The View from the Hermitage, Day 2

I ventured out for my annual breast-squishing today, and that's it until the husband and I take my car to the shop tomorrow night for its annual physical. We'll leave her there tomorrow evening, and see about getting her the next day. She seems to be running well, so I'm hoping it's just topping off various fluids and checking various other things.

Older son has been keeping a close eye on us. He insists that he will bring us anything we need from the grocery store, drug store, and so on. This morning, he took my mother's laundry back to her assisted living facility so that I would not have to. When he heard we would be dropping my car off tomorrow evening after the shop had closed (social distancing), he said that he would go by the next afternoon to pay and pick up the key so that we could go get it after the shop had closed.

It's a bit hard to get used to a kid, even an adult kid, offering to do so much. I guess that if he were doing something because he thought we were not able do it, it would be different. While emailing him a recipe (for rice, corn, and cheese casserole), I thanked him for all he was doing or offering to do. He noted that we were important to him, and that knowing we were "squared away" helped take away any worries he might have. We raised a good adult.

We heard today from the company with whom we had booked a May 14 trip to part of the Silk Road, in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Needless to say, the trip has been canceled due to covid-19. The company said we could defer the trip until a later date or take a full refund. I told them that with the husband's being a university professor, it was tricky to find a tour that meshed with his teaching schedule. I asked for the full refund but noted that if a rescheduled, later tour did fit with the husband's teaching schedule we would re-book with them.

I must admit that while I had my fingers crossed that we would get a full refund, I wasn't 100 percent sure that we would. I know that hotels and flights are often booked in advance, and that money might not be recoverable. We had purchased trip insurance from the tour company, and I figured that if it was the insurance handling the reimbursement we would not see the money we'd paid for the two policies. Not so. We are getting the full cost, including what we paid for the trip insurance, back. In case you're wondering, the tour company is Odysseys Unlimited, and we think they're a pretty class act.

And so we have survived Day 2 in the hermitage. I haven't gotten bored yet even if I might be boring anyone reading this. I checked the news feeds less today than I did yesterday. I hope that doesn't mean that life in the hermitage is becoming the norm.

The View from the Hermitage, Day 1

And by "hermitage," I don't mean the palace now museum in Leningrad. I told people last week that, being an over-60 asthmatic who had had pneumonia less than a year ago, I would be hermitting. This week, the practice has been termed "social distancing" and everyone is encouraged to practice it. Welcome to a pandemic!

I try to refrain from thinking of all the post-apocalyptic books I read in a past life or analogous movies I saw. I keep recalling the contemporary take on The Planet of the Apes that ended with the ominous drop of blood falling from the nose of a character about to go fly a plane full of passengers. The seed of a pandemic. It makes me wonder just what was the seed of this one.

There seems to be no news other than the covid-19 pandemic. Even the Democratic presidential primary race is being pushed aside, though part of that may be that the race has really narrowed to just two candidates. Not for the first day, The Washington Post's front page is all pandemic all over. There is one article on last night's primary debate, the first with only two candidates, but even that article led with a mention of the "growing coronavirus pandemic."

Hermitting is coming easily to me, as I suspected it would. Being an introvert does have its very good points. Thanks to social media (is e-mail considered social media?), I can keep in touch with faraway friends. Thanks to the telephone, I can keep in touch with my mother who is in an assisted living facility on lockdown. Interestingly, when I thanked them--two different people, one today and one yesterday--for restricting access to all but staff or essential medical personnel, they thanked me. It seems that not all family members think isolating the most vulnerable is a good idea.

The sports pages are shrinking daily. The NFL draft looms in April and will offer some distraction. There is no March Madness, leading The Washington Post to run the story "Sports' hiatus leaves vasectomy patients deflated." Evidently, vasectomy appointments nearly double in March compared to other months. It seems men who will be snipped look forward to spending the suggested two days of bed rest in a recliner in front of day-long-into-the-night college basketball games.

Were I still working my former job, nothing about work would have changed. I only worked from home. The current situation at the university is that faculty and students can exchange knowledge electronically while staff are expected to be on-site to maintain the normal workings of the U. Is anything normal right now? Especially with public schools closed (most of the private ones are closed as well), parents need the option of being at home. That said, I've seen several posts on a local newsgroup from teenagers ready to take on child care; they might as well earn some cash while they can. At least here, online instruction for K-12 will take a while to get going.

These thoughts have been random, put down now and then as I have been updating the local quilt guild's website (caqg.weebly.com if you're interested) and doing random things around the house. So much for all the thoughts that come to me when I am not at a keyboard. Perhaps I shall be more cogent tomorrow.

Inferior Interior?

I know people for whom their house is their canvas. The picture they show with their decorating stuns. A couple of those friends have listened to my lamenting about not being talented in terms of interior decorating and said that can't be the case. They've seen my quilts and other works and say I am creative and talented. My response is always that a room or even a wall in a room is too large a scale for me to handle. I'm more comfortable on a much smaller scale.

We're having the interior of our house repainted save for the room holding younger son's worldly goods from his younger days. The painter has suggested an accent wall, and I have surprised myself be being intrigued. An online search took me to a site at which I can play with colors. I have acutally used this site. I have looked at various shades and pondered what they might look like on our house's walls. I find myself thinking of colors followed by thinking about needing new drapes followed by thinking about needing a new rug. Bluish green or greenish blue are the colors to which I most gravitate when I think of our walls.

It does not help (me, anyway) that our main floor is a very open floor plan. I've seen several articles online that note an accent wall can be a very good thing in an open floor plan. However, the open floor plan makes me worry more about just how everything will fit together. Here's what I'm looking at.

The wall in question is in our dining area. Here's a photo. The current curtains are blue and the rug under the table is greens and blues.

I apologize for the bad lighting; I could not get the it right with the pocket point-and-shoot camera I was using. The wall in question is the one around the window--the part around the window plus the two walls on each side. I would like to get rid of the bookcases on the sides and a low bookcase that sits underneath the window. To show how this fits in, here's the kitchen, which is to the left looking at the first shot.

Yes, I know there is more than a possibly acceptable amount of clutter. I am actually looking forward to having  all our hardwood floors sanded and stained because that will mean totally emptying the house. My plan is to use that as a mechanism for uncluttering as much as possible.

But back to the accent wall. Here's the view in the other direction, into the living room.

And, finally,  here is the view looking into the foyer, directly across from what would be the accent wall. I look at this view and wonder if the white knee walls should also be painted the accent color. Would that help define the dining area? Why am I asking that question? Me decorate? The mere fact that I am considering such things is worrisome.

The painter has also suggested doing the open walls above the foyer in the accent color. I couldn't get all three surfaces in the same photo, and the lighting sucked, but here's a photo taken from the stairs. You can also see a bit of this area in the above photo of the foyer.

I'm blogging about this because I am open to comments and suggestions. I promise not to hold anything against you if you suggest something that I do and then don't like. I keep reminding myself that "it's just paint," but the fact that I am even considering this is somewhat worrisome. Does this mean I'm adulting?

A Day Late and a Dollar Short?

I somehow got in the habit of posting my New Years resolutions here, thinking perhaps that it would give me more incentive to keep them. I do a half-year report on my birthday, which just happens to be six months opposite New Years Day.

I was not at all sad to see 2019 end. While the start of the year was particularly bright with fireworks in Tromso, Norway on New Years Eve, I'd just as soon forget May through August and am still struggling to stay on something resembling an even keel. I did manage to be successful on my 2019 resolutions to finish crafty-artsy projects and to earn the monetary award in my employer's annual wellness challenge. Get into good shape? I'm not sure I'm in any better shape than I was a year ago, but I am in no way in worse shape. I'm not sure I ever figured out how to slow myself down, though a month of pneumonia definitely helped. Finally, wasting less time evaporated after May. I know that my depression is drifting downward by how much time I can waste, usually on social media or computer games. While it is not one of my 2020 resolutions, I am going to continue the fight on this one.

So, just what have I resolved to do or not do in 2020? I started from the idea of centering myself, both physically and emotionally. I was doodling geometrically (think grid paper) and came up with a design that pleased me (photo below). Since that design lent itself to four things each containing two things, that's what I worked toward. The four ended up being Health and Fitness, Carbon Footprint, Emotional, and General. You can probably tell which one was added because I couldn't come up with another specific category.

I did not want to put "get in shape" or "lose weight" or anything like those under Health and Fitness. I've failed at those in too many years. I've been saying lately that I should drink more water, so that's what I'm resolving to do. Younger son has been a lacto-ovo vegetarian since Grade 5, and I've been thinking about this having read too many articles lately on the awareness or intelligence of certain animals. I thought about resolving to only eating meat only when eating away from home, but to be honest, that seemed as if it would be difficult on a daily basis. I fell back on resolving simply to eat less meat.

Carbon Footprint made the list because it's something I've been thinking and worrying about. Do not get me started on what the current administration is or is not doing. I've been carrying metal straws with me for over a year, and do not use any straws brought wrapped in paper or plastic. If I need a straw, I use one of my metal ones. There are plenty of times, though, when the drink I ordered is brought with a straw already in the glass. I will do my best in 2020 to ask servers to hold the straws. While many locations have banned single-use plastic such as shopping bags, where I live has not. I pretty much always remember to take my own bag(s) into grocery stores, but need to remember not to enter another type of store without a bag. I hope it helps to resolve to use as few single-use plastic items as possible.

I had to put Emotional as a category because that's where I've really been struggling. Something that is not at all important in the course of my life happens, and if I am alone in the house or car, I yell my response which typically is less than polite. I over-react and/or react too quickly. And, yes, the over-reaction often removes the possibility of dealing with the matter appropriately. I'm calling this resolution mind before mouth, and really hope it works even a little. Of course, the shouting mentioned just now disturbs the natural silence of the day, so my second emotional resolution is to seek serenity in silence. I need to calm myself and enjoy the sound of nothing happening.

Finally, there is the General category where I somewhat extended two of last year's resolutions. First, I want to work at remembering that slow is smooth. Most of life can happen without split-second responses being needed. This obviously relates using my mind before I open my mouth. Finally, to take the advice of Neil Gaiman, I would like to make good art. I would like to extend what I now do comfortably and risk that someone's reaction to what I make might not be positive. One can learn a lot from failure, whether that failure be real or perceived.

It's now January 2, meaning it's time to get working on these. I wish I could promise that my next blog post will not be the one in six months in which I discuss how well I might or might not be doing with or learning from these goals. After all, quality aside, writing is definitely making art.

Random Verbal Doodling

I work part-time, flexible hours, from home. At one point some years ago, I did have a desk at which I could work if I were in town and so inclined. Now I save my unit the cost of desking one more body. I do have to put on adult clothes and darken the door of the building from time to time, the frequency of which has been on my mind lately.

Our relatively new (two or so years) boss has tried to have monthly staff meetings but never set a regular day and time such as a designated day of each month at a designated hour. That made it hard to find a time that ten people all had free. A date and time would be announced then changed a time or two before being cancelled. We probably had a staff meeting only every couple of months.

I used the term "staff" intentionally in the previous paragraph. Recently, the university administration decided that our office should be combined with another office, more than doubling our size. That office will remain nameless here but has much more of a business team mentality than does our office, perhaps because they had "Business" in their name while we never have. They have matching notebooks, for example, which they all bring to meetings. They may have matching pens, but I haven't checked. When I turn on my work laptop, Microsoft Teams loads automatically now; it has even started loading on my personal personal computer. I have tried to see how one uses Teams, without success. Actually, I don't want to know how to use it.

What I have been pondering is that as a staff, we had only sporadic group meetings as noted above. Now, as a team, we have meetings scheduled for the next three months. I find this unsettling. For one, I must drive to and from the office, which takes around 20 minutes if traffic and lights cooperate. If we are meeting at what has been our office, I then must pay $2.50 per hour to park and spend 10 minutes walking from and back to the parking garage. I make myself feel better about this by noting that the steps I take coming and going contribute to any daily step goal I might have set.

Why has the team-to-staff switch changed the attitude toward group meetings? Are team members more closely joined at the hip than staff members? Both groups should be working toward a common goal, in our case the accuracy and flow of information to, from, and about the university. Is it that the "team" has twice as many members as the "staff" did? This seems more plausible in that the number of possible connections between individual members or groups of members may require more monitoring.

And maybe I just need to find something better to do during those meetings than doodling random thoughts on a pad of paper that matches no one else's with a writing implement that matches no one else's.

Note: I started writing this post some time ago, before I decided to retire from what was, admittedly, a very good deal. Staff vs. team meeting no longer matters. I like that.

Back in Grad School ...

Back in grad school (which I started 42 years ago come August), three of us formed a small group we called the Lunatic Fringe and Literary Society. Each month, we would read a different science fiction book and discuss it over lunch, which had to be at a eatery none of us had ever visited. Given the time that has passed, it should not surprise me that so many of the places I remember visiting are no longer in business. In the case of a few, the building in which they were located is not longer there.

We should probably have read a wider variety of books. To this day, I feel overdosed on science fiction as a genre. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God are the exceptions; I thought they were excellent and am glad I read them. Anything else? Nope. I tried on a recent trip to re-read The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin after reading an essay that praised it. It was a big no-go. I could not not get into reading it, no matter how hard I tried.

There is a plus side to this affliction in that it makes the list of books I want to read shorter by one genre, the proverbial silver lining to any cloud.

If I Made You a Thing

I was pondering lots of everything recently as I trimmed the edges of my latest quilt in preparation for binding. I possibly should not have rejoined the local quilt guild or, having done so, not become a more active member. This thought occurred to me as I trimmed the somewhat un-square corners of the quilt and, again, viewed the small puckers visible on the back of the quilt.

At one guild chapter meeting, a discussion was held on what type of needles members liked for what purpose. Upon my turn, I described myself  as a "ghetto quilter" and noted that a good needle was one I could thread with my 63-year-old eyes. I similarly do not obsess over what brand of thread I use for the quilting, really only caring about the color and whether it gives the effect I want. If there were quilting "neighborhoods," mine would be one you might not want to visit.

I know, for example, that there should not be puckers on the back of a quilt after it is quilted. I assume that if one stretches the backing tightly enough when basting--with thread or pins--the layers of the quilt together and/or stretches the layers snugly when quilting, the finished back will be puckerless. I have possibly achieved an unpuckered back on a wall hanging, but I am not sure I ever have on a larger piece. The two pieces I have had professionally quilted have no back puckers, nor do the quilts other guild members bring to Show and Tell. Even when I consciously try to not have puckers, well, yeah, I still end up with them.

I also know that the corners of a quilt should be square assuming, that is, that the quilt itself is rectangular in shape. Again, I am not sure I have ever had four square corners on the same quilt. As with the puckers, I might have executed square corners on a wall hanging, particularly if it were of a size matching one of my larger cutting templates. On a larger quilt, though, the border may not always be precisely the same width along a side since I might have had to trim it more in one place or another to keep a side as straight as possible.

And then there is the binding itself. I have never mastered machine binding despite having taken a very informative workshop on the subject. In terms of hand binding, the quilts others bring to Show and Tell have no visible stitches along the length of the binding. I have asked several members how they do this, and they usually reply with something like, "You just hide them." This tells me nothing about whether I am supposed to do the stitch on the back of the quilt inside where the edge will sit and put the stitch in the binding underneath what shows. If that is the case, I wish someone would show or tell me how to do it.

And if I can't hide the stitches that hold the binding down, the same can be said about the stitches that hold the label on the back of a quilt. Actually, even my labels seem to be on the plain side. Rarely do I put any decoration around the text, and the text is generally just something about the recipient of the quilt and why he or she is getting it.

I say all this but then have to admit that no one who has received one of my quilts has ever mentioned the puckers or the corners or the visible stitches. It may be that I have only given quilts to very polite people, but if you know my friends, you know that's probably not the case. They see beyond those visible shortcomings and, I hope, know how special they are to me or to whoever asked me to make the quilt in the first place.