And home again

 It is good to be home. For one thing, I learned my dog allergy has gotten worse - had a bad reaction (like a cold) to the dog being in the house. I feel mostly better now but I think I still have some sinus inflammation.

Also, I realized that yeah, I really am an introvert- several days with four other people (and one dog) in a house is a lot. And also I realize that as we get older, we tend to "fossilize" a bit - or perhaps lingering trauma from the past several years caused some personality changes in fifty-ish siblings. At any rate, I'm glad to be home, with Bluey on the tv and no one to make fun of me for still liking cartoons. 

I got a sock mostly knit (will have a picture when it's done) and started a scarf, but also got drafted for a few household tasks and did wind up doing some of the cooking for Thanksgiving. 

I also read most of this history, and may finish it this evening

Her name was actually Alice Gray; she ran away from her jobs in Chicago and went and lived out on the Indiana Dunes (back before it was part of the National Parks) and was really kind of bohemian. Her nickname comes from the stories (probably embellished) from fishermen of seeing her swimming naked in Lake Michigan.

I find I'm drawn to these kind of "hermit stories." One of my favorite books as a kid growing up was "My Side of the Mountain," about a boy who ran away (apparently with his father's, at least, blessing) from a crowded apartment in NYC to land that had - if I remember correctly - somehow been in the family in upstate New York, and he lived off the land (training a falcon to help him hunt, for example, and using the hide from a deer a hunter shot but never retrieved). And of course the Robinson Crusoe/Swiss Family Robinson type stories. And more recently, the story of a real-life "last hermit" who basically lived on vacation land and lived by stealing things from closed-down-for-the-season youth camps and similar. I think part of it is the idea of total independence, not being beholden to another person (well, arguably, they all were - most of them either got some kind of help, or, like the "last hermit" stole to survive). And yes, yes, I know: Thoreau, but having read him as a mature woman and realizing that for all his swanning about over how independent he was and how meaningful his life was, he also had his mother and sisters doing his laundry, and he regularly got dinner at the Emerson's. But also the whole "could you do it" - not just, could you keep yourself alive (Sam in My Side of the Mountain seemed most capable at that, but then again, he was fictional) but also, could you survive without much human contact?

I find I think about this most at times when I've been around Too Many People. 

I did carry a couple things back with me - a packet of old drawings I did as a kid, and some papers from high school, including an award I won in French. I'll have to decide what I want to keep.

And then this

My dad's Brunton compass. I had been thinking about it (I learned the basics of using one years ago - they are mostly used in geology and surveying - but I don't think I'd remember now). I asked my mom if she still had it or if my brother had asked for it (he does things like using a metal detector where, I don't know, it might be useful). No, he hadn't, and did I want it? 

So I have it now. Don't know if I'll ever use it but it's nice to have. I also have the leather case it goes in, which is burnished from his having handled it all those years. So it's another link. 

I also have my old Systematic Botany notes from like 1988 when I took the class; I didn't even know I had kept them but my mom found them when she was going through a box of stuff. I'm glad; I can look over them and used some of the information in my class, with updates. 

I also wrapped the gifts to send home with my brother and his family

Our tradition WAS do exchange these at Thanksgiving to avoid having to mail them but womp, womp, they didn't bother to do any shopping (yet? I hope they do. I never received a birthday gift for 2023 despite my having gotten ones for everyone in that family and if they want to stop exchanging gifts they honestly have to discuss it BEFORE one person gets gifts for the other. At one point I contemplated taking my brother aside and saying "look if you don't get Christmas gifts for me I will be disappointed but I will be ANGRY WITH YOU if you don't bother to get something for our mom" but I figured that (a) would only get me snarked at a little and (b) it might be taken as license not to get me anything). So we'll see. I have things for my mom, including stocking gifts, and I plan to knit a pair of quick worsted-weight fingerless mitts as well.

And yeah, I know they're busy. But guess what? I'm busy too! And I'm busy doing EVERYTHING myself - all the housework and yardwork and working full time and serving at church and doing some volunteer work, and I still make this thing a priority. Oh well, whatever. Chalk it up to oldest-daughter syndrome, i guess.

still I hope I do get something from them, and ideally close to Christmas rather than months later.