Category: Thoughts

1. I found a new blog with a superb writer, Marianne Wilburn, called Small Town Gardener.
2. She also has a great book about gardening, written in her conversational style – Big Dreams, Small Garden.  It is one of the more realistic approaches to gardening I’ve read.

   

3. Through Marianne’s writing, I found a fascinating YouTube channel (?) or is it a person to follow; her name is Liziqi, and it is about a young, strong, beautiful Chinese woman who lives with her grandmother and gardens and cooks. What?? Yeppers. Fascinating to watch. (I’ve seen it before but can’t remember when or why.)
4. I learned in November how much shopping does not appeal to me. Or maybe it is stuff that does not appeal. I’ve never liked shopping, but this really drove home the point. A friend told me about Jane.com, an online shopping mall. I looked, and all the stuff almost made me twitch.  (No, I am not a Communist – thank you for your concern.)

   

5. When customers are in a hurry and my schedule is full, I learned to tell them that there is a rush charge. This is the first time I’ve done this, and I had three opportunities in November. This takes the sting out of having to work on Saturdays and Sundays to meet their deadlines. Two of three customers agreed to pay the charge.  The third customer made an adjustment in his hurried plans and said he could wait the normal 2 weeks that we discussed last summer; even two weeks feels like a squeeze right now, but I got the job finished.
6. There is something new, an alternative to FaceBook, called Parler. I wonder. . . but, no. I have enough to do.
7. There is something else new, an alternative to YouTube, called Rumble. 
8. A friend told me 2 really dumb jokes that he was surprised I hadn’t heard before: A. Why does a cowboy want to die with his boots on? So it won’t hurt when he kicks the bucket. B. Why does a man want to be buried in his truck? Because it hasn’t ever failed to get him out of a hole.
9. I ran across the term “EDM” in a couple of different places and got curious. It is Electronic Digital Music, and in my opinion, it qualifies as an audio assault rather than music. (In an elderly voice coming from inside my head: “My goodness, these young folks today!”)
10. In-N-Out has good hamburgers. This is a weird admission from someone who didn’t eat red meat for 17 years, and still feels a bit squeamish about burger. My conclusion is that it is the sauce that makes it so good. Wait – didn’t Micky-Ds used to advertise “special sauce”? This was so out of my realm of normal that I felt compelled to share the information. (Thank you for lunch, Jon!)

And here are a few more photos from November that didn’t fit into the list. (Nope, not going to photograph my food – this is NOT Facebook and no one who reads my blog comes here to see my lunch, thank goodness.)

P.S. Can you spot Pippin?

For a couple of years I have been posting lists of things I learn at the end of each month. This year it feels particularly important to encourage you, Blog Readers, that 2020 isn’t entirely filled with difficulties and mayhem. 

1. Kayaking! It was so fun, and easier than stand-up paddle boarding (well, duh).
2. White pelicans are huge and don’t dive like brown pelicans do.
3. Harbor seals and elephant seals are different. Did you know that? Elephant seals are playful and curious, sometimes trying to climb onto kayaks. Harbor seals are much more shy.
4. A friend sent a Youtube link to a song called Rayburn Crane by someone named Tom Russell – it is about a guy in Mineral King!
5. “8 million people have left California” – I heard this on a podcast, but the speaker didn’t say in what time frame. I think he must have been speaking of the past 10 years (since the last census). I looked it up, and the main states attracting California refugees are Texas, Arizona and Washington. I know people who have moved to Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado.
6. A little mosquito has been a real nuisance this summer (I didn’t save the newspaper article with the name of the bug.) The mosquito is smaller, it is out in the daytime, you can’t feel it bite, and it itches and sometimes swells up way more than regular mosquitoes. To add insult to injury, it carries West Nile virus. Good grief, what next??
7. Retail therapy late at night can be expensive. I ordered some clothes from a site, knowing it was probably a mistake. The sizing was wonky, the fabric was cheap, the clothing differed from the photos. In order to return things, the customer has to email and get an authorization code. The company didn’t reply in a timely manner, the 15 day return window started narrowing, and finally the company said they would offer a 15% refund so “you can buy cloth to repair clothing”. Or, if you prefer, they will give you the address in China where the order can be returned. WHAT?? Our local thrift shop just scored some brand new items. Sigh.
8. Vanilla water – I invented this because my giant bottle of vanilla extract ran out but had some residue in the bottom that I didn’t want to waste. I filled it with water, put it in the fridge, and it was SO GOOD!
9. Rock stacking – There are cairns or “ducks” along routes where trails aren’t visible, and this differs from rock stacking or balancing. This article goes into depth on the topic. Like almost everything, a little is interesting, copycats turn it into a problem, and then finger-waggers come along and turn it all sour.
10. This isn’t new, but it has been several years since I showed you – this is the link to the website of an artist whose work amazes me in its brilliance, precision and subtle humor. Her name is Sandra Busby.
11. This is new information to my blog readers: one of my drawing students had a Cooks Illustrated magazine with beautiful art on the cover. We looked up the artist, Robert Papp, and just swooned over his fruits and vegetables. Later that day, I reached for my favorite stamps to put one on an envelope, and was gobsmacked to see that they were Robert Papp’s work!
12. I can draw from my computer screen instead of ordering prints. This is a new experience for me. Using both print and on-screen provides the best information, but sometimes there isn’t enough time to wait for professionally made prints; my tired Epson printer is a poor option because it uses too much ink, has incorrect colors, and prints with stripes in the photos.

The summary lists continue as I keep working on some private commissions, a fancy Art Speak word for custom artwork.

Personally, not professionally, this happened in the last weird year:

• Tried and thoroughly enjoyed kayaking
• Tried and thoroughly enjoyed stand-up paddle boarding (even thought it made my feet hurt – a weird result)
• Missed church on Easter Sunday for the first time in my life
• Realized that I like not having social obligations
• The lock-down reinforced how much I like being at home.
• We managed to keep 3 cats alive by locking them inside the garage each night (although sometimes they still go rogue)
• Learned what possessions matter when facing evacuation from both our main home and our cabin
• Realized how much I depend on the library
• Learned how thin the veneer of civilization is in our country and how easily people are controlled by fear
• Learned how people share food with one another as a gesture of love especially in hard times – we got more food brought to us and shared more food with friends than I ever remember in the past.

What’s on your list? (Does anyone besides me do this sort of evaluating and list making?)

In September I learned nine things, many of which I wish hadn’t been necessary.

1. Did you know that shower mixing valves come from the factory preset at a low temperature? Did you know that you can adjust the temperature by asking The Duck? (You might use The Google; I use The Duck, as in DuckDuckGo).
2. AQI – Air Quality Index – Suddenly everyone is discussing the number of the air. There is a website called Airnow.gov  where you can obsessively type in your zip code all day long and then compare your number to that of your sisters in other zip codes who are obsessively typing in their zip codes.
3. “Meat bees” are not bees, but wasps, actually Yellow Jackets. They don’t live on pollen and nectar, but on meat, usually from dead animals or picnickers. They can sting repeatedly, unlike a bee that dies after it stings. I have made baking soda paste to take out the pain for 3 different cabin neighbors this year. Those dudes HURT, but baking soda mixed with water fixes the pain immediately (and stops working when it gets dry).
4. When ash falls outside, you can easily locate all the spider webs.
5. It is difficult to decide if a cough is due to The Virus or if it is due to very bad air. Very Bad Air. Very Bad Air. VERY BAD AIR!!
6. Tea made from boiled leaves of the Wooly Mullein plant is supposed to be good for respiratory troubles; it tastes like boiled weeds.
7. When there is a possibility of evacuating one’s home, one quickly decides what stuff matters and what is meh. But the longer the wait to know if one must evacuate, the longer the list grows of what to take.

   

8. We have a tremendous number of helpful, kind, concerned, generous friends, more than anyone deserves. So many offers to haul our stuff, store our stuff, host us if we were evacuated. Really took some of the edge off of wondering what to do. 
9. Finding truth seems harder than ever, and the topics seem more weighty than ever. You can find evidence, science, experience, and convincing facts for any side to an argument. Do masks help or don’t they? If they work, why do we have to distance ourselves? And if distancing helps, why do we have to wear masks? And if both of those things are the answer, why is so much still shut down? Has global warming caused the fires or not? Will managing forests harm the environment? Don’t fires harm the environment??

Makes me tired. Anyone want to recommend a good book to read as an escape? Never mind. The library is closed again. I don’t want to buy any books. I don’t want to buy anything. If I own it, I’ll have to decide whether to add it to the pile of other things to grab and go, if that becomes necessary.