* I got a bit more done on the John-Boy socks last night, but it was another long day working on stats stuff over here, and also Wednesday nights are the evening my mom Facetimes me, which I will say has been a real boon (I think for both of us, but in some ways she's less alone right now than I am - she has a couple sets of good, friendly neighbors she sees nearly every day, and one neighbor calls her almost daily)
* Still thinking about starting new projects, maybe even just another pair of "simple" socks because dear knows I have enough self-striping yarn on hand. Then again - I also have the "Deers and Beers" hat (a Northwoods style watchcap with a doubled brim) that I JUST started the last day or so I was up at my mom's; maybe I should pull that out and keep working on IT. But I also downloaded a free pattern (from ravelry) for socks in "Aran weight" and I *think* I have some Paton's wool tucked away that would work for those. They would have to be handwashed, though....but maybe for the coldest winter days they would be good to have. If I made them a little big (they look like a tall sock), I could even wear them over hose over to school on cold days, and then remove them in my office in the warm building.
* I mowed the lawn and also did the weed-eating this morning. I managed to do the whole thing - it was less hot and humid than it had been earlier in the week, and it's supposed to be bad again tomorrow. Today seemed the most likely day and I had no real commitments so i did it.
I also carried my iPhone with me - in the past couple months I discovered the feature where it apparently records an estimate of the steps you take. So I did one workout on the ski exerciser with it tucked into the waistband of my shorts (instead of lying on the bed in the guest room, next to me, while I listened to music) to see how many I rack up. (About 3000 for a 30 minute workout, give or take). Today I got in slightly more with the mowing, so I guess my interpretation of "this is reasonable to count it as a workout"
stands.
(The most steps I've gotten? The day I went to Chickasaw. I think I *just* broke 10,000 that day, and while I know they say that's not considered as important a benchmark as it once was, wow, it's hard to get 10,000 steps in in an average day.)
* But now I'm surprisingly tired. I suppose it was exertion in the heat (and high mold and pollen levels) and I haven't been sleeping *great* of late because it's been so humid. (And also, I woke up in the middle of the night last night feeling claustrophobic - it was the whole submersible thing, which, well, maybe it'll drop out of the news now. I would have hoped for a happier out come - would have been an enormous W for the Coast Guard and the Canadian RAF and the others out looking - but perhaps the men met their end quickly and painlessly, at least? At any rate I had to kick off the weighted blanket (which is not as hot as a conventional blanket, so it wasn't an overheating thing))
* Though also now I think of my dad's career. For about 20 years, starting shortly after he married my mom and continuing through my and my brother's childhoods, he led summer field camps in Wyoming for geology students. This was in the era long before cell phones, and when long distance calls were extremely expensive. He'd be out there for a month or six weeks. He used to send postcards regularly - partly aimed at us kids - and once or twice he'd call my mom just so she knew everything was OK. But they went into remote areas, up into the mountains, into areas where there were dry washes that could suddenly flood if there was rain miles and miles to the west....he and his students knew how to read the land (so: camping out, you NEVER make camp near a dry wash) and he had basic first-aid training, stuff like that. But things could still happen - I vaguely remember one year a student broke an ankle and they had to take turns helping carry him out to the road, where an ambulance could pick him up.
Also, later, for a few years in the 1980s and maybe even into the very early 90s, my dad took raft trips down the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. He used a well-respected outfitter, these were college workshop type classes for geology students, and as I remember there was some testing ahead of time to be sure everyone going could handle the strenuous conditions. But again - this was long before cell phones were common, and even now I don't think there's reception down in the canyon. I think maybe the outfitter had something like a satellite phone or a radio that could be used (possibly someone would have to climb to the highest point they could to get radio reception?) in the case of a major emergency, but also - there were places you just would be out of contact. I don't know WHAT the outfitter would have done had someone suffered a major or fatal injury on the trip - I do not know if they carried body bags or were prepared to hastily bury someone along the way. (I think there MAY have been a few places along the route where a helicopter MIGHT have been able to set down to evacuate someone, but those would be few).
Anyway, it was scary. I guess because I was a younger person then and less battered by life and also more trusting that "well my dad is smart and experienced in this kind of stuff and that will absolutely keep him safe" that I didn't worry - but it must not have been pleasant for my mom, and I am sure she eagerly awaited that planned call on the evening they came off the river.
In fact, on the last trip - it might have been 1990? I don't remember if I'd moved back home at that point, but both my brother and I were grown-up enough that she figured we could manage on our own if the worst happened, she went with him. And one year my brother went - in fact, he probably would have been about the age of the young man who perished in the submarine (what reminded me of it was someone speculating "could he really give informed consent to that?" and I was like "at 19??!?!?!" My brother absolutely knew what he might face as a risk.
But as I said: these were well-respected and extremely careful outfitters, and there were really no incidents of bad luck on the trips - my dad did fall and wrench his shoulder on one, but that was mostly OK, and many people wound up with raging cases of something like athlete's foot that took months to eradicate afterwards (spending all day in largely-wet boots will do that)
No, I never went. My dad asked me if I wanted to go but I was afraid that I lacked the necessary upper body strength (to cling to the ropes during the rapids) and anyway, that kind of rustic camping is very much NOT my thing - the "bathroom" was basically a repurposed ammo box with a toilet seat on it and a bag inside, and people were instructed to "do #1 in the wet sand" which is frankly easier when you have the OTHER kind of plumbing than I do.
Now of course the idea would terrify me - I've been battered enough by life to see danger around every turn now - but back then it was less "oooh it's dangerous" than "there are a lot of inconvenient and kind of gross things, and I don't want to go and look like a piker when I can't do some stuff"
* A new friend. One of my Twitter mutuals posted about a Bellzi toy her kid got and of course I went to the website and they have some cute things, and I immediately liked the Wyvern (some of the other ones are a little, eh, generic in their shape/look) and so I ordered one of the mini ones.
She finally came yesterday:
A wyvern is like a dragon only the front limbs are wings instead of legs, so they're kind of like bats, unlike conventional dragons, where, if they have wings, the wings jut out of the back. (Evolutionarily speaking, wyvern style would probably be more probable than winged dragon style; there really aren't any tetrapod animals that have developed an extra pair of limbs. And dragons are clearly not insect-like, which is the other way of "making wings" - basically an outgrowth of the exoskeleton, and an insect-style dragon would be a VERY different sort of creature. Huh, now I wonder if any fantasy author has gone with "dragons, but instead of big lizards they're basically big insects" with all the concomitant biological stuff - exoskeletons, and a ventral nerve cord instead of a spine, and a life cycle where there's either nymphs of different sizes that molt, or a juvenile stage that's very different and then pupates....)
Anyway, I had to come up with a name for her (I decided she was a "her" based on the pastel color) And also decided she was a her when I was turning her around, and the line "oh my G*d, Becky, look at her butt" (from the old Sir Mix-a-Lot song) popped into my head.
Because:
Oh my gosh look at her butt
So even though "Becky" is the one being addressed in the quote above, rather than the subject of it (the "some rap guy's girlfriend" is never named, and there's probably a reason the presumably-white girls doing the speaking at the start don't bother to know her name), I decided to name her Becky.
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