* When I was out and about Saturday, I also went to Target because I needed a few grocery items (I also got a couple Halloween cards, including one to send my mom). And I saw these boxes of big sugar/shortbread cookies, and they reminded me of the cookies they used to sometimes have at the school holiday parties* when I was a kid, and I was tempted to buy a box.
At first I walked on, telling myself, "no, you remember the time you tried those frosted Lofthouse sugar cookies and they were very Not Good" but this was Target's house brand ("Favorite Day" or somesuch) so I walked back and picked a box up and bought it.
They are surprisingly good. Not hard and dry and crunchy, but not soft either. And there's a faint added flavor - almond, maybe? Anyway, good and nostalgic and yes, very much like the cookies from those long ago school parties.
(*We had three full fledged parties in the lower grades: Halloween, for which we sometimes got to put on our costumes if we brought them to school, "Holiday" (Christmas, but it wasn't called that), and Valentine's day. And the menu was pretty similar: I remember these kind of cookies, and there were usually frosted cupcakes (not as good as the cookies) and some kind of Hi-C punch and.....I guess that was it? Now I'm surprised they didn't try to give us more healthful food like fruit or little sandwiches first, but then again it was the 1970s. We also sometimes did something for St. Patrick's Day if Spring break wasn't at the same time as it - a couple years the Lender's delivery guy brought us all dyed-green bagels)
* Today is, of course, the Big Anniversary. I'm realizing how old I'm getting: my current students were not born yet when it happened (a few may have been babies or toddlers). But at any rate: none of them have any actual memory of the day and of how freaked out, scared, and sad we all were, and how some of us* thought maybe it was the beginning of the end of the world
(*"Of course I know her. She's me")
And I have had to remind myself of that today seeing some really quite dumb and insensitive stuff online. Yes, I am okay with people who want to joke at the bizarre "mourning merch" that came out in the aftermath (tree ornaments that were commemorative) though I admit I am just more bemused by it and really can't laugh - we really were in some kind of weird headspace back then and I look back at it and am amazed, kind of like how I look back at the "store your mail in the garage for two days before opening it and wipe down all your groceries with bleach" we did in 2020.
However, I've seen a few tasteless jokes or comments about the people who actually died, and, yeah, that ain't it, chief. I remember when it happened. I remember being forced to hear about 'the falling man' and I know it changed me in ways I've not fully comprehended. I mean, yes, on the surface I can grit my teeth a bit and remind myself that a lot of these folks are just kids being dumb kids, and there are an AWFUL lot of irony-poisoned people who find any display of earnest empathy risible (or pretend to, because it unnerves, them, I don't know).
I knew people who lost someone. I had a relative witness it (he lived in NYC at the time) and it changed him in a number of ways I am only now realizing that "oh, he did that and said that because...."
I don't know. I don't like it when people mock earnestness or genuine displays of empathy or sorrow; it feels rather diminishing.
* But I also admit, I look at all the stuff I've lived through since then - that, and the second Gulf War, and the killings/executions of both Hussein and bin Laden, and then all the wildness after 2016, and the pandemic, and January 2021 and all the PERSONAL losses I've weathered and I realize that I am a very different, much older, in some ways more cynical, in other ways more prone to feel randomly sad over the state of the world. I actually commented on Bluesky this morning that "sometimes it feels like I have lived too long" and honestly I really don't FEEL that but I also do feel a certain existential exhaustion (and once again I see arguments about masks, where on the one hand people are saying that you're evil and killing other people if you dare go out in public without one, and others are saying you're a paranoid fool if you do, and.....there's a middle ground no one seems to consider. Like, if I am running through grocery for fifteen minutes and I am alone, I won't bother with one, but if I were flying a three hour trip somewhere? Absolutely would. I think the finding that they prevent CONTRACTION more than TRANSMISSION is what tipped me from "must always mask" to 'eh, only in some cases will I consider it')
* But I don't know. The whole irony-poisoned thing where you can't care about anything, you can't feel empathy for someone outside your immediate circle, that to earnestly like something is cringe, that working hard or doing things that might not directly benefit you makes you a chump - all that is tiring and sad and it makes me sad (and because I am too "porous," I do wonder - could they be right? Could caring about stuff be only a path to misery and some kind of arch detachment is better? I don't know)
* I think it's just a bad allergy season for me. I had a really hard time getting all my neurons to connect up this morning despite having got up and exercised and eaten a decent breakfast. And I know I've had other allergy symptoms. Part of it is we have had NO RAIN (still. And I am starting to think we'll never get rain, the water will run out, and we'll all have to pick up and move but HOW if you have almost no money do you do that? I guess I load my car with my most-valued items and just drive until I get to my mom's? I don't know. But I wish we could get rain). I also had to put the fan back on in my office because I guess they decided "oh hey it's under 100 F outside we can shut off the air conditioning" and the air in here is very stale
* Mostly worked on the blanket this weekend; at some point soon I can start decreasing.
* And I guess the new laptop is really "my own" now (and I have accepted it) - I get a tiny package each year from Abigail Starling as a thank you for supporting her on Patreon. This year's was a sweet little cloth pouch with her OC (a catgirl named Berry) on it and a vinyl sticker of Berry. And I took the sticker and thought "hmm" and then took it and stuck it on the back of the laptop.
The pouch will hold a small knitting project, or at least the accessories needed for one.
* tonight is the CWF salad supper and I decided to do a round 2 on the mini quiches - I am the overlap with AAUW and I am fine with eating some of them again. (And I got them today at the walmart with no mishaps. And I got some smoked salmon for tomorrow's lunch or dinner, depending - I might carry a lunch tomorrow). I also got some work done ahead this afternoon (exam review sheets), which means I have less time to prep so the mini quiches - which take 15 minutes and can be heated down at church, even - were a better choice. (the second week of the month is just a busy week)
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