To Be Clear…

Sometimes it may seem that I am not paying attention to current events or politics or major issues in the world, but I surely am. They are sitting right there in my pop-up Google Glass brain, playing on repeat. I’m trying to process the images and ideas into work, mostly, or into sense, which is difficult. Portland, for example. Not Portland the city…Portland WTF is the federal government doing there. Like Albuquerque. I’m sure there are some terrified or politically different folks who are glad to see unmarked vans trolling around their city (a few blocks of it anyway) and grabbing those dangerous moms and dads of Portland or shooting tear gas at them to try to control them their singing and chanting of peace and love and change from the stupid practices that kill innocent people or even people who should have more rights, but I’m not one of them. I’m pretty sure my government is totally not my government at the moment. I’m glad to see Portland being proactive, both at a person-to-person level and at a governor-mayor-attorney-general level. And I’m sure you know this, because you read my blog, and IDK how you could if you were of a wildly different political persuasion than I, but Breonna Taylor’s killers are still free, they’re cops, they should be charged with murder, and those protesting her murder and the freedom of her killers were subjected to a lot worse than those cops. Which is so incredibly and amazingly wrong. Dead wrong, to be clear.

I honestly have a hard time watching or listening to much of the news these days. It hurts. And then I think, must be nice to be able to watch it from here, where we have no feds (yet), no cops breaking into my home, no fascist dictators (well, arguments to be had there)…I can vote, I can walk around and not be harassed by police (unless I go to Portland apparently), and no one is usually asking me for my ID in a park. It’s true. It is nice. And I want it to be that way for EVERYBODY. Including those who don’t politically believe what I do, but I’d like them to come over to our side too. Really. Let’s do this, people. White is not great. White is not right. White doesn’t even exist biologically, which makes it even stupider. More stupid. And yet the racism is there, the bullshit is there, the discrimination is there. No, I still don’t have an antiracist quilt drawn because I barely understand the people for whom I would be making it. I don’t know how to talk to them. I don’t know how to address their fears, because they just sound insane to me. Sad and crazy and insane and just plain wrong.

Keep it up, Portland. Chicago, Albuquerque, New York…be strong. White people…dayum. If you’re with me, cool. If you’re not…please explain. Because all I see is fear. And that’s not how we should be living our lives, making decisions that affect lots of people, pushing out hate and different and wrong. Oh yeah. Science! We should science more. And harder.

OK. So the last few days. The fence is kind of on hold. We’re waiting on wood slats…

They’re saying up to 2 weeks to get them, and then we get to plant. And be private? Well, who knows. This is from the road…and here is our little friend the praying mantis…

And another view…

Anyway, so more of that will happen.

This cat…

And the dogs…my parents’ dog is here…

My poor SIL and family are in a tire store in the middle of California after they blew a tire. They just called me to complain about California roads and Sacramento weather. I don’t envy them that part. I am jealous of the trip itself.

I spent some time Wednesday night just cleaning up, because I was tired and couldn’t think straight. I put all these away except for the pinks…

And I traced some stuff and cut it out for the small Patreon quilts.

I’m having a hard time with motivation. I’m tired and unfocused. I write down a to-do list every day so I can just look at it and cross things off. I should write a more specific one for these so I can get them done. They’re not hard…I just can’t focus. Although I’ve been working on this…

In meetings mostly. Zoomy meetings. She’s getting there.

Yesterday, I persuaded the boychild to hike Hollenbeck with me…

I’ve been doing shorter neighborhood hikes, but not my normal summer once-a-week bust-em-out hikes. This is still under 6 miles unless we add on…

Which I would’ve done if (a) it stayed nice and cloudy like that and (b) I didn’t have a shitload of other things I needed to get done. California horny toad there…

A little one…

There’s a hill hiding back there.

And then this thing that looked like either a fuzzy beetle or a landed bee…hard to say.

It was weird bug day.

It did get a little warmer, but not too bad for summer…low 80s.

Lots of woodpeckers and bunnies, all of which I did not manage to photograph…plus one coyote from a distance.

It was a really beautiful day.

Definitely worth it. Would recommend.

Then came home and trimmed this beast. Luckily it was pretty easy. I think I fixed three sides after the first cuts, which isn’t bad.

All while kneeling on that damn scabby knee from Monday. Ouch. Please remind me that this is too big. I should make things that are smaller than this. Really. She’s 78″ wide x 81″ high. She big.

Then I tested the binding fabrics I had…the green works…it does…

But the red makes the COVID virions, the angels, and the blood vessels pop…and that’s better…

In the end, the brighter red worked…I found a bunch of another darker red, but it doesn’t work as well. So the bright red it is.

I cut all the binding and sleeve fabrics Thursday afternoon, and then got too tired to sew them all together and on the quilt itself. Hopefully today?

We’ll see. I’m currently waiting for a really badly timed focaccia to finish cooking…

It rose nicely. I’m constantly confusing 12 and 24 hours. For whatever reason. Honestly, I’m constantly confusing a lot of things. It’s a late-afternoon focaccia instead of a dinnertime focaccia.

And I already delivered a quilt to the Oceanside Museum of Art for a show we might not be able to see. Sigh. It’s funny that the woman who works there (who I’ve worked with before) recognized me with a mask on. I’m always so impressed that she knows who I am. I got to see artist Katie Ruiz‘ rainbow of pompoms, albeit, on the floor and not on the outside wall…

But still nice.

OK, the day has disappeared, as always. I have a tree guy coming later, I have gaming tonight, the focaccia is good, hopefully my SIL and family (which, yes, includes my bro) make it to Yosemite tonight with tires complete, and maybe I’ll even get something done later. You never know. These summer days that kick you upside the head. Woo!