And Tuesday evening

 I don't know why but this week has felt super long already, and it's only Tuesday. I spent Monday afternoon doing teaching prep for the rest of the week (did so not feel up to working on research, and my allergies were already bad). And then today I did more prep, and in the afternoon went through a few samples. I'm down to a dozen (the last site) now, but really, three in a day is all I can do.

Also, I have to decide whether to push Friday afternoon to do more, or to see if I can make plans to get either the pneumococcal vaccine or a covid booster (if they'll let me have one, if my insurance will pay - there's a scary rumor that RFK jr. and his fellow vaccine-opponents may try to get it pulled from the market, and that could be bad. A booster probably won't be updated for the new variant but at least it might help my immunity a little?) I don't want to get both at once; I often have strong reactions (chills, fever, aches) and want to do one at a time. 
I am trusting flu shots will be readily available this fall and get one later. But I hate how the chaos, and how the fact that people have been installed in high places who don't seem to have our best interests at heart, mean I have to do all this calculating and trying to figure out "what is the most urgent thing to prioritize?"

I'm back to working on the mitts; I'm working on the body of the second mitt and am about midway on making the thumb gusset, so I'll get these done soon. Maybe I focus on these for a couple more days and get the satisfaction of finishing something for me. 

I do want to dig out all my partially done projects and gradually finish them, and I'm thinking again about some fingering weight yarn I bought back in 2020 - early on in the pandemic, when I thought I could just sit at home and knit, and a fingering weight cardigan would be a good choice. But I was too upset and distracted to do anything that complicated, and I put the yarn and pattern away. I think I know where it is....though maybe I start Greenstone first, when I'm ready to start another sweater.

(I joked to a friend who doesn't knit that "buying yarn, and planning projects, are two additional hobbies, quite separate from actually knitting. And that's true. And I think the planning step is my favorite. Though as I noted, I'm also suckered in by the "backstory" of some projects - "this is a sweater I made to be rugged for hiking" for example, and I go "I like to hike! maybe if I knit this I will find time to hike, and maybe even a companion to go with me!" of course it doesn't work that way but maybe sometimes a little....I don't know, it's not quite lying to yourself, but a little fantasy, is maybe a good thing.)

I'm currently reading on SPQR. It's interesting, and yet, I admit there are some eerie parallels with the stage of The American Experiment we're in. (Then again: human nature is always human nature, and there are power hungry types in all times and all places). I'll get back to The Enchanted Greenhouse eventually, and even "All Clear" eventually (but I'm still sad at the Big Event I just hit in it), but for now, maybe a little nonfiction is the best choice.  

Trip to Farmersville

 The drive down wasn't great. I got on the road and got just out of town and my "check tire pressure" light came on. So I sighed, dragged out my little compressor, and offered up a prayer that it wasn't a nail in the tire (a colleague reported a flat on his truck; the roofers on our building were NOT careful about policing the nails and screws they left behind). But all the tires were low; it had just been too long since I checked them. Anyway, that was fine for the rest of the trip. But, I didn't know about construction on 69 and it was horrible - they are tearing up segments of the road just outside of Bells (IIRC) and it's on a flagger system, and you have to sit and wait FOREVER. And once I got past it, I wondered: what happens after the guys are done working for the day, there's no "temporary stoplight" like they sometimes put up, and it's not a stretch of road where you can see the end from the other end. So I decided I'd have to find an alternate route home.

Then I decided to rely on satnav, instead of using the route I had planned out first. Satnav never met a interstate or four-lane that it didn't like, so it tracked me what was a LONGER way so I had to drive on 121, rather than staying on 160, which would have been logical.

But I finally got there.

Farmersville is SMALL. In a way, it reminds me of Whitesboro - there's nothing at all as you drive on the road in, and then suddenly: old brick buildings and a brick street

 That's the view from Main Street, looking down towards McKinney Street

Yarns and You (which abbreviates itself YAY) is on Main:

It's a surprisingly large shop (The white signboard on the yellowish store is the storefront). They say there are no public restrooms but if you are there for a class, or are buying stuff, you can use them (The shop owner, when I asked, said that was try to reduce people coming in and either "showrooming" or just coming through to use the restroom. Once again, people who are a little selfish ruin it for others)

It's BIG as yarn shops go. At least three times the size of the one in Denison

 

They have, I think, every color of Berroco Vintage (A standard, worsted-weight you'd use for sweaters) and some other Berroco yarns, and lots of sock yarn...they have a website that lists many of them by brand.

They had the kit I wanted:

 That's for the Cuyahoga National Park hat - the teal represents the river, the dark one with orange is the foliage of the autumn trees, the brown is tree trunks, and the tan is the background

They also had the short size 3 circular needle I wanted.

Oh, I bought some other things:

 This is an Oklahoma based hand-dyer (A Chick that Knits) that I've bought from on Etsy but it's nice to see her yarn in a shop. This one is called "Tropical Flowers"

And even though I rarely wear these colors, I really like this color combination - it's sockweight yarn and I bought 880 yards of it; I want to make a small, simple shawl (maybe one of the Woolenberry patterns) with it. 

The colorway is called "cornsnake," which kind of delights me

 I didn't buy this big candle (I don't need any more) but it made me chuckle a little:

After checking out, I asked the owner if she could recommend a lunch place. She said if I liked sushi (not really) she'd recommend a place in Prosper (but I really didn't feel like driving to another town anyway) but then she recommended Over Yonder, a short walk from where I had parked - they do all house-made foods, soup and salad and sandwiches and she recommended a sandwich she likes, pulled beef (I think she said brisket, but it's not as dry as much of the brisket I've had) with caramelized pickled onions, horseradish sauce, and cheddar cheese melted on it

 

Oranges were one choice of sides. The only other ones I remember were chips (which I didn't think I wanted) and carrot raisin salad (allergic to carrots). But the oranges were VERY good with it, because they were sweet and juicy and contrasted well with the rich meat and cheese. 

The second yarn shop felt more like a distributor's, with bags and bags of stuff and I couldn't tell if you could buy less than a bag full or not, and I wasn't in the market for a sweater's worth of yarn. It was also a lot dimmer and a lot more crowded with stuff, and at that point I was tired and didn't feel as much like digging. 

I did go to a soap shop that was there (no bookstore, sadly) and bought a couple bars of soap (one called Zen, that has a nice sort of citrusy scent). The owner also pointed out her new line of tallow based soaps (they put tallow in EVERYTHING now) but I just quietly said I preferred the coconut oil (which was the soaps she had in nice scents).

And then home. Where 160 became 69, another road (11) branched off that went up to Sherman, so I took that and got back to the Albertson's that way.

 

It was worth the trip for Yarns and You, and the lunch was good; I will probably go back at some point in the future.  

Tomorrow's the day

 Yeah, I'm planning on going. It's going to be hot, but at least not "heat advisory" hot. I got gas in the car and I have some cash in my purse, though for yarn shops, I tend to pay with credit card because I usually go over any "budget" I might set.

 I have both the "long" circular sized 3 and 4, and the "short" one in 4, so I will just have to look if they have the short 3s. And if they have the Cuyahoga Valley hat kit from that book, I'm getting it. 

And if anything else catches my fancy. Though in a lot of cases - and really what I have to learn - is that sometimes going somewhere *for the going* is what's important, not showing the trip had "purpose" by obtaining things. 

Oh, like I said, if I see the couple things I am looking for I will get them, and if I see something else that appeals I will. But mostly I just need to get out of town and see a new place. I keep talking about, and thinking, how I "need to move away" when I retire because this town is so small, but on the other hand, if there are a bunch of decent places within a not-too-long drive (provided my vision stays good and the other things I need to drive safely stay good) wouldn't be an issue.

I *might* bring a project with me - I pulled out the "Alive" mitts and restarted the second mitt - the owner has on her website that she invites people to sit and knit, and I don't know? Maybe I consider it? 

I do probably need to stop at Albertson's on the way home, though, so I shouldn't stay *all* day.

My plan now is to go to the bigger store, probably also the second store, get lunch there, and if there's another place I see that seems interesting I might visit them too. 

But yeah. I need to work in occasional breaks where I do something *really* different for me, not just another "well maybe I'll go look at the yarn at Michael's even though they probably won't have anything new in" or "go to a grocery store a little different from the ones in town"

And admit, and this is horrible, but I am slightly apprehensive (!) about it. Because I've had enough bad surprises in the past few years that I admit I'm primed for disappointment - I'll get down there and for some reason the shop will be closed, or it won't be as nice as I hope, or something. And maybe I've had this for a while, and it's kept me from doing some new things, because weathering the disappointment feels to me worse than maybe the benefit of things being good?

Anyway, I hope the shop is good. And I hope it - like Quixotic Fibers - manages somehow to hang on through the tariff mess (Prices will go up at least 15% I assume, at least for UK yarns) and I'm hoping that in some future time trade will become freer again. I really hope that this didn't do what COVID tried to do - kill off small businesses (and for different reasons, restaurants). Because for singletons like me it's very hard to make your own fun all alone, and again, I'm seeing more ads suggesting nuclear families just kind of lock down at home....which means people like me are left out in the cold, the spare giraffe waiting for the Ark.... 

Week's almost over

 I'm tired, and I kind of hurt. (I think it's partly stress, partly the motion of having to sort through the bags of soil, and sitting kind of shrimped up on the chair to do that, and also it's been very hot). And I've been on my feet a lot - this week I wore things with pockets so I put my phone (on silent) in my pocket, since most of the rooms no longer have working clocks (! there are still not a lot of things back as they should be) and I find without doing anything "extra" over my usual workout and teaching and the usual to-and-from the car I do, I'm going over 5000 steps a day (I know they say 7000 is ideal, but that can be challenging to get when you have a job that keeps you at a desk or lab bench at times)

I do think I'm going to go to Farmersville Saturday. Apparently there is actually a SECOND (smaller, but still) yarn shop there, and there are several restaurants, so my plan is go down, shop for yarn, get lunch, and if there's somewhere else (like a bookstore) go there, too. Yes, I don't need more yarn. BUT: Yarns and You (the shop I looked up first) advertises yarn packs for the "knit the National Parks" hats - that's a book I have but never made anything from yet. The hats ARE colorwork, which is not my favorite technique to do (it's fiddly, and you have to be careful not to knit too tightly) BUT they have a Cuyahoga Valley hat kit listed on the website, and that's one I might want enough to make - it's a less complex pattern than some (fall trees and I think a trail) and also, given my happy childhood memories of there and still having a sense of a strong tie there, it might be enough to get me to do it. So if they have one in stock, I might buy it.

I also need to check my circular needles and if I don't have threes or fours of the right length (I think: 29" and 16"), I might look for those, I kind of fell in love with Greenstone from the new Knitty and ordered the yarn for it (Well, I got the same green, but went with an almost-camel-colored heather for the stripes, because I like brown better than dark grey). Yes it will take forever to knit and I'll probably get distracted by some new shiny sweater before I start it (I still have the Moon Moth one and the cabled vest, but neither of those are at "invigilating carry along" points). So it might become my invigilating sweater. 

And yes, I recognize that my desire for the sweater is at least in part informed by its photo and backstory: a young woman in a fallish forest, and talk about going to Michigan to visit Isle Royale, and the fantasy for me of "being out in the woods in fall and having this sweater" was what tipped the "I want one" switch for me. 

I do that a lot with projects. I want the life the model is modeling, and somehow deep in my brain it makes me think "if you knit that thing, maybe you will get that life" although intellectually I know that's unlikely, emotion can be a powerful sway for me. 

I have been knitting some on the cabled vest this evening but it moves slowly - even in worsted weight it takes a lot of stitches to go around a largish adult body. 

It's FINALLY supposed to cool down this coming week (and cool down a LOT in fact) and it seems nice to be able to hole up and knit when it's not 92 degrees out at 9 pm... 

Wednesday evening things

 *Chicken has been delivered. I think my colleague liked it.

* I may put aside "All Clear" again for a bit. Something happened, a big plot twist, that I thought was not possible to happen to a time traveler, and it made me sad. I mean, it's possible there was actually a save-point that happened, but it still made me sad.

war is hell. It's hard reading about the Blitz now, harder than maybe it was some years ago, because I'm too good at imagining us in something similar now.

I don't know whether to work towards finishing The Enchanted Greenhouse, or, I spotted my copy of SPQR on the shelf the other day and might pull that out and restart it. 

Oddly enough, when I'm sad and stressed by the world, non-fiction, particularly ancient or prehistoric history helps. Perhaps it's the distance; perhaps it's the idea that people have persisted through many terrible things. And maybe we'll persist now, even though I fear what remains of my life will be worse in a number of ways than what came before.  

* watching a NOVA about the restoration of Notre-Dame and a couple lead coffins found in the floor (along with a broken up elaborate Choir Screen that had apparently been demolished in an earlier renovation). One of an unknown man. It's pretty interesting. 

I would love to see more details and reports on things like the reconstruction and renovation. Like, periodically devote a news story to people doing some thing good, rebuilding a thing, fixing things, creating, preserving, instead of all the destruction and cruelty. It might encourage people to do more good in the world if they hear of others doing it? 

* I pulled out the English School Slipover (the yellow cabled vest) and am working on it. Still several inches before dividing for the front and back.

* Work is just tiring, given that the building isn't totally done and they're doing rewiring for the internet and sometimes things are just messed up in the classrooms, and some of the new incoming students are being very demanding about things (I had someone today who insisted my class was general biology, because he thought that was the room for it. No, it isn't! And he actually argued with me when I told him what class it was until my chair - who had come in to help with the computer - basically told him to leave)

* I think I AM going to drive to Farmersville on Saturday to go to the yarn shop there. I'm badly spooked about the coming tariffs and loss of the de minimus exception, and I'm fearful we're going to lose many small businesses, and those that remain will have to raise prices enough that they might not last much longer. I mean, I don't need to "stock up" on yarn, I have a LOT including some fingering weight for a sweater from Knitty that will take forever to knit up, but getting out and getting to have experiences that interest me may not be possible a year from now (or so my anxiety says) and .... I just want to have fun now while I still can.

*they've been promising us rain and cooler weather for two weeks and keep pushing it off later and later, so now I just assume either (a) weather prediction is broken because of firing and budget cuts at NOAA, or (b) they're lying to us for some reason. I do want it to be cooler. It was a heat index of 111 yesterday and while it was not quite as hot today, it was still hot and humid.

* Lots of things are making me sad. I had to turn off the national news; they were showing testimony from people who lost daughters in that flood in Texas; they still haven't found all the bodies. And I just sat there, shaking my head and crying a little. (It's possible it hits particularly because my niece is the same age as some of those girls). But also, it seems there's so much callousness in our culture now and while I actively fight against becoming so myself, it does feel very lonely and isolating and I'm reminded of how I don't totally fit in anywhere. 

*Life just feels like it's become more isolating since 2020. I don't know if that's my reaction/trauma from the pandemic or if it's actually true, but it feels like I'm worse at making genuine connections with people, and more and more I find myself wondering if I should move away when I retire, and try to find somewhere where I fit in better - like a place that has an artist's colony or something. Though I suspect I might be priced out of places like that. 

It's really hard to find community, and I think it's harder when you don't have a partner or kids.   

Finished the chicken

 It was a big push last night to even get the underbelly knitted, and I don't know if knitting hard and fast on a hot day after I'd been on my feet and exposed to multiple allergens and chemicals (outgassing from the new flooring) I'm sensitive to, but I had awful intercostal cramping in the middle of the night last night, and a near asthma attack.

But tonight I got the chicken sewn up, the eyes in, the stuffing in, and the comb and wattle made and attached. I made a little tag using some statements cribbed from the pattern to "explain" what she's for.

I bought a gift bag and white tissue yesterday to carry her over in.

So, here she is:

 I am less satisfied with it than I might be but I'm telling myself it's okay. It's not the neatest sewing job I've ever done, attaching that underbelly, and unfortunately the only stuffing I can get now (what Michael's sells), is a lot lumpier than what I used to get at JoAnn's. (Maybe I look into mail ordering? But then I won't know what's good or not until I buy some)

Here's a front view. I had to really hunt in my sewing stuff to find the eyes; I knew I had yellowish eyes in the right size but couldn't find them at first.

And a three-quarters view:

 

And here she is with her tag, it basically says "life is hard and we all need a chicken to hug" and credits the original designer of a similar pattern (which apparently was originally made as a "heart surgery recovery pillow" (coughing is hard when you have sutures in your chest). I thought it helped explain it, though I think she'll understand:

 So I get a little break now before I have to start the next one (for my niece's birthday). It's not a HARD pattern but all the garter rows and wraps and turns can get tedious, and you have to keep good track of what row you're on in places.

 

It was a heat index of 111 today and it's still awfully hot and humid, yes, even in my house with the a/c going. I am so ready for the heat to be gone. 

Year 26 begins

 

My new lunch kit; unfortunately the new steel water bottle is too big and heavy for the bottle sleeve on the side

 

And as is traditional, the music for today:

 

brains are difficult

 It's been very hot here, and even with airconditioning, I've not been sleeping well (it may be more the humidity than the heat). 

Last night I turned my alarm off after realizing it was nearly midnight and I'd not slept yet that I could notice, I've been trying to force myself back into an earlier get-up time for when classes start back up. But last night for some reason I couldn't relax; maybe it was all the concerns about the classrooms that came up yesterday. 

So I figured, well, I can sleep in a bit and then do my workout in the afternoon.

And as sometimes happens, when I sleep a tiny bit later in the morning (I got up around 6:30), I have unpleasant dreams before getting up. 

Last night, my brain did one to me. In the dream, my dad had died (he actually did some six years ago). The circumstances of it were slightly different; I was not up there nor was I in my own home, but I was in a place that was not my real-world home but was more like the house I grew up in. I guess it was also close to Christmas, because I remember there being a tree in the house (except it was one of those flatleaf cedars, rather than the type of Christmas tree a person would normally have)

The other memorable thing was one of my cousins and his wife were there; they had just had a baby girl. And as I was standing there, trying to make sense of what had happened, they quoted to me the "when one family member dies, another one is born" (this was a "thing" in my mom's family; for years when one of the older members died it seemed that one of the younger members had a baby; I think I was born very shortly after my mom's dad died. Except the cousin in question was from the other side of the family). They were discussing what to name her and I remember being irritated partly because I was in mourning, and partly because they wanted to give her my name and that seemed somehow inappropriate to me. 

The weird thing was for several minutes after I woke up, I was left feeling that my father had, in fact, died very recently, rather than six years before. And I still felt vaguely and unfairly irritated at my cousins. It took a while for the feeling to go away.

It seems suboptimal that sometimes dreams generate feelings that are totally fake, you know they are, but you're still feeling them.

I also think that I was probably processing my aunt's death (the cousin in question was one of her sons). I had sort of pushed it aside because (a) I knew she had been ill for a long time, and in a way, it's a blessing for someone with dementia to pass, while her family is sad the burden of worrying about her is gone and (b) I was busy enough and as she wasn't an "immediate" relative I kind of stuffed it down.

And maybe "stuffing it down" sometimes isn't so great.

Hopefully, I sleep better tonight 

What a day...

 Yesterday was a long day (meetings from 9 until noon, and again from one until three) where I had to sit in an uncomfortable theater chair. My knee was really griping when I got up today but I forced myself through the workout (which probably helped a little)

It's also wickedly hot and humid here, dewpoints in the mid 70s, which is the point where I start panting and wheezing like I'm in really poor shape (but I can manage the workout in my house so that must not be it). 

Today I started off finishing up my class pages, and then there was another mass meeting where the faculty heard a lot of the same stuff we heard yesterday. Some of it is not great news (the state never wants to financially support us much, but they sure want to make us document EVERYTHING and they would really like to tell us to do a lot more things that might violate academic freedom). There was a free lunch (burgers and hot dogs, and I remember last year eating a hot dog made my ankles swell the next day so I just took a burger, and asked for an extra spoon of the baked beans, which were actually probably the best part of the meal).

I did win a door prize, a "spirit basket" with campus branded stuff. Some of it was good (I really needed a new folding umbrella, and the little stress-squeezy in the shape of our mascot animal was kind of cute and might wind up living in my office) and some is stuff I might never use.......some of it I might just put out on the "free" table we have and see if the students will take it. There was also a collared shirt, I will have to check the size - if by some chance it's a small (a friend suggested it might have been unsold merch), my mom might want it and wear it. I'm not sure I would, I'm not a huge fan of being a walking billboard. The free t-shirt we all got was fine, I can use that for pajamas. 

From there, things went downhill; after our faculty meeting our new chair asked us to go around the supposedly-renovated part of the building because there was some equipment that the workers had to move (too large and heavy for us to) and they.....forgot to put signs on it indicating where to put it back, so there were like five fridges lined up in the hall and we were asked to find which one belonged in our prep room (I was able to find mine based on the unusual "freezer compartment" door - it's an OLD fridge). 

And then I thought: maybe a good idea to try logging in in the classrooms, to be sure everything's hooked up. 

First room: was able to log in and link to the smartboard. But the styli for the smartboard were missing. Oh, I can still write on it with my finger, but doing that makes my writing even WORSE and I can see doing it for long would hurt my shoulder. I warned the chair; he ran around and checked the other rooms. No styli. So either they were tucked away somewhere, or someone just walked off with them (or threw them away, thinking them unimportant). He said he'd call IT and try to get us new ones.

Second room: AC is not working. No internet connectivity on the computer even though it "talks" to the projector. So I will have to save all my stuff to a thumbdrive (luckily I have one) instead of pulling off the LMS where I put it. The no AC is more of a problem; hopefully Physical Plant can get it working. 

 Also the back row has a bunch of stuff stored on it that was pulled from the last two rooms being renovated. Fortunately that class is small enough I don't need the back row. (And actually - that means no, what we would joke about it if it were in church, as "back-row Baptists" Yes, we say that, even though it's a Disciples of Christ church...)

Third room: again no connectivity. And no styli. Later, my department chair noted we could log into the wifi; it seemed to be working even if the wired connection did not. BUT I know well enough how the wifi drops unpredictably and sometimes it's slower, so I'll just have to remember to take my thumb drive with me. (I will admit, by the time I got back to my office, I was upset and flustered enough that the note I wrote to myself to remind myself Monday was not kind: "Hey, stupid, don't forget the flash drive")

Oh and then, lab room: 

the table I, as an instructor, use, was perched up on one of the side benches. There were several pieces of equipment stacked on other benches. And there were about a dozen large boxes of cable just piled up in the front of the room, blocking access to the chalkboard (this room doesn't have a computer; I don't need one in there). And the prep room was even worse - stuff all over, a ladder blocking things. So okay FINE my first week's lab, I'll have them meet in the lecture room, it's not a wet lab, and I can do the second week's lab there too if it comes to that. But I was extremely unhappy and I let my chair know I needed all that stuff out of the way by the third week of classes. Which I think is a reasonable request, given that we:

a. pushed extra hard before our Christmas break, including me not doing a couple fun things I might have done, to move all the stuff out of the labs so they could "start in January"

b. they then did not start until March

c. we all put up with being in different buildings spring semester, some of which had departments that felt like they really didn't want us there and one building that had non-functional drinking fountains so I had to remember to bring my reusable bottle FULL (and one day, I had to spend TWO BUCKS AND FIFTY CENTS for a plastic bottle of water when I forgot it, and it was early allergy season, so I was coughing)

d. those of us in during the summer had to put up with noise some days, including drilling of concrete near us. This was the supposed internet-upgrade that was done as an apparently last-minute thing. Apparently the workers also left some people's offices a mess, and mine might still get hit if they need to do more work there

e. someone shut down the faculty printer, apparently reconnecting it to a temporary line, and it was only after something would not print that I found that out, so I had to wait for it to re-initialize.  

 

So yeah, it was an upsetting day. I did wind up indulging in a couple slices (the rest is in the fridge) of the pizza margherita (fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil - one of my favorite types of pizza) from the newish pizza place near campus. I got a salad, too, for a little "healthy" food. But I really hope tomorrow is better. I plan to work on research and give a hard stare (a la Paddington) to anyone who comes and wants me to "inspect" rooms given that I took about an hour this afternoon doing it. 

Also, I had been doubting this morning while getting ready to go in if maybe knitting that Emotional Support Chicken was Too Much and Too Weird but after my colleague (the one I was giving it to) and I got to talking before the meeting and I found out just how unpleasant her overload is (and that she had two kids who wound up going to the hospital in the same week this summer - one had a blood sugar issue (T1D) and the other broke an arm - I think maybe it's warranted, and if it helps, that's good. 

Tuesday evening things

 *Working on the second half of the chicken body; I would like to have this done to give to my colleague on the first day of classes but that may not happen.

* Tomorrow is the full day of meetings. I'm telling myself it'll be okay but I really don't like these, and in this day and age I also admit I think in the back of my mind how *all* the university's faculty will be gathered in one place and if someone wanted to do an awful thing....well.... (the CDC shooting, even though miraculously it sounds like the only people killed were a first responder and the shooter himself, is a terrifying thing and it DOES sound politically motivated, and a lot of us in the sciences and higher ed now probably have a bit of a target on our backs)

* I've been pushing on the research stuff but I only have 10 of the thirty-six samples sorted so far. I might be able to do one or two Thursday; I have no meetings until 11. And Friday, I only have the mammogram appointment at 1. It would be nice to get them at least half done but I am doubtful that will happen. I may just have to plan staying late some afternoons/into the evening once classes start.

*It's also just been a sad and stressful week, with news from the larger world (I skimmed a story on how mistreated some National Parks are being under the new regime, and I fear they won't exist in a few years, or they will be privately owned, and charge Disney level prices. And maybe my thought of "I can volunteer at Chickasaw in retirement" won't happen, but not because my knee won't allow it, but because it'll be a spa/casino for paying guests.). And the CDC shooting. And the shooting in Austin. And thinking about my mom's comment about my uncle not dealing well with the loss of his wife. And I saw a linked story from a pet rescue about a tomcat who needed medical help and he had lost an eye, probably in a fight. And it's all very much and I feel like I'm kind of emotionally raw right now.

*Another thing eating at me is AIs and LLMs. Both from the side of being a professor: I realized that the "article discussion and critique" write up I have students in one class do will be a real temptation for someone to use an AI to write their paper for them, so I may have to change the rules and say "okay, now I will call on you during the discussion period and have a question for you concerning the paper, be prepared to answer it or forfeit points" I wish the dang things had never been invented.

* But also, as a person whose main "skill" was "having knowledge that she can pull up out of her brain," what AM I if there's no longer any value in knowing stuff? I mean, yes, being an educated person with a wide range of knowledge has been devalued for a while, but now it seems worse, like "nothing you can do is something a computer can't do" and......there's nothing special about me any more. Maybe there never was. It does feel like some of the so-called techbros are trying to do things to eliminate the value of much of humanity and I don't like it.

* I remembered this piece today while I was working; and this evening I looked it up again:

 I think some of my distress is I really haven't gotten out much at all this year. This summer, nearly every day was working on research or teaching stuff. And literally a lot of days it was me working in my lab all morning, running home for lunch, then going back and working until maybe 4. And I didn't get OUT other than that one museum trip and a couple shopping trips, and the trip to Fort Washita, when it was really too hot to enjoy it. And once classes start there will be no time. And I think I am losing my sense of wonder and joy in the world and just feeling like a drone. 

* Maybe things will feel happier once classes start and I'm not working on the same thing six hours a day every day, and when other people are around. 

* I also want the chicken to be done so I can work a little on some of the unfinished projects FOR ME before I have to begin the one for my niece's birthday in October. I dug out some books I'd not looked at in a while and found a couple patterns I would like to make, but I MUST finish some of the things I have in progress yet. 

little more progress

 I got the current simple socks up past the gusset decreases. Now the colors look more "totally '80s" to me than "Easter egg," maybe I should have made the socks bigger and scrunchier with looser cuffs

 I also started the shortrowing on the chicken (this is the one I am giving to a colleague with multiple grad students and a hellish overload, so she's stressed and needs an emotional support chicken). You can see the diagonal on the right side; once I finish that side I go over to the other side and repeat it there. Then there's a different set of short rows to shape the "breast." It's a pretty clever pattern but I may be tired of it by the time I get the one I'm making for my niece's birthday done.

 I sent off a sympathy card to my uncle (and said "And family" because I know at least one of their grown kids came in). It's a little trickier to know what to write when someone isn't a person of faith (of any kind; I can look up what someone of a faith different to mine would consider good). I went with "my deepest condolences" which isn't much, but it's something. I figured it was better to write the quick thing and get the card in the mail instead of having it sitting on my desk at home for a week or two while I tried to think of what to write. 

I spoke to my mom last night and she just said "he's taking it pretty hard," which maybe isn't surprising (given knowing people in my family). I hope having his kids around will help. I know he has plans to move closer to one of them now.  

I had a bad pain day today. I don't know if it was the weather (hot and humid, and we're supposed to get rain tonight but not yet), or that I hadn't done my PT stretches in a few days (I did them this evening even though I'd rather spend that half-hour knitting), or if it's just stress and sadness over a lot of things. Or maybe even allergies; I sorted through three more (of the 36) samples today, and while I wear an N95 mask while doing it, I think I'm still getting exposure to mold spores. 

Anyway, I HURT today, and it was kind of miserable. I took a tylenol with dinner (I do that only rarely) and like I said, I did the stretches, which seemed to help. If it were less than 95 degrees out I'd consider a heating pad, but I think that would just make me crankier given how hot it is. 

At least I managed to get my "reserved parking" sticker today - we have free access to parking in many lots, a few lots are "reserved for permitted faculty" and you can buy a faculty permit (if you are faculty) for $50 for a full year, which is cheap enough. And one of the lots is the one next to my building, meaning I have guaranteed close parking (the front lot is the reserved lot; there are a few unreserved spaces in the back lot but students can use those too, and while I could get one coming in at or before 8 am, I couldn't run home for lunch on days I don't have an afternoon class and get a spot there when I came back. So the reserved spot is worth it to me)

 Wednesday is our day of all-meetings, Thursday is departmental meeting, Friday I have my annual mammogram in the afternoon so the rest of the week is going to be busy 

and another loss

 My mom just called me. One of my aunts, the wife of my dad's middle brother, just passed away.

 

She had had dementia (probably Alzheimer's) and I didn't know it, but she recently had a stroke, too, and she died last night. 

I think of what my friend Wanda said, about how when someone you knew when you were younger dies, that you are not just mourning the person, but in a way, mourning the experiences you had when they were around, and it brings home that those times can never happen again.

I admit we had at times a difficult relationship; she could be kind of picky and I admit at times she rubbed me the wrong way. But me being me, I kept my mouth shut and usually just went avoidant. 

But still. I remember her at my brother's wedding, and I remember her laugh, and I remember the family reunions. 

And knowing my family is a bit smaller now is hard.  

I'm in here trying to work on my research but also running into a few logistical (mainly: lack of space for things) issues and now it's a little harder to do it. 

Little more chicken

 I got the second part of the tail done, and hooked them together (there's a crocheted ridge that hooks the two halves together. And I picked up all the stitches for the body and did the stripe of darker yarn on the back. 

I have a few more rows of the main color before I start shortrowing to shape the body 

It was incredibly hot today but I did get out to Albertson's. 

And also Katy Depot, again. Here is another shot of the chandeliers. It still amazes me that this was once a train station.

 

And yes, I bought yarn. A hand dyed yarn with sequins, for a hat. 

 

I also ran to Michael's; I had a voucher and as it turned out the thing I wanted - that I had looked at on a previous trip and considered but not bought - was 30% off. I got the last one.

 

It's a Halloween decoration, of a cat head. They had other "spookier" cats with orange eyes but I preferred this one.

 

And...okay, this is maybe a little out of character for my generally trying-to-be-family-friendly blog, but they had these letters hanging up, and someone before me had come through and....adjusted.....the letters in one of the ways you typically see done....

 

("Here's your sign"? Heh.)

 

I also got my groceries, so I can now avoid going out most of next week 

Aw cripes, no

Probably should content warn this: disaster and death and other sad things. Not directly to me, but bumming me out because I care about people and because I guess I still carry a little trauma from a couple deaths of people I cared about. 

 

 Read something this morning that made me profoundly sad:

"Flood survivors fought back tears Thursday as they described losing children, going days without contact from emergency management and discovering human remains still scattered in waterways even after victims who had been partially recovered were officially marked as found." (from The Texas Tribune )

 

Yes, I know everything is broken now. But....just the thought of that. Also given that I REMEMBER the months after September 11, 2001, and the absolutely Herculean efforts made to try to identify the remains found there - I remember reading stories of people asking to bring in toothbrushes of missing persons so they could get DNA to match off them. (And in many cases, it was body parts or even less thy were identifying).

I don't know whether it's that government services have been so gutted at this point that it seems like no one with the authority to do things cares, or if no one really does care. And I admit I wonder if the difference between then and now might be that this is a natural disaster, so you can't really blame anyone for precipitating it, you could only say "here are ways the people who could have mitigated things in advance (being more forceful about warnings) could do better next time" and in 2001, there were particular individuals who were citizens of a particular country (but not the one so much we went to war against afterward) that did the violence. I don't know.

I tend to believe that every human deserves a decent burial if at all possible. Their families deserve to know what happened to them.  I remember some people writing after September 11 about how some families only had a body part to bury. And I know in some cases empty caskets have been buried - not just in this case, but for people lost at sea, for soldiers missing and presumed dead, for victims of plane crashes. And it's terrible and sad. 

Every family member I've had who has died (in my lifetime at least) left mortal remains that were buried or cremated. We had the urn with my father's ashes at his memorial service; my uncle and aunt who lived near where his parents were buried took them after and interred them next to his parents. 

(It's still hard to write that)

I also think of a couple other losses in my life - Steve, who died very suddenly one Saturday early morning at home, and I got the e-mail from our then-pastor late in the day that day. Apparently it was heart issue tied to past lymphoma treatment. But it was so sudden. I remember having to be presiding elder that morning and having to deliver the news. I didn't cry openly but my eyes were watering and my voice was shaking. And I hated having to be the one to inform the people who hadn't read their e-mails yet.

And I remember when my online friend Charles Hill (Dustbury) suddenly went silent one day, and how I kept checking his blog and his twitter feed, hoping and praying he'd show back up, that maybe he had had to briefly go in hospital or something. Eventually the people who read his blog and cared about him found out - car crash, injuries ultimately not survivable. But I remember that couple of days when I didn't know. And so I think on some level I can understand the horror of having a "missing person" you care about and not being able to find anything out.

I think also, yes, I know I have some "abandonment" issues for various reasons, and while intellectually I understand that when someone dies suddenly they generally don't want to go, and if they could they would come back. I know for sure with Steve if he were told, standing in line at the Pearly Gates, "you can keep moving forward in this line, or we can send you back to Earth, alive, for some more years," he'd take the second option, and he'd have been there in church that morning to hug me, like he always did. 

But emotionally.....well, there's still a lot of the scared little kid/ the little kid eating her lunch alone in a dim corner of the lunchroom and wishing she had someone to sit with her inside me, and when I lose someone it brings that up. (Having a close friend fairly abruptly "drop" me - because she got popular - when we were young teens also plays into my "I am going to wind up alone" fears)

But also. The sheer rage I feel at people whose JOB it is to do a thing, and that they don't do that JOB. and either it's that they don't care (which may be an unfair assumption of mine but it feels like many, many people in government don't care about the people they are supposed to serve, they mainly care about what they can get for themselves) or they're so overwhelmed because of understaffing that they can't. 

But anyway. The message I get from my skim of the story I linked is: if something really big and bad happens, if you wind up in (stuff) you can't get yourself out of, ain't no one coming to help you. You're on your own, kid.

And while a good 95% of the bad stuff I get into, I can get myself out of, the remaining 5% - well, thus far it's been stuff small enough where a desperate call to a church friend (like back in January of last year when I injured my knee) gets me a ride to the ER at least, or I can finally call around and hire people who eventually show up (like the repairs I needed in May of last year). But something really big and really bad where a friend can't help, or where you can't hire someone? I'm probably done for, and I don't like that feeling. And I admit I am more careful and circumspect in a lot of what I do in order to avoid the big-bad things happening (but you can't dodge a tornado that might hit your house like you can usually avoid driving places in a rainstorm severe enough to make driving unsafe). I even avoid minor things - I keep wanting to go to that yarn shop in Farmersville, but I look at the heat indexes and go "it's an hour and a half away and at least half that drive will be on unfamiliar highways, maybe I better wait until a time where a car breakdown wouldn't literally be deadly" (never mind that my car hasn't yet broken down, and I maintain it carefully)

But the world feels like a much scarier place now. Both because the seemingly-accelerating pace of climate change makes disasters more likely, and likely to be worse when they happen, but also, it really does seem that those charged with helping either can't do as much, or won't do their jobs. 

I'm also thinking about that dead dog yesterday. it made me sad to see it, but also, the....smell....was overpowering. I think my colleague asked if maybe we should call the Corps of Engineers (the site managers/owners) about it, but I said not to bother, you can't get them on the phone, and given the very limited maintenance we saw at ANOTHER, more popular, site they manage, maybe they've had their budgets cut and have fewer staff.

And God forgive me, but I'm not doing anything. I'm not strong enough, especially in this heat, to go out and dig a deep enough grave to bury it (it was a large dog, basically Lab-sized) and also, I don't think I could get that close to it without throwing up; I was coming close working at some distance from it yesterday.

And people often tell me that I try to take responsibility for things that are not my responsibility (the fact that I actually asked myself if I should grab my shovel and drive back out there and try burying the dog, both for some kind of vague sense of "this was a living being, perhaps one someone loved, and it is due some modicum of respect in death" and also "could this possibly breed disease that could spread to other animals" and also "other people use this site for things like horseback riding and that's not a nice thing to have to see when you go out to do recreation). But I do think I do that because I have seen enough people abrogating their responsibilities in the past that I kind of shrug and go "yeah, they won't do it, and it's not really my job, but I can." (And I need to learn not to do that). 

But anyway. A lot of things making me sad swirling around in my head today when I have to take down the first set of extractions and set up the second one, and put some field tools away, and edit the AAUW yearbook and maybe set up my Canvas pages for the fall.

I've half promised myself - since I need groceries and they have CLOSED the street near the Pruett's for "repairs" (so I can't get there easily) that tomorrow morning I will go down to Albertson's for "nicer" groceries than I can get locally. And I have yet another voucher for Michael's* that I could spend on just some "make myself feel better' craft supplies**

(*they 100% know what they're doing: spend a certain amount of money, you get a voucher, which you can spend on more supplies, but it's small enough you'll probably spend more money too. And I know they're doing it, I know it's designed to extract more money from us, and yet, it also works on me. Loyalty programs often do)

(** they're trying to bring back macrame yet again and I admit I'm vaguely tempted; I remember when it was popular when I was a kid and while I can't think of anything I might NEED - I don't have a good way of installing ceiling hooks that would be sturdy enough to hold hanging plants in a macrame cosy - I just kind of like remembering it. Sort of like swag lamps. I don't have any, I probably coulnd't get one to hang safely, but I remember them as a kid. I had one over my bed, so I could read in bed! It was nice.)

 

So anyway, I have to get down to work and finish my stuff for today 

FIeldwork is done

 Well, for the summer, anyway. Depending on what I find in this set of samples, and if we get decent rainfall in the rest of August and September, I might do an October sampling.

Yesterday was the most difficult site - the one with the longest walking, and a lot of it is over downed branches and stuff that was carried in in a past flood and hasn't decomposed yet. So it's very uneven ground, which is uncomfortable on my bad knee and I also worry about falling (I had people with me - a colleague and her research student, they wanted to scope out some sample sites and grab a little quick preliminary data). 

Today was the remaining two sites, both of which together only amounted to about the same amount of walking as yesterday's site. 

The first site is a more "public" area, and unfortunately right at the entrance, either a dog had got hit by a car and crawled off onto the trail to die, or someone dumped a dead dog there (I sort of suspect the second). It had been a little while - the turkey vultures were there. It's kind of sad to see, and worse, the smell in the heat was very unpleasant. (When I finished grabbing my samples, and my colleague and student were still working, I had to go stand upwind, by my car, because I was starting to gag)

The second of today's two sites was better - it's a local reservoir that allows fishing and has some "semi natural" land around it, including small stands of trees. It was kind of a pain in the stand because cedar trees have very pokey branches, but it was easy to collect the soil and there was no poison ivy where I was sampling. 

I was pretty worn out when I got home. I have to go in tomorrow and change over the "extraction" set ups (I have Tuesday's sample extracting currently) and do a couple other things. I'd LIKE to go somewhere and do something fun this weekend but it's going to be brutally hot again so I'll have to think about it.  

Almost a tail

 Still working on the gift-chicken. I thought I'd get the tail done tonight and I got CLOSE (there are maybe 8 more rows on the second part, then I attach then with single crochets in the contrast color), but I ran out of steam to work on it:

 I went out today with a colleague and her undergraduate research student to collect my second set of soil, and while I did that they set up a project he is going to do. We're going back out tomorrow to do the other two sites - this was the one with the largest amount of walking, so we assumed it will be the one that takes the longest.

It wasn't easy getting there. I didn't know one of the roads I would take to get out to the highway to get there was closed (apparently a water main break but they often announce those on local news) so I had to make a quick detour, and then once I was out on the main road that leads to the highway, a guy and what I assume was his girlfriend pulled out, right in front of me, from an apartment complex. On, in fact, a "trottinette"* style electric scooter. They were barefoot and helmetless and were dressed in what looked like pajamas. They wove in and out of traffic and I hope they got where they were going safely but I was not happy at having to worry about them and their erratic conduct. 

(*In French, the old-style kick-scooters - where there's a flat panel you stand on, and you hold onto handle bars, and kick your foot on the pavement to go forward - is called "une trottinette." The gasoline scooters, like a Vespa, go by a different name, and I feel like we need to distinguish in English between a Vespa type scooter and what this guy and girl were on - it seems a lot more precarious and less-safe on a common road than a Vespa would be). 

There were a few other less-than-safe drivers. You just learn to look out for people. I do think drivers have got worse since 2020.

 

But yeah, I'm tired after spending three hours out in the sun and the heat digging soil out from underneath trees. I did better this time - I don't feel heat-exhaustion-y and the humidity WAS lower than it was in June. But I'm still tired and will be glad when we're done tomorrow. 

Thinking about this

 I guess I'm going to have to do a link, rather than link the video, because it's on Vimeo instead of YouTube, but this came across my Bluesky stream last night and I wound up thinking a lot about it and posting it.

 It's based on a short essay by Alain de Botton: 

On Melancholy

Unfortunately, the original print version of the essay has been taken down, but there are a couple sites that quote bits of it.

Essentially: melancholy is part of the human condition. It's a realization of the imperfection of life, that there's pain. People you love leave or die or reject you. Beautiful things are often fleeting. 

And yet, the point is not to become bitter, but to acknowledge it. Maybe it's related to the idea I've read about called "radical acceptance" (in dealing with, for example, grief over loss: you recognize you cannot DO anything about the loss or the pain it caused, so you just kind of have to sit with the grief.)

And I think there's some truth in that. I've seen people who dealt okay with grief - I think at this point, while I still miss my dad, I have - but I've also seen people who's life was absolutely destroyed by it. In some cases it's several big losses all at once (I am thinking of someone I slightly know who lost her husband, her son, and a sibling in very short order, like within a couple months) but also in some points it may be that the grief becomes......well, it's like the joke about "they made it their whole personality"

 I do think I recognize what the essay talks about. "Life is inherently difficult, and suffering is part of the universal experience" and I see that and I feel it. One thing I do struggle with is finding the joy, sometimes, in among that. 

"The world is full of folly and greed, and it's hard to find inner peace....often sadness simply makes sense."

I think one of the problems I have now is I often see how things could be *better,* except they aren't and I don't have the power to make them so. The large number of empty storefronts in my town that could be useful or enjoyable businesses so that we don't have to drive an hour's round trip (or do mail-order) for things. The lack of fun social opportunities that work for me (and for many people). The idea that some people who would have plenty to share to make others' lives a bit less uncomfortable choose not to, even though they might not miss what they would donate. The fact that beauty can be hard to find and is often damaged or co-opted. The fact that it is hard and terrifying to forge a relationship with someone, and that it may wind up not working out, and your heart gets broken.

There are so many sad things. They are things, more or less, everyone experiences. And yet, if we all have the experiences of grief and disappointment and loneliness, why is it so hard to reach out to others and to help them? Or so hard to accept help when offered. 

I don't know. I am alone far too much in the summer (especially this year when most everyone was away off campus somewhere else, and a lot of days it was me coming in and working from maybe 9 until 4 on my research without speaking to anyone else, and then, when I get done, being too tired to think of doing anything social, even if there were something). And so I do get kind of up in my head and that makes me *more* melancholy.

But yes. There are difficulties in life. Sad things happen. And I guess you haven't much choice but to accept it. But I also wish sometimes joy was a bit easier to come by 

 

a new chicken

 The sink did get fixed. The guy called a couple minutes after 8 and said he was "in the neighborhood" and could come if I was ready (I was; I had set an alarm so I'd be sure to be up, woke up an hour before it and worked out and had been ready for quite some time). 

It was not too bad of a fix. Not cheap, but it didn't take him long - measured the sink, ran to the local plumbing supply house, came back. Used the same hardware as on the old one.

 At one point when he was going to get the tube of sealant from his truck, he stopped and looked at my bookshelf and chuckled: "That's the first Terry Pratchett I've seen 'in the wild'" (I had tucked the copy of Equal Rites on there after I had finished it). We talked for a minute or two about the books. It was a nice little moment of connection.

After that I quickly ran to Sherman - needed groceries and also wanted to hit the Michael's; I realized that I had given away all the orange acrylic I had (I had bought it a decade ago with the vague plan of altering the Doctor Hooves pattern to make a Starburst, but ran out of steam for ever trying it, and I gave the yarn to someone who was making afghans for charity). So I needed a couple skeins of orange for the chicken for my niece's birthday, and I had a good "voucher" (you get these after you spend a certain amount, but it was due to expire). And I also bought some fluffy yarn, one of those ombre "cakes" of yarn, because I got the wild hair of 'maybe I knit it up into just a simple scarf for fall" because I could imagine the fluffy yarn on a cold day around my neck.

I have too good an imagination. I can conjure up things like that and then want them - maybe not the fluffy scarf so much but the crisp fall day, and somewhere pleasant to go on it, and the scarf as a nice accessory,

 At any rate, given the voucher, it and the chicken yarn were virtually free, so whatever.

I also realized there's barely 2 weeks to the start of classes, so I better start the chicken for my colleague. 

I got the first point of one side of the tail made tonight. Had to start over because I was tired and forgot to knit back on one of the wrap and turn rows, and had to rip out and restart

 Yes, it's blue; she has some blue accessories in her office. 

Thursday evening things

 * Had the checkup today. The only advice (other than the eternal advice of "you should lose a little weight" which WAS followed up by "but you ARE very healthy") was that it's time for me to get a pneumonia shot; there's a new one (PCV 21? I think? She wrote it down so I could remember) that's recommended for all 50-and-over people. She suggested I get it "soon," perhaps implying "before the recommendations change and insurance won't pay." 

I'm going to wait though for it to get a bit cooler. I think the reason I had an unpleasant reaction to a covid booster a few summers ago was that I got it during the hottest part of the year - my body doesn't tolerate heat well to begin with. 

Also I need to get another round of fieldwork in

* Spent most of the rest of the day deep cleaning my bathroom because of course having the plumber judge you as a Decent Housekeeper is a normal thing for a normal adult to want.,

this is the (heh) sink hole

 Hopefully the replacement isn't a big deal, and hopefully they can coordinate the subfloor repair (if it's actually needed) and work with a flooring place to get someone in to do new floor covering, and arrange for a new toilet. that's not URGENT like the sink is, but I want to get it done. It will be a relief to have that taken care of.

* Today was the hottest day of the year. I THOUGHT they were promising cooler temperatures and rain but no, or at least not yet. The heat index was 110 and I wound up turning my AC up to 80 so it wouldn't overwork. (Eighty in this house isn't pleasant, and our climate is NOT such that opening a window is a good thing.) I changed the filter a little early (they're supposed to last at least a month) in case dust wast affecting the one in there and making the AC work less efficiently. 

* I'm really ready to get the fall cool-down, but it'll be at least another month.

* I worked a bit on the ongoing socks (the ones I posted a photo of earlier this week). In the course of doing some other cleaning (other rooms than the bathroom) I ran across the yarn I bought for Lithos from Knitty, and I was really tempted to start it.

Or to start the Emotional Support Chicken for my colleague, which I'd like to have done for the first day of school to give to her. But I decided to work on the socks instead; I want to finish SOMETHING up before starting something new. 

* I do also want to get to the yarn shop in Farmersville at some point but that may be something I save for Labor Day Weekend? I don't know. There's a lot to do before classes start in two and a half weeks. 

What a day

 So, I got up and exercised, and ate and then went to get dressed. I have a fancy facial cleaner (it's like cold cream, but with rose geranium added. It's in a heavy blue glass pump bottle. 

Well, I either dropped it or it slipped off the edge of the sink and hit on the inside curve.

And it broke a big hole in the sink. Yes, all the way through. I thought this was a sink with a metal base covered with porcelain but I guess not, and it did already have a tiny chip (I think I had dropped something there some months back).

I just stared at it gape mouthed for a moment, because like I said, I didn't think that damage was possible.

And then I sighed, and since it was after 8 am, called the plumber I use. I have an appointment Friday morning for someone to come out and replace it (or at least take the measurements for such). I've moved my makeup and toothbrush and hairbrush to the kitchen - I only have one bathroom but at least I have the kitchen sink to do things like brush my teeth.

I also take this as a Sign that it's a time to ask the plumber guy about how to work the logistics of getting the crummy old ceramic floor tile gone, the subfloor fixed where it's starting to subside, and get a new toilet. The one there is older than I am! (it is stamped with a manufacturing date of 1965)

I'm apprehensive because often reno work here proceeds way too slowly, and if I'm without a toilet for long.....well, I'll be staying in a motel. (But not the one I stayed in last May. It was really shabby and nasty and I'd rather pay more and go somewhere else). No, there's no one I'd be comfortable asking if they have a guest room. So I'm REALLY hoping they can at least manage the subfloor and toilet in one day, and if I have to wait a day or two for a floor guy, I could just wash myself and my hair in the kitchen sink (because I wouldn't want to get the bare wood subfloor wet)

It's stressing me out a little. I'm trying to ignore it. If I have to I'll do it; I'm not taking a "vacation" this summer so maybe I just count a few hundred dollars to stay at a motel a couple nights if necessary as a sort of vacation? (Heck, if I didn't think the guys might need me to answer questions or make decisions, I might just go somewhere ELSE, like somewhere out of town)

I worked until lunchtime on data entry, and then decided I wanted to get lunch out. Partly I just didn't want to go back home and think about that sink, partly I felt like I needed I treat. I went to a coffee shop I'd never been in here (I had not known they had food) and got a ham and cheese croissant and a chai. It was....okay. Not great, not as nice as the food from CJ's in Denison but it was fine. Better than fast food and the online menus I looked at for other places were not as appealing. 

After that, wal-mart. I needed toilet cleaner (after all, if someone's gonna work in your bathroom, it needs to be as clean as it can be). My intention was to also get one of those make up mirrors on a stand - I had wanted one for a little while but had never got one, and having one now would make it easier this morning and tomorrow (and any other morning where I have to use the kitchen sink to get ready). But I forgot that, because Wal-mart is renovating and it's impossible to get around and impossible to find things. 

However, I did get shredded cabbage for okonomiyaki this weekend, and the cleaner I needed. And I found this:

 It's a little alarm clock. Shaped like a dinosaur. I had been wanting a small alarm clock to have next to my bed - I had been using my phone since my knee injury last year, but  I'd rather leave it on charge overnight and there's no convenient plug. And the nice thing about this is it lights up for about 30 seconds (and changes color!) when you tap the snooze button, so in the middle of the night, you can easily see what time it is. 

But the annoying thing? Instead of just being in a box, it's in a box with an anti theft device that's annoying to remove (it was a $10 clock! It was inexpensive!)

Little screws! Attaching the clock to its box! At first I thought "well, okay, maybe these are the attachment points for the battery cover, and you just reinstall them later" but no....there's an even smaller screw holding on the battery cover. So I had to search for a Phillips head screwdriver to remove it from the box. But I finally got it out and the batteries in.....

and realized I had forgotten to buy the make up mirror.

So I went back (after first checking online to be sure they had one in stock). Got it, so now I have that. But still - a frustrating day. 

And tomorrow after my doctor checkup I have to clean the bathroom and try not to be too anxious about "strange people are coming in to my house"

But maybe if this - and the eventual other repairs - go okay, maybe I get up my courage and FINALLY replace the dishwasher this fall, given that I finally have the money for that AND the subfloor repair. 
 

the heel turn

 Heh. Not the kind from wrestling (Hulk Hogan died a couple days ago, one of the bigger heel turns in recent years)

 

No, I mean on socks. I finished the flap of what I am thinking of as the Easter egg socks tonight

 

And then I turned the heel.

 

 

It's hard to get a lot done on stuff. I've been working over at work, crunching numbers, and I'm tired when I get home. So I'm not doing as much knitting, but I want to push to get as much research as I can done before the fall classes start. I have a tentative promise from a colleague to go out and help with the second soil collection, maybe next week. We're supposed to get some rain this weekend so that would be a better time than many - though it's still going to be brutally hot, which I do not like. 

I also really want to plan at least one or two more days of fun stuff. I want to make time to get to that yarn shop in Farmersville, and maybe find another museum somewhere that's reasonably driveable. I'd LIKE to go to Chickasaw but it's going to be awfully hot most days, so that may be out. 

Much good, little bad

 I missed Friday because I was Out most of the day, and when I got home I was tired enough I didn't want to.

Anyway, first big good: bloodwork results came back. Everything good, right where it should be EXCEPT Vitamin D considerably low. Womp womp.

In my defense, I had run out of the capsules and thought, "well, maybe since I'm outside a bit more and it's summer, I'll be fine.

I think I was actually Not Fine. I looked up symptoms of a deficiency and while they vary a lot from person to person,  but they can include bone/joint pain, muscle cramping, fatigue, and low mood. 

Yeah. Guess what ones I had. I had weird muscle cramps in muscles you would not expect - my right thigh as I was lifting that leg out of my car in the tight confines of the garage (granted, that is the leg with the injured knee), the side of my neck (I bought new pillows just because I thought my old one was screwing it up), and my intercostals (bending down and stretching to reach something that fell and rolled under a desk). 

And maybe the other pain? I had been having some trouble with my back that I attributed to aging.

 And then mood. And really, it's hard to tell? It can be hard to notice a low mood sometimes when you're in it (though I knew I hadn't "felt right" since maybe April) and of course I attributed a lot of it to "well the world as you know it is falling to pieces, you soon won't be able to afford any of the things that make life worthwhile (tariffs) if you can even find them (shops closing down because of PE or because of the general bad economic conditions), and your loved ones who depend on Medicaid will be thrown off it, and you better start donating more money to food banks because SNAP is being cut" and everything seemed pretty bleak. And yeah, some things do look bleak but given that I restarted taking vitamin D actually a week ago (I found a partial bottle, then I bought more on Friday) things seem.....a little less bleak? And I feel a little more energetic? And my knee has hurt a lot less, so maybe there is something to it. (Vitamin D is *expensive* though)

SO anyway. I'm finding myself looking at knitting patterns again and thinking "these are things I want to make when I finish at least one of my current projects" maybe is a sign.

And Friday, I went down to Sherman/Denison. I needed groceries, I needed Vitamin D, I needed batteries, I needed a bunch of little things. 

But I also went to Michael's and to Books a Million. Michael's had one of those "52 Weeks of..." knitting-pattern books (I had the socks and the accessories ones; this one is "simple knits" including some nice sweaters) so I got that. And I bought yet another different set of yarns, this time marls in two shades of blue and that's going to be the final FINAL choice for my colleague's emotional support chicken (one of the things I want to start once I've finished up the little mitts and the current socks). 

And at Books a Million, all I bought was "The Blueberry Pickers" (which looks interesting) and then I saw this

Yes, I do not need another plushie.

BUT: I had ordered a bear - the newish Sun Bear - from Skoggy back in June, never got shipping information, messaged them twice, never heard back other than a weird and probably AI generated message claiming they had had to fire someone who was lying about shipping times. So I did a charge back on my credit card. (I did what I could to cancel the order, but they're really uncommunicative at Skoggy. Probably a company that grew too fast, or else they have some bad, bad employees)

So this creature - I have not named him yet - will kind of, sort of, be a replacement. 

And he is shaped like a friend.

I also got a new lunch kit:

 Yes it's for children. No, I don't care, and if someone looks funny at me and says "you have a Bluey lunchbox?" I will respond with a deadpan "yes."

I also did go to Katy Depot. Bought some yarn for a cowl from that new accessories book, and took some photos of the nice planting there:

 

There are black eyed Susans in there, and some kind of artemesia and there's ageratum, and all of those have species native to Texas, so I'm wondering if it's a native planting.

It is dedicated to veterans, especially those who never came back home:

 I also went to Albertson's. Grocery shopping is more fun when you know you don't have to be particularly restrictive about carbohydrates or protein (given normal blood sugar and kidney enzymes)

I did buy myself a treat, a piece of chocolate cheese cake

 

On Saturday, I cleaned house. That also helps.

And I dug around in my storage boxes to see if there was anything I wanted to bring out. I found some yarn I may want to use at some point soon, and I found my big stuffed Wooloo - who had gotten a little dusty and grubby and I decided to have a try at washing her (I have found that even if most stuffed toys claim they can be surface washed only, most survive a run through the washer and dryer on gentle, especially if you put them in a closed-up pillowcase. Even my super fragile old Pink Panther from 1978 that I found in my mom's basement survived washing that way). And I had wanted to wash Squishy Dog because I sometimes sleep with my head on him, and I've dragged him along while traveling. So I put them in together. 

Wooloo fared very well but it took several rounds in the dryer to get her dry

Squishy Dog is a bit more like Lumpy Dog now - the "super soft" stuffing in these types of critters tends to clump, I guess

He's still OK though

 

He is ALSO sitting on my original copy of Piranesi, which is a reminder to me - my Folio Society edition came, so I have this one to give away

So: if you have never yet read it, or know someone who would like a copy, I have my hardback I could send (within the US only, sadly, because shipping costs) book rate. If no one comments or e-mails me in a week or two I may just take it down to the library's used book sale, or I might see if I could get a buck or two at the used book store in Denison (but that's more effort than popping it in a bag and sending it from here)

I also knit more on those bright odd Easter egg color socks. I guess I'll keep them. 

I'm also reading away on The Enchanted Greenhouse and really enjoying it, just as I did The Spellshop by the same author. (Similar stories, though different characters, though there is the link - this one is the story of the woman who created Caz, the sentient spider plant, what happened to her and how she was rescued from having been turned into a statue, and how she probably has a Bigger Purpose saving something else - I'm not quite far enough in to see if she is the one who succeeds or if another character does it.)

Anyway, these books are just FUN. Fun in a good way, fun in that they set up a different world with interesting internal logic, fun in that you know they will end happily. Fun in that they have enjoyable characters in them.