Penny Cooper would love to meet you.

I continue to feel buffered from the shock waves the school shooter sent rippling through the city by the counter-effect of the young man handing me a carnation on the day of the shooting.

His counter-act to the blast--his choice to go buy flowers and walk around handing them out--opened a protective pod in the air, 
like the seed-pod of light you see around holy figures in art... 
Its power continues to surprise me,  like a magic spell you didn't expect to take.
"Wow, that . . . WORKED?!"

Here, a metal mandorla around a marble Buddha--I like the view from the back, like a carapace:

Via Sotheby's: "A marble figure of Buddha with champlevé enamel mandorla and stand, Qing dynasty, 18th / 19th century"
_______________________

Side bar: What is champlevé?

The MMA says, "A decorative technique that fuses a powdered glassy material ["frit"] into a recess in a metal surface through the application of heat.
Enameling describes the technique of using heat to fuse frit (powdered glass) to the surface of a metal object. 
In champlevé enameling, a recess is etched, cast, or carved into the body of the metal substrate to be filled with frit."

__________________

Meanwhile, I was wondering why I haven't had much comfort offered--not to overlook many lovely messages!––and then I remembered:
I'm not on social media.
I'm sure people are reaching out to one another there, with huge outpourings of comfort and shared grief (as well as outrage, judgment, etc., which I'd just as soon miss out on.)

I feel out of it, because--I am out of it! 
And then I remember the personal act of one stranger on the day. 
For me, that outweighs all that online energy I am missing.

I have to laugh though: I feel ignored.
But I walked away.
So it's okay, but I'm still adapting to the change.

What I want is, I want to tend more to the touchable presence of people in my life. (Touchable can include paper, but I mean, other-than whatever the substance is in screens.)
 I've been low-energy there. It's okay: I've been resting.

Now I wonder, again, HOW TO DO THAT?

I've invited several neighbors to the Labor Day bonfire. 
One donated some fire logs from her garage! Which is good because the sticks from the girlettes' raft will burn up in five minutes.
 
I also sent invites to several people I haven't seen since before Covid.
One has moved out of state! A couple others are busy, but one accepted, saying the invitation had made his day.

Ms ChocolateHouse priority-mailed some of her handmade marshmallows to roast at the bonfire!
The girlettes have voted her a special Medal of Honor.
And bink drove me to get apple cider (hard and soft) and popcorn for the event.

Anyway, I think it's good to feel invited to participate, even if you can't or don't want to attend, so I also sent invitations to people far away.

And I invite you!
Really--come on over!
PENNY COOPER WOULD LOVE TO MEET YOU!

The girlettes cast a protective pod around my life too. Not on purpose, like the man with the flowers, but just by existing.

__________________
In other realms...
Blue Willow, Blue Onion

The store got a donation of vintage blue willow dishes, and a new coworker priced the pieces between 69¢ and $1.99 each.
Sixty-nine cents?

I searched the online at picclick dot com, which gives average selling prices on ebay and amazon. They average more like $10 to $30.

I texted her the link. "We should price these $4.99," I said. "Remember, if they don't sell, in three weeks they go on sale, half-price; and the week after that, a dollar."

I repriced them the next day. (The new coworker wasn't in, and didn't seem interested. In fact, like many older ladies at the store (who grew up without much money), she prefers shiny new things. 
So, I have to watch myself, not to come across as snobby.

But I tell ya, good design and good materials shine forth. 
For our sake, they deserve time and attention. 
I mean, we can be nourished by them in a way that we won't be by Ikea plates that show scratches and wear within months. 
These plates have lasted maybe a hundred years!

I realize that if a thrift worker doesn't recognize that there's a difference between the antique ceramic and modern plastic versions of this ever-popular pattern, many customers won't either. 
(Not that thrift workers are well informed. Many know nothing about the cultural history of objects.)

So I set up a display and water-colored a quick sign: 

Antique Blue Willow, 
Made in England since 1780...
Inspired by Chinese design

And then a customer who was admiring them taught me something! 
I love this.
"Oh, look," she said. "The tea cups are blue onion."

I knew naught of Blue Onion. I had thought those were pomegranates around the rim. Looking it up, I read that, in fact, the German designers of this pattern might have mistaken pomegranates for onions. 
So, ha! The original shines through.
_______________________
Side-by-Sides

I'm only in BOOK's 5 hours/week, and housewares 15, so I don't get to faff around there as much. But last week I set up a coupla good (?) side-by-sides:

Someone had set this TEEN CREED mug on the "L, M, N" book shelves--odd--shortly before I came out with a new load of fiction to display, including...

                       "Choose only a date ^
                        Who would make a good mate."

BELOW: Windy days!

BELOW: I found a pencil sketch tucked into Moby Dick:

Book Girl Amina (Book's also does Toys) is so dear--she altered this "Three Wise Men" box:

CROP ART

I put this donated crop/seed art hen & chick (or is that a rooster?) up above the sink in housewares work area.

Crop art, once a folk-craft viewed with all the respect given to puffy-paint flowers hand-painted on sweatshirts, is having a moment--the art museum here is hosting an exhibit. 
new.artsmia.org/exhibition/minnesota-folk-art-showcase

This year's entries to the State Fair included a portrait of the slain Hortmans (including Gilbert Hortman, the dog, also shot to death on June 14).
When I think about how we offer comfort and experience shock and grief, I think... I think we are somewhat, like, deadened?
 Muffled?

I FEEL THAT MYSELF.

It comes so fast and thick, and we see so much internationally on our screens, when violence breaks out locally, does it feel sort of... "more of the same"?
This Is the World We Live in Now.

How to bring love and light, and not be dimmed???
Ideas?

For me, it takes some dialing up of Intention.
I'm so glad I'd already started making the yarn God's/Love/Dolls eyes to give away. bink took this photo of me making a yarn eye on vacation, at a park above the Mississippi River.

Wrapping yarn around sticks helps me--
it is a kind of Intercessory Prayer.

BELOW: some God's eyes on the fence along the store alley. 
About half of the twenty or so I've put up have been taken.
 I want people to take them--that's the idea--but I also would love to cover the fence in them. I can't make them fast enough, and I'm not patient enough to hold onto them until I have 100.
It's okay.

Shine on!

reflective

I’d saved a baggie of the store’s shattered window glass, broken during the protests of the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, always meaning to make something with the chunks. But what?

Five years later, I am wiring them to the God’s eyes I’m making to hang on the fence of the micro-park next to my workplace. Fractured, they make reflections in the eyes.

Yesterday, a day off, I was sitting in the backyard making these. I’d been hearing sirens all morning—we’ve now joined other US cities (nearly forty) that have experienced a school shooting. The grade school is a mile-and-a-half south of here  (and George Floyd Square, the same to the east).

A young man came by, carrying a bundle of long-stemmed carnations. He walked toward me, holding out a spray of white carnations—“For you.”

“Oh!” I said, “You’re making me cry. I’m just making these God’s eyes to give away too – – would you like one?”

Thank you, he said, but I should keep them for someone else. He walked on—I saw him give flowers to a woman and her little girl—and then out of sight.

It shocked me, on this terrible day— this kindness from a stranger.  When I do such a thing, I feel it is minuscule, and in terms of real-politik, I guess it is. But  being on the receiving end, I felt it as enormous. 

I put the flowers in a vase and kept them near me until bedtime, and then I moved them to the bookshelf by my bed.

[comments off; emails welcome]

Protection against ostriches?

 On vacation—practically unheard of! I’m at a B&B with bink in a river town a couple hours away, where I’ve never once been.

I was inspired by our room’s pale green and pink – –one of my favorite color combinations – – to make this Love’s eye for my art gallery—the fence by  work. It makes me laugh – – like Phyllis Diller meets the Eye of Sauron:

At work, Volunteer Art had hung another Japanese paper umbrella – – he does this whenever one gets donated – – I think there are six now. It’s the gorgeous square orange one:

 He and I both love when they’re tattered and you can see their inner architecture. BOOK’s feels like a magic umbrella forest. It’s the best section in the store.

Hm, I see Amina turned The DaVinci Code face-forward, which I would never do. We’re still getting that best seller donated, but I don’t think a copy ever sells. I should stop culling them and see how many copies we could collect.

Traveling has shown how ‘no-sugar’ is not the norm. Breakfast here is at 9, but there’s a self-serve Keurig coffee maker and cream—but the cream is “French vanilla “, which is like ice cream. And there was a complimentary bottle of local wine in our room, “semi-sweet” red—so syrupy, it could have been Mogen David. I drank a glass anyway and fell into a torpor…

However, even the drive-in we went to last night had two vegan options—black bean or walnut burgers.  That’s an interesting development. I had fish fry. 

Love’s Eyes

 To hang on the fence around the park next to the thrift store – – I’d hung a couple of my lino prints, (“You are made of stars”, “Don’t be afraid” in English in Spanish); and some adapted toys, but for the neighborhood they felt a lot too “artsy” or ironic.

Recently someone has been donating all sorts of odds and ends of scrap art making material – – including 30 prepared for-craft natural sticks, and a bunch of almost used up skeins of yarn so I’ve been making yarn eyes to give away on the fence.

Abbondanza!

 Harvest season! Sunflowers at the bus stop…. I made sweet corn and baby red potato soup this morning to take to work—all donated farm-overflow. I don’t use a recipe – – I just sauté everything up – I also had celery, a few carrots, onion, and threw in some capers from the Niçoise salad. 

Today I am carrying around one of pope John 23rd’s “just for today” intentions:

“Just for today… I will not seek to improve or instruct anyone but myself.”

Good luck with that, Self! 😂

Corn Season and the Balloon Game

Saturday morning. I am cooking up a ton of fresh vegetables––
a midwestern ratatouille of tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant--and corn––
cooking on the stove before the day becomes unbearably swampy. 
When the veg are done sautéing, I put the pan outside to cool off, so the whole apartment doesn't heat up for too long.

The temps aren't too bad––in the 80s––but the humidity is right up there. (91% at this moment--but that's because it's raining.)

Botanists say we feel the corn sweating!
In August the huge crops pump so much moisture into the air, even the cities feel the effects. Most of the crop is field corn--for animals and corn syrup, but the corn for eating fresh is so sweet and tender right now, I ate it raw off the cob for breakfast.

 
ABOVE: Cooking Nicoise salad for dinner in my backyard the other evening. Though the salad is French in name, I felt very Sicilian---fitting for what would have been my auntie's 100th birthday.

And they harvest tuna in Sicily too. 
Vintage photo of Sicilian tuna fisherman--those arms! That cigarette!

BELOW: K's birthday-eve dinner. The wrought-iron table & chairs belong to the upstairs neighbors. They almost never sit out though and have said I should use it anytime.

(Marz took the photo.)

_____________

Books displays from the past week. 

A bunch of books in French came in. I especially love the soft pink Penguin cover. 

Native-themed books mostly sold right away:

BELOW: I'd wondered if our city newspaper from Sept. 12, 2001, would sell (for $2.49). 
It did. 
Or, it wasn't there the next day, anyway...

Shoplifting is rampant at the store. It used to bother me a lot; 
now I more or less accept it. 
Mostly, if anything, it bothers me as a management issue: 
though we ask shoppers to check their bags behind the counter, often no one walks the floor to keep an eye on things. It's an honor system.
Most people do line up to pay for things. But it seems sort of optional.

My pet peeve is cleaning up empty DVD cases, torn open boxes... “Take the packaging!” I want to say, but I suppose it's a matter of making it less bulky to slip into clothes.

At least with books, they have to take the entire object--no packaging! And I have a fondness, too, for anyone who wants books––even if they don't pay for them.
But the store doesn't make much money, and we workers earn minimum wage, no benefits, so it'd be nice if that income didn't walk out the door...
________________________

I think stealing may be (?) something of a social norm in the US now, as we have been forced to see that our business and political leaders (et al.) lie, steal, and cheat.
For my generation, that was evident in Vietnam, Watergate . . . then Enron, etc. And Bill Clinton... Man, he looks far worse in retrospect.

What is it like to grow up in the 21st century, shaped by 9/11? 
And the exposure of child rape in the Catholic Church, and #metoo, and, and, and... The Big Orange Lie.
Of course bad things always existed, but they weren't on constant display like now, Lit Up On Your Own Screen for Your Viewing Pleasure.

What are society's moral standards?
I don't even know.
'Of course everyone steals'?

Maybe.

But you don't have to accept that.
I don't have to.

When the larger culture frays and leaders lead you to quicksand, I think maybe it's like Antigone, or the fictional Article 15 of Congo's constitution:
Figure it out yourself.

I feel that way--that it's between me and me.
Last month I was so mad at Big Boss doing something grossly unfair, I felt like stealing from the store--to right the balance emotionally. I had to talk myself down! 
You don't want to be that person.

I don't. It's not about me & BB, or me & the larger culture, or me & some Spiritual Being. 
It's about me & me, who does of course intersect with all those other things.

Keep the Balloon Afloat.

Writing about this sounds so serious, but really, it could be frolicsome!
Like keeping a balloon that's inflated with air (not helium) from touching the floor. If it does touch the floor, that's okay--it will not explode, it will bounce.
But the idea is to keep it afloat.

With that lightness, I can say that I want to play out the rest of my life inching toward being the best person I can be--
keeping myself buoyant enough that I don't fall to the floor and drift in a corner to wither like a dusty old balloon--or, not until I have to. 
(I don't mean physically, primarily, though that too.)
 
This feels like a grandiose thing to say, but isn't it a natural desire, to inch toward being our own best self? 
I am not claiming to be an Olympian.

What does "best" even mean, and how do we practice that?

No solid answers; I'm musing here...

I'm thinking that for me, it's a matter of noodling along in centimeters, not taking giant leaps forward. 
It's more like harm reduction than like aiming for sainthood or Bodhisattava status.
(Ha! No.)
'Do No Harm' or the easier-sounding 'reduce the harm you do' actually takes a lot of self-awareness.

I mean simple but not easy stuff like not snapping at coworkers when I’m hungry and they are annoying. (I DO need to eat; they ARE annoying.)

I'd say it's mostly about continuing to LEARN & Practice to see with the eye’s light touch.

This donated Olympus Infinity camera will not help, despite its name:

I like the idea of practicing Unconditional Positive Regard* toward self and others:
"Positive" here doesn't mean judging as Good, 
it means seeing clearly, plain paying attention to What is there. (Not what is not there, the "negative".)
"I see you, I see me, as we are." 

It's not pretending everything is fine! 
It might mean, "I see that you are doing something evil." 
Or, that I am doing something harmful.
And it's not pretending you don't care. The balloon game is: you DO care, but with love not judgment. You don’t slam the balloon or tie it up. 

. . . And, then what?

Well, there's the art of it, isn't it?
Figuring that out.

My summer of Doing Nothing is feeling pretty helpful for me, though the effects of not-doing are kinda hard to gauge.

Of course I do plenty--I'm writing this, for instance-- but compared to many people around me, it looks like nothing.
My sister, for instance, who is retired, stays so busy with volunteer, social, athletic, travel, and cultural activities, she almost seems frenetic to me. 
She suggested doing something with me, but... "I can't make plans till the end of August."

Gee. I'm free today.

Also, I have to deal with feeling Unimportant.
I am not getting all the lovely dopamine/endorphine hits of social praise--especially since getting off social media and then coming back to blogging with comments OFF.
 
(I know dopamine/endorphine hormones are different but I don't remember which does what. 
But, you know--some activities like looking at the phone are like giving a lab rat a hit of sugar. When maybe what the lab rat wants is to play on the jungle gym.)

The rain is supposed to lighten up, and I will go to the library to pick up a DVD of Ram Dass I'd put on hold:
Becoming Nobody.

 There's a balloon!

___________________________

* Unconditional Positive Regard is a phrase from psychologist Carl Rogers--I read it in a book by Gabor Maté, MD, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction (2008).
This book was super helpful to me, working around a lot of people who struggle with or are destroyed by addictions to heavy substances-- and by society's treatment. 
And I deal with my own (less destructive than fentanyl) 'hungry ghosts' and unskillful responses to life.

Maté writes about working as a doctor at the Portland Hotel for people who are addicts, in Vancouver's skid row district:

Overwhelmed with absurdity, beautiful clutter, and vegetables

 Just a quick blog – – I’m about to cook up ripe tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, and green peppers: farm produce overflow donated to the food shelf – – I need to cook them now so they don’t go bad.

And I’m making Niçoise salad for my friendKG’s birthday-eve dinner here in the yard tonight—I had to go to the store to buy baby red potatoes and capers and lemon, otherwise I had all the nice things.

I went to the expensive grocery store that has really nice vegetables – – and I bought a cantaloupe and three big peaches too. 

As I was waiting at the bus stop to go home, a lovely and disheveled (homeless?) young man came up and asked me the time, tapping his wrist – – I was a little surprised that young person would still make that gesture. Has it become universal and timeless?

I told him the time, and then he laid down against the wall with his bags of possession and appeared to fall asleep. As the bus was coming though, I saw he stirred and looked around, so I took a peach from my bag and went over to him…

“Would you like a peach?”

He looked a little startled.

 “Yes.” 

And then he laughed a funny little laugh, which I heard as placing our interaction in The Realm of the Absurd.

It was like a frame around us, like a movie still: old woman at bus stop gives a peach to young man on ground.

“Thank you,” he said.

———————

Here is a doll rescued from death on a raft on the open sea. She was naked, so was given a new dress.

“I had a brush with death,” she says proudly.

————

And here, below, are some of the grab-bags I’ve been assembling from that certain art-scavenger donor’s decluttering… These are a great joy to me, but sadly the donor has been brung so low with depression, she has taken a break from her decluttering project. I have offered her help. She said she’s too fragile now but appreciates the offer.

“I will stand by”, I said.

Work Boards

Some stuff I posted in my work area—along with my coworker Sander, the young man who lit the Hanukkah candles for the Girlettes.

1958 French theater poster —Caligula is creepy but it’s such cool art… 

  

I posted my Faith Hope Love Thrift prints in the exit hallway (all taken now—will post more):

________

Side-by-Sides

________

Altered birthday card for a friend (“12” years old to 68)

June 14 & Navalny: Conviction, Faith, and Showing Up

Catching up, here...

A favorite sign at the June 14 "No Kings" march and rally. 
It was a Sunday morning...

She's smiling--there was lots of that--but overall it was somber:
On the morning of the protest, we had heard that a gunman had stalked and shot four people here, killing two people, state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband–– and their dog. 

Their dog! Gilbert, a golden retriever, "was with them again Friday when the Hortmans lay in state at the Capitol in St. Paul." [via PBS]

Political assassinations; and the gunman was still on the loose. 
It was too late to cancel the rally at the State Capitol, but organizers warned people to stay away. Many I talked to said they felt more compelled to SHOW UP.
 "It matters even more," I said to a friend who expressed concern.

I hadn't made a new sign--figured my cat could do another round...
Below, with bink and King Kong... 

More cat eyes, more smiles--it was good to be around others:

And Alexei Navalny... 
Talk about showing up. You know, he had returned to Russia after almost dying of an attempted assassination by poison, knowing what would happen.

Navalny predicted, in his prison diary:  

"I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here. There will not be anybody to say goodbye to... All anniversaries will be  celebrated without me. I'll never see my grandchildren."

And that did happen. He was arrested and sent to an Arctic prison, where he died of maltreatment.

Why, people were always asking him, did he return, knowing that?

Because, he said,  

"I don't want to give up my country or betray it. 
If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.

"And, if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. 
You just think you do. 
But those are not convictions and principles; 
they’re only thoughts in your head." —newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/alexei-navalny-patriot-memoir 

Reading the ^ New Yorker excerpts of Nalanvy's prison diaries, I was amazed at two things.

1. He's funny! 

Here he pretends to blame his wife, Yulia, for writing to him about "preparing crimes": 

2. Nalanvy was a man of faith.
Raised atheist, he had entered the Orthodox Christian faith.

This especially struck me because Stalin-era gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov noted faith as a factor in maintaining your humanity. 
(Along with listing survival skills of spite and indifference. (Spite, I love that.))

And it seems faith literally did help Navlany. He didn't survive, that was not possible, but he did maintain his humanity--and his sense humor.
About living/dying in prison, Navalny wrote: 

"You lie in your bunk looking up at the one above and ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts. It is not essential for you to believe some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone. 

"But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? 

"If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about?  
Why, under your breath, would you mumble a hundred times something you read from a hefty tome you keep in your bedside table? Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself. 

"My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else. 
They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches. 

"As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me."

______________

To wrap up, a bit of wicked humor. You remember Trump said children only need two or three dolls and five pencils?