I. My Hair: From Caesar to Tintin
This week, Media Jeff (store volunteer) said it looked good–"like Caesar".
Caesar? I'd rather look like Tintin, I said, with a flip in the front.
Housewares volunteer Nina was standing nearby. She's a cosmetics enthusiast. "I'll bring you some product!" she said.
She brought in three hair waxes and pastes for my very own. (I own zero cosmetics, not even a lipstick anymore.)
Yesterday I slicked back the sides and flipped up the front.
Much better!
I took this selfie in the bathroom of the French Café where Marz used to work. I went there yesterday after the Needlework meet-up at the library. (The needleworkers meet on the first and third Saturdays of the month. This was my second time.)
II. Tips
There were about a dozen women--most of them knitters and crocheters, a couple cross-stitchers.
Both crocheters were making amigurumi--one, a set of 12 wee figures from the Nutcracker Suite; the other, a topsy-turvy figure with a reversible flower-petal skirt. The knitters were making hats, scarves, or sweaters, from simple beginner's patterns to intricate Scandinavian ones.
I made several God's eyes (below).
I've realized that pencils (slippery and six-sided) don't hold yarn in a straight line, so you end up with a circle instead of a diamond.
Now I realize that, I'll start using that feature on purpose. Flower colors with leaf-greens behind.
The center eye on pencils looks like a rose.
The one on the far right looks kinda... fleshy, like labia, doesn't it? I'll try to play that up more.
I'm starting to take time to add decorations again, like the felt baubles on the blues-and-white Greek eye above. (I'd stopped doing that when I'd wanted to make 100 eyes fast.)
I made this one at the French café.
At the group, a knitter had asked me if she could have the Greek eye that I'd made there. She wants to hang it at her workplace-- in food service at a tough grade school. Since the school outlawed phone use this year, she said, there've been more student fights in the cafeteria.
I don't know if she feels the need for protection from school staff or the kids!
I'm happy when people want the eyes. Since she'd wanted one, I left the second Greek eye at the café as a tip, with a tiny note saying what it was.
You don't have to tip––it's bar service––but I usually do put something in the tip jar (though I know the mostly young women who work there earn more than I do).
(Tipping is weird. The more upscale the place, the more servers make, while working in the grungiest food service--fast food--servers make NO tips.)
Anyway, lately I've started to cut back on tipping because prices are so high--and most places charge a dollar extra for non-dairy (plant) milk, oat, soy, or almond.
I'd paid $7 for an oat-milk cappuccino.
I don't like that upcharge.
I think places should encourage dairy-free milk for health and sustainability reasons--and kindness to cows, too--and spread the expense out so everyone pays the same, no matter which milk they choose.
(Like, places don't charge more if a customer uses the bathroom...)
III. Choose Your Milk
Starbucks stopped upcharging for vegan milks last fall--as a sales incentive, and also because of pressure from animal rights groups. (per PETA).
I'd hoped more places would follow their lead.
Some have. The manager at a café that did told me the milk industry makes dairy super cheap for them, and non-dairy milks cost a lot more. "But you don't have to pay for refrigeration."
"And it's good for the cows", I said.
There's a coffee shop here that makes non-dairy milk the default--I love that!
I'd made an effort to eat less animal products a couple years ago, after I got some wonky kidney readings.
Now I'm just finding I don't want to eat them--especially flesh.
Cheese, I still love.
A wealthy friend of the thrift store (I don't know who) is hosting a thank-you dinner for staff next weekend.
We were asked to choose an entrée from the menu ahead of time. Everyone was choosing salmon, and I was going to too--and then I thought about how salmon are farmed. It's disgusting.
But--how nice––they offer vegan bolognese. So I chose that, and will bring a little baggie of Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top.
IV. Postcard Exchange
One of the needleworkers, Juno, a trans-woman, brought a photo album of postcards she's received through an international postcard-swap,
PostCrossing.com. (Also on IG.)
[Btw, I use pseudonyms or nicknames for most people on my blog.]
This online organization has facilitated people sending and receiving 80 million postcards since 2005.
I
thought it'd be boring to look at someone's postcard album, but a lot
of the senders had put creative care into their mailings, with lots of
fun stamps and some wild postcards.
Juno said that she'd listed LGBTQ+ in her profile, and that some people try to send stuff that matches profiles. So she gets a lot of fun queer-themed cards, including a card from Finland with that country's OFFICIAL Tom of Finland postage stamps
Another needleworker, Christine, had signed onto Postcrossings recently because of Juno.
And another woman passed around instructions she'd printed for knitting washcloths--"the easiest thing to learn to knit on".
I love all this physical sharing!
I don't want to learn to knit, but this sort of thing is exactly what I wanted in a seeking out live get-togethers---the physical presence of other people leading to exchanges of collateral tidbits.
And I do want to exchange postcards. I have lots sitting around, and some fun stamps. And some cool postcards get donated to the store too.
Christine and I exchanged addresses for a direct swap, and I think I'll sign up at postcrossings too.
________________________
V. "Better to do it"
For the time being, I'm giving up on visiting churches.
Tooooo many things have to line up for me to fit with a church. Hardly anything has to line up for a crafting group to work.
Not even crafting itself!
Yesterday, one woman confessed that she doesn't really do needlework, she just brings something to work on so she can socialize.
No one has started a political discussion, though sometimes there's some mention... "He's a Trumper", said disparagingly.
There's no group recital of a Land Acknowledgement. The library that hosts the group shares our county's Land & Water Acknowledgement, and it has active programs about/with indigenous people--with offerings this month, Native American Heritage Month.
You know I'm not a particular fan of Land Acknowledgements.
I'm only mentioning it because I'd thought the church I visited was hypocritical in reciting a strongly worded one while doing nothing (so far as I could see).
OMG, here's a hilarious mock-up of these acknowledgements from Reservation Dogs--even our ancestors the Dinosaur Nation get acknowledged.
(I love that! But... WHAT ABOUT Conifers & Ferns?!)
The characters only tolerate it because they are getting gift cards for attending.
I'd loved that show but had forgotten that scene.
I came across it in an NPR article from 2023, So you began your event with an Indigenous land acknowledgment. Now what?
"Indigenous leaders and activists have mixed feelings about land acknowledgments. While some say they are a waste of time, others are working to make the well-meaning but often empty speeches more useful."
I have so many questions though.
When this church, for instance, recited its strong statement about indigenous people, I wondered,
. . . What about ALL the other people our ancestors oppressed?
And what about the oppression of those ancestors themselves?
Should the men stand and say,
"Our ancestors have sexually and socially exploited women"?
Should women say, "Throughout history, we've emotionally manipulated our children and partners"?
But... this is so specific.
Ridiculously specific.
Our ancestors weren't all one sex or race or nation... or even species.
Dinosaur Nation!
In the end, I like the Catholic Confiteor (I acknowledge...).
It's a one-size-fits-all confession of personal [fill in the blank] failure.
I acknowledge that the church has hurt many people,
but to me, this is not a crushing statement, but an uplifting one:
I fuck up. We all fuck up.
WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.
Let us help one another.
"I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned through my own fault,I especially like that kicker, "What I have failed to do".
in my thoughts and in my deeds,
in what I have done and what I have failed to do.
Therefore I ask you, my brothers and sisters, and all the angels and saints in heaven to pray for me to the lord our God."
________________
The previous pope, Francis, had supported the move.
"Francis said he was in favor of returning the items and others in the Vatican collection on a case-by-case basis, saying:I like that. Need to do it? Want to do it?
'In the case where you can return things, where it's necessary to make a gesture, better to do it.'"
--npr.org/2025/11/15/nx-s1-5609835/vatican-pope-returns-indigenous-artifacts-canada
Better to do it.
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