And today, the whole state legislature's term being up, I mail in my vote for the June primary 

Nothing like sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea, filling out the ballot, and keeping warm.

Happy day everyone, Textiles and Tea later, but I wanted to show you the mourning dove eggs right away.

Voting despite the PO, last flowers

Yesterday the mail was mixed. Most important, my mail in ballot for the midterm elections finally arrived 

This was some sort of record, mailed from about fifteen miles away, the County Board of Elections, on September 21, arrived October 6. Good thing they send early. I'll fill it out and return promptly.  Not by mail, but in the local dropbox. It's emptied daily by the officials and the ballots taken to the BOE.  

The less welcome mail was a bill for $1,000 that is not a typo, from the HOA for work the fencing company claims to have done on my deck in order to put in the fence.

I wrote back instantly to tell them I had the work done by a contractor, weeks before the fencing company were on site,  and notified him, too. 

What I didn't mention was that their bill was three times the size of his. Anyway I asked the manager to rescind the bill. Clearly they've got their house numbers mixed because they did do work on other decks.

But I have pictures of Michael in action in the deck and you are my witnesses! Anyway I was very upset and still am.  The fence project is the gift that keeps on giving.

Meanwhile flowers are still happening, the last ones of the year before we get a frost

And the current jigsaw puzzle may have pieces missing. Or maybe I'm inept. Anyway it's become a small meditative project, little spark of excitement when I actually get a piece to fit. I may need an assistant

I am pretty good at knocking pieces to the floor even without a tiger in the house, I have to say.

Answer to the puzzle, you'll kick yourself if you didn't get it, is in the comments to yesterday's post. Word puzzles are like that, totally impenetrable until you suddenly get it, if you get it.

Happy day everyone, fight on, refuse to pay bills you didn't incur. That works in a lot of contexts!

Today writing a little something about my sister, and knitting group. This week I really need my knitting group. 

Family dinners and other civic tasks

Because every life is important, we do what we do.

Here's the banana bread with the works, golden raisins, chocolate chips, walnuts, wholewheat flour, now sliced and in the freezer, dessert for the October dinner with Handsome Son. 

I need to do these dinners in stages so as not to be worn out. I'll ask him to bring drinks.

And here's my mail in vote, ready to send. Governor and legislature as well as local offices are up this year. 

Voted every office so that fascism can't creep in on my dime by my failing to show up and slam the door. Every election is important. The current fascist attempts are active in school  board and township elections.  

Speaking of which, two regional school board decisions have after extreme pressure, been reversed in decisions to ban authors of color.

One is the York, Pennsylvania, board which last year, issued a list of writers and speakers to be barred in the district. Every single one a person of color. Including Nobel prize winners, internationally acclaimed writers. They finally, after a solid year of increasing pressure, reversed the decision. But it pays to keep watch.

The other is the Long Island school district which stopped the reading aloud in classes of this wonderful book about a Chinese family's immigrant experience. 

One set of parents wrote an email full of false Trumpist claims, and got this done. Many others, including the author, have risen up and exposed this hate for what it is. Sunshine being the best disinfectant. And now the school board has backed down. Bur again, it pays to be vigilant, the price of freedom.

I read the book in solidarity, wrote to the author and the parent who exposed this crime, and, with or without controversy, it's simply a wonderful piece of writing. 

In fact I've asked my book group if we can include a YA (young adult) book annually, as we do a classic, and a fantasy and other genres. I suggested this one for starters.

The link here, standing against censorship, voting, feeding family, is the same: it's the rent we pay for our place on the planet.

Wheeling away the battered old soapbox till the next time it's needed...

Happy Sunday everyone! Happy Monday, kiwi readers!

Ballot arrived

 But first, reading and learning goes on.  I'm reading the Ta-Nehisi Coates, but in short bursts. It's so intense and so true, that it takes some digesting.  It's written as if to his son, and it's very moving. Particularly a propos at this moment.

Then, to recover, I'm catching old radio drama on YouTube.  This is BBC Saturday Night Theatre, a staple of my youth, when if you didn't go dancing, you might tune in. Great actors and very good productions.  This is one celebrating Sybil Thorndike, who plays the lead. It's a Margery Sharp novel dramatized. Sharp is entertaining, very astute, with less asperity than Muriel Spark, but similar time period, and similar social assumptions.

And my mail-in ballot has arrived.  As you see, I live in Middlesex County, and since counties send out ballots in waves, you may not have received yours yet if you live in another county.  

It looks so slight, but this is the lever of power, literally in our hands.  Please note: this year the ballot has two sides. Remember to turn it over and continue, so as to register your votes for local issues such as Fire Commissioner, School Board, and most important for all of us: public questions.

On the public questions, we get to vote on legalization of marijuana, on property tax refunds to noncombat veterans and their widows/widowers, and a constitutional amendment to adjust the schedule for legislative district reorganization as a result of the census. The census count is late this year, because of all the court fights, so the Governor may not receive the information in time to follow the normal schedule.

Anyway, read the instructions that come with it, to be sure you know what you're agreeing to or dissenting from.

Before you're done, sign the certificate attached to the enveloped into which you've put and sealed your completed ballot.  DO NOT TEAR OFF THE CERTIFICATE. I think people do this from force of habit from paying bills, tearing off the stub that accompanies your payment.  But in this case it's vital to leave it attached. They say this on both sides, in several languages!

That's because it's the proof you give the election officials that this is your own ballot.  They then remove and preserve the certificate and accept the sealed ballot into the stream of ballots to be counted.  But if you've torn off your certificate, you have voided your vote.  This year with all the attacks on the vote, the last thing we need to do is suppress our own vote!

So there's my public service announcement to you if you're a NJ voter. If you vote by mail elsewhere, you know to read the instructions!  And today, the day of RBG's official lying in state service, is a good day for me to do my little bit to shore up our country's strengths and try to mitigate its weaknesses.  We're a young country, still with much to do.

But every woman reading this in the US who has taken out a loan, a mortgage, a credit card, in her own name, has RBG to thank for a lot of it. There are so many paths she broke for a lot of us, not just women, that it's good to remember she used to say that lasting change takes place a bit at a time.  We can remember that as we face massive tasks in the near future.

Bit by bit. Bird by bird. We can do this. Blogistas in other countries, send good vibes!