some Tuesday things

 * Home a little earlier than I might be; the lawn clearing guy is supposed to come around 4 to see the extent of the work and give an estimate. I've all but decided to just tell him to go ahead (unless it's really, truly outrageous) because it needs to be done and I can't do it.

I maybe COULD, except my city no longer picks up lawn waste (something about there not being space in the landfill) and you either have to (a) pay an outside company to haul it off,  (b) pay the city (and it's a pretty steep amount) for the city  to take it away or (c) wait for one of two "free" days in the year when they set up dumpsters at two places in town and you can carry your own yard waste there. I do not have a pickup truck or trailer, and the one free day for this spring/summer already happened, so.

Everything seems harder now. 

 (ETA, yes, it will be expensive, more than I'd hoped, but I do have the money, it needs to be done, and the guy said if they come back in the fall it will be MUCH less (because this IS 2-3 years of me mostly neglecting it) and I guess I have to realize between my bad knee/asthma and the logistic issues of having to get rid of the brush, I need to budget for "guys" to do this. He did say they could also get the pecan catkins off my flat sewing-room roof as well, which I can't do any more, can't climb ladders with any feeling of it being safe any more. They also have the capacity to remove dead limbs from tall trees and I will need that this fall with my pecan)

Anyway, this person came highly recommended by several people whose opinions I value. 

* It's been a slightly low-level upsetting day. Coming home for lunch, I saw a guy on a bicycle - no helmet, not even shoes - coming up the MIDDLE of the lane I was in. I mean, biking AGAINST the flow of traffic. I would have hit him if I had kept going. I stopped, without really thinking "what if someone's behind me" but I guess if someone had, and they couldn't stop, I'd just accept being rear-ended and hope my insurance would pay for the repairs on the grounds of "I didn't want to kill the bicyclist"

Fortunately there was no one behind me. The guy sort of looped around me and then - I saw in the rearview - got back into the middle of the lane, still going the wrong way. (There WAS a "right way" lane right next to us, it was a smaller two-lane road, but I guess he didn't want that lane? I was taught as a kid you absolutely biked with the flow of traffic). It's very unsettling to see someone heading straight at you (It happened to me once on the interstate when a guy was going southbound in the northbound lane. Most people pulled into the other northbound lane; I pulled onto the shoulder and called 911 and the dispatcher said "Yes, we know, someone is on the way to intercept him" in a tone that suggested this guy was a known quantity.

Then I was almost home and a guy pulled out of a side street - which I know had a stop sign and I did not - and I had to hit the brakes again.

You see that a lot now. I think people care less and figure they will do what they want without considering that physics will be very against them in some cases. 

And then finally, going back to campus, I decided to fill the tank up as gas prices seem to be in a "local minimum" (probably due to misplaced exuberance over the Iran deal) and I figure whenever it dips below $3.75, it makes sense to fill up even if it's not strictly time to. But the guy ahead of me had filled a diesel vehicle and added that DEF stuff, and he had spilled a bunch. I didn't realize it was that at first but then I smelled it and almost slipped in it.  So now my shoes STINK (that stuff smells really bad) and over at school I went into my lab and washed the soles off with soap. But they still smell, I got them a little wet, and I spent the afternoon working in my office in my stocking feet, which technically isn't a great idea (in case of emergency) but I did have the shoes nearby.

In retrospect, I probably should have gone in and warned the folks in the gas station - it was slick. But really I feel like that should have been the responsibility of the guy who spilled the stuff AND there were a lot of cars driving around the lot, making it hard to safely get to the office.

 (I also think about this weekend and how someone walking their dog let it use the "devil strip" between my yard and the street as a bathroom, and they didn't scoop. There are a number of dogwalkers in my neighborhood, this is the first time in a while the person didn't scoop. That  annoys me, though, again, even though I don't have a dog I was taught "you pick up after the animal if you walk them in an area where people are." My first reaction was "this is NOT my job, I should NOT have to deal with it, I will just mow around it" but then I went back and scooped it up with my shovel and tossed it in the rollcart (you're probably technically not supposed to, but again: what are we SUPPOSED to do?)

 

*and that comment I made about the guy pulling out from the side street and my having to stop reminds me of a comment my friend Dana made, along the lines of "Men expect the world to bend to conform to them; women are more likely to yield and bend to conform to how things are" and while I don't love the gendered aspect of it (though there may be some truth to it), yes, I do find myself yielding a lot about stuff and it gets me DOWN. I hate how when I drive I feel like I have to be even more vigilant now than I was before because people are selfish and will do things like run stop streets. 

But yes, I often to find myself yielding - doing the thing (like picking up the dog droppings) that I would rather not and feel that I should not have to, or keeping my mouth shut when I figure my speaking up for myself wouldn't do any good, or going along with what other people want rather than fighting for what I want. 

 

*Anyway, looking for comfort tonight. Not sure which project I'll knit on, but I will. In a couple minutes I might run out to the farm store - they're supposed to be open 'til 6 today and they said they had green beans in stock.

 

Little sock progress

 Saturday was mostly devoted to what I NEEDED to do (mowing the lawn, running the weed whacker, and then going over to school and working a bit). Sunday I kind of sat around and (I probably should not have) watched some of the news and getting mad at how tawdry and cheap and corrupt and nasty and ugly everything seems to be, and I admit I carried that in to today and didn't get as much done as I might have wanted (BUT: I did get the bones of a research presentation for next month put together, and I got the supplies for a new version of the mark-and-recapture lab I thought of, and I called a well-recommended lawn clearing company to start the process of getting the brush cut and removed. I would do it myself, but it has kind of gotten away from me AND the city will no longer pick it up, you have to either pay ($50 a load) or haul it somewhere yourself and honestly, I have money saved up, so maybe I just hire someone to take care of it, and maybe hire them again in the fall for another cleanup). 

Sunday late afternoon I switched to reruns of "Criminal Minds." I like the puzzle solving aspect and the "work family" aspect, but a lot of the episodes are a little rough for me. And yet, oddly, it seems less horrific than some of what's going on in the real world. So I started work on the socks I had done the ribbing for earlier.

I messed something up in one of the pattern rows, and wound up having to un-knit several rows, which I admit made me rage a little (it was inattention on my part, and I hate having my time wasted). But I fixed the problem and got back to where I had been, and added a little on also this evening:

 It's got "paired" decreases and yarn overs (in the same row) and that makes it "fan" a little bit, and the other pattern row is just purl stitches. It's sort of like the old Feather and Fan that's a very common knitted lace pattern (there are many variants of it, like there are of most "folk" patterns that have been handed around for generations). I like it; it will probably break up any pooling, and when you're counting rows it seems easier to keep going than with just plain socks where it's "knit however many inches" with nothing that changes. Maybe I shift to do more of these types of things...

Here's more of a close up

You can see the garter rib (the raised part, which is made by purl stitches, since this is knit in the round, the "smooth" parts are just regular knitting) and the yarn overs there. 

Tomorrow I need to motivate myself to finish most of the rest of the samples (I think I have seven left but that's too many for one day; I'm noticing I get eyestrain headaches if I do too many) and I could work more on my talk. 

And at some point I have 240 metal washers to spray paint. I might do a few first to make sure it doesn't gunk them up so much that the magnet wand won't get them any more - I have so many I figured I better get one of those big-magnets-on-a-stick like roofers use to pick up nails after doing a job, so I didn't lose many every semester. (The department had supply money leftover, so they bought everything). 

I'd like to figure out a couple "new" labs (or "replacement" labs for concepts I already cover differently) to keep things fresh but I'm not that creative sometimes and I'm a little surprised I thought of this lab. It's probably not ORIGINAL but I've not seen it published elsewhere.

I dunno but maybe my "Weekly trip for enjoyment" this week might either be the Native American Art museum here on campus, or maybe a trip down to do Dino Days again even if it's mostly the same specimens as last year...
 

a day off

 I guess I'll have to pay it back tomorrow (go in and do at least a couple samples, but if the weather is amenable first thing in the morning I should mow the lawn)

But today started off rainy and I wasn't sure about going (there were predicting multiple inches of rain, which we did not get, but driving on the interstate is pretty miserable in heavy rain.

So I did a few things first.

I had put my Rapunzel doll up on the little wall bracket for a while but decided to change it out, and I realized that my "Star Spangled Dolls" ("Americana" dolls, made about the time of the bicentennial) would work, so I put them up:

 "Smiling Eyes," and Alison, and Sarah Jane (I don't remember the two Anglo girls' last names). These were made on the mold, more or less, of the Sunshine Family. I had the old OG Sunshine family (with the original clothes, and just a baby as their child - later incarnations had a little girl as well as a baby). I played with them a lot when I was like 4 and 5. I had largely lost interest in dolls by the time the Star Spangled Dolls came out, I bought these three back in the 1990s at a doll show I went to (I collected dolls pretty actively for a few years in the 1990s). Last year (Or maybe the year before?) I found these at my mom's house and brought them back with me.

I know some people describe them as "creepy" (the inset "crystal" eyes). I don't, but then again some people find all dolls "creepy."

At any rate - I may not do much for the hemiquincentennial because I have no stomach for the politicized and aggrandizing stuff, but maybe I do a couple quiet things, just for myself. 

Today was primaries in my state but there was also a "nonpartisan" state question I particularly wanted to vote for (modernizing our minimum-wage structure) so I did that

 For once, the sticker wasn't just the plain-vanilla "I VOTED" plus flag. I actually peeled it off and have it stuck on my laptop lid with other stickers now. 

I also did the workout I decided I didn't want to do when I first got up, which was probably wise - when I got home I really didn't want to.

I grabbed a quick lunch on the way and went to Michael's (I had a $20 voucher, and those expire, and I got a Peter Rabbit crochet kit that I had looked at before and not bought) and then I decided I wanted to go to the BooksAMillion. Wound up buying one of those romantasies ("Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous") and a really nice hardbound reissue of "Far from the Madding Crowd" (YES darnit I am going to take back up reading more complicated books)

And then I saw this

I don't know what it is with me and mothmans (Mothmen? Mothsman?) but this guy was very cute and I made the mistake of picking him up (often if I pick up a stuffie and it is SOFT I wind up wanting it, and this guy is very soft)

His name, according to his tag, is "Motthew." Heh.

I also went to one of the antique shops (in Denison, and it was hard to get to because while the streets now are all open, the sidewalks aren't, and I had to walk out of my way to get there). I bought a postcard and a greeting card, each for a friend, and then I found a nice (and apparently vintage) oval wall tile with an Emerson quotation. It was pretty and will match in my dining room, so I bought it (It's still wrapped up, so no photo).

There was also a lot of the sort of weird detritus that antique/vintage shops have, they had "Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow" which I remember seeing adverts for when I was a kid (I think you fed the cow a little chalk tablet and then water, and that's how the "milk" was produced). 

There was also a (newly made, and it was expensive or I'd probably have bought it) tea towel with a lady on it saying "What essential oil can I use to stop people from talking to me?"

And I saw a child's biography (Little Golden Book, or as a Bluesky friend joked, "Little Purple Book?") of Prince which.....well, given the content of some of his songs, is just interesting. (The cover was not a particularly great likeness of him:)

 I didn't look more closely at it; it was labeled "mint" which sometimes means "you touch it, I expect you to buy it" for paper goods. 

And then groceries, and then home, and now I'm working on the endless blue garter section of the shawl... 

some stash diving

 Even though I have several projects going, I thought about starting another pair or two of socks; in particular I remembered a yarn I bought several years ago from Modern Daily Knitting. (Long enough ago it seems to be being closed out of their website; there's only one color left). The color I have - I think they had a series of modern-artist inspired colors? But it's called Basquiat, after Jean-Michel Basquiat. I think the colors in it are inspired by several of his paintings. (I don't know much about him, other that he died tragically young - he seemed to have been troubled).

I hunted through my collected patterns on Ravelry and found a lace one called Lake Front Socks. It's a fairly simple lace, and the variegation in it is low-volume enough that I suspect it will work well with the stitch pattern.

Some really bright yarns - and I do tend to like those, even some that border on what some people call "clown barf" - for things like socks and hats. So this subdued of a yarn is a little unusual for me:

 It's Studio Sock, from Neighborhood Fiber Company, and like I said, the color is called Basquiat. The red and brownish purple in it are more visible in person.

I got the ribbing done tonight, but that was it.

But yeah, I do have a LOT of yarn and maybe I do just start a few projects when I want to, and swap out what I have going. (I have lots and lots of sets of the size-1 sock needles). I particularly wanted to use the Basquiat yarn and did have to dig for it a little, it was not in the first two places I looked (Yes, I do have multiple places where I have yarn stashed). 

 

I also had a more-recently-purchased skein I got to thinking about as well. This is from a dyer on Etsy who calls their shop "Cashmere and Coconuts" and who has some interesting color names (some 1980s inspired, and I am kind of a kid of the '80s. At least, I was a tween/teen then....)

And yeah, while the '80s were not a good time in many ways, for me they were a simpler time, and there are some things I do miss - Saturday morning cartoons on the networks, and malls, and how the Weather Channel used to be (that may have been more of a '90s thing, though, I remember how sometimes in - I think it was grad school - when I couldn't sleep I'd get up and go downstairs and just watch it, the sort-of-rolling graphics of the local conditions and forecast, and the quiet "vaporwave" jazz they played under it, and in a way it was a televised equivalent of those malls, where nothing much ever happened (certainly nothing BAD) and it was climate-controlled, and at least on weekdays it was fairly quiet)

And one of the colors the dyer I mentioned had was called "vaporwave"

And so, out of nostalgia - though I don't think we used the term vaporwave back then - I bought a skein:

 It's the one on the right - mostly a cream color but with flashes of various intensity of hot pink, and yellow, and a little orange, and some black. Very '80s/'90s looking. This one will just be plain socks, I don't think I want a stitch pattern on these.

I also have a skein of hers with darker, stronger colors (including purple and an almost-poison green, but the other colors similar to this) called "Mixed Tape" (which is another largely vanished thing from those days)

Anyway.....I can ALMOST imagine "It's 1992, you're at your parents' house, you don't currently have to work on your thesis research, it's summer and it's warm out but they have air conditioning in their new house, and you can just relax..."

 Or, alternatively: "It's 1995, you're at a conference in an unfamiliar city. You've already done your research talk and it went well, it's evening, you were able to get room service for dinner, and you have this on for background noise while you eat and relax"

another field day

 this time we did the nested plots where we estimated cover; we now have five of these plus several done last fall (I presume we will do more this fall)

Only two photos today, this day was more busy

First up: Asclepias viridis or green milkweed (sometimes called green antelope-horns, but then it gets confused with A. asperula, which is antelope-horns, but I think that's more in the western part of the state). This is the most common milkweed around here

 they're not extremely pretty but they are good for butterflies.

We also saw one plant in a stand of Coreopsis tinctoria that had a genetic variation - the ray flowers were almost entirely red; more commonly the ray flowers are mostly yellow with some red towards the disk. This would make a pretty garden flower. I don't know how common the red variant is but I think it's the first time I've seen it

the "tinctoria" specific epithet makes me wonder if it was used as a dye plant, often times dye plants were named "tinctoria" (Indigo, the plant originally used to dye blue denim, is Indigofera tinctoria). 

***'

I have been knitting; working a bit on the shawl (I'm still at least 24 rows from shifting to the lace, if I have enough of the blue). I also got more done this past weekend on the new socks, here you can see the arrow lace pattern columns starting:

 

Tuesday evening things

 *It's funny how the days seem very long. I had a flash of thinking, driving home, that today was Thursday. I say "it's funny" because I don't seem to do much in  a day - I've just been working through samples and I guess it's a little bit like what they call "fugue state" because I sit there and work and three hours go by without my really noticing.

* also, it's kind of lonely. There are almost no students around (and I don't have any "direct" students - there are a few people working with a colleague and once in a while they'll poke their head in to ask for verification on a plant identification or something, but that's it. Most of my colleagues aren't even around, and it does seem awfully quiet.

* I think that is one thing I really realized after 2020; how important the small daily interactions are to me, and how empty everything things when they're absent. I think maybe I'm glad I was never offered (and been tempted to take) one of those remote research posts where you're basically alone in something like a cabin or a fire-watch station for a season - and a lot of those, they don't even have reliable cell service, so calling people isn't much of a reality, and for me, the phone is less good than either video calls or face to face because I need to see people's faces. 

*Tomorrow is another fieldwork day, I think it's going to be doing plots rather than just trying to generate a species list. I agreed to help with the caveat that if it was very humid and I started feeling bad I might need to leave. I do not do well in high humidity, especially since I've been on the beta blocker. (Last night at CWF, when I came in after having rushed around in the heat - it was a heat index of like 109 - someone commented that I looked flushed, and yeah, I could tell I wasn't feeling great. I got better once I had a chance to cool down).

* I am debating doing something either Friday or Saturday, like going to a museum or something. Part of me says no, I've got enough research work to do, and also, the price of gas (up to a bit over $3.50 here last I looked). Then again - gas can only get more expensive the way things are going, and I fear if they go badly enough we may see some kind of actual or de facto gas rationing (de facto if there are shortages). And ANOTHER thing I still carry with me from the pandemic is "If you have the chance at something that makes you happy, take it now, because you might lose the chance in the future"

The Sherman museum is doing "dinosaur days" again, and if i KNEW the exhibits were different to last year I'd go, but if they're going to be the same ones, I'm not sure I'd want to see the same things over again. But I'm not sure what else to do; it's a little hot for going out and walking around at like Hagerman or something. I'll have to think more about it, I guess. There is the Frank Buck zoo in Gainesville, but that's a lot farther away even though I've never been.

*Everything here does seem smaller, or farther away, than it once did.  

more finished socks

 this was the second pair of socks I finished on break. I wouldn't have gotten them done except for the "surprise" day when I had to remake my ticket because the Friday train was going to be so late. 

This is a dyer who is no longer dyeing - Night Owl Yarns. And it's too bad, I don't know what base she used but it was a really nice yarn - good twist, didn't split, uniform texture. I have one more skein of hers in different colors.

This one was called "Puffins of Fair Isle"

 Dark brown, cream, pale seafoam green, darker lichen green, gold, warn tan....an interesting combination. 

I'm glad I had enough yarn to make the second sock match in the sequence of stripes (Starting at the same point - if you have your starting loop at the transition between two colors, it's relatively easy to get them to match perfectly). I weighed the yarn I had left (and the finished first sock) after I finished the first sock to be sure I had enough (I had more than enough). Being able to make socks where the stripe pattern matches pleases me.

I'm really happy with these; they are one of the better looking pairs of socks I've made recently. I do still have to rinse them (it's a good idea to get any sizing or residual dye/mordant out before you wear them). But it'll be a few months before I can wear these; it's been in the 90s and very humid.

 

 

Friday evening things

 * I did go out today; I needed a couple things from Ulta and was loath to mail order (given that once my order somehow got shipped BACK to them, apparently UPS sometimes messes up). 

* But I also did go to the yarn shop, because why not? I'm down that way already. I just like the Katy depot anyway, they always have lovely plantings (this time: some huge red hibiscus in the garden)

 Also, the interior of the building is nice; the main hall, which I presume was the old waiting room, has remarkable chandeliers in it. I am sure they are recent, but they do make the space very elegant. This hall is often used for galas and wedding receptions

 I did buy a couple skeins - a deeply discounted "one of a kind" dyed colorway (I presume: it was a one off combination, maybe using up leftover dye) from Dream in Color, which has changed hands and the owner of Quixotic Fibers has chosen to no longer carry in favor of some smaller companies (and a semi-local dyer called Chicken Coop). It's various browns and golds and I am not sure what I'll make with it, but it was a good price and I just liked it.

I also bought a misty green skein (with some small flashes of brown in it) that was dyed by the original owner of the shop (who is now retired and dyes yarn full time). I want to do some elaborate cabled socks with this one.

And it's just nice to look at what is on offer, and talk a bit with the new owner, who knows me. 

*Something I realized - and I said to her, and she commiserated - was that really, since the pandemic, I have not knit nearly as much complex stuff as I once did. I once knit a whole Song of Hiawatha shawl! I've made cabled sweaters! But recently.....I don't know if I've gotten dumber, or if I'm just worn out, or getting old, or what, but it's harder to force myself to do more than stockinette. 

(I did pull out the "Egyptian Stucco" shawl, with the thought of trying to get to the lace section soon)

But I don't know. I don't read as much or as complex things any more either. It may be tied up with the feeling of "foreshortened life," like, "you might not be around to use this complex, time consuming thing, or finish this 600 page book" which first came up in the pandemic, then again in 2022 when Ukraine was invaded and there was speculation it could lead to nuclear war, and now, with....well, with everything (pandemics and the threat of food insecurity and war in the middle east and the rise of AI and random stochastic violence...). I also find it harder to plan research projects for similar reasons and frankly I'd be content to just be a fieldhand/plant identifier/help with data entry and analysis, but you can't really do that...

I mean yes, it has always been thus; life has always been precarious for almost everyone, and I guess you just have to stuff that down and keep moving... 

* My main goal (other than getting more of the "pore primer" I use) was to take a print I had bought from an Etsy artist and get it framed. It's an opossum, curled up in a nest of leaves, and the legend it "The world is cruel; therefore I won't be" (here) 

It was a little odd-sized (9 7/8" square when the framer measured; I got roughly 25 cm at home) so I figured it would be hard to find a ready made frame, and I felt like I wanted to spend the money (even though the framing is several times what the print originally cost). I had some cash on hand; my mom had made a small gift to my brother and sister in law to help with some car repairs, so she gave me a comparable amount "to be fair" (even though, strictly speaking, I don't NEED it) so I thought spending $100 on framing was an okay investment.

I found a really nice gray-green frame that picks up the green in the print and I"m sure the framers are instructed to agree with people's choices, but she was enthusiastic enough about my choice that I think it was a good one. 

I'm not sure where I will hang it up, but I'll find a spot. 

One thing I notice about getting "real" art framed - it makes me feel like a real grown-up. I remember once or twice going to galleries with my parents when they purchased something, and my mom still has things they got professionally framed (like a print commemorating an exhibition of art from old herbals) up on the wall.  

I also like the print. I like the sentiment ("The world is cruel, therefore I won't be") and it's long been one of my operating principles for life, but I admit sometimes these days I need reminding of it more firmly, and I need especially to be reminded that there's some value in choosing NOT to be cruel in a world that often is, that I'm not just a chump for trying to be kind. 

I did also see that the Michael's near me has got in a few fabrics, and they have a very small number of printed patterns (So I guess the death of ALL the pattern companies didn't happen). Most of them were kids' clothes and accessories but still it was nice to see them. The fabric was all quilting fabric, which is fine; I'd rather not see the yarn section go away in favor of just fabric (I admit I'd rather see the "party" or "scrapbooking" stuff be reduced in coverage, but I suspect because party stuff is ephemeral and scrapbooking is paper and lots of people do it, they are probably subsidizing some of the other crafts). 

I did find one fabric that I liked.

 I admit that I went "EEEEEEEE" (like Bingo or Bluey when they are excited) inwardly when I saw it. And yes, I bought a big chunk - I need some new "fun" pillowcases. (I hope my sewing machine still works; it's been a year since I used it because the sewing room is now overtaken  by the bits of the half-finished Moominhouse. I suppose I can find a place to set those bits so I can cut, but that's also something I need to get back to working on)

But not tonight; I have to prewash the fabric to get any sizing out and in case it shrinks a little. 

A field day

 Today was the quarterly trip to a new-ish park (former golf course) in town to try to find and categorize what's flowering, and get voucher specimens. My fairly new colleague is heading this up and I'm happy to let her run the show (I presume I will get some credit for assisting, and I may write part of the eventual paper). We had four of her botany majors as well to help carry stuff and to do the pressing of the plants at the end.

It was pretty tiring. My knee has a limit for walking on uneven ground and I was hurting a lot by the end of the three hours, but maybe ultimately it will be good for me to do it? Anyway, I'm pretty good at spotting stuff and good at remembering the names of things.

The warm season grasses aren't flowering yet (hopefully we get good rain so they will flower and we can check them out in July or August).

But there was a fair amount of stuff flowering. The last two photos will be a little blurry given that I was getting tired and it was very bright out and I couldn't see well to focus.

But anyway. One of the first things was Coreopsis, probably tinctoria. It's a pretty thing, it's not always got so much of the darker central part of the ray flowers but I think the ones that have that are particularly attractive:

 

 

there was also a lot of wild petunia (Ruellia humilis) out there, it's another attractive one and as I remember, this is one that also grows well in naturalized gardens:

 One of the St. John's worts (Hypericum). I don't know the local species of these as well. Someone suggested H. crux-andrae but when I looked it up, there are only four visible petals on it (makes sense: like St. Andrew's cross). It might be punctatum, I know it's not got enough stamens for prolificum

We also saw a member of the mint family, germander (Teucrium) near one of the wetter areas. 

 

 

 There was Diodia there as well, which I don't see often, but at that point I was tired and it was hard to get a good photo. It's in the Rubiaceae, which is the madder family and also the coffee family. 

The two I had a harder time getting a good focus on were Linum (Flax) 

 

And also Deptford pink (Dianthus armeria) You might guess from the name "Deptford," it's not native here, it's native to Europe and particularly known from the UK. It's not particularly invasive and it is kind of a pretty little thing:

 And there was a lot of meadow-pink (Sabatia campestris)

 After we got done, I rushed home (ticks are out here, and while I was doused in enough DEET to give myself  a headache later today, I worry about getting bites; alpha-gal syndrome is a thing here and I know someone who has it, and there's also rocky mountain fever carried by ticks). Showered, threw my clothes in the wash, and grabbed a slice from the local pizza purveyor who is a few blocks from me (I felt like a quick lunch was called for)

 Hawaiian pizza, and it seemed unusually good (Though Geo's is a good pizza place). Maybe I was just hungry...

 I did run over later and get one more chapter done for the "accessibility" standards. 

I'm taking tomorrow off; I have errands I need to run and it's going to pour on Saturday. 

first finished thing

 This was a long term project, not because it was difficult, but because I stalled out on it. I'm still not sure I love them. I don't HATE them, but they're a little bright, even for me. 

And the yarn - an older Opal - was so splitty, especially in contrast with the other pair I was knitting on. I'm not sure if it was that particular run of Opal, or if I'm misremembering Opal as being better than it was, or if the addition of the tinsel strand affected it.

But at any rate, I got them done

 I didn't try to match them; it was a very long repeat and I also noticed a few breaks in the yarn (about 10 years ago, I had a small outbreak of carpet beetles and I'm still finding yarn they got to). So I had to splice those and keep going (and then weave in the ends at the end; and it displeases me aesthetically to not be able to make a simple sock out of one continuous length of yarn). But with socks like this I am not sure matching would matter.

 I guess they're OK.

 

Started something new

 I didn't finish a lot of things over break; I did finish the two socks I had on the needles; pictures will come later

This is one of the things I took THINKING I would start it but I didn't get to it. So I started it tonight. String Theory Colorworks' colorway "Diode" (there are other stripes in a deep purple and a green and teal further on the skein. 

This is just the start of the sock - the ribbing for the cuff. I'm using the instructions in a recipe (it's more a recipe than a defined pattern) called "Columns" by Nancy Wheeler - it's the instructions on how to insert a couple narrow bands of a fancy stitch running down the sides of an otherwise plain sock. So it's good for striping or patterning yarns. You have to be careful with fancy stitches on those because either the stitches get lost in the patterning or else it kind of fights with the pattern. 

These are going to have a small panel of an eyelet lace on either side. 

I also mowed today; the lawn wasn't TOO overgrown but it needed it. And then I went in and decided I couldn't quite face going through the vials from the April sampling yet, so I started making my Powerpoint things "compliant" with the new accessibility standards and frankly if I had been totally boring and done black type on white background when I made these, I'd have saved myself a lot of work. (But back in the 2010s, they were telling us NOT to be boring! Sometimes I wonder how much of these shifting goals are just to keep us busy). 

I got the first three chapters for the intro class done, and the first one for ecology. I'll have to think about what to do for the stats class that is mostly text - I had been writing things on a smartboard and just saving it and posting it, but I'm SURE my handwriting is not accessible, I guess that's a question for the tech folks when I also ask about what to do with sharing .pdf files of papers I want students in another class to read (those, even the ones from published journals, are apparently Not Accessible and therefore Not To Be Used.) I THINK a lot of this is for fully online classes and mine are fully in person.

I'm also holding off on going through the stuff for environmental policy; I'm going to have to steel myself to read about ALL the changes (there's no more Forest Service? what?) that have happened in the past year in addition to having to up the accessibility. 

(But yes, tell me again, about how "lazy college professors" get "the whole summer off" - we are technically not paid for the summer so this work is all "for free," and I think of Sam'l Johnson's description of someone who wrote for some reason other than money....) 

And finally home

 Yeah, this trip was successful.

 The train was on time getting in, although it did lose two hours overnight because of freight traffic. But it was fine; the car attendant (Carsey) was good, there weren't many people in the sleeper (though they did announce for coach as we went down the line that it was a full train so people needed to move their stuff if they had it on the seat next to them)

I had a pretty good view; got to see the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield

 And of course, the Gateway to the West

 The visit itself was good, I did a few things for my mom (took a couple days and cut back a lot of the brush that had come in between the old osage-orange hedgerow and the edge of what used to be a retaining wall (but that has broken down; the old railroad ties didn't last)

I had come up for her 90th birthday, and that was good; she liked the gifts I got her and I fixed dinner that night. A couple days later some of the women in the neighborhood had a little get together with cake and iced tea and they all brought small gifts. So my goal - that she have a nice birthday- was pretty well met.

I also drove her car out for her to have the mirror replaced; now I can post the photo of the damaged mirror (I don't know why I can't post photos to blogger from my phone any more)

 That was, I think, Friday before her birthday that we got that replaced (I drove, it was all the way on the other side of town and she said she'd not been out that way in a couple years and was less comfortable driving it. I looked up the route ahead of time and it wasn't so bad so I figured it out and got the car out there. Then, when we got back home, I helped her arrange for a driving test appointment online (Nothing is as simple as it once was). The first I could get was a couple days after her birthday (which may have been the "official" expiration date, but that was the first they had). She did pass (Illinois makes everyone over a certain age take an annual road test, which is a good idea, but is kind of an annoyance). 

So having a couple extra days was kind of nice after I knew she would have a license for at least one more year (she does not drive much other than to church and the nearby grocery store and maybe the hardware store;  she knows the limits of her comfort driving so I think she'll be pretty safe). 

But when I got back, I almost had a car oopsie of a different kind. I had run to a small restaurant in Mineola (it was about noon by the time I got in) and angle-parked on the street.

 This is what I came back to:

 One of those extra-large farm trucks, and while the spots are wider than some, they're not wide enough for those trucks (there was almost no more space on the other side). That's about six inches there, no way I can get the door open and squeeze in, though my first worry was "how to back out without either hitting the truck or getting hit by someone coming up the road"

There is more "generous sized" parking down the street, I think, so I was slightly annoyed at how they basically blocked two cars (the passenger side of the other one, which probably isn't as bad).

I finally crawled in from the passenger side of my car, which was uncomfortable (I still get pain in my knee if I have to do any kind of extreme contortion) and was definitely undignified but I did manage to get in, and just had to wait until the street behind me was clear and then slowly ease out.

At any rate, I am glad to be home. 

A surprise day…

 I guess you could call it that.

I was supposed to go back tonight. Got all packed, hung around the afternoon (working on a sock, and I did get to see all of “Spencer’s Mountain” on TCM, which I had never seen before)

Got down to the station, had hugged my mom goodbye as the train started to pull in. The station person told me I’d get on when it stopped first (sleeping car) and then everyone else would get on. But. It pulled in, past me. I started to hustle towards the front of the train (where the sleeping cars are) and an employee stopped me: “ there’s a mechanical problem, they’re not letting anyone on”

So we waited.

It’s been unusually hot for late May here and I was fatigued, my mom was fatigued (she had taken, and passed, her “over 85 annual driving road test” early that morning.

No one was telling us ANYTHING. We waited a half hour, the rumor come down something was wrong with the engine power and they might have to get another one in.

So I asked her: “okay for me to be here a couple more days if I can change my ticket?”

Yes

I have flexibility; there’s nowhere I need to be in the next week, so.

So frantically, through the phone app, I ordered a one way ticket for Sunday. They still had a roomette and I remembered I had a LOT of loyalty points, so I paid for it with those, and then cancelled the ticket for tonight and got a refund.

As much as I complain sometimes about being (as a t shirt I once saw said) a “self-rescuing princess,” I AM pretty good at getting myself out of messes on my own.

And last I checked, the train hadn’t moved, and apparently an engine is having to be brought from Chicago, so I expect it’s going to be hours and hours late and I have no idea if the AC would be working if the engine is out. So in addition to the misery of “when will we get moving?” there would be the misery of discomfort 

Summer book memories

 I've written before about the summer reading club at the library when I was a kid.

 Some places still do these but I think they've been jazzed up a lot, with "digital rewards" and you can log your progress online. When I was a kid you wrote out the titles of the books you'd read, and then usually there was a folder with "stickers" (actually: cut out bits of paper you colored in and then used a glue stick to put on the scene printed on the folder)

I think about the books, though. When I was small, I remember a few authors: Richard Scarry (The pictures generally carried more weight than the type there), and Beatrix Potter (in the little dark-green library bindings that were used back in the 70s for those, and that may have been my foundation of liking British literature, she used more complex words), and also Bill Peet,, who seems to be less remembered today. 

Peet had worked for Disney and (IIRC) quit around the time of the strike, and started writing childrens' books. Some of them had a fantasy tone; most of them were about animals. My two favorites as a kid were "Farewell to Shady Glade" (About animals having to literally hop a train - riding on the roof of a caboose - to find a new place to live when they found out their home was going to be developed) and "How Doofus the Dragon Lost His Head" which was about a (friendly) dragon. There was also "The Pinkish Purplish Bluish Egg" which was an egg that yielded a griffin.

 I really kind of wanted a griffin as a pet as a kid, even though I was pretty sure they didn't actually exist. 

He also had Capyboppy, which was probably the first introduction any of us had to capybaras (who are now a "hot" animal). I recently (in the last three years) bought the Squishimal plushie of a capybara and named him Capyboppy in memory of that book.

There were a number of others but those were my three favorites. 

As I got older, I moved to "Chapter Books." Most of these were about people, who were less interesting to me (in general) than animals. Oh, I liked the Narnia books that had talking animals, and there was a series about mice who were kind of in a gang but weren't so very evil (It may have been the Marvin books by Jean van Leeuwen).

And there was Michael Bond! I loved Paddington, of course, but he also wrote a book called Olga da Polga about a guinea pig. I liked series books because it was nice to return to familiar characters; I read a lot of series books.

There was also a series about a girl named Katie John, who lived in sort of a rural area. I thought of her as living 'a long time ago' but her era might have been as recent as the late 1950s? They were mostly about her growing up (I think she was 10 in the first book, which was my favorite). 

And All-of-a-Kind family, about a bunch of sisters growing up in a Jewish family in New York 

And a favorite from earlier childhood, maybe one of the first longer books I read, was Jean Craighead George's "My Side of the Mountain" and I admit I wanted to run off and live in the woods every time I read that. (I still think about it). 

There were other one-off books; a lot of them were shelved in "the Young Adult" section. I remember Summer of my German Soldier, which was pretty sad. Johnny Tremaine had its sad moments, too. (I think there was another Revolutionary-war era novel, about a boy going off to fight?). There were a number of so-called "problem novels" where I went "oh this book is about divorce" or "oh this is about a girl going 'too far' too young (I don't think any EXPLICITLY discussed abortion but I seem to remember one where it was implied) and I admit I mostly bounced off of those, they felt too didactic.

There was also some fantasy and sci-fi. I'm frankly surprised no one introduced me to the The Dark Is Rising sequence; I'm sure I would have liked it as a kid (and at least the first couple books would have been published by the time I was 10). And the same with Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. 

I did read the one with the Tripods - The White Mountains was the first in the series. It was fundamentally about how in early teenagerhood, kids were "capped" by the Tripods, apparently some invading alien force, and the "capping" basically was mind control. A few kids (the protagonist of The White Mountains and a few people he picked up along the way) resisted, if I remember correctly they had fake "caps" that didn't have the neural connections so they were still free, but LOOKED "capped." 

That was my main introduction to dystopian novels; I admit I don't care for them. 

 

MOST of those books were from the (old, back when it was downtown) Hudson Public Library, for most of my growing up the children's librarian was Marjorie Origlio (nee Grissom) and I LOVED her,  she was a great librarian and if she had a hand in picking books, she did a good job, there were so many from that library I remember fondly. My family would go weekly - sometimes twice a week, if the weather was bad and my brother and I read through the books we had - every summer, and often weekly during the school year. 

Sorry for huge…

I’m not sure how well this will work but I figured out a photo workaround using copy and paste.

Anyway, this is the busted mirror on my mom’s car.

It’s gone now; the replacement came in and I drove out there with her (she wasn’t sure about driving the traffic on the interstate to get to the body shop). At least it’s fixed.

And yeah, I hope the person who hit her car in the grocery store parking lot and didn’t leave a note steps in dog poo.

Sigh, photo didn’t paste…

"The good things"

 Nostalgia post. I think a lot these days about some of the "properties" (the pop cultural things, in particular, characters) that were popular when I was about 10-14 years old - not yet a teenager, not still really a child (But oh, I wanted to hold on to childhood as long as I could. I was bad at being a teenager as it turned out, and actually holding on to childhood things probably made me seem weirder and more-rejectable by the other kids. But growing up scared me a little, and I was probably right in that; being a grown-up is scary a lot of the time). 

Thinking back to what I remember: there were Smurfs, there was Strawberry Shortcake and friends in their original (Raggedy Ann-influenced) incarnation (And heck, there was a Raggedy Ann and Andy MOVIE even though I never saw it). There were Care Bears and there was My Little Pony. And there was Garfield and there was still Snoopy, and there were the Muppets, and there were some lesser-known-back-then lines like Hello Kitty and the SS Happiness Crew.

Most of these were anthropomorphised animals, or what you might call "fantasy humans" (the Smurfs, while humanoid, were DEFINITELY fantasy creatures, and I would argue Strawberry Shortcake and her friends were; in some cartoon versions of them they were portrayed as being tiny and I imagined them as being kind of Tinkerbell-sized - so maybe about 6" tall, so the little dolls would be roughly "life sized). 

A lot of them drew heavily on the theme of friendship and what we'd now call "found family," when you think about it. Really NONE of the characters were a single, simple, nuclear family - there was only one girl Smurf in the original run (and the idea of Smurf reproduction and, I presume, sex, was entirely ignored). The My Little Pony OG generation had "babies," but as I remember they were basically clones of the mums, produced by a magic mirror (again: there were few "boy ponies" and I don't think the cartoon had any married couples even though in the old, 1980s line of ponies, there were toys that were family groups with a "daddy" and a "mommy" and babies).

And Garfield had Jon, and Snoopy had Charlie Brown.....but most of the characters, the "families" were loose friend groups. 

And I wonder if that's why I liked it? As I've said, I had relatively few friends as a kid and I kind of dreamed of being part of a big squad of friends even as some of the bigger friend groups I saw at school seemed to fracture frequently, and there were arguments, and someone once commented "if three girls are friends, most of the time two will be ganged up on the third" and yeah that seems kind of accurate. 

But again: a lot of these showed a nicer and better world than what we actually have. Things were more colorful! Characters had talents that they clearly knew were their destiny (Oh, to have a "cutie mark" or a "belly badge" that showed you what you were really good at!)

A lot of these were televised cartoons. I didn't actually watch many of them - oh, I liked the Peanuts specials, many of which had been around since long before I was born, and I liked the Garfield cartoon and specials. My brother (five years younger) was a huge Smurfs fan, so I guess I watched it too. Never really watched the old (1980s) My Little Pony; by then I was trying to be very sophisticated and grown-up in order to try to have friends and so I mocked it with the other girls. (But flash forward some 30 years to the 2010s, I came home from summer field work one day, flipped around to find something to just watch while I ate lunch, hit the new cartoon (sometimes known as Friendship is Magic or FiM) and said "ha ha, let's see how blatant of a toy commercial this is" but wound up HOOKED because it was an episode ("Bridle Gossip") about tolerance and not being prejudiced and....the characters all had slightly different designs and different voices and personalities? And from then on, I watched it, and figured since I was in my 40s no one needed to know and no one could mock me. 

(And yes, now, I am much the same with Bluey, too, which is actually more accessible in re-runs; Disney Jr. shows it late in the evening and while I've seen every one multiple times, it is a SOOTHING show and good to watch right before bed)

What the different characters/"properties" had in common for me, though: there were toys, in many cases small "collectible" toys available of them. Smurfs were a HUGE fad for a few months around 1981 or 1982. People would buy the little figures. And yeah, I had less pocket money than most kids (frugal parents who didn't believe in frivolous or conspicuous spending), I would save my allowance and the money I earned for "extra" chores (like helping clean the garage or mowing the lawn) and occasionally go buy a Smurf. And it's weird to think about now, but, oh, how happy that made me. It was a very simple thing and I SUPPOSE it was more the anticipation of "I have $X in my pocket, I can go pick out a Smurf, I wonder which ones they will have" and yet, also, having them was kind of nice, too. And at the very end of my childhood, I could STILL kind of play the game of moving them through little daily dramas (like my friends and I had with our stuffed animals or Barbies or with the little plastic toy animals that were kind of ubiquitous in the 1970s). And if nothing else? I could line them up on the desk in my bedroom and look at them.

And I had a much loved stuffed Snoopy (who finally disintegrated) and I had a Garfield (and I saved up my own money to buy that). And I had a Kermit the Frog, which I saved up for literal months to be able to get. 

And I always wanted  a Grumpy Bear, but I never asked for one for my birthday or Christmas, because again, it felt babyish to me to want one. (Many years later? I now have  a little one that I even sometimes carry along on my travels):

 And all those things - I once referred to them as "a rock to wind a string around" (in the metaphor from TMBG) and yes. There is something I derive a comfort from in them, a comfort I can't quite pinpoint - it's not JUST nostalgia for a cheaper time when, as I said, walking into a shop with $5 in my pocked and knowing I can buy two Smurfs,, and the happiness that brings. (And yes, stickers are kind of the same way, too? Collecting stickers was big when I was a tween and it was actually one way I was able to interact with some of the girls who might otherwise not have been friends with me, we could trade stickers and talk stickers and show each other our collections and it was a point of connection). 

Maybe it was the idea of connection? Of wearing (at least at a YOUNGER age than 12 or so) a t-shirt with Hello Kitty on it, and having someone else say "oh hey you like her? I like her too! Want to be friends?" and it was sometimes just that easy as a kid (and why is it so hard as an adult?). But also, the imagined connection between the characters in their own specific world - like you knew that Funshine Bear and Cheer Bear might roll their eyes over Grumpy's grumpiness, but they'd never actually exclude him or mock him for how he was. Maybe a lot of those shows/books/whatever modeled a better, nicer world, one that I wanted - but one I never really got. 

First embargoed post

 (Written about 10 am on the 13th). 

 

I'm going to try to do a few of these, given that for some reason I can't get google/blogger to talk to my Apple photo cache any more, so I can't post photos from my phone on here, which kind of stinks, because typing on the phone is a pain, and the latest update (well, the latest update minus one, I haven't tried it with the new security patch that was loaded overnight) had TERRIBLE voice to text recognition (I don't have an unusual accent and it used to recognize me but now it's wildly wrong when I try to use it).

So anyway, a photo for today, from several days ago

 It's a polyphemus moth. Probably  Antheraea Polyphemus.  They're related to silkworms (I don't know if you can make silk from the cocoons, though, and I don't know that they're destructive in the way Lymantra dispar is (the common name on that contains what some now regard as a slur to the Roma people, so, I don't know if we have a new common name* or not but I can remember it as Lymantra). Of course Lymantra is an invasive in the US and Polyphemus is native here.

 

(*oh hey yes, you can call it the "spongy moth" which makes me laugh so maybe I use that with my classes now) 

These creatures don't live long; they don't have functional mouthparts (unlike some moths and butterflies that eat nectar); they only live about a week and they exist to mate, lay eggs, and die. Which looking at that with a human bias, that seems kind of sad, but then again: will moths ever write symphonies or novels or draw maps?

The other thing that always weirds me out if I think much about it is the metamorphosis process: lepidopterans dissolve into a puddle of goo, leaving behind "imaginal disks" that direct reorganization of what's left into the adult. 

There's a short essay here (Scientific American) that talks about it, and here are some photos from a natural historian who raises silkmoths and had one that "oopsied" and somehow metamorphosed without a cocoon (so apparently the "puddle of goo" was an overstatement)

Well, It's late.

 I was gearing up, early this morning, to go out and mow the lawn. I had checked on my train; it had left San Antonio and was at that point on time

 

then my text alert chimed: It's stuck behind a disabled freight.

That's bad. The BEST outcome in this case is it's a couple hours late, if they can either get the freight moving again or get a helper engine to tow it to a siding. The other option is a quick bustitution (which is more miserable than the planned ones; often it's old, poorly-kept buses pressed into service) or cancelling the trip altogether, and while I don't HAVE to be in Illinois right tomorrow, I don't like dealing with the worry and frustration of having to try to rebook (and trying to get a compartment, I am too old to ride sixteen hours in coach where I can't lie down)

So I kept checking in between doing the front and back yards, and checked again after I got back in. Finally it got moving again (two hours late) and at first they were claiming it would be on time to my stop. I laughed at that; I know Amtrak.

Then it was a half hour late.

Then an hour.

Now, it is an hour and fifteen minutes ("I have given you a delay. Pray I do not make it....longer")

So I got everything done, ate lunch, checked my luggage over again to be sure I'd not forgotten anything, threw a snack into my carry on (in case it's late enough that no food is an option once I get on). I'll leave here in a bit but I don't want to leave TOO early because sitting in the station isn't much fun, and usually when I left around 1:30 (as in the past) I was sitting for AT LEAST an hour in there, and that's when the train was on time. 

If I had more energy and had not gone just last week, I'd have considered just leaving early and swinging by the yarn shop in Farmersville but meh, I want to leave the option of a more relaxed trip there for later in the summer.

I don't like being dependent on circumstances, like a train being late or on time, where I have no control... 

got it done

  I got through the last five soil samples today. It was HARD. I was tired, and I kept resisting wanting to do it. Also, some of the soil from the third site was weirdly hydrophobic; I don't know if it was resins from the cedars (or the pines; there were a few pines in the area) or what but it would not soak up the water which made it harder to sort doing the float test.

When I get back, I have these to "score" - that is, go through and count up all the different things by their taxonomic order. That's a little less awful, and I can do it at my office desk instead of in the lab, so I can have streaming music playing on my computer. (And I am not sitting with my back to a door, which is never 100% psychologically comfortable)

 

And then, later in June, I guess I do it all again.

I hope the trends I think I'm seeing are real so this is publishable. 

 

Anyway, I came home and quickly (mostly) packed before the board meeting. I still have to put in the various makeup and tooth stuff and hairbrush and deodorant and such, but tomorrow morning I need to mow first, then shower, then I can put that in. (The meds can go in after I eat breakfast).

I'm just tired. I hope this break is good. I need a refresh. 

 

I have a couple embargoed posts (I still cannot post photos to Blogger from my phone, which annoys me. If I write any posts on the road they'll have to be without photos). If I have time and inspiration tomorrow I might write another one or two.  

Another Chautauqua program

 Tonight was the Chickasaw storyteller at the Native American Art museum (the Choctaw one was in March; the Choctaw are the main tribe here and we are on Choctaw land). 

It was a similar set up to before, even with a similar menu, but it was served buffet style, I presume because the student workers who would act as waitstaff had gone home for the summer. The food was still pretty good (the green beans were a bit larger and more mature than I like them). It was turtle cheesecake for dessert (I think I enjoyed the lemon dessert from before more, but the cheesecake was fine)

The storyteller told several stories - a couple of creation stories (one, of how the land was formed by the crayfish and the vulture, and how humans then came up out of the pile of mud the animals made). The other was about the creation of butterflies by Ababinili, which is the traditional Chickasaw word for God.*

Basically, God created them from all the beautiful colors He could find, as a gift to the children, so they could be happy, and it was also said in the story that if a butterfly landed on you, and you breathed a prayer to it, when it flew away it would take that prayer directly to God.

I found the story surprisingly touching. 

(*I know that the folks dubbed by the colonizers "the Civilized Tribes" were probably heavily influenced by Christianity; most of the Choctaw people I know are Christian, and even if the Tribal people aren't Christian they seem to be monotheists and I do wonder what the pre-contact ancestors believed. But her description of God and how God loves his creatures is definitely in line with what most Christians believe about God) 

There was another, more comic/more child oriented story about "Who Wants a Wife," that almost was like a riddle (the punchline being the "courting couple" were the first birds of spring). 

And another one, about a sad old man who was healed when the red-headed woodpecker (again, sent by Ababinili) taught him to make a wooden flute and play it - so he would always have music.

The storyteller said she based some of her stories on ones shared by Te Ata, a Chickasaw storyteller from the early part of the 20th century (Well, she lived to be 100; her life actually overlapped with mine). She shared stories with FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, and with King George VI. She was also an actress but Donna (the storyteller) emphasized her heritage and storytelling. (And Te Ata is not a Chickasaw name, it is a Māori name that someone along the way gave her (her birthname was Mary Frances Thompson) and apparently she preferred her new name? 

At any rate, it was a very enjoyable program, and again reminded me: yes, this is why you choose to live in a university town even if the town itself is kind of small and limited in some ways; the cultural programs are definitely worth it. They are trying to plan another storyteller for July, and I should take a day during my summer break and just go spend some time at the museum; it has two floors (I didn't realize it had a lower floor). It's a very attractive building; lots of natural light, lots of windows, and situated so most of the windows have a view out on wooded areas. It's also next to the old outdoor amphitheater, which I would love to see brought back and some programs given in it. 

And yeah, I was tired when I got home after working on samples all day and at first wondered if I should go (Also, I have to pack some time, though I DID wind off the yarn I wanted to take with me before going over to the program**) but it didn't go that late, I got fed, and it is really good to hear a talented storyteller - having a live human tell you stories is different and better than watching tv or listening to an audiobook.

 (**Priorities) 

And I think it was relaxing and refreshing. I woke up very anxious today for some reason (perhaps because there's a fair amount to still get done before 1:30 pm Thursday when I have to be on my way out of town) and then I realized I had BETTER take my car in for an oil and filter change (both to be sure nothing was unsafe about it I didn't know about before having to drive about 150 miles to Mineola but also someone on bluesky panicked me a little with the comment that "Walmarts and Costcos on the west coast are reporting shortages of engine oil are probably coming" and I thought "what if you come back in two weeks and that's widespread, and you're already overdue for a change timewise if not mileage-wise). So I got that done, but that meant I didn't get quite as many samples as I planned on done....but it really should be OK, I think. 

Another thing I should do this summer is make time to go to some of the Shakespearean festival plays; I used to do this every year for a couple years and then got out of the habit. (And this year, one of our student-singers at church is a director for it, so it would be nice to support her by going). Probably I need to slowly work back up to being more "social" - I admit I was nervous eating tonight (I didn't know the people next to me and the museum crowd seems "fancier" than most people I hang out with) and I realize my table manners have gotten a little feral. (And I spilled salad dressing on my white shirt; hopefully oxyclean and washing it right after I got home will prevent permanent stains) 

busy week starts

 Thursday I leave town, but first I have to 

- finish sorting 12 soil samples (I got 4 done today, there are 12 left)

- this afternoon was Budget Committee

- this evening was CWF

- tomorrow night is the program at the museum

- Wednesday night is board meeting at church.

AND I have to pack, AND I have to probably mow my lawn before I leave. Tentatively, I do the packing Wednesday afternoon (if I can force myself to do eight samples tomorrow, I only would have to work Wednesday morning) and then maybe mow the lawn EARLY Thursday, shower, and get on the road. 

 Over the weekend I cleaned house - "enough" I guess. My house will never be uncluttered, that's not who I am as much as I might wish it to be (I like my stuff even as I wish my house were"barren" enough people could come over on short notice without me panicking). But at least all the hardsurface floors have been vacuumed and wetmopped, and I did some dusting, and I put some stuff away.

Tonight I did get a bit more done on the Book Lover's Mitts:

 I finished the base of the thumb gusset (on the left) and it's on a stitch holder until the upper part of the hand is done. 

I also have to start thinking projects; there's some yarn I will need to wind off for them. 

A day out

 I needed it. I decided, after successfully grabbing my gradebooks late last night (when Canvas came back), that I could take a day and go.

I went to Farmersville, which an interesting little old town in north Texas. It has really narrow sidewalks that are well elevated (several steps up) from the street level; I am guessing that goes back to the days when the roads were dirt and could get muddy and also have horse manure in them, people would prefer to walk up above that.

And some of the buildings have odd old features. One of the shops I went in (for the first time today) had a WELL in the middle of the shop:

 Yes, they invite people to toss a coin in and make a wish (there's a penny bucket, but it was empty, perhaps because pennies are getting scarce).

And yes, superstitious, maybe, but I dug out a quarter I got in change and threw it in there and heard the plink and made a wish. No I am not telling you what it was; it won't come true if I do. 

My main reason was to go to the yarn shop. I did stop there first (needed a restroom) and bought a skein of yarn, but I needed lunch so after I paid for that I went to the barbecue place I stopped at in December when I passed through there on my way to the train station

I considered getting a "more healthful" side with my pulled pork but before I ordered I saw one of the cooks dishing up the mac and cheese, and it looked SO GOOD I got that instead. (It was really good)

 And I splurged on a grape Crush (in a glass bottle, with real sugar). I've not had or even SEEN Grape Crush in years. And yes, it tasted good to me.

 I also went around to some of the little shops. I got some birthday presents for my mom - a little art-glass nightlight that plugs into a socket, and one of those Swedish "dishcloths," and a fancy soap and new little nail brush (for gardening; the soap is lemon and basil scented). Up there, I will get her a gift certificate from the garden center she likes. So that's sorted, too.

One of the shops had a shop cat who came and yelled at me (but then rubbed her face on my lower legs). I put my hand down to see if she wanted to be petted but she seemed not to be so I didn't try (both as a "don't violate consent, of even a non-human being" but also because I didn't want to get scratched). 

Her name is Delilah, the shop owner told me.

 And I did go back to the yarn store. Bought another skein of sockyarn (Madtosh, which has occasionally disappointed me in the dyejob not being consistent throughout the skein.....but it also has a holographic glitter thread running through and I am a sucker for sock yarns with sparkle) and a skein of a sportweight Malabrigo for mitts; the color is called "sea slug" and it has bright orangish red speckles on it.

(The yarn I bought previously, on the left in this photo, is from a dyer who has given up dyeing, I have a pair of socks on the needles of one of her yarns; the color of this one is called "Lilo and Stitch" and I guess I can see the bright, saturated "cartoon" and "Hawaii" colors, and anyway, it's one of my favorite Disney movies, so)

 Really, Farmersville isn't THAT far. It's just over an hour, and it feels closer than McKinney does, partly because the last time I went to McKinney (more than 10 years ago) the traffic was such a nightmare; to get to Farmersville it's a pretty straight shot on what are effectively farm to market roads, so it's much less traffic and the drivers are less aggressive. 

I also stopped at Albertson's on the way home. I'm only here for about another week (before I go visit my mom) but I still needed milk and I needed to plan a meal for Sunday because we all decided that trying to go out after church on Mother's Day was probably not the best idea (also, I am sure some of the women with children who live close to them have plans). 

But yeah, I just needed to get out of town for a bit.