My New Motto: "Always Carry Scissors"

Tuesday is the beginning of my working week. It's helping, to have two days off in a row (Sun & Mon)--often it takes 24 hours for my brain to stop thinking about work.

I want to try to get back to blogging in the mornings--it anchors me a bit, like, in yesterday's "How to Darn" post, the first step is to sew around the hole, to provide an anchor to launch your other stitches from (as well as a stitching guide).

I was disappointed that tutorial didn't get many likes on the thrift store's Facebook page (which I'd made it for).
But Julia, the model & inspiration for the post, said that even if it gets low "likes", it serves to introduce the IDEA that you can repair your clothes.

True.
That's a pretty foreign idea to many of us, since it's easier (and so cheap) to buy new ones.

The post did get one beautiful comment: 
"My mom used to collect sock darners so I have a bunch of them. Now I will actually use them!" 
That was worth it, if someone is inspired to try darning.

But it galls me that the darning post got 3 likes, 
while THIS cartoon >
got 22 likes.

The Development Director posted it. 

I don't like her anyway, but this cartoon is ...

1) about the Disneyfication of Winnie the Pooh, 
and,
2) captioned with feel-good gobbledygook:

Mickey the Giver is greater than poor Pooh, the receiver?

It could instead read something like, 
"Sharing makes everyone better!"

Or,..hmmm, "Now we're both half-dressed!" 

Or, hey! maybe most helpfully: "Always carry scissors!"  

Yes! That's such good advice! I love my friends (like Julia) who carry little kits of useful things, including things that cut––I am often borrowing them.

< Here, I fixed it.

By posting the cartoon, are we (subtly) implying that the people who can afford to donate (esp gifts of money) to the thrift store are greater than people who need financial help?

In fact, yes. 

It is pervasive in thrift store literature, the Charity mindset that casts "The Poor" as OTHER people that "we" are [humbly] good for helping.

It's like the pretty colored lawn signs that sprang up in my city after Trump was elected that say, ALL ARE WELCOME HERE, and other such slogans--(the sort you find emblazoned on coffee mugs of Development Directors).

I understand they are meant to welcome refugees, but in themselves, they are nonsense.
If my former neighbors, the murderous meth addicts, moved next door to someone with that lawn sign, I doubt they'd be welcome. I certainly didn't welcome them! 

Trauma and Desperation do not make pleasant neighbors.

My country should invite refugees and immigrants, but not because it's the pastel-colored thing to do.

The store doesn't feel condescending like that, on the ground. (Not usually.) Last week the executive director was so dark and down, in fact––no chipper blather from him––I liked him more than ever. He's on the front lines, and he doesn't come back with reports of Disneyland.

Actually, I'm a little worried about him. He isn't usually so down about how bad things are.
He reminded me of me during the time I was writing a geography book for teens about the Republic of Congo, a couple years after my mother's suicide: 
I'd gone to a dinner party and hadn't even mentioned rape as a tool of war or anything like that, but at the end of the evening, the guy who'd sat next to me said,
"Are you always this dark?"

Not now that I have my scissors!