Taking a day

 I got the first site's samples done today. That was 12 samples, spread over three days. I can't do much more in a day than 5, it's too much eyestrain. Today was challenging because they were working on the roof right above me and it was loud, and also there was dust (I hope there was no asbestos or anything in it) sifting in from the vents. (This building was probably built in the 60s)

So tomorrow I am taking the day off. I need a day out. Today was better (less lonely) because a couple of the grad students were around, as was a colleague. 

One of them had to borrow my big fan (I get it, his office has even less ventilation than my lab) but he retrieved the little fan and tried to set up a swamp cooler for me (he's originally from India so I'd think his experience with humidity was enough to know one might not work that well, but okay)

Towards the end of my workday I looked at the ice and it was mostly melting, and it was REVOLVING because of the fan, and it made me laugh, so I was videoing it when he and the other grad student walked by. You can hear her asking "what are you doing" (you can't hear him, his voice is very soft) and when I said "working on my research" she said "no, you're not!" (she's a smart alec; she meant that I was videoing the ice instead of working)

I do think part of the problem is a feeling of isolation during the day when I'm essentially the only one around. 

 

 So I'm hoping a trip out, not just for more groceries that make easy meals when it's hot (I need to restock my freezer with some of the semi-healthful quick things that are good when it's too hot to cook) but also, yes, I am going to the yarn shop.

No, I don't need any yarn. Will I buy more yarn? Most likely. I might want a skein of sockweight in the "alive" colorway I'm doing mitts of the dk weight from. Or maybe I won't buy anything, but it will be nice to talk to one of the enthusiastic employees and just have a friendly face (it helped even talking a little with the grad students).

I might also go to Michael's, though I'm trying to game out the best path - the yarn shop and Albertson's are in Denison, but I have to go to Albertson's LAST because of cold food and frozen things (even though I have a foam ice chest; I bought two to carry my soil in but only used one), but also, if I want to get a fun lunch out somewhere, it has to be late enough to be WORTH getting lunch (the yarn shop opens at 10; the Michael's opens at 9). I also might want to go to Ulta, despite not really needing anything and they open at 10.....if I went to Michael's and Ulta that would put me close to the restaurants I would want to use (And this all feels  a little bit about that old math problem about the trains that leave Des Moines going East and Chicago going west and where do they pass each other). I'll figure it out. Or maybe I'll faff around here that it will be after 10 by the time I leave, so opening hours will be moot. (Or I go to the yarn shop, and then into Sherman for everything else, and backtrack to Albertson's, since there's an easy back-on to the interstate from near them....)

And then Friday I can work a little, and I have Meals on Wheels (with the German lady, who is fine, but I know my car won't be quite clean enough for her and she might Say Something, but whatever). Saturday I have to bake muffins; we are doing a "week before Independence Day" breakfast at church. 

And then next week, back to the grind, I suppose (though I am going to try to do a couple samples in between Meals on Wheels on Friday, and maybe go in early Saturday and do one or two)

But maybe I do just have to build in a Fun Thing once a week, even if it's just, I don't know, driving up to Caddo (about 15 minutes away) and getting an ice cream cone at the only remaining Dairy Queen near me or something.... 

Tuesday evening things

 * I have done eight (of 36) samples in the "sort" stage (this is wetting down the soil and searching through it using a dissecting scope to find any invertebrates that missed falling through the mesh). It's tiring work, surprisingly, and it does give me a little eyestrain. I did five samples today, I don't think I can force myself to do more than that (and four is probably better). 

I also barely said two words to another human today. My colleague's student who's working with the herbarium stuff was in but he's not talkative and no one else was around.

* I think perhaps it's the extreme aloneness and the lack of small tasks that gets to me - yes, I'm getting research progress done but the actual goal of results is far, far in the future, and if this ever actually sees the light of day is also unsure (and not even totally up to me). So even as busy as I am during the regular year, I have things like advising students or doing tutoring or whatever that makes me feel useful and without that feeling I'm not happy.

I think of a story I read after 9/11/01, where they talked about the rescue dogs that were called in, and when they found there were essentially no rescues after the very short first few hours, the dogs actually started to seem "depressed" and the handlers took to recruiting people to hide under rubble so the dog could have the win of "finding" someone alive. 

Unfortunately, I'm clever enough I couldn't be fooled by something like that, so I just have to tough it out.

* I do need to find some "fun" things to consider. Most outdoors stuff is out right now - it took me a solid week to recover from the heat exhaustion; this is the first day since last Tuesday I feel normal. But something: a museum, or a shop in a town I've not been to before, something. I keep looking at the maps but I really am kind of in a hole of "nothing" - Denison is a half hour away and anything much in my state would be at least as far. So I don't know. 

* I do have a vague plan to go to Albertson's either Friday after doing Meals on Wheels (I am on deck to help that day) or Saturday. Or maybe if I burn myself out briefly on sorting samples after tomorrow, I go Thursday and just go in and work before and after on Friday and a little on Saturday

 (But if I do that? lock the lab door behind me; on Friday when I was changing stuff over some guy wandered in claiming to be from a water-treatment company trying to get me to let him into a room to "look at" the set ups. The room number he gave is not a room number I have and I asked twice if he meant the Chemistry building (which does have that room number) but no. Also the name he claimed was his contact at the university was someone who's not been here for 20 years. I was VERY anxious about it, thinking "is this a line to get in and rob or worse?" but I THINK he may have just been trying to sell his company's product. I kept emphasizing I only had a key to the lab I was in (I did not mention my office, where my purse was) and that I wasn't authorized to order the stuff anyway and he'd have to come back and talk with my chair. The guy was also a very "close talker," which added another level of discomfort for me; I prefer several feet of personal space.

I caught my (new incoming) chair on Monday and described it to him, and he was equally suspicious, noting that the person who had been chair would have told him to expect the guy. So while I (fortunately) didn't take more than a little anxiety damage, the guy probably wasn't supposed to be there. 

(The building itself was unlocked; guys were working on the roof and they needed to get in to cool down/use the restroom/use the water fountains. I didn't mind those guys; I knew why they were there, and they had no interest in talking to me; they were there for the job) 

* I restarted "All Clear" but I admit it is a slightly "stressful" book in the sense that you worry about the characters, and them maybe missing their connection (the retrieval team) and the fact that it's set in wartime, and parts of it in a particularly dangerous part of WWII in London. 

(It's also a bit hard to keep the characters straight; several of the time travellers use different names depending on what timeline they're in, and then they have their "real" name that only their fellow time travellers know) 

a little larger

 * I knit more this weekend (and tonight) on the shawl. I guess it looks a little bigger:

 

 these kinds of things go slowly, even though it doesn't take that long to knit a single row.

* I finally did something I'd been threatening to do for a while - I pulled down the blinds in the living room and replaced them with sheer curtains (in a taupe) on tension rods. The problem with blinds is that the strings rot out (sunlight) and it seems that one set goes about once a year, and EVERY YEAR the company I can purchase locally (Levolor) changes their hanging hardware, and it's enough of a nightmare to have to try to put in fresh hardware for the new blinds by myself.

 

 

 Already one of the rods, though, has let loose, and I'll either have to get a slightly longer one or else maybe put a little more rubbery bits on the end

And I ordered all the same length and found that I had forgotten the front windows are longer than the side windows, and those curtains are too short by about 10". So I reordered longer ones (and longer tension rods, because those windows are wider and the tension rods are a little loose). No big loss; the shorter ones can be moved to my sewing room and provide a little privacy there - I had had no blinds when the set that was there when I moved in failed.

I do need to go out some evening after dark and leave the lights on in the living room to see how easily you can see in; that may change how I do some things. Or if I get frustrated with these I could buy or even make* replacements that are more opaque

 (*sad lol not so easily now that there's no more JoAnn's to easily buy fabric from) 

* I did the first three sample-sortings today.

That's 3 of 36. This is going to take a long time. I hope I get some good results; one of the reasons I think I don't try more things is I hate the thought of investing time for no results. (This is not just or even primarily true of research, where I can at least still show evidence I TRIED on my required annual progress reports, but also in things like attempting to design patterns myself or even any more trying things that I'm not sure I'd understand how the pattern will work out and where I might have to rip back and redo. I have become much more restricted and less willing to experiment, and I think that's partly an aftereffect (still) of living through the pandemic and also the more concerning times now - if you feel like "well, what if we all only have six months left? I don't want to waste time trying something I won't finish"

And yeah, I need to break out of that. But I think in some way I am still affected by ~everything~ that has happened. I also think the losses big and small over the years have had an effect; as I said before I've reached the point of not really expecting good things any more. 

I wish I could think of something fun to do but it's unbearably hot ( to the point of, I'd rather pay more and have very limited choices at the Green Spray near me than drive ALL the way out to wal-mart and have to walk across their giant parking lot (because they are always crowded). So even if I could think of a fun thing, it would be hard to overcome inertia to want to go out and do it, when the heat index is like 104 F or something.

I really hope the humidity goes down soon 

Jaws is 50

 The fieldwork went OK but I am VERY sore today from all the digging and working in the heat.

But tonight, I'm watching "Jaws" for the first time ever. A lot is being made about its 50th anniversary. 

I was six when it came out, so not an appropriate movie for me to go and see (and after the "crab scene" - if you know, you know - close to the very beginning, I wondered if it was an appropriate movie for me NOW but I'm sticking with it). And my parents really weren't into that kind of movie - my dad liked sci-fi, and my mom liked comedies, and they both generally tolerated kids' movies, so what we tended to see were things like the Pink Panther movies, or the Star Wars franchise, or whatever Disney had made.  

Also, we didn't get cable until I was into high school, so a lot of the movies that got second-runs on places like HBO were movies I didn't get to see.

I mean, I get it's a cultural touchstone, and I know some of the references from the other properties that used them (the "nails on chalkboard" thing has been used in SpongeBob SquarePants, and Bob's Burgers, and some other places).

Additionally, I JUST remember a couple shark-themed cartoons coming out about that time. Jabberjaw was probably the most famous - basically the Scooby-Doo franchise, but with a goofy shark instead of a dog, and a few differences in the humans. But there was also a cartoon in the Pink Panther multiverse, Misterjaw, which had a shark with a vest and a German accent (Arte Johnson doing his "German Guy" voice from Laugh-in, which in the 70s, would have recalled Hogan's Heroes, or....uh....the historical situation that spawned the show Hogan's Heroes). I remember watching Misterjaw and kind of liking it, but then again I was six.... 

And yeah, I feel kind of bad for the shark. Truth is most sharks aren't dangerous to humans, and the ones that will attack only do so because they're confused. And I doubt I'd find the movie frightening because I never encounter sharks - I live in a landlocked state, if I went to the ocean I'd probably not swim in the water, and frankly, I'd rather watch a shark swim (I've been to aquariums that had them) than possibly risk being mistaken by it for a big fish.

And yeah, this is the movie that gave sharks a bad name. I'm sure a lot of sharks were needlessly killed after it came out. (Basically things in nature - if you're going out into nature, you're an invader in its territory, not the other way 'round. I tell students my practice with snakes is to give them a wide berth in the field rather than harming them. The only creatures like these that I will go after are fire ants in my lawn (they are an invasive anyway), or poison ivy (because I get rash, and the city doesn't love it when you have it in your yard), or venomous spiders in my house (present a risk) or rodents in the house (damaging, and can carry disease). But out in the field, I leave things where they are and leave them alone.

 

One of the things, not very far in, that's striking to me: it's very much a movie of its time. The hair, the clothing - that's all mid-70s. I remember people dressing like that, I remember those hairstyles. I think the fact that it was shot on Martha's Vineyard instead of some backlot built up to look like a New England town gives it a bit more recognizable realism. (And yeah, I know, the sharks were all mechanical - but honestly I think in a lot of cases the so-called "practical effects" age better than something like cgi - which was non existent when this was made - would)

And yes, I realize it's a bigger movie than one about a shark - the shark is supposed to represent evil, though the mayor of the town is pretty much another "bad guy" in his own right - the kind of venal politician who cares about money more than people, and cares about the image of his town. And there are references to Moby-Dick, which I have *mostly* read (I bogged down about 2/3 of the way through)

And also, the fact that the shark is never really seen - at least, not as far into the viewing as I am right now - is another thing. The idea of a faceless evil, you know it's out there, it could be blamed for "bad things" for profit, maybe it's not as great of a threat as it's made out to be...

(I admit though I find Richard Dreyfuss' character a little annoying. You'd think as an ecologist I'd find him interesting but he is kind of annoying)

 

Reading time now

 I finished "The Mysterious Mr Badman" (1934, by W F Harvey) night before last. This was a mystery novel about a blanket-company owner (the wonderfully-named Athelstan Digby) traveling in Yorkshire to meet up with his adult nephew, a young doctor who is doing a locum tenens for the town's physician. 

They wind up getting  mixed up in a mystery: not one, not two, but three men show up looking for a John Bunyan book called "The Life and Death of Mr Badman" (it's a real book; I looked it up). And then a young boy, given a pile of books by a woman he knows, who told him he could sell them at the used book shop in the town (which happens to be where Mr Digby is staying on his holiday, and he is minding the store for the day so the owner and his wife can go somewhere together)

As it turns out, "Mr Badman" isn't what's important; it's a letter in it, which could lead to blackmail and a Cabinet Minister having to resign, and and and.

There are lots of characters in this one, and I admit after not reading on it for a few days,, I went back to reread a big chunk of it to refresh myself. One of the villains of the piece is Olaf Wake (who just SOUNDS like a villain). There are a couple of murders revolving, apparently, around the people who want the letter getting taken out so they don't talk. 

Eventually the book is stolen from Digby, and much of the last third of the novel involves a convoluted scheme to try to get the letter back and save the family (which Jim, the nephew, turns out to be connected to - he is marrying the stepdaughter) from embarrassment.

At one point Jim is attacked in a "motor wreck," knocked unconscious*, and is told, when he wakes up, that his leg and other ankle are broken, and he's in a "village hospital"

Without spoiling too much- this bit plays a bit on one of my phobias/uncomfortable things,  being lied to by an "authority" and not knowing what is true or correct, and feeling helpless in the situation

 (*In a lot of these old mysteries, characters get "concussions" regularly, and they are not seen as NEARLY as serious as they are now....I know people who were concussed in a car accident, for example, and were told to limit anything that could cause eyestrain  - reading or handwork or writing - for weeks and weeks, I'd find that very frustrating)

Anyway, the typical way these vintage mysteries work, good almost always wins in the end, and it does here. And just before Diana (Jim's intended) sees Digby before the denoument, she kisses the old bachelor on the cheek because he's been so kind to her.

 

I like Athelstan Digby. He's an old bachelor - I assume in his 50s or 60s, though it seems people were "older" back then; it's possible he could be about my age and most days I don't feel particularly elderly. He's a little fussy but also benevolent. It's noted he's fairly devout - he says his prayers at night, he's a member of a Bible society (I think he's what's called Nonconformist in the UK; probably a Methodist). He at one point provides a detailed list of the tools and things he carries in his pockets. So he definitely has a charm and distinctiveness and he reminds me a bit of Mordecai Tremaine, another old bachelor who gets mixed up in mysteries. (Tremaine is a retired tobacconist; it's implied Digby is still active in his firm). The Tremaine novels were about a decade later and I wonder if either there was something "in the air" or if maybe Tremaine was inspired a bit by Digby.

 There are a few short stories featuring Digby. I want to read them - there is an affordable volume (the out of print, vintage versions are all over $100) but it's one of those "facsimile reprints" that's basically a scan and often has bad typos creep in, but I decided to order it - it was less than $10 and if I find it simply unreadable (in terms of print quality) it's not TOO bad to pitch it. 

 

So last night, I  decided to restart "All Clear" by Connie Willis. I started this a while back, but back in October because of upsetting things going on in my life and in the world, it felt like too much to keep going with. Maybe this time I'll finish it; I am pretty sure it will be more hopeful than "Black Out" (the first of the two books in the series) because this is where things get wrapped up, the time travelers resolve the problems, and at least some of them get to go back (I don't know if any of her stories a time traveler dies; I can't remember any of her novels/stories I read that had one). So maybe this time I won't bounce off it (she says with nervous confidence as she eyes the world once again rocketing towards war.....)

Back in the field tomorrow; if I'm too wiped out there may not be a post. My colleague and I are going to try to get the two remaining sites. 

And fieldwork day

 Fortunately my newest colleague wanted to go out with me; it was good to have another pair of hands and at a couple points I felt very much like I was going to pass out and it was reassuring to have someone there.

It was *extremely* humid - dew points close to 80, and the air temperature itself was not much over that. And it was sunny, and the sun makes it worse. I am not a "ginger," but I am close enough to one (very pale skin, and I have/had a number of relatives who were redheads, and my hair bleaches in the sun to auburn). So heat and humidity and especially intense sun make me feel very ill.

But we got it done; I made a little adjustment and did distances of 0.5 m, 2 m, and 4 m from the bole of the tree because my original plan of 1 m and 3 m seemed too close and unlikely to show a difference. I am comparing the communities under post oak and red-cedar (so: Quercus stellata and Juniperus virginiana) and I also collected enough soil for (a) pH analyses and (b) soil carbon content analysis, I think those are the two most important "easy" things I can look at. (I could get more soil later and do more nutrient analysis, or if I expand this study and write a small on-campus grant for it, I might be able to have them analyzed)

I drank all the water I had and almost didn't make it out at that, so driving back we stopped at the sonic and I bought her and me one of the sports-drink things (they have Blue Flavor Powerade. I don't love these drinks, there's too much sugar and colorant in them, but I didn't think to bring one of my brickpacks of coconut water, which would have done a similar thing). 

After that, I felt okay to go back and set up the extractions:

These probably have to go for 48 hours. I need to go to the other two sites but I'm taking tomorrow off - it might storm tonight and tomorrow, and I also have a giant blister (long story but not caused by the fieldwork today) that is very painful right now and the thought of tromping through another forest in the heat with it does not appeal. I'm hoping giving it 24 hours will let it heal up/harden off enough I can go back out (yes, on Juneteenth, and campus is closed, but I can still go do fieldwork)
 

Monday evening things

 * Don't like the news in the world (or my own country) at all. Not at all.

* Most of today's work-time was spent prepping for fieldwork tomorrow - getting the extractors set up, making a couple more set ups so I can do all 12 of a site's samples at once, lining up the light banks. Had to make a run to Mart of Wal for supplies and it was FRUSTRATING. They didn't have a couple things (you cannot get non-LED bulbs any more, I would really like to get some low-wattage incandescents because they generate a little heat, which helps dry the soil and send the invertebrates into the preservative). Also the place is remodeling - yet again, they did shortly before the pandemic - and you can't find anything, and a lot of the aisles are squeezed together and so it's hard to get around and the place is like a giant rat maze. And I can't help but feel it's INTENTIONAL, that they are doing it to trap you there to make you buy more. Well, I didn't. And I forgot the zipper-lock bags I needed but I had just enough for tomorrow's sample on hand already, and I guess I can get more when I go grocery shopping (somewhere else; there are two other choices in town but they're both small) tomorrow. 

* Over the weekend I worked more on the Moominhouse.. I have the ground floor assembled (and I keep getting faked out by the European terminology, even though I know "ground floor" is what we think of as "first floor' and "first floor" is our second floor.

It was frustrating to put together because the parts don't fit perfectly, because they're largely wood, and wood can warp, or even if you do the "okay put this under a heavy thing so it will bend and flex slightly" you don't know how much "slightly" needs to be. I hope the other floors go together better.

I also....let me think - started building Moominmamma's bed, and made a tiny frustrating vase of flowers, and assembled the staircase (which was more satisfying because it actually went together reasonably well)

I feel like.....if more of the internal parts of the walls and such were snap-lock plastic rather than wood slats, it might be an easier and more satisfying build. They don't show once you put the panels and wallpaper on them. 

* I'm not doing as much on the shawl as I intended (I was hot and tired when I got home today, it was 85 F in my office and I had to take another shower to cool down even though I'm going out in the field tomorrow and will just need to shower mid-morning after that.) But here's a photo: 

 The gold colored pin is to indicate the "right" side so I don't have to keep track of rows for now.

* I need to get to bed soon but it's still uncomfortably warm and humid in the house, and I don't feel great. All of the water that fell out of the sky in the past 2 months is now going back up and it's making it hard to breathe and uncomfortable. 

A new project

 I don't need another one, but I wanted one. I had found a shawl pattern (Syyslaulu by Heidi Alander) that would work with that denim-blue bamboo yarn I bought last week - it's a big big block of just garter stitch (so: easy) and then the last 50 or so rows are a simple lace pattern. So it's a big, slightly asymmetrical triangle.

 I admit a slight preference for rectangular shawls - if I need a shawl it is to keep my arms warm and given my broad-for-a-woman shoulders, a rectangle really sits better. But triangle shawls are pretty, and often take less yarn, and that's a consideration with more-expensive yarns. 

So I wound off the first skein earlier today. I decided to keep the second skein in a skein until I need it; sometimes those cakes will tangle easily, and bamboo yarn is more prone to tangling and snagging and slipping out of the cake. (They do instruct you to knit from the outside of the cake - with wool, you can usually do it center-pull without any problems, but I decided to heed that advice). 

I started it but then put it down, and because the row counter is new and tight, I couldn't tell when I came back if I'd finished row 10 or row 11, and there's no easy way to see, and I didn't want to cause an error (even though it probably wouldn't have shown) so I ripped it back and restarted; it wasn't very much. Once I get a few more rows done I'll dig out one of my locking stitch markers (like a safety pin, but colorful and made of plastic) and put it on the "right" side (which is the side I do the increase on every row, to make the triangle) and that way if I either forget to change the row marker or it's ambiguous to read, I'll know for sure. This part you just keep going with an increase row and then a plain row until you have enough stitches (for the standard size, that will be like 330 rows, but you can make it bigger if you want if you have enough yarn; there are certain multiples of stitches that will work with the lace pattern; the pattern author listed which ones will work). I have *slightly* more yarn in terms of yardage than what is called for but I think I'll do the standard size to be safe. I hate running short on yarn, which I've had happen once or twice and had to find the best match I had in my stash for the last bit.....

I'd say it was meditative knitting but I find, unlike when I was a more beginning knitter/before my head became so full of bees* that if I really want something to de-track my mind from the horrors of the world, I need something that requires concentration and attention (and yet, ironically, my concentration is worse now than it once was). We'll see how this works, if I can keep working on it or if I get bored

 

(*I don't know if it was the pandemic isolation, lots of grief, menopause, or some combo platter from late 2019 through 2021 or 2022, but I find my concentration is much worse, it's harder for me to overcome the inertia of "just sitting there" some times (like: I will sit and say "I have to get up and fix dinner, if I don't get up now there won't be time to cook the veggies I want" five or six times to myself before I can force myself up, sometimes 15-20 minutes later than I would really want)

I do want to work myself back up to more complicated projects, though. And more complicated reading, though sometimes I still struggle with that. 

Thursday evening things

 would have been a different post had I written it earlier in the day.

But it feels like everything's on the brink. I don't like it. There's too much chaos and summers are already hard for me - I don't deal well with heat and humidity, I'm alone WAY too much (no one is around in the morning when I come in to campus, sometimes there's someone in after 1 pm but not always). I have NO short-term achievable goals: everything is the neverending updating of class material and prepping for/reading for research (and even when I finish a project. whether it even ever sees the light of day is up to a journal editor and reviewers more than it is to me)

And I have a chigger bite right on the knob of my ankle. I've put hydrocortisone on it but it still bothers me.

And I'm worried about the world. 

And I fear I rubbed a few people the wrong way today. I do this eventually to almost everyone. 

But I have a couple photos.

These are the finished "wood pigeon" socks from the West Yorkshire Spinners self-patterning yarn. I do still have to wash them (to remove any excess dye or sizing in the yarn) but it'll also be literal months before it's cool enough out to wear wool socks again*

 

(*and yes, the panicky part of my brain - as someone who spent her tween years in the mid 1980s - is going "I hope there's a world to wear these in in a few months when it's cooler out)

I've also been working on the mitts out of the "Alive" colorway of a dk Dream in Color yarn:

 

Yes, another thing I hope the world is still here when it's autumn and time to wear these.

And yeah, I was just settling down to watch the re-run of "Ghosts" when they broke in with the breaking news. I had to get some comfort stuffies.

 Like I said, I'm alone a lot and my brain runs away with me.

 

Checking field sites

 I didn't have a lot of faith that they'd be accessible, given the flooding of the lake, but my newest colleague and I made plans to run out today (the only non raining day of the week) to check out four field sites: one on the lake, one on a horseback trail near a campsite, one at a reservoir/fishing lake north of town, and finally, an old golf course that's being allowed to revegetate (for now at least) and serve as an "eco park"

Surprisingly, none of the sites were under water. The site at the lake had the most flooding - we could only get half of the way in, but the things I would need to sample from were still accessible. We also looked at the vegetation and saw a bunch of Sabatia campestris, including the less-common white-flowered variant:

 

We also saw a couple armadillos near the trail - I thought maybe the flooding (it was near where the worst flooding was) had flushed them out of their usual haunts and they were having to hang out where it was still dry. At first I just saw the movement and thought it was a muskrat or something but then I got a look at the scaly tail as it went into the grass. 

From there, we drove over to the campsite/trail. Relatively little evidence of flooding there, but again, we didn't go in very far because the trail slopes sharply down and it had eroded/gotten very muddy from people riding horses. It looked slick and there was also manure, and I didn't really want to slip and wind up in the horse manure. 

But there were LOTS of fungi

First, a cup fungus, I think it's Sarcoschypha coccinea, what I think I originally learned as Peziza back in Illinois. It is very red. Common name is scarlet cup fungus (This is an ascomycota, not a basidiomycota, so it's slightly different from typical mushrooms - mainly in how the spores are borne)

 There was also a coral fungus. I'm not sure of the species and the light wasn't ideal; it might be yellow coral fungus or crown-tipped coral fungus

 This one was TINY - like less than 2" tall.

And then an orange mushroom. I'm not sure of the genus or species; an online friend suggested Russula and that seems like a reasonable guess:

 It's nice to see these; normally it's so dry that all you see are the typical shelf fungi feeding on trees. 

 

There were also lots of downed branches and a post oak that had split (I don't think it was struck by lightning, though, didn't see evidence of a burn scar

 

 There was less interesting stuff at the reservoir/fishing spot, and I was getting tired, so no photos. But again, the water was up but not so much it would prevent me being able to sample.

And after walking around the old golf course, I decided to cross that one off the list - less accessible and also seemed like it had had more disturbance in the past. It might be interesting to sample at some point but I have limited set-ups/time to do these extractions, so the first three sites will suffice. 

Shop's new home

 So my big Saturday thing was to go down to the grand opening of Quixotic Fibers in its new space. I got down there shortly after they opened. They weren't as slammed as they were in the 2024 opening, but the new space is also at least four times bigger,, so people could spread out more.

They have a nice separate classroom now (on Saturday, they had "discontinued colors" of yarns on clearance arranged in there) and they have a tiny kitchen to make tea on the knit nights, and they have a nice big table out in the main room for people to sit and knit at. 

They didn't have a LOT more things as yet, but the owner did say that their stock isn't so crammed together now so it's easier to see.

It's also a more open and sort of "upscaley" feel

 This is the entryway from inside the depot (they are in a repurposed train depot - back in the early 1900s it was the M-K-T depot). 

And the main room (there are other spaces with more yarn, too. I think they currently do have more dk/worsted than they did before)

 The yarn on the chair and the table were a "trunk show" of a new dyer they are carrying; it is a bamboo yarn, the line is called Auxanometer. 

I bought two skeins - I have a simple garter-and-lace shawl pattern I want to do with it

The color is called Egyptian Stucco; it is a denim-y blue with some white and brown mixed in.

I also did get some sock yarn. The blue skein is called "Fireworks" and was one of the on-sale discontinued colors; the green one is a newer color called "prickly pear." I am very fond of that shade of slightly-acid green:

  

 

They also had a number of Toft (a UK firm) crochet kits; they have a line that's based on Staffordshire pottery. I bought the one that was supposed to be like a cat figurine. I already opened the kit so here's a photo of the front of the instruction booklet:

That color is a dark blue, not a black.

And they have a nice door to the outside, and it overlooks the little courtyard - it will be a nice place for people to sit and knit. 

 

I hope they have a really long and successful run here; it's one of my favorite places to go and maybe someday I get a hotel room and go to one of their knit nights (I do not like driving on the interstate after dark so I'd probably have to plan an overnight). 

back to moominhouse

 I had done that Moominhouse subscription plan starting - gosh,, maybe even back in 2022? I received the last shipment a couple months ago but I have an enormous backlog of unopened boxes because I'm busy and also some of the things are fiddly where you have to glue one thing and then let it dry, and I would tend to wander away and forget to work on it. 

I'm maybe a quarter of the way through the build at this point.

I stayed home today - partly because I was tired, partly because it's ungodly humid (we had a dewpoint of 77) and the university is not open on Fridays which means they turn the airconditioning off over the weekend. But mainly because it was threatening storms before 11 am and I decided to stay home because at one point it looked like those storms might become severe (they did not). So I did a little laundry and then after lunch, when the bad weather didn't materialize, I drove out to the small farmstand store a couple miles from me.

They have chickens. Free ranging, though as you can see one or two have slipped out of the pen are are even more free ranging:

 I wanted green beans; they had advertised theirs were coming in. So I got green beans, and some of the light-fleshed sweet potatoes for a later meal, and some frozen pork spareribs ( I will have to remember to defrost them next week; I want to do them in the slow cooker). And a loaf of focaccia bread; a local baker (she may be Amish) sells bread through them. I had some of the beans and the focaccia for dinner. 

And then I decided to try to work a bit more on the Moominhouse, with a vague goal of picking away at it off and on this summer and trying to finish it - because then I can clean up my fabric cutting board, and start working on quilts again, and it also gets all those boxes out of the room (cardboard smells when it's humid)

I didn't get a LOT done but did finish the fiddliest thing so far - the little sofa, where the upholstered bits are fabric (and a very fray-ey fabric) stretched over plastic or cardboard frames. Mine is nowhere as neat as the one in their photos (I don't know who made their stuff for them but they have more skills than I do)

 Not pictured is a tiny wooden kitchen shelf I assembled and stained; it still needs the drawer pulls glued into it once it's dry

And I did the optional step of mixing up a couple of "highlight" colors (using soap, interestingly, to help it bind to the plastic base) to make the "stone" foundation look a bit more real. It was some effort but it is fairly effective:

 There's one color that's black, white, and brown mixed and the lighter one subs a purple for the brown.. 

I did the same on the piece that attaches to the pull-out drawer - there's a little drawer in the "foundation," it is the "cellar" of the house- there are a couple little storage shelves there and when the whole house is done there are cans and bags of things like "onions" that get stored down there.

The pull on the drawer is a little metal watering can (it's permanently attached because it's the pull, but it's an effective trompe l'oeil thing

 I also glued together the "floor" that fits on top of the "foundation," so I guess I'm getting in more steps towards the actual shell of the house. I think the next one I have is making the set of stairs from the ground floor to the first floor.

Tomorrow is the "grand reopening" at Quixotic Fibers (They moved to a larger space in the same building) and I am definitely going. It'll be crowded, I bet, but that's fine - I'm better on my feet now than I was at their original Denison opening (that was just six weeks after I injured my knee) and now even parking some distance away and walking is not a problem. I don't NEED anything, really, but I want to see their new space and what they have and I most likely WILL buy something. 

Future of retail?

 I ran across this story on Metafilter the other day, about "Bin Stores". It's a business model where stuff - random stuff - is resold, sort of scratch-and-dent format. The post was based on a Defector story about one of this (this is a link that's direct, with a limited number of stories you can view without subscribing, though the OP recommends the site)

  this is a gift link from someone on Metafilter; not sure if it'll work with a repost: Seven Days at the Bin Store

 

I dunno. I have VERY mixed feelings about this. I do remember from my childhood Rex Salvage in Akron, which I guess operated on a somewhat similar (if earlier) model: instead of unwanted or returned stuff from online shops, it was overstocked stuff or stuff from stores that went bust.. For some reason, my dad loved the place (I suppose it was that Depression-baby-loving-a-good-deal-and-also-wanting-to-get-things-they-might-"need"-someday) but I remember getting dragged there some Saturdays when I could have been playing outside or watching cartoons.

And we have a modern version of this in my town - they post "Amazon/Wayfair/Overstock returns and overstocks!" I've never been in there but they sound the same. 

I find these places a little unappealing, and I admit part of me wonders if it's pure snobbery on my part - like, a lot of the stuff these places sell, if it's the typical restock/overstock from some of the cheaper online places, the stuff is probably low quality. I won't shop at the dollar stores here, for example (especially after a news story some years back about how some of the cosmetic and OTC medication stuff was "grey market" stuff that wouldn't strictly meet US standards - like, toothpaste with too much fluoride that might stain your teeth).

But also: if I am buying something like a lamp or a kitchen appliance, I want the best quality one I can afford. I want multiple brands/styles to compare. I don't want to spend weeks staking out a resale shop in the hopes that one of some brand I've never heard of* comes in

(*Someone joked elsewhere about "oh, my favorite brand on Amazon: Random Keysmash and yeah, some of the products on there now are from companies named just like that)

I don't do a lot of "I don't need anything but let's see what's there" shopping - Oh, I will do that in bookstores and craft stores and I used to do it a lot in antique stores, but the things these resale places sell are not the kinds of things I like finding by serendipity. 

But as I said, I wonder if there's a bit of snobbery that plays into it in my part. I know people who spend lots of time thrift shopping and they buy anything and everything whether they need it or not. (I know someone who has a hoarding issue, and I admit, I teeter on that myself with books and yarn, but I've become more careful of late). 

I guess I'd rather have FEWER things but of BETTER quality, is what I'm saying. Like, one good functional purse instead of ten cheaper ones where the strap might break. And now I have to be VERY careful about the shoes I buy, so I don't trash my knees worse with poorly-made "fashion" shoes that aren't made to hold up. I'd rather save my money up and get a good thing, than have to buy a cheap thing five times. And yes, Vimes' Boots Theory and all, and I get that I have the privilege of being able to spend $100 or more occasionally for a pair of good shoes instead of having to buy the cheap ones, but. I guess I wish everyone could have the GOOD stuff, so they don't have to keep buying the cheap stuff again and again 

But the other thing I dislike - it feels like those places are a sort of giving-up. Like a "we can't afford any better, instead of paying in money for a thing we will pay in time by having to go week after week and hope the thing we need shows up" and I think there IS also that same old attitude a lot of "depression babies" had of "I don't need it right now and never might need it, but look! it's cheap and it's available now!" and I also suspect the whole "limited availability" thing has a psychological effect on people where they will buy things they otherwise might not have if they weren't told "this might be your last chance for this particular thing!" 

But also, I do look at it, and look at the mushrooming of thrift shops in my town of late, and I get nervous, I think "maybe they know something. Maybe we ARE headed for Great Depression II and very soon the only goods on offer will be the stuff at thrift shops or that richer communities rejected and sent downstream to us in a "poorer" area"

But on the other hand: yes, it does keep the stuff out of the landfill. I admit I don't like to think about the sheer volume of resources that go to make stuff that is essentially made to be disposable (many clothes now: fast fashion, for example. I try to take care of my clothes and also buy the best made I can afford, because I do not want to have to buy new ones every couple months). And also that there's a lot of times where people buy stuff, keep it a little while, and then just dump it - I have known people who changed out most of their home decor every six months, and either threw out, sold at a yard sale*, or donated somewhere the stuff they had had.

 (*Yard sales are an AWFUL lot of work for what you get, and an awful lot of interacting with strangers, some of whom can be unpleasant; I remember doing one at church to raise money for the youth group and we tried to price the donated stuff low but not ridiculously so, and right as we opened a couple people - probably resellers - came and took the few vintage/antiquey items we had out and immediately told us they would give us 1/3 of the (already low) price on them. And they were unhappy when we explained this was a fundraising effort and we'd already priced stuff low.) 

I think my other objection to the bin-store model is the aesthetics. I do like going to antique shops (though I got a lot less than I did before the pandemic) but in those, the stuff is displayed in a way where you can see it, and there's decent light, and there's some attempt to make the stuff seem appealing. It seems like the bin store near me - I've never actually been in, I will confess - looks like it's kind of drab, and all the windows have boxes piled up in them, so I suspect it's dark in there. 

Because for me, part of that kind of shopping is the time out, and seeing stuff you MIGHT buy but probably won't, and maybe happening on something that makes you happy or completes a collection or could be useful. And most of the things I buy most often at antique type stores - cookbooks or other books, old linens or craft supplies, maybe old toys, very rarely some decorative item - aren't on offer in the "return/overstock" shop. 

 

And yes, I get that some people really like them. I get that some people function as resellers (we are heading towards a "scavenger" economy in this country, it feels like, some times) and make money off their finds, but....they're just not for me. (And I wish there were more things for me right in my vicinity - yes, I have a yarn shop and I'm going to their "grand re-opening in their new space" Saturday, but that's an hour round-trip drive for me, so it's not a frequent thing. Sometimes I think how it would be nice to have a close by place to go where I could just go in and shop a little and it wouldn't matter as much if I bought something or not because I didn't burn a gallon or two of gas to go there) 

 

Emotional Support Chicken

 Yes, this is a thing.

This is a knitting pattern that came out a couple years ago. Earlier this year there was a knitalong on ITFF but I was busy at that point and wasn't sure I even wanted one, but the more I saw them, the more I liked the idea. So I bought the pattern and dug around in my stash for yarn (it takes a standard worsted weight and I tend to prefer acrylics for toys/pillows). 

I had some Lion Brand Heartland in a sort of an oatmeal color and in a dark brown, and I used scraps of an orangey red and a yellow that were up at my mother's 

It's a clever but complicated pattern and maybe isn't for the veriest beginner - it uses a LOT of short row shaping and it's one of those things where you just have to trust the pattern at points - I knew a lot of people had made it so any errors would have been worked out, but there are places where it doesn't make sense until you actually sit down and do it. 

It's all garter stitch, which takes more yarn (it's a bit over 200 yards of the main color and less, I don't know how much less, for the stripes). 

Except for the underbelly and comb and wattle, it's entirely knit flat and then seamed up. (It's a simple chicken - there are no wings and the tail is in one piece with the body, but it does very much have the feel of a chicken to it, at least an idealized chicken that doesn't set off allergies or try to peck you when you hold it)

When I finished the  body I laid it out and then laughed and said "spatchcocked"

 You sew up the head and neck first, and then put in an underbelly (not shown) and then stuff and sew up the tail end.

 It's pretty satisfying when finished:

 She is LARGE. Life size, or maybe a bit larger compared to the smaller chicken breeds. You use lock-washer eyes which have the right kind of stare-y chicken expression (you could use buttons as well)

I named mine Hortense, which seems to fit

 Here is Hortense coming back with me on the train:

 I'm going to make a couple more of these - one as a gift for a colleague who is kind of stressed out AND is having to do an overload this fall because of the failed job search. And my niece is VERY into chickens (she raises them for 4-H) and my mom tells me "13 won't be too old to want a knitted chicken like that" so I am going to make her one for her birthday in October. 

I will probably use "fantasy colors" for my colleague's chicken - either blue to match some of the ornaments in her office - or if I have enough, a pink, white, and black variegated for a gothy chicken. My niece's, I have an orange and will try to find a green for the contrast so it will look a little like a Cochin or a Redcap (I had to look those up - I think I have seen Cochins before but didn't know what they were called). 

Purls' Yarn Emporium in Asheville takes donations of these if people just want to make but not keep them; they give them to LGBTQ teens who are going through rough times.  

What I carried

 Fewer items that were mine, personally, retrieved from my mom's this time. At some point I should grab George the Giraffe (one of my childhood stuffies - he was one of those "flat sew and stuff" animals that were common in fabric shops in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I know I was very small when I first had George so he was probably early 1970s). But I did find one thing while searching for any lock washer eyes that were leftover for my kobolds (and for the Emotional Support Chicken, whose pictures will come later on).

 This is another one of those Makit and Bakit kits. We had a bunch of those when I was a kid. I kind of enjoyed making them even though I now cringe at what the plastic fumes might have done to my future health (You had little plastic beads, and then put them in the frame, and then baked it on foil in the oven...)

This is a knockoff of Kermit the Frog*. At Christmas I found the knockoff Miss Piggy

 So it's nice to have them together again. (I have to find better quality hooks to hang them in the window; Piggy fell down when the hook I had let loose but fortunately she did not break)

I was also looking for books. I never did find that bird-behavior book I know I had, maybe I didn't keep it. But I did find a book I gave my dad, called "The Secret Under Sherwood Forest" about WWII British oil production for the war effort. I bought it at a museum here. I remember he said he enjoyed reading it and lent it to a British friend of the family (who had been a young teen in WWII over there). She gave it back and my mom and I found it, and I decided I wanted to read it, so I have it now.

 And I found this. I have no memory of the book whatsoever, and since it was with some books inherited from my dad's parents, I kind of wonder if my dad bought it for HIS dad, who was kind of "literary" (he wrote memoirs of his time in the proto-Army-Air-Corps in WWI, and he wrote poetry and had at least one published). This was a local-to-where-I-grew-up poet, I guess - almost nothing about him online but apparently he taught at Kent State and lived in Hudson

 It's a very small chapbook of poems. "Privately Published" I guess

I will say, if it's not impolite....he wasn't famous-famous for a reason. The poems are not BAD but they are not GREAT, and he kind of dabbles in a lot of different styles - some of them are kind of that weird banal comedy that rubs me a bit the wrong way, a couple are straight-up observations, a few seem to be an attempt at a Spoon River Anthology sort of thing...

But I'm a sucker for a signed book, and this one is:

 

Like I said, I know next to nothing about the author, and I really can't find much online. I presume had he been more famous/recognized there'd be more. 

Anyway, I guess I'll keep the book. I think it DID belong to my paternal grandpa, and my dad probably bought it for him. 

A couple of other photos:

 

This is from Fusion Brew, the boba tea place in Normal that I like, it made me laugh. It's a dinosaur made to be a planter for one of those air plants, but they made a tiny little Fusion Brew cup and put it in his hand:

 And I had a Michael's voucher, and we had to go out that way one day, and they were closing out these funny "flatsy" kids for $5, and the voucher was for $5. I was fully prepared to pay a little sales tax on it, but the checkout person said they didn't do that. (I don't know if that was her discretion to save a little work, or Illinois has a law against sales tax on free things, or what)

I think this is like a tiny version of those "blanket friends" toys, where the body of the animal or doll is like a security blanket and they are unstuffed. It looks like the head and front legs here (and the spikes on the body) are stuffed, but the rest is not. And the body IS chenille, which is an evil yarn to work with, but it's not SO bad with crochet (it's not fun to knit with)
 

two little critters

 ...identical ones, but nothing you ever make by hand is identical.

A while back I bought Libbydoodle's "Kobold" pattern from Etsy (available here). I had bought some basic cheap acrylic from Michael's in an incredibly electric green and a lava-like orange, with the idea of making a pair.

Originally they were going to be brother and sister, or perhaps boyfriend and girlfriend, but now I think they're both male, especially considering what I named them.

I had only known of kobolds vaguely, as some kind of dungeons-and-dragons thing, as like a littler version of a dragon, but apparently they were originally German, and not very dragonlike - maybe a bit more like the brownies or pixies that disapproved of poor housekeeping (and in the kobolds, that feels kind of.....stereotypically German). Here's a wikipedia link 

I guess in DnD they WERE more dragonlike 

These creatures are dragonlike, but they're intended, I guess, to be bipedal. Actually after I got the first one done

 I realized they looked a bit like a "Maxwell's Demon" in a chem book I had a long time ago (Maxwell's Demon is sort of a weird thermodynamics thing)

So I made the second, this one looked more to me like what I remembered the "demon" looked like (I remembered the depiction of it as being orange, though that could be misremembering

 So I decided to give them thematic names. The orange one is Maxwell (because, as I said, I remembered the one from that long ago book as being shown as orange) and then I looked up Maxwell's Demon there was a comment that "Being a deeply religious man, he never used the word "demon"" (though a demon or daemon in this context really isn't a demonic creature at all). But Lord Kelvin was the one who applied the name "demon," so I decided the green one has to be named Kelvin.

So: Kelvin and Maxwell

 You can see they're not very large. The pattern is fairly clever; the arms and legs are crocheted flat, based on rows of single crochet where you make bobble-like structures for the fingers and toes. The horns are just chains, and then there's a little tail that you do crochet in the round and stuff.

I think a lot of the effectiveness of the faces is in the little tiny white lower fangs there, so I was sure to include them.

 

 

Back home again

 The trip was fairly uneventful. (I got in late in the day yesterday, combination of a delayed train, a long wait at the East Texas Burger Company for lunch, and shopping for groceries and traffic). 

 

My mom liked her birthday gifts (a National Parks themed crossword puzzle book and a gift certificate to her favorite long-time garden shop, she already spent some of it). She thanked me for taking out the time for a long visit but frankly I know all too well it won't be TOO very many years (sadly) that I won't be taking this trip any more, so when I can do a longer visit I want to.

I finished a couple things, that will be coming later.

The biggest thing that happened was a few days after I got up there, I had just gone to bed and a text came in from my neighbor across the street: "Are you OK? Call me if you need anything" and I thought "weird, maybe she didn't realize I was out of town and was worrying that I was sick or something. "

So I texted her back that I was in Illinois, and was anything going on

And then she texted back the thing you don't want to see: "Call me"

My stomach sank, my first thought was either my house was on fire or there had been direct violence in my street. But I called, even though it was like 10 at night. 

It turns out lightning struck "behind my house" (what she thought at first) and her husband was out talking with the firefighters. All the power was out in the neighborhood of course. She said it looked like nothing was on fire but didn't know anything more. So I thanked her and asked her to text me the next day when she knew more. 

 I didn't sleep well that night because I thought maybe something came down on my roof, or there was a power surge that fried my electronics, or there was damage that was unseen.

The next morning I hadn't heard anything by 9 so I texted my friend Dana - who is retired and generally willing to help out - and explained and asked if she could run over to my place and see what was going on. A few minutes later she called me - lots of work trucks, both OG and E and a tree trimming company, in the street, she couldn't park near my house.

and at first she confused the neighbor to the south's house with mine and said "the house itself is okay but there's a burn scar in the backyard from the snapped power line, and there's a tree down on the garage, and the wood fence to the east is all damaged" and that was where I was like "hold up" because I have a wood fence on the north and south sides, but a crummy old chain-link fence that I need to replace on the east side.. And then she asked "has your garage door always been crooked" and I said "no, but my neighbor's is" and she said "wait" and then "Oh.. I'm looking at the house south of yours, hang on"

And she looked in my backyard. No damage there. Nothing had happened other than the power and cable being knocked out. So I missed something potentially bad. (And OG and E indicated by text that my power was back on by 6 pm, so I presume everything in the freezer is still safe to use; it was only out for about 20 hours and the freezer was chock full and closed.)

It turned out that lightning hit a TREE near the house to the south of mine, and a transformer also exploded (that's what took the power out, and the tree coming down snapped the power line). I'm not sure if the bolt went down into the asphalt in the alley or not; I've not gone to look on the grounds that it's probably unsafe to walk under a tree that's damaged and partly down (I can see it from my backyard).  

I admit I was also concerned about my car, parked out in the open; I knew there had been hailstorms in east Texas but apparently not one where I had it parked.. It just had a layer of very fine grey dust on it, probably from stuff blowing in from fields (I took it through the car wash today after I mowed my lawn, which was pretty high).  

Memorial Day weekend

 I feel as if a lot of the "civic" holidays are observed less now. Perhaps part of it is that a lot of people have moved away from where their recent ancestors lived, perhaps some of that chain has been broken.

Perhaps that it's because we've lost the WWI and nearly all of the WWII vets, and the Vietnam Era vets were from an era of an unpopular war, and so there's always that reckoning of "what we did over there*" and also "people here were protesting it, sometimes in somewhat ugly ways" and perhaps the same with the Gulf wars. 

(*All war is bad, we whitewashed it a lot in the past. But atrocities always happen, civilians are always killed, and the real question is, is the evil we are working to stop greater than the evil we are inflicting?)

When I was growing up, though, I think people paid less attention to the idea that celebrating war is (as we say now) "problematic" and also we did have enough veterans left from the "big" wars. When I was a child in the mid-1970s, men who fought at 18 in WWI would have been in their 70s, and a few were still in good enough health to march in the Memorial Day parade, and WWII vets were in their 50s or even 40s. 

And yes, I remember the 1976 Memorial Day parade. Perhaps my town did a big thing for it because we were pretty small back then, we had a strong sense of our history ("Connecticut's Western Reserve") and also, there was a pretty active American Legion and VFW. I was a Brownie Scout - I know I've written about this before. And we marched alongside the veterans

 

And I took it very seriously. I had the white gloves that what we were taught about flag etiquette said were required for carrying a flag in a parade

That was the house I grew up in - 220 - and on a street named for (I learned many years later) a WWI Brigadier General

And here I am. Foreground, left of center, wearing the jumper dress uniform and strappy brown shoes with white ankle socks:

 

It made a big impression on me. Like I said, I took it very seriously. (I took a lot of things seriously as a child). But I knew it was an Honor, and on some level I was representing my country and was there for the veterans.

I don't know if it was that in some ways the 1970s were a more optimistic time (the Bicentennial) or if it was just that I was a child then, but it did feel to me like we were getting better as a people and nation, and that great things were ahead. (Oh, for some  of that optimism now)

We never did the go-to-the-cemetery thing, but some families did. I don't know that there were any war dead buried in my town (or at least, not recent burials; I'm pretty sure there were men who had fought in the Civil War buried in the old cemetery). And my town was reasonably proud of its abolitionist history; they always talked up about how John Brown grew up there (he was actually born in Connecticut) and that we were a stop along the Underground Railroad (allegedly, some of the old, old houses in town had hiding places where escaped slaves had hid)

(Now that I think about the attitudes in my town....well, I wonder if people are still so "proud" of that given the political leanings of some. Sadly.)

I didn't have anyone in recent memory of my family who died in a war or even who fought - my Uncle Stanley, whom I never really knew (he died when I was about 3) had been in the Navy in the Pacific in WWII, but he was one of the ones who came home. And I had a great-uncle who was in the trenches in France in WWI,, but again, he came home. And my paternal grandfather very nearly missed being sent "over there" by virtue of his train pulling into NYC* on either November 11 or 12, 1918, and him hearing the sounds of a giant party, and gradually finding out that the war was over. Given that he was an experimental pilot, and was going to be flying missions on a fairly primitive plane - well, I shudder to think, I might not even be here, not in this form. Granddad saw a plane with a buddy of his flying crash while he was training (the buddy was killed) and my understanding was it affected him greatly, possibly even contributing to the bouts of "melancholy" he had the rest of his life.

(*The story seems a little TOO pat but I am choosing to believe it, it could have happened). 

I wonder though, if we haven't lost something in no longer telling the family stories, and not doing some of the old traditions (when my mom was a kid, Memorial Day was when you went to the cemetery and not just visited the veterans' graves, you cleaned up and put new flowers on the graves of your family members, veterans or not). Now, all of my family who are buried are buried far from me, I'll never see their graves in person, likely (I saw my maternal grandfather's, once)

But I also admit that, Because of Reasons, I don't have a lot of zeal for celebrating "patriotic" holidays right now...

Another (past) good thing

 Sometimes I will randomly think about stores I used to go to in my (long) past - the town I grew up in had a gift shop (which also carried what passed for "penny" candy in the high-inflation 70s, and also had some small stuffed toys) called The Attic. It was originally in a small reddish detached building (I just remember it wasn't right on the main street). Later on it moved to another building, a less distinctive one, on the main street. I'm pretty sure it closed before I was in college. 

I bought a few small stuffed toys from them; I remember they also sold the "SS Happiness" series (which I dearly wanted, and eventually did get the bear-captain, but they were much more expensive than the small ones I bought).  There's not a LOT online (other than eBay listings for the old toys or books) but here's a photo of the cover for a pattern for Joshua, the bear captain from what used to be called the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum.

I think Determined Productions was the company that manufactured the toys you could buy. (There was also, as I remember, an elephant, a black cat, a white rabbit....the elephant was the social director, and the rabbit was a sports director? The cat was a passenger and there may also have been a ship's doctor and a chef?)

 And The Attic also sold little magnets of (mostly) animals, made by a company called Peaceable Kingdom. They were composed of little pom poms, like the kind on ball fringe. I had a lot of these as a kid and used to play with them like my other little animal toys. (Again, this is a thing there's almost nothing archived online about, despite them having been a scant 45-50 years ago) For as long as the link stays valid, here's someone on Etsy selling a lot of these. 

Another shop that I KNOW is gone (I read its "obituary" online some years ago) was The Land of Make Believe. Again, like The Attic, this was largely a gift shop. I remember them most as the place that sold Smurfs and they also had Mrs. Grossman's stickers for sale, where you could cut or tear as many as you wanted to buy off the roll, and I remember the rolls being held on a big plexiglas stand. 

they also had stuffed toys; some of the toys I bought came from there. I guess they also sold games, mostly fantasy RPGs but I wasn't into that so I remember them best for the Smurfs (and other little figural toys) and the stickers.

And you know? I miss places like that. There are none in my town and not really any near me - yes, they are kind of frivolous, and probably have to be in an area where there's more disposable income. And maybe now the wal-marts and similar of the world have taken over as the place where toys are bought? 

But more than missing the existence of places like that, I miss the person I was then, where I could walk into a store like that with a couple week's allowance in my pocket, and buy a small toy or some stickers, and be happy for days after about that. (Everyone wants a rock to wind a piece of string around)