More early morning getting stuff done, later all bureaucracy

Early morning, this is getting to be a good habit, walking around the neighborhood. I was hugely cheered when I met a mellow little Boston terrier named Oreo! Lovely chat with his old Indian gentleman clearly devoted to Oreo.

Then around, greeting the early morning walkers and home to shower and catch up on line. But first I lugged the big potted lavender plant through the house and onto the patio. 

It's safer there and we'll see how it goes. That was a bit of exertion, but I survived. My yes2next habit is paying off. I'll need to repot it now the roots have been torn out of the ground by my car.

It's going to be quiet, with Gary away for two weeks, but there's a good side to that. It's especially quiet since his phone is dead and he can't get his new one set up. Can't make or receive calls, everything going to the old phone and irretrievable. At least my phone is working anyway.

No sudden irruptions with ideas, requests to look at this and that, hold that wire, identify this poison ivy etc.  

Yesterday  he dashed in, with a cup of tea, didn't want to put it on the coffee table, grabbed a handful of MY HANDMADE FIBER CORDAGE and asked if he could rest his cup on it for a coaster.. he also does wonderful things for me, so there's that balance. But a few days downtime is good.

Home again I needed a second breakfast 

Cheese and cilantro omelette.

Then a lot of the day was spent dealing with a blizzard of texts and emails from the auto insurer. I checked with the body shop, who hadn't got them yet, then forwarded them so they could get on with the repair. 

Then, after I called the insurer to double-check they were paying the shop direct, got another message that they'd mailed a check to me. Soooo I'll settle with the shop myself. I forwarded that info too. 

It's easier to do it myself than with help, full disclosure. Saves discussion and debate. I'm used to doing my own follow up and now I'm recovered to the point of managing things again.

At first I really needed neighbors making calls, most appreciative. Gary was stunned once I got going again, that I knew how to do DocuSign! Folks, I'm old, I'm not a dinosaur.

Then there's the air conditioner at the condo. This being Handsome Tenant's day off, he was pursuing it, again, and got a tech out Wednesday. I was not thrilled he's having to use his one precious day off, but I can't be there.  

Later: tech did a repair, but heat pump needs to be replaced. They'll be in touch. Sad, but not surprised. It's 23 years old, beyond its lifespan.

I'll make sure there's cake for next time I see him. 

So that was Wednesday. Still waiting on the house and the exterminator. Once all this is done I won't know what to do with myself. So much free time. Maybe I'll solve some age old mathematical mystery.

Evening was a good time online with my friends.

And on to more important things. I'm considering how to shape the basket, I mean technically. I know what shape I want to achieve, and I need to figure out how to get there. 

I think I know how but we'll see if my bright ideas translate. Sometimes materials, especially fiber, do unexpected things. It can be for the better. We'll see.

In the afternoon I had an invitation from the local artists group I founded long ago to send a piece to their October group show. I haven't exhibited in ages, so I'll have to look something out.  I'm amazed they remember me.

Happy day everyone. You got this, sez Queen Ferluffy.

Step by step, Textiles and Tea

 Bit by bit we're getting there. My car is now in the shop. And I have more information about the wall repair. Evidently another similar situation was remedied by the homeowner without having to go through the HOA, simpler. So I'll pursue the contractor Wednesday.

Meanwhile I've been making cordage till my thumb got tired.

And the library closed early because of yet another incoming storm, so my decision not to try for the knitting group, which meets there, was upheld by mom Nature. Friends in high places. 

By next week the cordage will have dried ready to use, so I can work on that at the group. You create it with damp fibers, which are weaker than when they dry, hence the wait.

Textiles and Tea on Tuesday featured Laicee Blackwell, a cloth and fiber sculptor, print maker and weaver, who uses lesbian memes and references throughout her work -- Birkenstocks with socks!-- and other in references, like carabiners,  which are often opaque to straight people but familiar to lesbian viewers.  High time, is all I can say. 

Large photo weaving

Painted warp image

Working with a Macomber loom fitted with a flying shuttle, and on right  cloth sculpture, with a carabiner.

Modular piece of woven patches and thrifted fabric, which can be rearranged, it has zippers, to fit the gallery. It's huge.

Laicee is very interesting, teaching, jurying and continuing to exhibit. Based in Indiana, in Evansville, if Indiana is near you, look for their August solo show.

Happy day, everyone, there's always some fun to be found even on grim days. Someone tells me she's got a microwave which she wants to try before offering me it, to make sure it works. So there's that.

And my snake plant suddenly put up a flower 

And here's today's bouquet 

White Rabbits and lemonade

What Handsome Son describes as the last couple of days of turmoil also has some bright spots. I'm clinging to them. Lemons to lemonade.

One is that the NJ budget passed, and includes the senior property tax relief, so mid July I'll be getting some of it. That will help with the insurance costs of the car and house.

Another is that Gary reminded me his container green beans are ready to pick. He loves to grow but not eat vegetables. 

So yesterday I had a salad of steamed green beans and bell peppers with celery bits and scallion I'd grown.  I threw in apricot, I'm definitely getting a taste for fruit in green salads, and added watermelon my other neighbor gave me. And sardines for brain stamina.

I'm continuing with my little basket, for calm, and it's now big enough to hold its own supplies 

I've been reading Decluttering at the speed of Life, interesting approach to winnowing, though the writer is far more challenged than I am.  Thanks to her, though, it occurred to me, since the contents of my kitchen are now all over the hall and living room, it's an opportunity.

I looked around to decided what things are not worth carrying back because I rarely use them, and ended up with several groups of Freecycle items, most of which are claimed and will be picked up. 

The food processor works fine but it requires hand strength to engage the mechanism which I no longer have.

 

The cast iron baking pan is surplus to my requirements. I have three skillets which I can and do bake in. Likewise the other tools, I don't use them.

The violent storms yesterday stopped things but I expect the Freecycle items to be picked up today. I noticed that most of them are things people unloaded on me years ago. Very few were my choice. 

And Gary's being very helpful about the car, which will be in the shop sometime today. I'll probably be without it a couple of weeks, between their getting insurance approval and doing the work. I could get a rental but my driving nerves are not up to a strange car. 

So I may use this period as a test for being without a car, and see how it goes.  I'll learn Uber, with whom I have an account I haven't used yet.  And I'll see how to consolidate local errands. 

I'm grateful to you all for your kind comments and encouragement. This is a trying time, but I have help.

Happy day everyone, let's hope July is good. I don't feel very celebratory about this year's Independence Day, I admit.  But, day by day does it.

Textiles and Tea catchup

Yesterday's post filled up before I got to cover Textiles and Tea, so rather than risk tldr, here it is today instead.

The guest, Valeria Maldonado, is a young Peruvian architect/fiber artist whose ideas were gripping, and I don't think the three dimensional pieces we saw quite fulfilled the premise she laid out. 

I think if they had been monumental in size, I'd have responded much more warmly. They are human scale, just a couple of feet each way. 

These two pieces,  about the fragility of balance,  I responded to most instinctively, the one on the right more so. The color meaning works so well there -- sand, shifting movement, impermanence, I loved this one.

Here's her book

She believes in being true to her hands, and that buildings, like baskets, are only porous containers. I like both these ideas, and would like to see them executed on a big scale. 

She sees art and expression as a way of making space in the world for the artist's ideas and, in this case, for the fibers she uses. Fibers have struggled to be accepted, seen as women's materials, dismissed in the male dominated art world. 

This is changing in the last few years, as museums and galleries other than textile specific venues, have started to acknowledge fiber as a serious material.

She does all her own dyeing from natural sources, cochineal, madder, grasses and minerals, and uses various fibers including alpaca. She definitely walks her own walk.  I'd be interested in your take on her work,  especially if you disagree with mine. Pushback is fine.

This is the last heatwave day, we hope, and maybe I'll get to walk again tomorrow.  Last evening Gary was over watering my flowers which I'd watered twice, and accepted a chunk of coleus to start in water. 

Under the heading of temporary maybe substitutions, I bought a drop-in push-button sink stopper for the most used bathroom, and it improved its appearance significantly after I tossed the ugly old contraption that came with the faucet.  

It looks much less desperate now and I may revise my idea about the faucets that come without a stopper, since I like their appearance. 

I also invested in a small heating pad and jettisoned the rice filled socks which worked for a long time, heated in the microwave. I'm just observing how much I do or don't need a new microwave. Up to now it's not looking urgent.

The heatwave and being indoors have not helped with making. I'm wondering if I need to return to an old project, continue spinning, start a sock, or what. Just musing. The thing is to just pick something up and do it. That's also the hard part. But I need to be doing something with my hands other than wringing them.

Maybe this would be good, the basket I'm making from cordage I made from my daylilies.

 I'm using rescued silk thread to stitch it, and spinning a bit of fiber in for contrast. I've no doubt this came to mind after watching Textiles and Tea yesterday. It's all good.

Happy day everyone, just let your mind wander, you never know where it might end up.

sez Ted and Big Ursy 

New stash, old fungi, adventures with Climpson

 So the sheets were delivered, and are a terrific new stash. Well used and soft, great for hand stitching, in several florals. Maybe a skirt or a top will happen, too.

The purples are not to my taste, so they may be passed on. The giver commented that she was ready to throw these all away, before she saw my Freecycle request. Amazing, but anyway, we're both happy.

While I was between projects I got out the cordage basket, and did a bit. 

I think I'll bring this to the knitting circle if ever I get back. It's very portable and fits into the fiber arts idea of the group.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Gary showed up, saying I need your magic! He was going to a wedding, a friend's daughter, went to write his greeting card to take with him,  and found the envelope had already sealed itself.  Empty. Humid weather will do that. He was at a loss.

So I said, wait, let's steam it open. He'd never heard of this, and I thought I'd better explain I'd never actually done it, just read about it. Just so nobody thinks I'm in the habit of steaming open other people's letters. 

But I remembered the scene in Sayers' Strong Poison where Katherine Climpson steams open the vital document.  And did that, holding it in the steam from the kettle. Slowly. Carefully. It opened up and Gary went away happy. I was amused about practicing this sneaky skill! Not so sure when Gary said I knew you'd know what to do..

Yesterday's walk revealed this fungus

Which my photo alert tells me I photographed on this exact date two years ago! Nature is faithful. And I went to check on the progress of that marvelous orange fungus. And found

I wonder if any birds or animals eat it? I'd expected growth rather than disappearance. Back at home, the snake plant, after three years of no apparent growth, is suddenly doing this

Parent plant in the background. The pointed leaves are the new growth.

And I'm making my zinnias my cutting garden, since that encourages them to keep budding. It also gives me fresh flowers

Happy day everyone! What useful skills have you learned from detective stories? That you can admit to..