Winter is icumen in

 

This was a layered up walking day, but I still only went about 15 minutes. It takes energy to walk in the cold, but I needed to get out there even for a while.

So Monday the cleaners come and I have a ride service set up, to the library, where there's a new exhibit. 

I can walk from there to the PO.  So I plan to finish the second glove and I hope a lanyard, but at least gloves and socks, will be ready to mail out.  Then I'll set up a ride home one way or another.

I'm figuring out the strategy of getting errands accomplished using a mix of ride services and friends' help. You can organize more than one stop with ride service, as long as they're brief. Like dropping off items at the food pantry. This will work. I want to ask only infrequently for friends' help so as not to wear out my welcome. Everyone's very generous now, but that could wear a bit if it's overused.  

 There's a Marlow audiobook newly uploaded to YouTube to accompany my weaving and knitting, great timing, Murder on the Marlow Belle.  

It's a boat, small occupancy, so it provides a limited number of suspects and location, in true classic crime fiction tradition. Amazing how many shady characters you can find in a small region. They never run out.

Happy day everyone, shady or not. I suspect everyone. I suspect no one. 

 

In the gallery

 This morning I got a call from the surgeon's assistant organizing what sounded like a blitz of testing, before and after the surgery.  I'm still assimilating it all and she'll send me print and email confirmation about it all.

The cleaners are here today and I was glad to get to the library and decompress, with the latest mystery, the first in a series, with an old lady crossword puzzle creator starting out in murder detection. It seems to be a TV series too

And there's a new exhibit, oil on canvas, in the gallery 

She takes photographs of moments then later paints them. She definitely has a very accurate eye for gesture and nuance. 

Home to a clean house, good. The cleaning team definitely keeps me in this house. I do very little between their visits other than launder their mops and cloths and refill their spray bottles. Especially now that my moving is getting harder and slower, they're a blessing. 

Happy day everyone. I hope you have the help you need, too.

Cleaners and other heroes

Today I went to the library to hang out while the cleaners were at work. While I was there I remembered the wild weather forecast for the weekend, so I picked a puzzle as weather prep.

The exhibit in the library gallery,  very appropriate for lunar new year was

Half oil paintings in Western style, half Chinese brush painting. I liked the brush painting more than the oils,  not a fan of oils, and I loved the table with the artist's book and visitor signatures, to which I added mine. 

I think I like the concept here better than the execution, but I'm glad she did it. The weird angles are to avoid the reflections.

Then I thought you'd like a surprise. While I was roasting potato dice to go with an egg, upscale Brit egg 'n chips, I did this 

Would you look at that? Labeled cannellini beans, and in fact, vye-ola, cannellini beans. Now in containers in the freezer. 

Meanwhile there's heartening news on the cute winter boots and sand front. Turns out E***n's Doggy website, flung together, is full of flaws and has been joyfully hacked with rude messages. 

They're also finding that the third graders he's brought in can't read the gov website language, the old COBOL.  Before their time and they're floundering. Can't find their way around the Treasury site.

Remember Y2K, when gov agencies all set up with COBOL since the ark, frantically recruited retirees to come back and help, same problem?

Here we seem to have user error sand.

Also, federal attorneys in New York Southern District are resigning rather than agree to withdraw charges against the corrupt ny Mayor Eric Adams (no relation!).  

Danielle Sassoon, a T***p appointee in his first term,  went first, it's always a brave woman, followed by others. Here's a great email from another civic hero 

They are certified conservatives, right wingers,  who still know business from law and follow the law.

Latest is an attempt to pressure other attorneys to sign. We'll see how that goes.

My own resistance step today, after I had a hilarious run-in with a charter boat company using the new name for that Gulf, which I think I won on points, was to ditch Goo*** as a search engine,  and replace it with Duck duck go. No tracking, better information, and a fun option. 

Happy day everyone, try to get a bit of fun out of the grimness, you may as well. 

Library art fun and other exciting things

Friday morning I checked the peppermint plant and it's started rooting. 

The roots are too tiny to see here, but it's definitely on it.

The heat abated enough to go out leaving the house to my cleaning family. They're Czech and wildly excited at yet another Wimbledon championship to a Czech woman. Such a history of great Czech tennis, including Martina, Jana and now Barbora.

Meanwhile at the library, here's a perfect summer playful/serious exhibit. I know Audrey slightly from one of my knitting groups, and she's exactly as you'd think, playful and serious. I'll message her a note of thanks.

The temptation to play with these pieces is great! But there are notices begging us not to. 

It really makes a person want to assemble pieces from toys and found objects, and find there's more to it than you might think. When an artist makes something look easy, you can be pretty sure it isn't.

Medical bulletin: Gary out of bed Friday morning, yay.  They do try to get patients vertical quickly after surgery, particularly with lung issues, I think to avoid pneumonia. His texts  sound pretty cheerful.

The current reading, blessedly out on the deck, on my Kindle 

 

I've read this several times before and right now the attraction is that it's set in cold snowy weather near New Year. Good to read in blistering July.

Happy day, everyone, there's usually something good to think about even midst sturm und drang.

Breaking news: the speaker went well, it was well received, and I kept it brief because it was a party atmosphere raising $$ for the Invictus Games, a wonderful project. 

I decided to wait until later in the pod to speak up about why it's significant, because people remember the last thing they heard better than earlier talk. So I did my bit!

Art all over, all the time, kid food, feathers

 Yesterday was a feast of art. It was cleaning day when I go out and leave them to work in peace, so I went to the local library to see the current gallery exhibit, and knit.

I just picked a few, but there's more if the qr code works for you. It's a very lively and thoughtful show. The reflections are tricky, hence the lopsided views.

Then a walk in the cool sunshine, slower these days, but such views and finds.

I suspect this is a red tail hawk feather, found below where they often fly lazy circles, and the downy section is so warm and soft in your hand. The feather police will definitely get me for this!

Then, Textiles and Tea featured a rug hooker, whose work is exquisite. She also does punch needle, and raises traditional work to an an art form, often in huge sizes, as you see. The portrait is of a 96 year old woman crafter. She took a photograph, then drew out the image on newspaper on her kitchen floor, no studio then. 

And after all that highfalutin talk about pepper, which I used in a tomato sauce over pasta, and very good, too, full of warm flavor, not just heat, I later had a snack for my inner kid

Egg in top hat. You put the hat on when you serve it. On the egg, that is.

Happy day everyone, do something silly, just because!