Again! After “The Jolly Flatboatmen” by George C Bingham, 1846
Above, cropped. Original here: www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.75206.html
Again! After “The Jolly Flatboatmen” by George C Bingham, 1846
I made this sweet potato casserole with no added-sugar, which is not to say it's not sweet (or that it's low-calorie). Grated apple, dried apricots, and coconut milk make it, for my taste, a dessert. I was going to sprinkle pecans on top, but that seems like overkill.
I'm taking it to bink & Maura's in a couple hours. It's 1 p.m. now, and snowing, so bink is going to pick me up. Also the casserole weighs a ton.
Last night I made the Morrocan fish dish. (The recipe I'd posted yesterday). It was excellent! Chopped up parsley & garlic, smushed in olive oil---that's ALL YOU NEED for anything to taste good.
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I'd put together a little packet of Thanksgiving presents (below) for Marz.
The Tucci cookbook is off eBay, not from the store. But the snowflake dishtowel, garlic press, and the Green Pan are. Tucci recommends that brand of nonstick pan--it's enamel, not Teflon.
I fried eggs in it this morning, and now I want one for myself. No stuck-on egg.
It's hilarious and wonderful having a college student visit. Mostly Marz is off seeing other friends, and when she's here, she's putting together Russian Empire flash cards for the final exam in ten days.
As I cooked, she read some out loud to me, and answered them.
I know almost nothing of Russia before the Soviet era but wasn't entirely surprised that it's a lot like now. Expansion! Autocracy! Injustice! Body Parts!
(Makes Donald look like a kook of an amateur. Not that they didn't have those too.)
Marz says our January 6 would fit right in.
Let's storm the Kremlin!
Heaven help us.
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I hate people telling me to be thankful. So treacly pious. And actually, so mild. Too mild.
'Thankful' doesn't touch what it is to find oneself in existence, a conscious bit of carbon.
So, I won't say I'm thankful for you blog-worlders, I'll say I'm gobsmacked that you and I exist in the same tiny pinprick of time and space.
Hello, there!
How's your ride going?
The Girlettes debate dinner.
“Plants!” “Animals!”
A friend told me about her concept of “base camp” when life changes – – like, if you’re climbing Mount Everest, you have to stop at different base camps and acclimate to the climate, the oxygen level. And if you don’t and you go too fast, then bad things happen. (Like you die or get the bends—I’m not sure.)
This was helpful – – you make what seems like a minor change (say, in what you eat), and a lot of attending changes may unexpectedly follow. Daily habits are attached with fine threads to many other parts of your life. So you might feel some feelings if you mess with them.
And that’s okay. Rest at base camp.
ABOVE: nodding salt and pepper shakers, made in Japan. Their heads rest--and rock--on the neck wedges. A tube extending down from the head holds s + p, which shakes out through the nostrils (!).
It's 7 a.m. as I sit down to write this Saturday morning, 32ºF (0ºC), and the sky is just lightening up. I'm drinking coffee in my new pink armchair, facing the window. On the radiator in front of me, Pearl Duquette is showing off her wool socks (knitted by Sarah W. in London a few years ago, and only worn in winter).
The girlettes' arrangement on their plank-cart reminded me of something... Some painting...
This painting doesn't mean anything to me, it's just filed in my memory. Though looking at it now, isn't that man looking at us compelling? His long legs...
(Bingham lived in Missouri, where my mother was from. I was born in Columbia, MO, where my parents met at the university.)
Bingham's "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri" is a favorite of mine--partly because what looks like a cat in the boat is actually a baby bear. Here, at the Met.
Speaking of bears, BELOW: A donated Harlequin romance.
The bear! What is going on with that bear? Its arm...
I'm glad it's the weekend, to rest up. I'm acclimating to my physical job. I'm stronger, and generally I'm not sore the day after work anymore. But I overdid it at work yesterday, and today I got the aches. I'm quite happy for why, though!
What I'd done was, I'd stayed an extra coupla hours--volunteer--to clean up the Housewares workspace, below.
I climbed up on the shelves and got down on my knees to pull out fallen, misplaced, and hidden things.
This is it AFTER I organized:
I'd hesitated to tell management I was working late, off-the-clock,
because I think it's illegal to volunteer to do the
tasks for which you are normally paid.
However, my workplace follows
no such law.
Manageress said, "Good!"
Big Boss said,
"Feel free to stay till close!"
I did.
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Here, below, is the sink and pricing station (around the corner from the grocery cart).
This area badly needs some beautifying.
I'd hung that blue-circle print on the wall years ago, to brighten it up, even though I didn't work there.
(My wall in my BOOK's work area was covered in pictures.)
I found another valuable item stashed away by the previous sorter, who'd been fired--a vintage, Mexican, wool blanket.
Not this one, below, but one like it.
This guy was such a jerk. Selling something like this for, say, fifty bucks, will make a big difference to our poor store. (The average price of housewares is probably $1.99.)
Volunteer Abby
and I are the main Housewares staff. We both sort donations (tossing maybe 25% as broken or rubbish), wash, and price them, and put
them in grocery carts.
Abby comes in 6 hours/week. She is super speedy, but says she isn't good at displays (I can see that), and she almost never puts things out on the sales floor.
I spend about a third of my time on the floor, organizing, culling, and displaying stuff--which I love.
Several volunteers help a few hours a week, putting things out for sale. They are mostly lovely people, and mostly bad at arranging things. Only one woman makes things look nicer.
Arranging things (at work) and making things look good makes me feel so very, very happy, I was curious about it. Last night I searched "dopamine of getting things done".
I like what The Guardian says--it's about the satisfaction of To-Do lists, but applies to what I am satisfied by, too. The wonderfulness of lists (sorting/arranging, in my case) is, they say, down to three reasons.
1. They dampen anxiety about the chaos of life.
Yes!
I love feeling that I've organized a bit of a disordered world. You can't beat entropy, but you can beat it back a little, and that's a rush.
2. They give us a structure, a plan to we can stick to.
For me, it's my workplace that provides structure--at home I don't feel that structure, even with to-do lists. So I appreciate that, and I also appreciate that it provides limits--I have to stop when the store closes at 5:30.
And,
3. They are proof of what we achieved that day (week, month).
Yes! Proof of life.
Like knitting, which I only did once--it's so pleasurable to see the material form:
I did that! Therefore, I exist.
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I texted Emster the mask of the god of chaos that I'd posted yesterday. Her reply is so purely her, I want to save it here.
I love a gild of a text [I don't think that's a typo] and also "git up on the tough ones".
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After "The Magdalen Reading", this is another favorite painting--Botticelli's "St. Augustine in His Study" (c.1490).
I love it for the curtain!
Salmon pink and acid green! One of my most favorite color combos.
Also I like his tuft of hair in a pony tail, which reminds me of Cindy Lou Who.
My sister and I went to the art museum last night, where we found a representation of MOOD OF THE SEASON, 2...
[“Durga Slaying the orange monster” was the first one]…
A mask of the Yoruba people of Nigeria representing Eshu, the god of Chaos. The dancer wearing it would hit onlookers with a staff... as A Warning!
As the US Coast Guard motto says, Semper Paratus:
Always ready, be PREPARED!
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Something's going on with my hair.
The other day I posted that photo of me looking like a model for a knitting magazine;
the next day, a coworker asked (as a compliment), "What have you done to your hair?";
and yesterday I saw my sister for the first time in 9 months ago, and she said,
"OMG, you look like Ali McGraw!"
When Big Boss drove me to work yesterday, he said, "You should make videos for youTube of how to make lunch with food from the food shelf."
What a neat idea! I think I'll try it next week.
I'm not wanting to film anymore Growing Older videos, but making them gave me confidence to make more. This might encourage me to research recipes too, which I'd like to do.
BELOW: The spaghetti and meatballs I made are in the red and white crock-pots on the counter in the break room at work.
On the table is the usual kind of regularly donated food: candy and commercial bakery, near or passed its sell-by date. The ingredients lists are entire paragraphs. We give the food to customers, keeping plenty for staff.
I used to eat donuts every time I worked.
Fresh fruit sometimes gets donated too, but it's often old or somehow unsettling--green oranges, here. A vegetarian volunteer took home the bag that had sat around for days.
I. Meatballs & Bears
It's snowing this morning--lightly, but enough to whiten the grass.
I'm glad that last night I'd lined up a ride with Big Boss to take my hot lunch to work this morning.
Yesterday, the food shelf had a big bag of frozen Impossible Burger "meat"balls (soy, but very like ground beef), and I made so very much spaghetti and sauce, I didn't want to carry it in.
BB lives about 3 miles away--near the store, but he always drives--so I felt free to ask him to swing by.
He's good like that--will pitch in and help people move or whatnot.
Also, it turns out to be a good morning to test-print one Xmas card. Messy.
I like the bear a lot, but is it too simple? Maybe some green behind, instead of black?
Just a quick hello, this Sunday morning.
I felt better after a walk yesterday and started to decorate my apartment for winter holidays
. . . with help!
Bears in the thrift store's parking lot, excited to be GOING HOME yesterday!
Marz named the bears Abbott (taller, paler) and Costello (littler, dark one). They are to be given baths today.
I set aside the record albums he'd priced 99¢, to look up later. It included what looked like a first? release of the Beatles' White Album, which sells for hundreds of dollars.
I'd mentioned a coworker pricing undies way cheap for me. Everyone at work does that for one another, and I think it's good and fair--it helps make up for earning minimum wage.
(Full disclosure: when Big Boss rehired me, I got a 50¢ raise above min. wage. (I'd asked for a dollar, but that was a bridge too far.)
Pricing low to buy and re-sell is different. It harms the store to drain off all the cool stuff like that.
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I'm not feeling great today--not sure why. My first week of working four shifts again? It's fun but physically tiring work.
Or it it emotional tiredness?
Post-election slump?
The Big Picture [religious/philosophical] thought system I like best/believe in most is Physics. (Physics for lay people, anyway--as explained by popularizers like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Cox.)
This perspective––"You are here"––is cheering and helpful to me:
Chill out!
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Here's Brian Cox being chill ("gloomy but smiley") about the End of the World, with Philmona Cunk (comedian Diane Morgan). They are so good together, starting at minute 1:22
Luckily I have nothing much to do this weekend, so I can chill out. I'm going to go for a walk around the lake now. It's sunny and cold---brisk! Nice.
Wishing you all well! XO Ta-da! I filled the glass trees with jewel-beaded fruit from Xmas donations at the store. So pretty!
I met my friend John for coffee yesterday, and to receive my copy of his new book, Bellosio: An Age of Miracles---a world-building tale (like Dune or Game of Thrones--but no magical animals, he promises) + a whiff of A Canticle for Liebowitz.
(Available here at Bookshop.org.)
He'd told me the germ of the plot when we sat outside, face-masked, the first chilly spring of Covid.
Later, as I've done with some of his other books, I read the first few chapters and gave feedback, which he said was very helpful.
Still, I was shocked to see the dedication:
It's 6:34 a.m. here: Good morning!
In Swahili––I asked a coworker from Kenya––Habari za asubuhi.
"Maybe you are related to President Obama," I said.
"No," he said, "his father was Luo, I am Kisii."
This guy is so nice. He's about my age and is part of a Federal program for hard-to-place senior workers--they work at the store but are paid by the program.
He is the opposite of Louisiana Laura, my favorite, whose place putting clothes on hangers he fills. I still quote her, "Groceries get much higher, we'll be eating squirrels."
She was like a raucous crow, and he is like a gentle songbird.
Their clothes-hanging skills are similarly lopsided though.
My coworkers' skills vary widely.
One is still asking, "Where does this go?" after a month.
Another says, "Should we rearrange this area?" after two days.
A couple inefficient volunteers help out in Housewares.
I fill carts with priced goods, they put them out--theoretically in the proper sections--on the sales floor.
After they leave, I pick up after them---the slotted spoon in the Bath & Body section, a Christmas cookie jar in with Clocks.
Some volunteers, though, are splendidly efficient. "This pitcher would look better if I polished the silver."
And she did, and it does:
I am having so much fun at work, and the different people are part of it, even the frustrating ones.
Yesterday I set up a blue and silver display. Why did I label the menorah? I guess in case gentiles didn't know...
I am the compulsive fact-checking editor of the world.
I'd mentioned Spotlight recently--about the Boston Globe team uncovering the Catholic Church's sexual abuse of children.
What others...?
His Girl Friday, with Rosalind Russell & Cary Grant.
Citizen Kane.
Geez, there must be dozens, but I'm drawing a blank...
Oh, Capote, about researching and writing In Cold Blood-- the New Journalism.
Network. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
OK--it's a day off, and I'm going to meet JohnShk for coffee. He's bringing a copy of his just-[self]-published sci-fi/world building novel for me! He knows I don't love that genre, but I want a copy. It's very long. "You can use it as a door stop," he said.
Take good care of yourselves out there!
I. At Work
Opening a box of Xmas donations yesterday, I laughed to see these cards. Are they perfect for the mood this season?
"What you’ve got is what you’ve got. It increases the poignancy.--From this interesting article-- different Jewish writers and thinkers respond to the question:
You’re given a life, you do the best you can, you do what you must do, what’s right for you,
and then you wear out and you’re done."
"I have no idea if there’s an afterlife. I’d like there to be. I’d like to think that when I said goodbye to my mom, it wasn’t forever.That was 2011--it hasn't gotten more right-side out since then.
But how would I know? Because some guy in the desert wrote a book and told me so? I don’t go in for that stuff.
I grew up in California, so it’s all about disaster preparedness for me.
We had earthquake drills; nuclear war drills, because it was the Reagan era; and then we had real disasters, we had fires, we had the Rodney King riots. L. A. was never safe.
And now [2011] it’s even worse—9/11, global warming.
So I took that mindset of disaster preparedness and applied it to a science fiction concept.
Zombie culture has really taken off in the last decade and it’s because of the times we’re living in.
The world hasn’t been this inside-out since the 1970s, and that was the last time zombies were popular."
III. Reading
Speaking of books, here's one of my favorite paintings, "The Magdalen Reading", by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1435 (at the Nat'l Gallery, London):