Elie Tahari Geometric Boatneck Long-Sleeve Top

Well I thought it looked really cool. The pattern.

I imagined it in cotton, which is really the only material in which I can imagine a shirt, though I saw it was made of 95% viscose. What is viscose? Some comfortable material made from trees, so far as I could find out via websearch.

It was on sale, bringing it to maybe $10 more then I can remember ever paying for a shirt.

But I kept looking at it, thinking, how *practical* it would be: A pattern with blue and black in it. Good for wearing with jeans to work, for dressing up with black slacks. A shirt, so it even works for work via Zoom. 

And that geometric pattern was so cool.

I got some kind of first-time-buyer discount from Saks which helped a little with the price.

The shirt arrived in a very large box. The shirt was in s smallish plastic bag, wrapped in tissue paper. Below that was enough tissue paper to help wrap presents. Too bad it's past that season.

Today I remembered to look for it, to try it on. I found the very large box.

The material was slinky and wrinkly. The dark color pattern is on the outside. It's white on the inside.

There are some hanging threads at the ends of the seams. Is that normal for the lower end of a fancy designer brand?

It did feel nice when I put it on.

It's made in China, which is disappointing. After hearing more about the Uyghurs this weekend, I resolved to not order anything else unless I can be assured it's not from China. And I've heard that some stuff marked as 'Vietnam' is also from China.

The reason I buy XL is to hang loosely and disguise how fat I am, as much as can be done. This shirt clings to my paunch. I look pregnant. 🙁

Still, it's nice, and too confusing to return. And I'm always hoping I'll get better at exercise and lose weight. (hoping for decades in fact)

I took photos for the online review, then found that Saks doesn't accept photos in its reviews.

Hence this blog post.

Here are the photos, followed by the description copied off the Saks website.

Threads at seam-ends

The best selfie I could manage.

The shirt showed the bumps of my jeans-fly, so I took them off and photographed how it looked over smooth blue leggings.

Kind daughter took my photo

From the Saks website:

Sleek long-sleeve top cut with a wide boatneck, boasts a stunning geometric print.

• Boatneck
• Long sleeves
• Pullover style
• 95% viscose/5% spandex
• Machine wash
• Imported

SIZE & FIT

• About 25" from shoulder to hem
• Model measurements: 5'10" tall
• Model is wearing a US size Small

Style Code: 0400014878635

Strategies for Living in a Messy House

 1) Be sure to have a sacred place for the things you really can't lose.

1.1) Things you need often, like car keys, wallet, should be in a visible bag that zips shut and stays always in one place when you're at home.

1.2) Things like birth certificates, passports, should have a designated drawer that you know is there for the important stuff.

1.3) The top surface of anything is not a safe place for something not encased in a larger, preferably sealed, container. Things get knocked off surfaces to land behind things, under things, or just get lost in piles of junk.

2) Tape a long colorful ribbon to the TV and other remotes.

3) Attach USB drives to a lanyard or colorful ribbon or cord.

4) Have a bulletin board for the stuff you mustn't lose, like bills.

5) Try to have all your bills sent via email.

6) Set up Autopay for utilities and other bills whose amounts don't vary by much.

7) Lay out all of your clothes, including socks and underwear, the night before, along with deodorant and anything else you don't want to be hunting around for in the morning.

8) You need a calendar that everyone in the house can see, that everyone in the house updates with meetings, appointments, parties, or anything that takes up time, and that everyone in the house looks at a lot. This should be close enough to the phone and have a pen attached so you can write down the appointments when they're made over the phone, and for when the automated reminder phone calls come in.

If your family is all able to use a shared Google Calendar for this purpose, congratulations.

frugal cleaning of messy houses

1) When you need to wipe gunk from the kitchen sink drain, look around for a discarded paper napkin on the floor. Then it can have a second use in picking up disgusting crud before you throw it away.

2) If your vacuum cleaners all got clogged with hair and broke, you can get the carpet somewhat clean by running your sneakered foot along it. This will roll up clumps of hair with dust trapped inside. You can pick up a clump, throw it away, then decide if you want to do more. You can get different parts of carpet clean at different spare moments. It's a nice exercise.

3) Entire house a mess? Clean the bathroom first. You know why.

4) Why do socks need to match? If the texture is the same, then it doesn't matter if the colors don't match. You've got a pair. They'll feel fine. Different colored socks is a fashion statement. You can go for it with no guilt.

5) Hang clothes, placemats, or whatever needs rinsing on the clothesline before it rains.

6) If you ever try to organize things in bins, make sure to label the bin with what category of things should go in there.

Some years back, I organized the contents of bathroom cabinet into different plastic shoeboxes but made the fatal mistake of not labelling the categories.

Overs the years, the contents entropically shuffled.

Whenever I'm rooting through the boxes trying to find something, I think I really ought to get around to organizing them again, this time with labels. It hasn't happened yet.

7) Try cleaning the kitchen floor. It's non-controversial; usually doesn't involve much personal junk to argue over; and you can clean around anything you can't move.

I did my kitchen floor in stages. Swept and mopped the part that wasn't covered in junk. Then another week or so later, cleaned up some of the junk, reclaimed part of the floor. Finally, I could look down the entire kitchen floor to the back wall. It was clean. It was wonderful.

8) Once you get a part of your place clean, such as the kitchen floor, practice more frequent maintenance cleaning. Maintenance cleaning is much quicker than long-delayed cleaning. You can sweep the kitchen floor in 30 seconds if you already swept it yesterday (or after the last disaster ten minutes ago). 

9) Every part of your dwelling that looks normal is a boost of sanity to all of its inhabitants. Look with tunnel vision, if need be, at these small victories when you want to feel normal. Keep these places, if no place else, clean. Hold them tight against the evils of chaos. You will survive. You will even expand the territory of saneness.

10) Total victory is a mirage. Slightly more livable is your goal.

Together we didn't quite all go yet

Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Preliminary Review:

I won this book, so feel obligated to review it ASAP.
I was surprised when a real hardcover book actually showed up in the mailbox. I'd received emails saying I won and I was like, yeah, how?

I don't know if there was a blurb to read before I entered to win this book. If there was, I probably wouldn't have read it in order to avoid spoilers. All I had to see was "J. Michael Straczynski" and thought wow, I love Babylon 5, so I want to read his book.

Now there's no reason to expect a writer to write the same kind of thing over and over. In fact, the work usually gets dull when they do that. The problem here is that had I read the blurb, I would not have wanted to read it: A book about people on a road trip to suicide? No. That's cutting too close to home. Our family was devastated by one young cousin's suicide some years back.

Anyhow, when I got the book, I did read it non-stop to page 92. I thought, "This is very readable!" Then I remembered that the last book I'd been reading was a Barnes&Noble translation of Herodotus, so sure, this book is easier than Herodotus (though not as much like fantasy--Herodotus is weirder than Hobbit Town.)

The one-word-review I kept wanting to give this is "Competent"--which from me is high praise. The book is well-written. I've read, put up with, or given up on a lot of books that were not competent. With this book, you are in good hands, if you want to read it.

The problem is that after that first weekend when the book arrived, things have gotten kind of depressed--nothing to do with the book, just a coincidence. I've read up to p.182 so far, and it's sufficiently interesting and diverting, but I felt I was like reading it for homework. No reason for self-discipline while wallowing in depression. So I lay back in bed and flicked on a Rivers of London audiobook for a re-listen, which is the kind of thing I do when I'm depressed, only in the past it was Discworld novels, and before that, well, that kind of thing.

I will get to the end of this. I am curious about the characters. Admittedly not desperately curious.


View all my reviews

4-foot-square garden - Current Status

• Flopped over chives (two types!)
• Untamed oregano. Pollinators love its flowers.
• Hopeless tomatoes - Will they grow before frost?
• Hopeful lavender - The tallest one has a flower.
• Some sugar snap peas still hanging on. 

Cuisinart CBK-110 Breadmaker Review

I love this bread maker. I've had a lot of fun and eaten a lot of bread.

Easy-bake

It's a cool way to bake--you just put everything into one container, and then you don't have to worry about forgetting it, or timing the baking, etc.

I've baked way more bread than anything else since it arrived. The machine makes baking bread easier than baking brownies or cookies or whatever it was I used to bake.

It first arrived the Friday before Labor Day weekend 2020. I made so many loaves my kids were complaining that they were tired of the smell of fresh-baked bread.

You do need to experiment a bit to get good results.

Don't follow the recipes that come with the machine

The worst thing about this breadmaker is the recipe booklet. If you purchased this machine and only tried to follow the recipes in the booklet, you would think it was a terrible machine.

I don't know why the booklet only calls for all-purpose flour. The two recipes I tried following the booklet resulted in "cratering", that is did not come out well.

The King Arthur Flour website has a recipe that does work with all-purpose flour:

• English Muffin Bread for the Bread Machine

And see my previous blog entry for more recipe advice.

I tried the booklet's French bread recipe again, but this time with bread flour:

• The 1.5 lb recipe came out small, so I tried the 2 lb recipe the next day.
• The 2 lb recipe also did not rise to the top of the pan, but it was better.
• I didn't have kosher salt, so used a smaller amount of regular salt.
• It worked reasonably well with the delay-timer.
• My family complained that the crust is too tough, but the bread ready by 8am disappeared by late afternoon nonetheless. It isn't perfect, but it is decent and convenient.

Crust Color Setting is Only for White Bread Program

The booklet talks about setting the crust color for French bread, but crust color is not an option when using the French Bread setting. Could my machine be defective in that way?

I can't set it for the Whole Wheat program either. It really doesn't matter. 

2-poud loaf?

It's best to make the 1.5 pound version of a recipe to see how high it rises in the machine before you try its 2-pound version. Some 2-pound versions work in the machine. Other ones rise in the baking so much that they lift the lid and look like a monster dough scene from a movie.

If you'll be around in the kitchen, you can experiment with a 2-pound recipe: just be ready to pull the loaf out to bake in the oven. If the bread is very high at the "take out the paddle" stage, you may want to pull out half the dough to bake in the oven. You can make them into rolls or something fun.

Never use the delay timer for a 2-pound loaf recipe you haven't tested first.

Cleaning

In the many experiments, sometimes the bread rose and cooked against the window of the bread machine. The easiest way to clean the machine is to put some water in the bottom of the bread pan and leave it inside the machine. The water will evaporate onto the window, which makes any crust that stuck there easy to wipe off. The bread pan is also easier to clean after that soaking.

I use a small brush (possibly a test-tube cleaner?) to clean the hole in the paddle.

Paddle is Metal. Metal retains heat.

When not using the delay timer, it is very useful to be able to hear the beep and take the paddle out. You still have the hole from the paddle pivot pole in the bottom of the loaf, but not the paddle shape or the paddle.

Sometimes the paddle remains in the machine when you dump out the bread. This happened more often after I used the machine for several months.

When the paddle is still in the bread: 

1) Cut very carefully around so as not to wreck your bread knife or score a line on the paddle.

2) Remember that the metal paddle stays hot longer than the bread around it has cooled. Don't touch the paddle even if you've already been safely grabbing pieces of the warm bread around it. 

Wire to pull out handle

The machine came with a weird wire loopy thingy to pull the bread pan handle up when it is hot. I found this hard to keep track of until I started hanging it on the knob of a cabinet near the machine. You can use a fork anyway for the same purpose.

It would be good if they built in a holder for this, if they're going to provide such a thing.

Fresh bread pan is hot

I was very glad for my silicone pot-holder mitts for pulling out the bread-pan and holding it sideways to dump out the bread onto the cutting board. Highly recommended. The fresh baked bread, pan, and paddle are very hot.

Loaf shape

The bread is the bread-machine upright non-standard shaped loaf. But the machine's countertop footprint is compact, and the machine is less expensive than the horizontal bakers.

I think the optimum way to cut it is to start at the flat end until the length of the loaf is about the height of a standard slice of bread. Then rotate the bread and slice from the puffy top to the sliced-off bottom. Others disagree.

Whatever the shape, fresh-baked bread tastes wonderful.

Recommended Recipes and Ingredients for Bread Machine Bread

 My brother-in-law gave me his old bread machine, along with a recipe book by Beth Hensperger. This worked great until we broke the bread machine. I still used the recipes in the Hensperger book, figuring that if they worked jumbled in a machine, they'd also work mixed up in a bowl and baked in the oven.

Years later, I finally bought a new bread machine. I used the Hensperger book again.

I still use it, but my two standby bread machine recipes are on the King Arthur Flour Website:

• 100% Whole Wheat Bread for the Bread Machine
• English Muffin Bread for the Bread Machine

The whole wheat recipe calls for optional flax seed or similar, so it's worth buying some flax seed. 

I've used acorn flour instead of the flax seed and it tasted really good.*

I've recently added a tablespoon of flax seed to two of the white bread recipes in Hensperger; it did no harm, and gave the bread a friendly speckle.

The English Muffin bread uses all-purpose flour, so it might be a good first recipe for you, if you haven't gotten around to buying bread flour. It's called English Muffin bread, but you can just call it bread. You can add raisins to this one if you'd like. It also works well with the cinnamon swirl feature shown in the Cuisinart Bread Machine video:

Take out the dough at the "Remove the Paddle" beep, stretch it out, sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon (and raisins) then roll it back up and put it into the machine to bake.

Suggested purchases:

• Bread Flour
  
• Bread Machine (Instant) Yeast:  because the King Arthur bread machine recipes calls for it. If you can only find the regular Active Dry Yeast, that will be fine, don't worry. The non-instant yeast is probably better for the long Artisan bread cycle, but that's just my guess.
  
• Nonfat Dry Milk powder: Sometimes the bread recipe calls for this. Sometimes the bread recipe calls for milk, but either you don't want to use up your milk, or you want to use the delay timer. You can use the delay timer when a recipe calls for milk if you leave the milk powder on top of the flour in the machine. It doesn't become milk until the machine turns on and begins mixing.
  
• Buttermilk Powder: Hensperger sometimes calls for buttermilk powder, sometimes actual buttermilk. Either way, you can use the powder (and the delay timer). The Saco Buttermilk powder also has a great pancake recipe on the back, so you should buy it even if you don't have a bread machine.
  
• Flax Seed
• Gluten, sometimes called Gluten Flour 

Gluten and flax seed can be tricky to find at first. Try carefully scanning the large display of something-Mills** specialty grains in the middle of the baking aisle. Other groceries stock them with the "natural" foods baking ingredients.

If you only have All-Purpose Flour but want to bake a recipe that calls for Bread Flour, just add a tablespoon or two of Gluten. Not a perfect substitute, but it works OK.

More advice:

Never put the salt in with the liquid at the bottom of the bread machine, especially with the delay timer. It kills the yeast too fast and the bread doesn't rise well.

With recipes calling for oil and honey or molasses, measure out the oil in the tablespoon first, then measure the honey or molasses with the oily tablespoon. The honey or molasses drips off the oiled tablespoon much better than off of a dry one. Remember that 1/4 cup is 4 tablespoons, so you don't have to get your quarter-cup measuring cup sticky.

Intergenerational Parenting

Today I found myself saying to my daughter:

"If his mother taught him to hold the door open for women, then you need to let him do it. It's just something you remember about people, like their preferred pronoun." 

 

University of Chicago sends too much recruitment mail to high schooler students

Today my high-school kid received another postcard from the University of Chicago. She has received more recruiting snail-mail from them than from any other institution.

The University of Chicago is far away, and scary, and there are plenty of good schools in New England to choose from. Schools that won't need airfare.

She is not going to apply to University of Chicago. She would not be admitted. If she went there, she would flunk out. (Though, hey, maybe by grad school, things will be different!)

If I were a University of Chicago alumna or paying tuition to University of Chicago, I would be annoyed at the money wasted on these futile mailings.

There should be an easy way to opt out of receiving any more.

Of-course-you-remember-me Spam

 In my Inbox this morning:

self-doubt

Why

do you rely

on my

Time Travel

You can't fix yesterday.

You can't fix last weekend.

You can't fix five minutes ago.

You can only go forward.

 

14 types of mushroom, on rice

 The Vitamin Shop is advertising a capsule good for your immune system: 

https://www.vitaminshoppe.com/p/mushroom-immune-formula-60-vegetarian-capsules/vs-3282

It contains 14 different types of mushrooms, in a capsule that also contains "Organic Myceliated Brown Rice." I'd hate to just swallow it in a capsule. It sounds so much better as sautéed mushrooms on organic brown rice. 

Or why not market the 14-mushroom mix as a flavor enhancer that's also good for your immune system?

My robot dog

When I'm a very old lady, I would like a robot dog to follow me around. The dog will replace the cell phone. The dog will keep my tea mug. If there's tea in it, it will keep it warm. If it's empty, it will ask me what kind of tea I want. Before I go into the kitchen, I will tell it why I'm going there. It will follow and when I get to the kitchen, it will tell me why I'm there.

When I start trying to sing an old song, it will supply the music and lyrics.

When I try to remember a poem, it will look it up and correct me, quote the poem.

It will connect to IMDB or its successor, so when I'm trying to remember old movies, I can say what I remember about it, and it will provide possibilities.

I should be able to ask it historical facts too. And who's currently who in local politics.

It will recognize faces and remind me of their names.

It will generate thank you notes that I will only have to jot a few things down on, then it will add envelope, stamp, address, and mail it. Ditto for birthday cards, holidays. I'll finally be a properly polite old lady.

The robot dog will be great pals with the letter carrier.

It will vacuum the carpets and mop the floor. It will leap onto the furniture to be social, and also to vacuum or dust.

It will snuggle, be warm in the winter, and (optionally) spray me with water in the summer when we're outside. And wag its tail and bark playfully when it does so.

It may need an inside configuration to handle vacuuming and tea-warming and then easily convert to an outside configuration that's lighter and more suited to outdoors.

It will help with the gardening. It can dig. 

It will protect me in crowded city streets. It will wag its tail very swiftly as if to say, "Make way! Old lady is right behind me!" If needed, it will politely whine or woof. 

In emergencies it will directly signal ambulance, police, fire, whatever, as well as be able to call for helpful passers-by.

I'll tell it where I'm headed: It will walk ahead of me so I don't forget the way, because it has GPS.

I can even go on hiking trails and it can keep track of how fast I'm moving and give me options as to which trail to take and how soon we'd be likely to get to the end or get home depending on which route we take.

Good dog.

If Trump wins a second term...

"If Trump wins a second term, and you hear your friends or neighbors plotting a violent overthrow--"

"I'd turn them in," says my spouse without waiting for me to finish. "Once the revolution starts, it's up against the wall. Or 'It's safe to go home now'--but that's so they can find you, and take you out to the desert and shoot you."

Spouse is from Chile.

2020 Ironic Song Playlist

 It started early in the Covid-19 quarantine, with Petula Clark singing Downtown.

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares

Lyrics 

That got sadder as stupid people really did start going back downtown without masks and making this whole thing worse.

This morning, talking about politics, my spouse quoted "an allegedly corrupt mayor" but couldn't remember the name. "Jimmy Walker?" I asked, and yes, that was it. 

I explained, "I know him from Fiorello. It was one of the albums of show tunes my mother used to play." I wondered at the disappearance of Fiorello, and remembered a Saturday Night skit when one of the characters sang a song from Fiorello - "I love a Cop". 

That goes on the 2020 Ironic Song Playlist. Though maybe only the title is ironic. The song is about falling in love with a cop who arrested you and being embarrassed to introduce him to your friends. Then again, that meet-cute scenario does seem entirely ironic in looking at the violence displayed by the cops against protesters. Don't these cops realize they're losing all hope of meeting cute? 

With two songs on the list I remembered there was a third: another ironic song I heard yesterday, but couldn't remember which. I've been letting SoundCloud play me music as I work from home. I looked through my SoundCloud history. The most likely is this one sung by Sammy Davis Jr.: 

I like the fun of reaching for a gun and going bang bang...
Cause no one,
I know,
Gets oh such a glow.
Out of bang bang!
Like me!

 Lyrics 

Triggered by an LDAP error at work, not even my problem

At what point do the complexities of technology become too much and you say, 'That's it. I'm going off to live in a yurt.'

iPhone vs Android charging

If you need to leave soon and want to charge up your Android before you go, you can turn it off and plug it in.

In contrast, as soon as you plug in an iPhone, it turns itself on. As soon as an iPhone reaches a certain level of charge, it turns off low-power mode. This is just one way the iPhone tries to out-think you.

But smartphones really aren't that smart yet.

Turn Silent Mode Off

I suppose that long-time users of iPhones are used to this by now, but to an iPhone neophyte, the idea that you turn the noise OFF by turning "Silent Mode" ON was counter-intuitive. It required parsing double negatives, and confused me at first. Several months in, I still find myself consciously parsing:
"Silent Mode On, OK, turn off the loud alert... Silent Mode Off, so I can get my on-call alert. That's right. Right? OK."

Apple always had an arrogant skewed sense of usability. From the start, the interfaces always looked simple, but they could give new users a quiet desperation sense that they must be stupid to not understand them right away.

Roccbox

How many pizzas would we have to make during a blackout to rationalize the $700?

https://www.gozney.com/us/products/home-pizza-ovens/roccbox/

Guillermo Andres Zeballos 1933-2019

Guillermo Andres Zeballos did what grandparents do best: spoil my kids rotten.

He indulged them, always--feeding them from his inexhaustible supply of Pepperidge Farm cookies, taking them out to Barnes and Noble for yet another book they didn't need. Even when Alzheimer's robbed most of his abilities, his face lit up when he saw his grandchildren, and they knew they were loved.

This, perhaps, is not unusual among grandparents. What was unusual about him was his incredible patience.

He came to visit us when Zoe was a toddler. He sat with her while she played. He walked with her among the dull grounds of our apartment complex. He waited while she examined every twig and weed and piece of gravel. He stayed by her side, faithfully, as she wandered in whatever direction she cared to go. He let her take her time--take his time--far past the point when I would have dragged her to play inside so mommy could do something less boring.

This was a true gift to an exploring mind.

My father-in-law was a scientist, a professor, a teacher. We all know that the best teachers teach through example. I'll never forget what he taught me in that walk he took with a tiny little girl: his simple demonstration of true devotion, and true love.

tuna fish sandwich transcendent

It's my longstanding policy not to buy potato chips. Too many calories per pleasure compared to, for example, chocolate. And too expensive per pound.

I do like dark, "Kettle Roasted" chips. And I love potato chips with tuna fish. I almost never have that pleasure, because I almost never buy chips. But last weekend, I had a potato chip craving, and bought a bag of Cape Cod Kettle Roasted chips. Market Basket even kindly had them On Sale.

This morning, my loving spouse made tuna fish with chopped celery. I slid some onto Tuscan Wheat bread (also On Sale.) There were still potato chips left, so I packed them too.

Driving to work, I was looking forward to that ultimate lunch: tuna fish sandwich--with potato chips!
It's a long commute. I listened to my current library audiobook: "A Wrinkle in Time". Meg is in the kitchen. She is making a tuna fish sandwich. She gets sweet pickles out from the refrigerator.

Pickles! Damn it! We had pickles too! I could have put them in my sandwich.

Oh well.

I shall have to wait for another day for perfection.

Scotland

In my brain I want to go to Scotland. It would be a more affordable vacation than Hawaii, or going back to visit in-laws in Chile, especially during the eclipse. It would be less affordable than another New England camping trip--and we didn't even manage that last summer.

Scotland would have some similar scenery to Iceland without being quite as expensive or having the inconvenience of learning another language.

I like single malt Scotch.

I have a cousin living in Edinburgh, though she might be moving back to the States soon.

I went to nursery school in London. I listen to the BBC a lot. I watched a TV show and some movies that were set in Scotland. People in Scotland have a cool-sounding accent.

Are they called Scots?

They have pretty islands in Scotland. In fairness, there are some pretty islands off the Maine coast.

There are castles in Scotland.

Scotland would be a more fun reason to renew my passport than simply knowing we might want to drive to Canada someday.

On Instagram, my friends and relatives post photos of California and other various beautiful spots in the Americas, of Europe and Asia. I post photos taken when I'm stuck in traffic on Route 3 South. There are some pretty wetlands visible from the highway, and interesting shadows in the cement barriers and underpasses, and plucky weeds--some with purple flowers--sprouting up through the asphalt. Still, it would be nice to have, I don't know, actual scenery.

I have a kid about to go to college, next September. She'll need financial aid.
And another kid who'll go to college after that.
I'll probably have to wait 10 years to go to Scotland.
My cousin probably won't be living there then.

It is good to be frugal, and earn a decent salary, and not to have any serious worries about money.

Still. I wish I could travel.

To Paris, to see the Louvre: I may have been there when I was 3 years old, but I don't remember. I'd like to go back to Venice, to find out what that painting was that I saw in the 1990's and can't find on any Internet archive. Supposedly of Saint Rocco, but the cherub had a lewd knowing look in its eye--the scene had wisps of a fancy bordello. To Tuscany to eat another savory chickpea-flour pancake. To Africa--Botswana, or Camaroon, or Some Place--Some Place Very Different. To climb Mt Fuji and tour Kyoto. I want to see the Alps, if not the Himalayas.

But Scotland would be nice. Scotland would do. Could I rationalize it? Could it fit into my budget?

Why I'm not spending money on that

I have children and a house.
I have children and a house.
I have children and a house.

I love my children.

I like my house.

I hate poetry, except when I like a particular poem

Doggerel doesn't count--by definition.
Fun is fun.
Funny is fun.

The Robert Frost poems I memorized as a kid don't count, because I grew up with him.
He's, like, part of New England--and me too.
I even live in New Hampshire now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley got me through some rough times, so all his stuff's fine.

It was that Richard Holmes biography that got me to love Shelley. I'm glad to see it's back in print.

One morning in July

On my rational commute
in my sensible car
I see, in the left lane:

Red
Mustang
Convertible.

Envy--a light happy envy
consists of 

imagining the thrill

Knowing actual ownership

would involve
higher maintenance,

gas mileage,

sunburn

And even

stuff blowing off the seats

that I didn't want to lose.

suggested alternates to a crude term for excrement

or, Why have people stopped saying "stuff"?

Especially when "stuff" is perfectly good and exactly what is meant.

Alternate ways to end a sentence:

Collect your

1. stuff
2. things
3. junk

You're full of

1. baloney
2. nonsense
3. malarkey
4. hooeeey

That's a load of

1. baloney
2. garbage
3. nonsense
4. hogwash
5. manure  (if you must...)

I don't need this

1. nonsense
2. treatment
3. runaround
4. aggravation

He's losing his

1. temper
2. self-possession
3. tenuous connection to reality
4. marbles

Alternate expressions:

1. Get your act together. (This is how it used to be said. It still works.)
2. You're bluffing! (and this way you don't need to end with 'me')

Discworld Audiotherapy

Listening to Stephen Briggs perform Discworld audiobooks is my main therapy for spiritual survival.

— Margery Harrison (@pargery) June 9, 2018

It is literally therapy. I can be listening to a different audiobook on the hour and a half drive to work. I park, turn off the engine, the audiobook playing through the Bluetooth connection is silent. I collect my things. To get the energy needed to open the car door, grab my stuff, and walk into the office to begin my workday, I turn on a Discworld audiobook.
Other people are talking or looking at their cellphones. I walk into the building listening to Stephen Briggs's narration. I need to always have one checked out of the library (via Overdrive or Hoopla) so that there will be an audiobook for me to play on my smartphone. 
If the day's going badly but the weather is nice outside, I can eat my lunch at the picnic table with Discworld playing, and feel better about going inside for the afternoon. Hearing Discworld gives me stability, a sense that something is right with humanity, a reassurance of the existence of humor and wisdom.

Rental Values

Once there was a poor man who was an immigrant to this country. He and his wife had seven children. They needed a place to live, but no one would rent to a family with so many kids.

So he told some of his children to hide. With only a few children, they were able to rent an apartment. Whenever the landlord came by, the “extra” children hid.

The man fixed whatever broke in the apartment. His wife cleaned the hallway of the building so that it sparkled.

One day all of the children were playing outside in the yard. The landlord came by. He asked each child, “Where do you live?” Each one answered, pointing, telling the truth.

The landlord knocked on the door. “How many are living here?” The father admitted, “Yes. They’re all mine. They all live here.”

The landlord sighed. He looked around at the sparkling clean hallway and into the well-maintained apartment. He listened to the children playing outside.

“It’s all right,” he said.

Years passed. Two of the children--two brothers--went into business together. They prospered, and even purchased their own apartment buildings.

Sometimes other landlords ask them: Why do you rent to the new immigrants–with their large families, and so many relatives crowding in with them?

Then each brother silently asks himself: Where would I be, had our father’s landlord kicked us out?

They tell the other landlords: “These are hard-working people. They deserve a place to live.”

The crime against nature that is pre-ripped jeans

Pre-ripped jeans are exceedingly silly.
Would you buy shoes with pre-worn-out soles?
New jeans should protect your skin from cruel brambles.
Old holes are earned trophies from rambling and fun.

Remember the miners with pockets all torn?
Jeans were invented to save sweaty gold.
If you make a garment whose purpose is strength,
But ravage its nature, defying its nascence,
You puncture integrity--
The jeans' and your own.

Fall in love with Leslie Howard

I just left this review for "Petrified Forest" on Alibris:

OK, I haven't seen it for a while, but I remember it as one of my favorites.

This is the movie that gave me a crush on Leslie Howard when I was 14 years old. Ditto for my aunt at similar age, when the film was released. Because of this crush, I cringed to see Leslie later in "Gone With The Wind", or actually, in color. He is still gorgeous in Black and White.

This is the movie that made Bogart a star.

Movie had originally been a play, and it still seems like a good play. Would not be expensive to produce.  I remembered it as desperado Bogart and intellectual Leslie Howard talking for most of it, as they sat in café with Bogart's gang holding everyone at gunpoint--but when I saw it more recently, it actually didn't take up as much of the movie as I had remembered.

Historically important line: "Tipping is un-American."

Its theme of people not living up to what they wanted to be in their lives is not restricted to the principal characters. This is a good historical movie with still-relevant situations and dialogue.

Annals of Serendipitous Parenting

Monday morning. Sleepy.

Driving out, a few blocks from home. Quiet rural roads.

Hungry. Where did I put that toast-and-jam? I look at the passenger seat.

The car swerves to the right.

I catch the goof, swerve left, I am back to driving straight.

I explain to the kid in the back seat what happened. "I guess it's dangerous to drive hungry," I quip.

She does not laugh.

I glance back, notice her scared wide eyes.

Hmm.

I believe I've motivated her to catch the school bus from now on.

24-June-2016 dream before alarm went off

In my dream the Ku Klux Klan had a rally in my town's center.

There was a counter-protest worship service nearby, outside a synagogue I'd never seen before.
(I wondered why we were members of a synagogue the next town over instead of this one, and concluded that this one must be Reform instead of Conservative.)

The rabbi had wheelie sneakers; she glided around the front of the congregation. There were empty chairs, but no extra prayer books. I tried to find a chair with a prayer-book so I could join in, but the service ended before I found one.

The synagogue was packed up into a tent to be driven away

So that's why I'd never seen it before: it was temporary and mobile.

Later, inside some building in town, I was with people I didn't know, but chatting in a friendly way. I quoted lines from a country music song--Miranda Lambert's one about being ready to shoot her abusive man when he got home. The old guy I quoted it to smiled. But there was something in his eyes that made me wonder if I shouldn't have quoted something so feminist.

A little boy from the hate group came in and spouted words meant to provoke one of us into fighting him. He gave me the impression he was used to beatings from his own group. I said, "Even murderers raise their children to be good and kind to everybody until they turn 14 or so & then they say it's time to kill people." I put my arms around him and gave him a hug.

Later, I walked over to another group of children at a table. They were reading comic books left by the hate group. I asked one of the children about it. He explained why Jews were bad. I attempted Socratic method to convince him otherwise, asking questions. He brought up circumcision. I defended how I had seen it practiced. "The baby gets a sip of wine before and then goes to his mother after. He is OK." The discussion escalated, I don't remember most of the words. I just remember my last words were a declaration that ended in "...Jews like me."

At those words, everyone in the room--children and adults--stood up and looked at me with hard hostile stares that told me to leave.

The clock radio went off.

It was 6am.
National Public Radio announced that Britain had voted to leave the European Union.

OMG

Pure Wow's 15-piece capsule wardrobe - no

According to a website called Pure Wow! Here listed are

The Only 15 Items You Need to Build the Perfect Wardrobe

(http://www.purewow.com/fashion/15-piece-capsule-wardrobe)
with my comments:

1. The perfect white tee
• No, nothing white, I always get it stained.
• A few neutral colored tee shirts that don't have anything written on them would work.
• Gray, Charcoal Gray, Tan, Heather Blue
2. A navy blazer that's not part of a Pantsuit
• OK, but preferably a loose cotton machine-washable one
• Linen is nice in the summer too
3. An A-Line Midi Skirt that highlights your shape
• Hah! No. No skirts. My shape is the problem
• Skirts are very sensitive to expansion and contraction of waistline
• A plain dress of some sort is acceptable.
• Although I avoid dresses because they create complications with shoes and socks
4. Dark wash flared jeans that elongate your legs
• OK, a pair of jeans. Two pairs. Black and blue. 
• Lightweight blue for summer.
5.  A white button-down that's not your boyfriends
• White again. Danger. Only if you need it for a job interview
• Otherwise, fine, some kind of blouse.
6. A classic trench coat that makes you feel elegant.
• Yes.
7.  Tailored black pants you can dress up or down
• OK
8. A silky black camisole you can layer or not.
• Not. Not with my fat arms. Substitute one of the neutral-colored t-shirt
9. A good ole denim jacket
• Maybe. But other cloth jackets are often better-looking
• Denim jackets can be styled rather weird and look outdated soon
10. A not-stuffy pencil skirt
• No skirts.
11. A striped shirt that makes you look French.
• Horizontal stripes. Hahaha. I learned that was a no-no in 9th grade. Only for the thin & fit.
12. White pants you can wear any time of the year.
• White. On pants. Just never sit down anywhere. Yeah, forget it.
13. A little black dress you'll wear forever.
• Sure. My eternal quest.
• There was once this perfect looking dress in a Victoria's Secret catalog. 
• Decades ago, perhaps. 
• I wish I'd bought it. 
• No. I wish I'd saved the photo.
14. A Showstopping dress for special occasions
• Wait for the occasion before buying the dress
15. A basic sweater to throw over anything
• I have a nice black cotton sweater from the long-defunct Tweeds Catalog.
• I miss getting clothes from the Tweeds Catalog
• I wish J.Crew would revive it, with decent clothes.
• I have that nice black cotton sweater, and a very nice embroidered? jackard? greyish button-down shirt that I wear over plain t-shirts in the summer. 
• Something happened to textiles between the 1980's and now. 
• Clothes purchased in the past 10 years or so will develop holes much sooner than they ought to. 
• Something is very wrong.

Crochet Hat May 1-8, Lion Homespun Lagoon

Soft acrylic nubby yarn. You have to be a Ravelry member to access project on Ravelry, so transposing description here:

homespun was $6/skein, but used 40% coupon.

Started with 8 or 9 mm largest crochet hook I had, since I got confused by hook number on skein package, but switched to 6mm once realized it was actually requesting number 9, which is 6.5mm. 
My set of hooks has 6 & 7, not 6.5.

Started with magic loop, otherwise I started by trying to follow http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beanie-brim-cap. I didn’t understand the set of stitches, parentheses with no numbers to indicate repeated pattern and how it was all supposed to add up to the specified number of stitches for that row. 
So I just made circular rows with uneven occurrences of fpdc and dc, incrementing, then decrementing as it got ruffly. 
When near maximum width, did a circular row of simple dc, then all fdpc. 
Continued decrementing with fdpc until at head width. 
Then made some rows of regular hdc’s until nice margin to fold over. 
End.

There’s a bit of yarn left--perhaps enough for fingerless mitt or 2.

Inside looking out

My quiet self is different from the self who talks to people.
And sometimes after the people have gone,
my quiet self ruminates on what the talkative self said,
and wonders 

Where did that come from?

You can see pretty stuff in the Spring, especially in the Lake District

I was walking along, detached and daydreaming--

When all of a sudden, bamm--the scenery hit me:

Sunlight, flowers--bright yellow flowers

Under trees. They were next to the lake: a big lake with choppy waves.

That all brought me down to earth,

And connected me with the infinite.

I wallowed in an infinity of joy.

It's worth going places and seeing stuff like that

Because sometimes, you know, I can get depressed,

Or there's times when I'm not thinking of anything good,

Then suddenly, that scenery--it all crashes back at me:

Then I'm happy.

Just happy by myself remembering.

Source:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45521

#My1to7WordRomanceNovels

Wish.
Love? Me.
Never! Wait! Always.
Dark Spirit. Love. Tamed.
Yes, No. No, Yes. Yes.
He came, he saw, I conquered.
C'mon, we all know how this ends.

Thos Moser

The annual Thomas Moser, or Thos Moser, catalog arrived today. I've been paging through and admiring its wood furniture. Long ago, and several mailing addresses away, I remember wanting the Dr White's Chest, oh, so much! but it cost more than my first new car. Still, it has only gone up in price. We could have seen it as an investment.

A few years back I finally bought a big dresser from Big Lots. It's covered with dark cherry veneering that has scratched in a few places. It stores my clothes. And I don't have to worry about it being a legacy or anything. No kid's going to fight about it twenty years from now.

The item that caught my breath in this year's catalog is the Portland Chair. I'm not sure it would be comfortable to sit on. I do admire its design. Having just found the web photo to insert the link, I will say that it does look much better in the printed catalog. And on the designer's blog. I wonder what it's like in real life.

I searched through to see what the lowest priced item was--for amusement, and, OK, wondering if there was anything that we could afford. I found a 9 x 15 x 8 inch Crescent Stool, for only $210. "The size of a shoe-box," my husband says. "You could pay $500 and take a woodworking class and make lots of them."

Actually, they do teach woodworking at Thomas Moser, though they probably charge more than we'd be willing to pay these days. And your time is worth something. Just paying the $200 can save you a lot of trouble.

But my house is chaos. Thos Moser furniture is not the type that improves with scratches.

And I know I'll be sending in that $200 for this month's car payment.

I'm pretty sure Thos Moser got my mailing address from the New Yorker. Ironically, I cancelled the subscription last fall because we needed to save money. One of our cars was dying.

Maybe I'll just save the catalog as a design book, to look at now and then.

Did the wicked angel win?

It was in All of a Kind Family that I first heard the story of the good and wicked Sabbath Angels, though I have heard the story since then, so it is a verified part of the culture.

On Friday evenings, every Jewish home is visited by a pair of angels: one good and one wicked. If the candles are lit and everyone gathered and celebrating the Sabbath, the good angel is happy and prays "May it always be thus." Then the wicked angel has to swallow its snarls and say "Amen."

But if Sabbath is not being observed, then the wicked angel gets to gloat and curse "May it always be thus." And the poor weeping good angel must also say "Amen."

Well, usually in my home, the wicked angel has been winning. There were times, when the kids were in Jewish preschool, and brought home little baked challahs on Friday, and before I started working an hour's drive south (sans traffic) when we would do the entire Sabbath, more or less as done in my childhood. OK, without my Dad's no-bluejeans rule, and I admit, always skipping Grace After Meals (because it is so long.)

But one week ago Thursday, I was shopping in Trader Joe's, and saw, bought and brought home a bag of challah rolls. Friday, after dark, I came home, and the candles were lit, the challah under a napkin, the kosher grape juice & glasses at the ready.

We sang Shalom Aleichem. I sang Aishes Chayal. I blessed the children. We all sang the kiddush, with my dad's version of the tune. We washed our hands, said the blessing. We said the blessing over the challah. As I lifted the cloth napkin off of the challah, a paper napkin that had been on top of the cloth one for who knows what reason floated off--right into the path of the lit Shabbos candles.

"Jesus!" exclaimed the older kid. The napkin floated past the flame.

I scolded her: "You wrecked it! Now we've got to start all over again."

The children's Catholic dad was sitting out all the ceremony, at his computer. We ran to tell him what happened. His take: "Invoking the True Lord's name obviously saved our house from burning down."

Oh well. I bought another bag of challah rolls at Trader Joe's last night. Let's see what happens tonight.