Sitting in an Empty Mall

So I need new glasses…lenses actually. I went to the disinfected eye doctor successfully and got a new prescription, and the lenses are ready, so now they need an hour to pop them in my glasses. Fun. It’s an indoor mall, so it’s closed, but a few people are here and I’m sitting on a chair, blind as a bat, with the iPad about two inches from my face, typing this. My mask is on and I’m pretty sure I’m cross-eyed. This is the level of paranoia I will have at school. No. I will be more paranoid at school. I will be sitting in my classroom by myself for 7 hours a day in less than two weeks, yelling at anyone who tries to come in my room. Depressing and lonely. It is staying alive though. Hopefully.

So I’ve been getting a little art done. The days slip away so quickly. This binding will take a while.

I actually really like this part of the process…it’s relaxing, although the pins (and cats) are pokey.

There’s 470” to do of the binding and the sleeves. That is 13 yards. Really? Shit. That’s a lot. So Sunday I did two sides…four to go. I didn’t do any last night. I was working on Patreon embroideries. I finished one on Saturday or Sunday night (can’t remember which)…

Damn either she’s blurry or my eyes are getting worse. I’ll wash and iron and rephotograph when I can see. And when the blurry-eyes-tryna-focus headache goes away. I also started this one…

And finished it. Note to self: design more simply. That woman with the rainbow hair was complicated.

This was after dinner, when I was contemplating what to do with the rest of my evening.

Definitely needs a bath and attention from an iron.

Saturday, I managed to get the man to go with me on a walk at the beach…

We just hung out at Dog Beach…not a ton of people and a nice breeze.

We actually ignored the real beach and walked where there were fewer people. I enjoyed it. IDK about the man. His foot has been bugging him and his work is stressful. But he did it and that’s something. I know outdoors is more important to my moods and sanity than his. Although I think it would help him too, I know everyone has to be making their own choices willingly for that good outdoor feeling to work though.

With that in mind, my science co-teacher and I headed to Sunset Trail in the Lagunas yesterday for some much-needed planning and venting.

It was a little warm, but we did a fairly short hike…with her dog, Watson…

We both had masks and Watson’s leash is the requisite 6-feet long to help with visualizing appropriate distancing.

This is one of my favorite hikes. Not hard, great views.

We stopped for a while and took some notes about how to do school this year. Science will be a challenge. And then her shoe died.

The entire bottom sole came off. Folks, here’s my shoe PSA from someone who has had plantar fasciitis multiple times…new boots every 500 miles. New other shoes when the wear is obviously changing your stance. It’s OK…she’s going to REI today.

Water of the Woods…aka the cow pond…no cows today.

Watson got too hot or just plain tired after a while (note: his limit is about 2 miles, maybe more if it’s cooler), so he got a ride.

He didn’t seem to mind not walking…

Lucky dog…

Weird tree growths. We have ideas for videos from the trail and the kitchen or garden for school. It will be hard to implement those while sitting in my empty classroom. I’m going to apply for field trips. For me and my co-teacher. Even walking in the neighborhood of the school and looking for relevant stuff would be better than sitting in an empty room.

We have another hike planned for next week, adding another teacher to the mix.

All good things. Part of my sanity.

Right now, Calli wants to go in the pool, I have a bunch of quilty things I need to work on, but first, I’m eating a late lunch. I made pancakes with leftover sourdough starter earlier and froze them. The hardest part of going back to the physical classroom is not being able to get stuff done at home. It all gets shoved to the weekend. Grading comes back with a vengeance and all gets pushed online, so more computer time. Like I wasn’t already staring at a screen enough before. But it keeps us safer, so we will do it. I have to laugh at the people who thought we were only working 3 hours a day before…well, they’re welcome to try to do my job before they say how it should be. Hoping I get it all figured out in the next few weeks. This is the most unprepared I’ve felt since the first year I taught. Nice feeling.

Following Me Around Like a Fly on a Scab…

Hey, Portland…I like your style. Now the veterans have shown up. Keep being you. We need to be able to protest wrongdoing, especially by the government. Hey, y’all, I’m deep in the summer teacher head of panic and lack of focus. We go back to school in THREE WEEKS. By back to school, I mean on a computer with a bunch of kids I’ve never met. With internet that is rampantly bitchy and flighty as hell. With who-knows-what curriculi. Yeah, I know that’s not a word. I just like it. It’s all good! We will survive. Hopefully. I mean, I say that, but there’s a pandemic on, so some of us (the larger Teacher Us) will not. Hopefully those I know and love will survive…and I’m already pissed off about those who have died and those who will die. I noticed that one of the teachers my kids had is retiring (probably early, probably because of all this)…I didn’t think she was much older than I am, if that…but if she’s been teaching since she got out of college, that would make sense. I’d walk away from it if I could afford it. I can’t though. So there we are. I love many things about teaching (and hate a few too, but mostly those are administrative)…and would totally miss it, but I don’t want to die because of it. No one does. And hospitals are much cleaner environments than middle schools, so don’t use that excuse. I think we should have pandemic-trained staff from a local hospital come train us on cleaning. I know I will be cleaning more because I won’t trust anyone else to have done it well enough. I want to do it well and right. In my spare time. In between planning and prepping and grading. Oh my.

OK, so enough of the worry and anxiety that is following me around like a fly on a scab. I didn’t get much done in the last 24 hours, except delivering a quilt and gaming for a few hours. We survived that…iffy wormhole and all. I stitched during gaming…it helps me concentrate when I’m not rolling dice and throwing out random suggestions for tractor beams and transporting to a fluctuating vehicle.

Green row done, started lighter blue. Hopefully I’ll finish tonight. I’ve got two more to do.

If you look back through my posts, you’ll see that I liked a foundation paper-pieced quilt called the Tattoo quilt, by Berene Campbell of Happy Sew Lucky. I briefly considered paper piecing the damn thing and quickly realized that my sanity is worth more to me than that. Don’t get me wrong, according to those making the quilt (there’s a group going on FB), Berene’s patterns, explanations, and videos are totally what I would need to do an awesome job on this, and the group is very helpful. I actually read a lot of the helping posts, because I like to know how to do things, but I just don’t have the patience for this right now. Plus it’s huge, and the last thing I need is another huge quilt in the house. So I got crazy and decided to do hand applique instead (I’m good at that) and to also shrink it to 50%. Yeah. I told you it was crazy. I redrew all the blocks at 50% for applique…last night, I finished up the last few…

And did the center block, which is larger…

And then inked and numbered all of them…

This one has 100 pieces, but most of them have a lot less than that. Plus yeah, they’re smaller…

Now I just need to see what I have that will work for a background for all of them and start picking fabrics. I do other people’s patterns all the time. It’s the vacation/hobby for the art brain. So when I’m flailing all over the place and can’t focus, this is what I can do. This is easy. So many people don’t understand why I don’t just make art all the time. I can’t. I need a break…sometimes I just need something that someone else designed. Despite my redraw for applique, this is Berene’s design, totally.

My bullet journal font for next week was totally stolen from someone else, and then I messed around with it, because I only had three letters to go from, and then they had a lot more space, so I had to adjust. I had some time this morning and just needed to doodle.

Today is all fabric. And a walk. Plus dinner and a movie. Here. In the home. Where there are no virions rolling around. Hopefully.

So no real quilt work yesterday. Too tired. Dealing with other things. Katie (my parents’ dog) is still here, and although she’s been pretty chill (except when the fire alarm went off to tell me it had a low battery), the kittens have been extremely wary.

Mostly Nova is hiding…

But see that wide-eyed stare? That’s because Katie just came in the room.

Luna’s stare is a little less psychotic-looking, but not by much…

Up high is safe. Today Katie is visiting the ex’s house for a 24-hour respite for the cats. Even my cat hides from Katie, but now they are all out and hopefully relaxing. It’s OK…Katie goes home tomorrow, but she’ll be back in August! Oh boy! Hopefully the cats will get used to her…eventually.

OK, I have a ton of watering to do today. I also need to pick fabrics for a bunch of small quilts and put the binding and sleeves on the big quilt. I should have plenty to work on while watching the movie that has not yet been chosen. I also think I’m supposed to make bread today. Or tomorrow. I think today or I will be hiking and that will be an issue…OK. Plans made. Do float test on starter. Pick some fabrics. No. Sew binding on first. Do the yucky things first. I hate the machine-sewing part on a big quilt. It just takes forever. The hand-sewing part is relaxing. I’m OK with that taking forever. I’ve got some couch time coming up…that’s a good thing.

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!

The Red Is Too Bright…

Ah summer 2020. You are a pokey sharp thing and not in a good way. So much stupid and stressful and not right. So many people who either don’t understand viral transmission or willfully ignore it. I so need a mountain cabin vacation on another fucking planet right now. A lot of us do. Honestly, the doctors and nurses get to go first. I know what I want for me, but then I think that’s selfish and there are so many other people who need it more.

So I try to do the things here that make me feel better. I had let the daily exercise routine slip a little. It was hot. I don’t like to exercise when it’s really hot. But I’m back to walking and the stationary bike, and my Pilates studio is doing online classes, so I’ve signed up for some of those. My real workout the last two days has been building the privacy fence though…

Although I think that’s just because I’m old. And doing a lot of bending over mixing concrete in the heat is uncomfortable…

That said, all four posts are still standing and seem to be level. And last night, I finished up all the tops so the water will hopefully swoosh away from the posts themselves.

“All the water.” Ha. It’s full summer here right now. It won’t rain for real for at least 6 months. Maybe more. But when it DOES rain, the water will swoosh away. We got the wood for the stringers yesterday. Buying wood lately has been a pain. The big fence companies swoop in and buy it all before I can even get there. I’m hoping to get slats in the next few days, although it might be two weeks. A lot of the lumber companies have shut down because of the pandemic, plus I think a lot of people are doing work on their houses who weren’t before. So there’s a shortage. It’ll get done eventually though. The slats are the easy part. This was the hard part. Although the stringers being parallel might be hard too. We’ll see.

So that’s been my days, mostly. That and taking this sweet old dumbass into the pool…

She’s waiting for me to get the broom so I can push the pinecone back toward her so she can get it. She used to swim way out, but she’s too old now. She still likes to be in the water and fetching the pinecone, though. I do it about 4-5 times and then she has to come out. She gets too tired. Usually we dry off on the deck for a bit while I read, but her skin is bad, so she needed a bath with the special shampoo.

She does not like that. Yes the wall is peeling. My remodeling fund is coming along, but we’re a good year plus out from being able to remodel the bathrooms or the kitchen. I just keep pulling more of it off.

My parents’ dog is here…Katie also needs a bath.

She’s making everyone a little nervous…

New dog. New cats. So stressful. It’s only a few days. We will all survive. I think.

Speaking of survival, I planted these cuttings from my parents’ house a month or so back. They seem to be doing OK…

The slope used to be covered with a groundcover that started dying all around here. I have very little of it left. Not sure why. So we’ve been replacing it in sections with other stuff.

So quilting…when I get to the background, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Dark blue at night. Good choice!

I have not had good luck with buying lighting to go on the machine…they don’t last or they just suck. I’m not sure what to do at the moment. Maybe just buy a standing table lamp and put it behind the machine.

But for now, I just suffer through it. I spent the last two nights listening to the Scene on Radio Season 2 podcasts on Seeing White. They’re good. Oh yeah, and quilting. I finished last night…18 hours and 17 minutes…

Not bad. I was thinking 20 hours again. Now I need to trim it, which means cleaning the floor again, and then pick a binding. When I bought the background, I picked two possible binding fabrics. Honestly, the red is too bright. The green might work, or I might need to raid my stash. I don’t think I have enough of any red that would be dark enough, but I might be able to piece it from multiple fabrics. We’ll see. If it needs to be red, I’ll figure it out. So close to done! Although it’s a month later than I thought it would be. I’ve had other shit I’ve been dealing with, though, so it’s OK. It has to be OK, because it is what it is.

I also worked a little bit on this last night. I really do need to do the other small quilts too…

I’m behind on the Patreon rewards. Need to get caught up this week. But I needed that quilt off the sewing machine to do that. So maybe today is trim big quilt and figure out binding, get it on, and then I can start the smaller quilts in the next couple of days. I need to put a label on a quilt that should be delivered Thursday or Friday, so there’s that too. Aack. Plus the fence. And worrying about school…

Yeah. Exactly. OK. I have purpose. I have tasks. I have not showered.

Ready, Brain.

Hey y’all. It’s Saturday, the day when I feel most like escaping the house and doing something semi-normal, like walking or seeing art or whatever. It’s also the day when the most people are out doing the same thing, and in my county, not doing a great job of wearing masks, although probably better than in some counties. Yesterday, the Governor of California mandated that schools couldn’t open in person until county infection numbers were on a downward trend for 14 days, something I believe is safe. I know some people think kids need to be in schools, and so do I, but I would like the county to be taking it seriously, and they’re not. That said, many of our new positive tests are in the 20-29 age range, which isn’t necessarily the group that is most invested in kids going to school, so that’s a tough one. There’s limited science out there on transmission in children, maybe partially because we pulled them out of school, so they’ve been less exposed than normal. Maybe not? This science is hopeful for schools reopening…I’d like be able to go back in person and feel somewhat safe. My biggest issue all along has been with the adults, though. I’ve seen adults at my school not social distancing, not wearing masks, and that is where we will get sick…through them. It’s not just our young teachers who don’t take it seriously; I don’t want to get sick and/or die because the adults on my campus are lackadaisical and let their guard down. I don’t trust them. I guess when we do go back (because we will be going back online in August no matter what), I want to be prepared to be an awesome online teacher (as awesome as is possible) and to be healthy and safe when we go back in person. I won’t be able to hide in my classroom and only socialize distantly with those I feel are following rules…I’ll have to move from classroom to classroom all day. More science please! I want all the sciencez.

Meanwhile, I’m quilting. It’s meditative. I always say that. Art is how I save myself from myself. Plus I’ve been revisiting iTunes. I spent a lot of time listening to Pandora, which is nice, because I don’t need to own the music, but my iTunes felt lonely. So I’m playing songs in order from most-listened to least. Some songs haven’t been ‘heard’ (on iTunes at least) since 2012. I feel bad for those songs. Like I’ve let them down.

I quilted a lot in the last few days, and I’m not done.

I quilted during my stitching meeting…Zoom…

I finished the third figure and went back to completing the taller figure in the middle.

I got one arm done and everything up to her head, and then decided it was bedtime.

Yesterday evening, I started on the other arm…

And got her hair done and the cat…with the help of Calli on the floor and Kitten in the other chair. Help might be a strong word.

Yes, I use a normal sewing machine to do this. I have neither the money nor the space for anything bigger or more useful.

Then I finished the angels. So all the outlining is done, with 12 1/2 hours in. I just need to fill in the background now. Maybe some of it will get done today. Considering my walk options. It’s hot. I still want to get out and move. I can’t stand all this sitting around inside. It drives me bonkers.

I also started one of the small Patreon embroideries…this is faster.

I need to get some done this week…embroidery and quilt.

What else? I tried making bread again…

It behaved better this time, and…

It looks good, but I lost all the airiness of the first one. Still a work in progress. No gumminess this time, though, so that’s a plus.

I walked a couple of days, because the gyms are closed down again…another painted rock…

And then when I come back, the cats fight over who gets to rub their head all over my boots.

It’s very strange. Almost as strange as Kitten fetching me slippers again. She meows really loud (with the slipper in her mouth) and brings it from the bedroom and then usually drops it about 6 feet from me.

Such bizarre behavior. Sometimes I put them all back in the bedroom for her, and sometimes she takes them back.

These two are waiting for their daddy to get out of the bathroom. They do that a lot.

They are really intrigued by our litter tray behavior.

Yesterday, I felt just wiped out, exhausted, so I attempted a short afternoon nap. But people kept interrupting…

Well, and cats (not this one) did too. So much for the nap culture here. The cats have it down.

Yesterday morning, the ex showed up with a chainsaw (like you do). I have this palm tree that is too large for the entryway and has been rubbing against the roof. We’ve talked before about trying to get rid of it, but it’s a really tight space, so digging it out would be an issue.

Well. There’s always this route…

It’s just too big for the space. And you can see what it was doing to the eaves and the roofline. He took it down a little farther than this (all his chainsaw could do)…

I’ll ask my tree guys to take it down to about a foot or so above ground and then put a pot on it. Or I will learn to carve palm trunks with a chainsaw. One of those two things. Whichever seems easiest.

Here’s the girlchild in Boston, about to get a new(er) car. Hers has been problematic…

It’s been a lot of phone calls and FaceTime, but I think she did it.

Oh yeah, to Trump and DeVos…

There is an argument to be had here. But since we know it’s really about money and votes, I guess that’s why. I want kids in school. I want them safe. I don’t know what classrooms will look like when we can’t work in groups and do labs and collaborate in the ways we did (yes, I know we can do it online…it’s not the same, y’all, you know it’s not)…I know it will be a difficult and often troubling and depressing year, so I’m trying to set myself up for success. I have a book about online teaching on its way to me, I’m trying to get my head in a space to plan for digital with kids I’ve never had…and more importantly, I’m trying to relax now to get my brain ready.

Just Trying…

So hi y’all. I’m trying to listen to a webinar about teachers and ADA accommodations while typing this. Boychild and I bought wood and concrete and metal bits for the next bit of fence, which is more of a privacy fence. It’ll be shorter than the other one, and we don’t have to speed through it. This time, we have no dad or girlchild help, but we should be OK. I’m excited about all the progress we’ve made this year on the yard…probably being on quarantine has helped. When you are stuck at home for hours and days and weeks and months, you try to make where you live better, right? So that’s a positive effect of all this crazy shit. Tomorrow, we’ll start setting posts. The wood barely fits in my car, so we’ll have to go back for the next batch. I’m hoping we’ll be done next week sometime.

What else has been going on? Waiting for my sourdough starter to pass the float test. I was going to start bread again, but I’ll have to wait. It’s OK. Tomorrow will still be fine.

So Sunday night, I cleaned a floor. It wasn’t my turn, but I needed it clean. Then I pieced two giant pieces of fabric and laid them out.

Yeah. It’s big. I had to move the bench and all the crap that was on it to get wide enough on the floor.

The batting was next, and then the quilt top.

There was a lot of kneeling to do this, also two fans blowing on me the whole time. It was hot.

From there, I already had the thread and I put that whole huge beast on my lap and started quilting last night.

This thing is a behemoth and requires a lot of pushing and shoving. But it’s meditative. I was listening to “This Podcast Will Kill You” about radiation…

Interesting stuff. All while this old girl sitting behind me…

And this one to my right…

And this cat is very flat.

What else am I doing? I’m putting together the second video for my Patreon, about how I do the smaller Patreon rewards. I’ll be doing some as embroidery and some as tiny quilt tops.

The one on the left will be embroidery and the one on the right will be a quilt. I drew this one today and recorded it.

And then there is this…

The webinar ends with “Just trying to keep you safe and alive.” Ah yes. That. Dissonance with my coworkers. And other people. “Kids need to be in school” does not match up with “I need to take care of myself.” We’ll see what the school year looks like. Messy, I’m sure. Scary, absolutely. Sad and difficult and stressful.

So I need a walk tonight. And hopefully I’ll keep quilting tonight. It will take me 20 hours or so to do this whole thing, so it’ll be a while. I will hopefully even get to a point where I can quilt during the day, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Too many other tasks need doing. But it’s something I’m aiming for in the next few days.

My Other Other Job…

Well I am totally off my writing schedule at the moment. Blame my other job. No, wait…my other other job. My job is teaching. My other job is art. My other other job is copyediting. Good news! I’m done with that project, so I can finally take some time off and pretend to be on vacation. Well, as much as anyone can when it’s hot as hell and you can’t go anywhere. But we have our health! It’s interesting, because I keep hearing from people (locally and otherwise), “do you actually KNOW someone who’s gotten sick and/or died from this?” Well yes…to both. Secondarily knowing on the death part, so no need for condolences here…but if you’re sitting around on the beach in San Diego with your mojito and wondering what’s the big fucking deal…you’ll see eventually. It’s too bad you can’t listen to the experts and behave accordingly. Because there are at least two restaurants we won’t go back to for takeout because they weren’t enforcing mask rules, so now they have lost business. And there are a few other places I avoid for similar reasons. At this point, with numbers ramping up in Southern California, my goal is to stay out of the hospital and not get sick, so they won’t have to decide whether I get to live or not…because I won’t need to force them to make that choice.

So here I am, with another small fence that needs building (starting that this week, going a little slower, because it’s not a dog-escape issue), a quilt that needs finishing (batting arrived yesterday and is ready to go), a bunch of other art stuff that needs doing (bits and pieces of starting and finishing this and that), and a little more free time on my hands. That sounds good, because I need some serious meditation time coming up. I feel the future teacher anxiety on my shoulders, and I’m not even one of the four teachers going back to school tomorrow. Hell, I’m anxious for them. And the kids. This school year, though…deep breaths…gonna need my calm mojo (ha!)…wait, gonna need to make some calm mojo, because that’s not how I roll under stress, unfortunately.

Anyway, if you wonder about copyediting, here’s what I did…

Not bad. I deleted a lot of those comments too, because we resolved them before I sent it back. It’s just easier that way. Those were mostly reference issues. This is my 5th book with this author, which is nice, because it’s easier to figure out their patterns when you continue to work with them. Luckily, he likes what I do. I don’t do a lot of copyediting, usually only one or two projects a year, just to help with some of the additional expenses that come up. This money will be for tree trimming. I’m debating whether to get it done now (probably the best plan) or wait until after summer, when I know I won’t need the money for the summer. I don’t get paid for teaching again until the end of August, which is a little painful. I try to plan for it, but no one plans for a pandemic, right? Well, maybe we should from here on out.

Saturday was mostly copyediting, but I did need to make more pancakes using up the sourdough starter…trained by the girlchild…

No, I did not eat all those…I froze those puppies for breakfasts. Easy peasy.

Then in the afternoon, I had a quilt guild meeting…I forgot to take a picture during the meeting, so this is what you have…

I worked on this while watching the meeting. I don’t like sitting still; I guess that’s obvious.

Then I copyedited all the other minutes of the day, until dinner time or so…it was hot, so we did this…

Tonight’s dinner was very similar. It’s cooler outside than it is inside too, although there are bugs. Bitey bugs. I didn’t manage any bug bites the last two nights though, so that’s a plus. It’s too hot for the biters to come out. Interesting conundrum. Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler.

Then we sat around and listened to 80s music and hung out and I tried to finish the book that is due back to the library (electronically) tomorrow. Then I cut some 6″ pieces of paper and drew some things for Patreon rewards and/or Etsy. Did I embroider more? Hard to say.

So I’ll do one version in embroidery and one as a tiny quilt top. So that’s four more? I think I have one person who’s on this reward level, so once she chooses one (after I make them all), then I’ll put the others on Etsy I think. Then I need to do a 10″ design…a few versions…so I’m thinking of ideas for those.

For my next quilt, I think I’m going to do another daughter…so far, I only have two, right? I think? Time for another. I have a Rona Daughter already drawn. I’m still debating what an antiracist quilt by a white old lady would look like. What am I trying to say? I’m not saying it to BIPOC…I’m saying it to the white ladies who don’t get it. Some voted for Trump; some don’t vote. Some say racist things. Some just think them. Some are mostly OK people but have a few stereotypes that need to be banished from their minds. I’m second-guessing myself constantly at the moment, trying to figure my own brain issues out on that continuum. How do I show white privilege to those who don’t see it? So that’s percolating in my brain.

Meanwhile, I have batting and I just need to piece a backing, clean the entryway floor, lay the whole thing out, and pinbaste it. And if I’m smart, I’m gonna do that at night, when it’s notionally cooler.

Although it is night right now and I am sitting in the dark with a fan blowing on me, and I am still too hot.

Last night was too hot for cats…

Apparently flat spaces are good though.

This is the light table, cleared for cat occupancy.

OK, normally in this last paragraph is where I figure out my plan for the day, but it’s currently after 8 PM. I’m going to start by cleaning the floor where I would lay this all out, and then piecing a backing. Then I will decide how I feel and maybe drink a gallon of water to make up for all the sweating I’m going to do in the entryway that has no windows while kneeling on the floor and pinning things together. Then maybe I will collapse somewhere (hopefully not on the entryway floor due to heat exhaustion) and finish my book before the library sucks it back from me. You should wish me luck. Then tomorrow I can quilt! With two fans on me…because when it’s a million degrees is exactly when you should have an 80″-square quilt on your lap. Mmmmhmmm.

That’s What Summer Is for…

Ah yes. It’s late on Friday night. Well, not super late, but late enough that many of you have said goodbye to Friday (if you even know it’s Friday at all) and some are well into Saturday. Or Sunday. I can’t tell. Australia, you are crazy with the days and hours thing and it could be August by now for you all as far as I know. Plus it’s winter and that just blows my mind. In fact, I think I want to live there just for a year or so, just so I can come back and NOT think that August equals hot and February equals rain, but only a little bit, because we are Southern California in a drought for all eternity.

Why am I writing so late? Well, there was a chance on Wednesday of going to the zoo, and that didn’t happen, so today ended up being the only day available forever more that wouldn’t be a weekend, and when you’re trying to avoid people, weekends are not the way to go, so we got our butts out of bed at a reasonable hour and went to the zoo. More on that later, but it was a better social-distancing experiment than I think school will be, although there were times when I thought, oh yeah, this is JUST LIKE what school will be like, and it was mostly when I was around either people or primates. Wait. We’re primates. So it’s the damn primates. We don’t do this well. Although really, I’d rather hang with the orangutans. Not the baboons. Them’s vicious bastards. MORE LATER.

So I wrote on Wednesday last, and Wednesday night, I did some stitch down…

And I kind of got to this point where I said I would use the two meetings (both social, online) I had on Thursday to finish the stitchdown, because I had other stuff (sewing stuff) I had to finish and I needed the machine for that, and I hate switching needles and thread, so I just went for it…

It’s been hot. I have two fans I’m using in here.

And besides having to be the expert on whether or not we should open schools next month [um. If you won’t open a restaurant, why the fuck would you open a school? Because you hate teachers and want them to die? Don’t even ask me about the kids who will get sick and potentially die (none here in the age group I teach, which is great, but won’t continue if we open schools), and worse, take the disease home to family members.]. Wait, I was in the middle of a sentence. Besides having to be the expert on opening schools (no. don’t.), I just stitched.

And at 10 hours and 7 minutes…

I was done. The batting will be here tomorrow, but I had other things I had to get done, so my backing isn’t pieced yet…hopefully Sunday.

My quilt guild had a stitch along for the last 4 or 5 weeks (I can’t count. Please don’t make me.), and I needed to be done by midnight tonight. Yesterday, after finishing the stitchdown, I trimmed all the blocks…except one was too small.

Yup. That red one. I added a strip to make it work. And then I laid them all out again, and because I’d seen some other people spread them out more, I got a stupid bug up my butt and pulled 5 of the blocks out of the center bit, added more white/black, and pushed them into the border…

Because why make it easy? In fact, I have no need for an abstract quilt on the wall, so this needs to be even bigger. IDK what I will do about that, but I did piece the whole center together last night.

And then put the borders on today, after the zoo.

Looks good. All I need to do is decide how I will make it bigger, sandwich, quilt it, bind it, and then toss it on the couch for cats and dogs to sleep on it. Right? Sure. The point is that I finished it on time. The pattern is Abstract Arcs by Cotton and Bourbon. Look! I pieced something.

I’m still trying to finish all the grass on this, Folk Tails, by Sue Spargo. I found another spool of green thread and jokingly said I knew I was done with the grass when I’d run out of green thread. Um. No. So this was after Thursday’s second meeting of the day…

At this point, I think I’m done with the bottom three rows, but when I look at it like this, I see stuff that bugs me…so when I sewed these two blocks, they had the grass already on them, unlike the bits I’ve been adding. But it’s so obvious that it stops at the edge of the block that it bugs me…

So I had to go in and add more grass over the seams to make it look less like straight lines. Taking photos of this stuff helps see crazy things like that, which will drive me nuts if I don’t fix them. Then tonight during gaming, I kept going on the grass…yeah, I know there’s a cat on there, but I might be close to done with grass stitching.

I’m seeing maybe one or two places that need more. “MORE”, because if you look at her photo of it on the website, she added a gazillion more bits of grass from the pattern, and I don’t have that kind of patience. So the next step is to put the borders on. Wow. Another almost finished Sue Spargo Block of the Month. Well done.

So I also drew two more of the tattoo quilt blocks…

Again, these aren’t mine. I’m taking a paper-piecing pattern by Happy Sew Lucky and shrinking it and turning it into applique. I like the images, but I don’t like paper piecing. I also need to draw some stuff for the next Patreon rewards. Maybe that will also be tomorrow. We’ll see.

If you’ve met me more than once or twice, you know this about me.

Strangely, it does not translate to my on-video self.

OK, so the zoo. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours, and at the end, we were mostly done with people. There were more and more who were either lame as fuck about social distancing, or wouldn’t move out of the way so everyone could see the animals, or would get in our personal space, or flat out weren’t wearing a mask. That last category was pretty small, actually, which is a good thing. I feel like all school year, I will be saying, “Mask ON. Six FEET.” T-shirts to come. That said, it was outside and a walk and the baby animals are cute as hell…

The baby orangutan playing with the baby siamang.

They were adorable.

There were lots of sleeping cats…

It was a warm day.

Honestly, even mine sleep in this heat…

Except this guy…

A new dad who kept coming over to this fence to check out mom and babies…

She was, in the way of all new moms, fully into Fuck Off, You Did This to Me, and hanging with the babes.

So the baboons were yelling at each other and chasing each other around the enclosure.

Let me be clear, the ones with penises were chasing each other and everyone else was just running around either trying to figure out what was going on, or trying to avoid it. Just like in real life. So many things to feel about that. We never figured out what was really wrong…also like real life.

This baboon had the best hair.

I mean, I know they groom each other, but my hair NEVER looks that good. I was jealous.

Yes, this is a photo of a tapir peeing in the water. Not because it was peeing but because the pee was making this crystalline pattern in the water…

Which you can sort of see here, but it was much more impressive in person. Me wondering about the chemical properties of tapir pee. Really.

Secretary birds are just weird.

Some guy walked by and said they were ugly. Nah. Just fascinating.

I don’t find many animals ugly. Humans? Well, that’s another story, but it’s really the insides and not the outsides.

Lots of funny little birds to be seen.

This is hanging down bird…

And its twin…wait…it’s still a hanging bird, but this one is doing it wrong…

Or maybe it was called an upside-down bird. Can’t remember. That was its name though…the assumption that it was always upside down.

The flamingos are probably the most photographed bird at the zoo…

Because they’re bright and flashy and right up front.

Otis the hippo was born in 1976, I think.

He’s very still.

This tiger was finding food in hidden locations…

Kudos to the zoo keepers for keeping them hunting…

It was a nice morning out…well worth it. And I felt less violated by people than I do when going shopping, so that was a plus. I’d do it again.

Calli’s not sure.

I took her in the pool for a cooling-off swim…

Yes, Luna is even squishier than she was last time.

I don’t understand this.

We still have monarchs on the milkweed…

Always nice. Oh yeah, and I made blueberry cobbler to use up the berries before they went bad.

I think I like a crisp more than a cobbler, in case anyone is keeping track. There are more berries coming. I’ll make the crisp next week.

OK, it’s late and I’m tired. I’m going to do the dishes I got dirty and then go to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll finish the copyediting and go to the quilt guild zoom, and then see what else I have the energy for…maybe nothing. And that’s OK. I have been working pretty steadily all week. It’ll be nice not to be copyediting or doing school for once. But then we need to do the other fence…so that’s a different kind of work. And more art! I need to make more art. That’s what summer is for.

Usually My Fault…

Well I am mostly braindead today. My fault for going to bed late. It’s usually my fault, eh? Plus yesterday was mostly copyediting and not a lot else. I want to be done with it so I can just do art all the time. I’m getting close. The references were yesterday…today is up in the air. It’s the man’s birthday and we were going to go to the zoo, which is still open, yay, but he’s also braindead, so we’re debating doing it later or doing it another day. Sometimes sitting around and doing nothing all day is a thing. I personally feel like I do too much of that already, but then I remember that if I’m doing that (or doing silly things that don’t further my art or my work in some way), there’s a reason for it. My brain is pretty good at trying to give me space. Like stop reading Facebook or watching the news because all that shit about schools needing to open and withholding federal and state funding if you don’t…sigh, this country is fucked up at the moment. OK, it’s always fucked up, but this is beyond the usual fucked-up mess. Frustrating as hell.

Anyway, so on Monday, I was also not very functional, but it’s because I did the 17 million errands including the dentist and the TB test (which I have to get checked before 1:20 PM tomorrow…no, I don’t have it…how could I? I’m literally around almost no one on a regular basis), and I think that was the first time I had an almost-normal errand run in four months and it killed me. Not really, but I was tired and covered in hand sanitizer by the end of it. By the way, those automatic hand sanitizers? I’m lame when it comes to using those. They scare me. It keeps shooting the sanitizer out while I’m trying to get away from it. Oh yeah, and the dog had his teeth cleaned, so I spent about 2 hours dealing with the vet on either end of that. So it’s no wonder that I got very little else done. I did do a bunch of stitch down, because it was easy to do…

I am 6 hours into the stitch down…I guessed 9-10 hours total and I might be in that range. I am more than halfway now…I’m on the top half of the central figure and then have the two angels. Hopefully I’ll get some done tonight. I’m wavering on when to finish this one. I have to make a new smaller one and have it photographed by August 1. I think. Or I can choose to keep doing this one. I just don’t know. Today is not the day for decision making, that’s for sure. This whole week might be a goner for that.

Sometimes the back is really interesting too. I need to remember to cut pieces for that one corona virion where 4 of the parts disappeared. Maybe after writing this I will remember to do that.

So yesterday, after copyediting, I had no brain left. I just wanted to sit and stitch, but nothing hard. No decisions. So I pulled out the Sue Spargo Homegrown and finished stitching down the rest of February’s houses.

They are comforting in the process and bright colors. Although they are all wonky. I like wonky, luckily. I pulled out March this morning, so I could prep it for the next mental-fail day. Have I done any embellishment on these? No. No I have not. Don’t judge.

So the other crazy thing my brain decided on back in May was to do this Tattoo quilt by Happy Sew Lucky aka Berene Campbell. I sent you to read her reasons for making the blocks in the first place. I think that’s where I originally found her quilt, was in reading about quilt artists who make work in response to shit that’s going on. The graphic quality of her quilt spoke to me as well, and I bought the patterns. I knew they were foundation paper piecing (FPP), which I’ve done exactly one block of…ever. I think in the beginning I thought I might try it again, but no. I’m not. I’m really not. I also don’t want a huge quilt. I don’t have a lot of wall space and wouldn’t put this on a bed with the psychotic animals who live here, so I let it simmer in my brain for a LOOONG time. She’s doing a stitch along of sorts, one block a month; she sends out great info, these are awesome patterns, and the FB page where people are sharing their color versions is great inspiration. It doesn’t hurt that Tula Pink also made one using her fabrics, so people are swooning over it. If that gets Berene more income, I am totally for that. But here I am, not willing to FPP (my sanity is important), but wanting to make it, but not wanting it to be that big. Hmm. Respecting the artist’s work is also important to me, but I did buy all the patterns, so I am less worried about that at the moment. I’m not UNworried about my plans…just less worried.

So yeah. First I cut out a piece of paper the size of the image as she designed them. And I stared at that for a full 2 hours. Maybe. OK. I cut it out, looked at it, and walked away from it. Then came back. Then walked away again. Filed it in the part of my brain that processes art shit and let it do it’s thang.

And then came back and sized it in half. So a 10×16″ block image is now 5×8″. Uh huh. That’s tiny. But doable. Next step…redraw for applique. Yeah. Seriously. It’s my preferred way to make quilts, usually fused applique, but I think for this, it’s simple enough and I get enough satisfaction from the hand applique, that I should do that. I may hate myself after doing all those letters like A and R and P with the fucking tiny holes in them, but I’ve been hand appliqueing since I was in my early 20s and I’m pretty good at it, so whatever. And this is my quilt. I get to do what I want. I started with the block for July, Truth. A good one.

Ah, wonkiness, you are my bestest friend. I’ll go over this with pen and straighten some shit up. And then I did the next three months…

Some are easier to redraw logically than others. But I like it. I’m going to keep going. If you think these are cool, go buy all Berene’s patterns and make her happy too. I realize she might not be thrilled with what I’m doing…it’s hard to know how artists will go with redoing their stuff, like adding to it or using different colors, cool, but redrawing it into a different technique…I just don’t know. ALWAYS buy their stuff before you do anything like this. It’s definitely not cool if you don’t buy their stuff.

Damn, I miss this kid. She’s far away.

Thinking about selling her car.

This cat, thinking about nothing but being right where her mommy is.

Every time. She follows me all over the house. She’s in here now, occupying the green fabric drawer again…as Luna continues to occupy plastic.

She mostly fits in there. It doesn’t look comfortable, but I’m not a cat, so WTF do I know.

OK. I still have no idea what’s happening today, so I’ll start copyediting and see where we go from there. I’m also going to plan on doing some stitch down tonight (or even during the day, you just don’t know!) and maybe some prep on that Homegrown quilt, or maybe I’ll look at my drawn daughters and see if one could be a quilt. Honestly, it’s the 8th of July…could I finish another quilt before the end of the month anyway? I don’t know. I could if I could get my brain in gear and work more hours a day. Uh huh. Anyway. This post was interrupted by the girlchild and car things and lunch. Still nothing has been decided for today. It’s OK. I should go get my TB test looked at. Like now. OK. Plan for short term. Long term will follow.

Something on That Magnitude…

Well, it’s been a rough week. Hopefully next week will feel better. The girlchild is finally in Boston, the sourdough starter and I have been close and complicated, and I have 9 new boxes of fabric. The boxes are new to me, the fabric is new to me, none of it is actually new.

Before you do anything else, watch this video. It’s the 4th of July, a weird one, to be sure, but this is video of Frederick Douglass’ speech about what the 4th means to him, read by his descendants. And it’s hard to hear, because so much hasn’t changed…but they all still have hope. I have hope. Didn’t mean I didn’t cry to hear the words, because honestly, it’s hard to know how to fix it all (burn it all down! and start over…). But watch them. It’s only 6 minutes of your lives. You can give them that.

Yeah. Told you they were awesome. In youth, I see hope.

So. It’s Independence Day. It’s warm, there will be fireworks, but we can’t see them from here, and we can’t gather…so we’re gonna take a drive to my parents’ house and see if we can see them from there. I spent yesterday mostly copyediting…I’m going to do more of that today. I set a goal to be done next Saturday, so I’m sticking to my 4-5 hours a day. Nothing else really needs to get done, although exercise would be nice.

I did finish all the blocks for the Abstract Arcs quilt on Thursday…

They all need to be trimmed and sized…

That’s next week.

I’m not great at piecing accurately. I don’t do it a lot. I did lay them all out and stare at them and move them around until I got this…

I’ll have to stare at it for a while and decide if that’s it. Right now, it looks mostly OK. My real goal was to get the piecing done so I could start the stitch down on the big honking thing that was on my ironing board…

You wanna talk meditative? It’s pushing and pulling this thing under the machine, stitching down every piece. And I did a good job attaching everything in that four hours I took, so it’s been really easy and trouble-free so far (knock on wood, because that’s not always the case).

I am running out of thread, though, and I haven’t considered the background. I don’t really WANT to go to JoAnns for thread (or anything), but it seems we’ve moved past the “only buy stuff online” stage that I was at with the last quilt, and now we are in the “you can go to stores, but be smart about it” stage. There’s probably another 7 hours of stitch down to go…

I am going out more now than I was 3.5 months ago. I don’t necessarily like it, but I try to be careful. I have something right now that needs to go to the post office, another thing where I can go to the post office with it or go to the actual store to return it. They warn that mailing it will take 4-6 weeks to refund. Hmmm. Then I need a TB test for school, which is two trips…one to get poked, one to get the poke seen. Maybe the second part can be a video call? Who knows. They were jerks when I called, so I will find out when I go in. Plus I have dentist next week. And today, I drove to a friend’s house…she’s moving and downsizing her fabric stash. So I benefited…

Oh yeah, that’s exciting. I really do like adopting other peoples’ stashes. I tend to buy the same types of fabrics, and this is a way of infusing my stash with another person’s eyeball. Stuff I never would have bought gets incorporated into my quilts. Now finding room for all this will be a challenge, but the boychild and I were talking about some of the stuff in my office that I never touch that could be boxed up. So now I need some big plastic boxes for the garage, I guess. Summer is all about organization.

It’s also about breadmaking. I started with sourdough starter back in March; then the girlchild came home and took over (I’m pretty sure she tossed my starter and started over). She’s kind of awesome and obsessive about cooking, whereas I am mostly lackadaisical. That’s probably not a great trait for baking bread. Many people have sent me links to easy recipes, but I’m following the one my daughter liked, which is A Beautiful Plate, her artisan sourdough. No, it’s not easy. But I have an expert I can text at any time.

This is useful to me. Plus there’s videos. Here’s my starter after being fed yesterday. Then I incorporated it into the autolyse…

And then I stopped taking pictures. I did a bunch of things to the dough yesterday afternoon and evening, and then it went into the fridge overnight, where it still is…doing its thing. Hopefully later today, that thing will be baking bread that is tasty and has the appropriate number and size of holes in it. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, it’s a thing I’m doing. Better than this…

Although that might be a stress reliever of sorts.

Calli needed pool time, so that’s up to me or the boychild now…

She’s old and now gets all the treats. She’s eating a pine cone and just happens to be lying on a plant runner that really should get trimmed the next time I sit out there with her.

She’s a good girl. I keep telling her that. She’s another thing that makes me cry this summer. Ah well. Lots of pets and dips in the pool and maybe even bits of bread, because she really likes bread. A lot.

Luna has picked a box and will be in it. Her feet are the best part.

All the cats have their spots. Kitten has claimed this green fabric drawer.

No one may have fabric from this drawer. Only her.

Here’s the bunny who lives under my front deck and thoroughly irritates the little dog and the cats with its presence.

It’s cute. Watch out for coyotes! We’ve got those, for sure.

OK, so the internet was an asshole while I was trying to write this, so I did some other things, like eat lunch and find the ricecakes the girlchild left here and no one else will eat. I might feel that way about the raisins too, but I’m willing to listen to the boychild on that. I really want to do some creative fabric things right now, but I’m being a responsible adult and will (a) process the video for my Patreon July post, and then (b) do some copyediting. And then we will figure out the whole dinner-on-a-holiday thing and drive to my parents’ house to see if we can observe fireworks. Then back here for sleep and all that. It’s not exciting, but it’s relatively safe, so there’s that. Next week, I will figure out how to buy thread and organize fabric and do all the things I’m supposed to do. Happy 4th for those who celebrate, and if you don’t because you are an American and it doesn’t feel very American, I’m sorry. I love fireworks and staring up into the dark blue sky to see them explode, and I hope you get to enjoy something on that magnitude.