1. Why is it that the person in the lowest-possible-visibility car decides not to put their headlights on? As I was getting ready to make a left turn on to Wilson (and therefore, had to be sure incoming traffic cleared), I saw what at first looked like a gap....and then seconds later realized there was a grey car in it with its lights off. It's raining here and very dark and if I had been quicker on the draw to start turning I would have got in an accident. I flashed my high beams at him in what I think of as the universal, "Hey, dum-dum, put your headlights on" signal, but that signal also has been co-opted as a greeting and as a "hey, there's a speed trap down the road" signal, so I suspect it had no effect.
But it seems if there's someone out driving early in the morning with their headlights off, it's not gonna be a yellow car....
2. I got no fewer than six "Unknown Caller" or "Private Caller" calls last night. I am assuming, as our primaries are March 1, that they were either representatives of one of the candidates making a "Hey, can I count on your support?" call or a pollster.
But here's my thought: If they're gonna call people, they should have the intestinal fortitude to code their caller ID so it turns up the name of the candidate's campaign or says POLITICAL POLL or some such. Don't hide behind "Unknown Caller" and hope you can TRICK people into picking up. Let people know and let them honestly decide whether they want to listen to a pre-recorded message or be asked their preferences.
My rule is not to pick up for callers that don't list who they are, except in VERY rare cases when it's someone I know calling from a cheap cell phone where the company doesn't provide caller ID numbers. But you'd think a political party could shell out the bucks to be identified.
And no, none of them left messages. So maybe it wasn't a pre-recorded "get out the vote" call, maybe it was some scammer.
* I finished Maud's dress last night. It's....okay. Not quite as good as I hoped it would turn out but I kind of had to fit it and sew it ON her, so the sewing is not as neat as I'd like. I may get a picture this afternoon, I don't know, but I have an afternoon meeting AND an evening talk today, so my time is v. limited.
* When I'm ready to crochet a bit again, I'm torn between starting Sylvie Culture (off of the same old pattern) or doing the Cheerilee pattern that someone bought for me on my last birthday. At the moment am leaning towards Cheerilee. But there won't be that much knitting or crochet for a few days - today is a busy day and tomorrow night they are starting up a Wednesday-night study for adults at church and I feel like I should at least go the first few times to support it.
* I took part in the ITFF swap they were doing on Ravelry. Was greatly relieved to hear my package arrived and the recipient liked it. (It went to Canada, so there was the added issue of Customs declarations).
Mine also came yesterday:
From Hawaii. The darkish thing you can't see well is a package of four Hawaiian-made chocolate truffles (the first one I tried last night was sea salt chocolate). I was particularly excited by the cookbook; I collect cookbooks and there are some authentic recipes (even down to ones with Spam) in there. There are a lot of interesting chicken recipes in there. I think the first thing I will try will be coconut haupia pudding, which is similar to a blancmange but made with coconut milk.
There's also a coconut cake that I might consider making as a birthday cake. Because...
* My birthday is Saturday. I still have plans to go to Whitesboro; both the quilt shop and the yarn shop there advertise as being open on Saturdays. On the way back home I can even go through Sherman and do a grocery run if I want to.
I've also accumulated a few packages - a couple from my parents, the Coco Pommel that I'm not "really" going to open until my birthday, and a couple of mystery Amazon packages that are not stuff I ordered so I am presuming are gifts.
* I'm not traveling for spring break this year; I decided I need to stay here and do some intensive prep for summer research. I'm a little sad about that but also not-sad: the Texas Eagle has temporarily changed its schedule in such a way that would make traveling more challenging for me, and also this is often spring flood season, and I SO don't want to deal with another disrupted trip. I've also promised myself that I can have at least one "fun day" during break where I either go antiquing or find an interesting museum somewhere within an hour's or so drive and go there. (Maybe the Chickasaw Cultural Center? I've never been and it looks very interesting). And anyway, I just need a little decompression time and that's easier with just staying at home, and maybe I can see to my gardens and stuff a little bit.
* The whole shooter-in-Kalamazoo thing. Scary. Creepy. Not much to say other than that the reason we don't understand people who do this is that we're people who wouldn't, and so that's a good thing.
Also, and this is the kind of comparison I always do: the guy is almost 2 years younger than I am. (he must have had a hard life in some ways). I won't be at all surprised if the shooter turns up to have a long history of mental illness that mostly went untreated. It's truly unfortunate how bad some of the side effects of some of the meds are (that's a reason I've heard people with more minor conditions give for going off them) or how bad the stigma is or how in some cases, the disease "lies" and tells the person they don't need or don't deserve treatment.
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