Smoke and Falls

Last night the girlettes held a second Shinto-inspired "Thank You, Dolls" ceremony for the departed Red Hair Girl. We'd already had one at the waterfall, but some of us still miss RHG.

This was a fire ceremony at my new place: 
The girlettes offered a Little Debbie Zebra Cake to the bonfire.
Perhaps we'll have an Earth and Air ceremony too...

I'm holding Penny Cooper as she pokes the fire with a stick--I worried she'd catch her hair on fire.

bink came for the ceremony and dinner, and she, Patti, and I sat around the fire all evening.
It's so nice to live in a place big enough for friends to hang out, including a back yard, though soon it will be too cold for that.

I don't miss my old place at all.

II. A Thing About Dolls in Public

Penny Cooper smells like smoke this morning. She and SweePo have come to the Key West coffee shop with me, the other coffee shop in my neighborhood. The bright colors are nice on this rainy day.

It's funny, taking the dolls in public.
At the waterfall ceremony, I'd lined them all up on the bridge overlooking the waterfall. They were saying the Sanskrit heart sutra I've mentioned--Gaté, gaté ("Gone, gone...")--and a woman came up and asked what I was doing. 

In her mid-thirties, this woman looked old-school Midwestern Normal--blonde puffy-poodle hair, wearing make up and a fuschia-colored top––but she didn't seem very friendly. 

I answered, "My dolls are holding a farewell ceremony for a lost doll."

"What does that mean?" she said. She almost seemed suspicious.

"Well, I left one of my dolls on the bus, and so these dolls are saying thank you to her and wishing her well on her travels, wherever she is..."

The woman continued to stand there, as if she wanted something more, so I said, "Do you like dolls?"

She hesitated. "Well...?" she said, ". . . I do."

________________________

P.S.  That's an ice-skating costume SweePo is wearing in the photo above. 
I ordered it on eBay because I have plans for the tiny ice-skates that are part of the package. I was disappointed when they arrived that the blades aren't metal, just thick silver material that won't hold a doll's weight.
I'll have to fix that. Maybe paper clips...?

Smiles

I. Smiles

Today was the society of St. V's annual fundraising walk. Big Boss asked me to take photos just as it was starting. I'm always happy to take photos. Good thing I'd brought my phone--I've started not carrying it all the time.

It was a jolly event on a nice fall morning, and I was happy with this set of photos I posted on the store's FB. 
Big Boss is the black guy, the bottom row. He really is as open and smiley as he appears. I wish he were just my coworker instead of the boss.

Top left: matching peace-symbol earrings
Top right: fingernails the color of the Vikings football team
Bottom right: a coworker who tells me God has sent him to work in such a poorly run store so that he can learn patience.

Photograph practically any group of people and you end up feeling like Diane Arbus.

Thrifty Haircut

I skimmed through Life After Money last night--the frugal-living blog I'd been looking to find again––and see that the blogger, Ilona, had recently cut her own hair.

I'd recently asked Mz to cut my hair to save money and bother too.
I used to go to a Cost Cutters near my old apartment--they only charge $15--but there's not one nearby my new place. I'm not too picky about my hair, and it's kind of bouncy, so it usually looks fine even with a bad cut.

She did a good job, though she'd never cut hair before (QED, haircuts are too expensive). She gave me a cut much like the girlettes'! In fact, I had a Pageboy haircut like this when I was a girlette myself.

Here I am at IKEA last night (with SweePo in my phone bag). Now I live near the light-rail, I'm only 15 minutes from the store. I like their cafeteria, so I went with bink yesterday.
(I'm holding a fold-up box, which I didn't end up buying.)

This morning I'm blogging at the bike/coffee shop two blocks from my house, while they fix a flat tire. Nice combo!

I think I'll start coming here in the mornings. 

I love living with a friendly, chatty roommate, but I like to write in the mornings and I'm not getting much done. I could sit in my room or ask her to be quiet, but both seems a little... unfriendly (at least at this stage, as we're getting to know each other). 

Anyway, it'll help me get to know the neighborhood to come here regularly. Another good combo.

And now I'm off to work--so happy to be able to bike again. And it's all-books day today. I do like cashiering, but my love is the BOOK's.

Bath Day. UPDATE: with frugal blog

Yay! Phillis kindly left a comment identifying the frugal blogger I was looking for: 
Ilona, Life After Money: Snippets of my brilliant life on a pension.

Thank you, Phillis! (And nice to meet you here.)


I. Frugal Bathing

A while ago I found a non-trendy blog about living on the cheap, written by an English woman who'd retired early from truck driving and lives alone on little money.  

She's NOT a perky "frugal lifestyle" blogger, like a Martha Stewart decorating her prison cell. (Martha did! . . . but she also talks about prison reform, saying, “I felt very close to Kafka during parts of this ordeal. I even got a Kafka T-shirt to wear.”--via Vanity Fair).

And this blogger's also not singing the common, faith-based refrain:
 "I am so blessed! My husband and our three beautiful children live the fresh and frugal life on two acres. Warm eggs from our brown speckled hens every morning!"

Instead she writes blunty about, for example, bathing once a week to save money on hot water, addressing anyone who might think that's gross: "I'm not asking you to come smell my pits."
Does this blog ring a bell for anyone? I'd like to find it again.
I haven't found it on lists such as Thrifty UK Blogs. (I'm going to check some of those out though.) 

I was thinking about this blogger as I took a bath this morning. 
I always used to take baths, not showers, but this house has l-o-w water pressure. It takes 15 minutes to fill the tub. The shower is surprisingly powerful though, so I'm planning on a soak only once a week--on a day off.

II. "That Won't Work"

I needed a day off today.  
Three full days cashiering and sorting books is physically tiring. 

Yesterday I also had another disheartening encounter at work. Big Boss and a couple others were touring the store with someone from the police dept., talking about how to reduce shoplifting, including ways to reconfigure the store.

From behind the cash register, I suggested we could move the check-out counter, so the cashier (me!) could see the whole store ––and both doors.
(As it is, the cashier faces only the exit door, but people come and go out both doors.)

Move the check-out counter? 
The police guy said, "That's an idea...". My coworkers all gave the standard response, "That won't work!"

God forbid we should change anything that's "always been that way."

And damn! once again, I hadn't taken CBD, which Mz says stands for "Care, . . . But Don't".

I do care.

I'd love to trouble-shoot the whole shoplifting situation. 
The regular shoplifters include some of the sex workers in the neighborhood. These women are visibly bedraggled and strung out. Whatever money they earn doesn't go into their pockets, it seems.

As shoppers, they are pests--leaving piles of clothes inside-out on the dressing room floor for instance.  They engage in all sorts of trickery, such as swapping price tags. (It takes some dexterity to wriggle tags off and on the plastic doo-hickeys.)

 Our mission is to help people like them. 
Couldn't we reimagine how we deal with these women? 
We could ... I don't know... maybe give them a punch card for a free item of clothing per day?  
Install a washing machine so they could wash their clothes? 

One of the women has twice asked me for a free pair of clean underwear. Of course I said yes, but I felt bad that a person should have to ask for such a thing.

Meanwhile, I am concentrating on what I can change--the BOOK's section, and my own attitude.
The main thing I try to do at the cash register is to look at each person's face, to treat them and really register them as an individual.

III. The Grandchild of Immigrants

I've often thought of myself as lazy. I'm not high-energy like Pulitzer-Prize high-achievers or like people who are strongly motivated by money.
In this job, though, I see how much my world view comes from being the grandchild of  immigrants, on my father's side.

My Sicilian grandparents were poor––and not in the romantic "there was so much love, we never knew we were poor" way. The family was Not Nice. 
But my grandparents worked hard, and, crucially, they pushed education on their children.

Their life was all about believing things COULD be different. Even if not for their own selves, they felt their sacrifices could help the people who came after them. 
A classic immigrant point of view.

(The idea that immigrants are a problem for the U.S. has got it backward.)

My mother's WASP family, on the other hand, was invested in protecting and maintaining the status quo, which benefited the family. They worked hard, but they thought along the lines of "Don't change things."

I never liked their attitude, so their model also inspired me to think, Why not mix it up? Why not give it a try the other way round?

Why not move the mental furniture? 

20 min. to blog

An hour ago I thought, oh good--I have a free hour to blog. Then I spent half of that futzing with posting on the store's Facebook page the Guardians new (to me) banner: 

"Change is possible. Hope is power."

It didn't fit, so I had to cut it in half and paste each half onto a wider background. Ergh. But, it's up. So now I have 20 minutes till I have to leave for work.
. . . That's something!

No one oversees what I do at work or on the store's FB.
I set up a Banned Books Week display on Monday, with what books we had on hand. I doubt my bosses notice, or know what it is.

Luckily [cough cough] so many books have been banned by some institution, I could round up a decent bunch.
I also printed the ALA list of Banned & Challenged Classics, which says who banned each book, and why. I hung it alongside the display in plastic sleeves.

We do what we can, eh?
Patti and I were talking about hope and despair last night. 

Patti is near despair about the man she's trying to help--he was seized by ICE in Nov. 2017 and has been held ever since, with no charges.
The only reason he wasn't been deported immediately is Patti got her Vincentian group at church to sponsor him--which mostly means $$$ for legal fees, etc.
Meanwhile, without his income, his US-born wife and children have had to go on public assistance. 

It's crazy in a hundred different directions.

Anyway, she was feeling hopeless--not considering giving up, but her mood is ground down--so I thought it might cheer her up to remember that Dietrich Bonhoeffer FAILED.
It sorta did. Or gave a little perspective.

What keeps us going on, working for good as we see it? 
It can't be winning. Winning is not guaranteed. Or not immediate, that's for sure.  
Jane Addams too--she and others worked for fifty years to gain votes for women, with little success along the way.

What's the fuel for our journey?
That's important.

For me, Books.
I had a sexy dream the other night --the object of desire was, I kid you not, a pile of books!

This Is History

"This is history, man!" 
--one teenage American boy to another at the ruins of Pompeii,
overheard by me

bink picked me up to go grocery shopping at 2 p.m., after my cashier shift.
When I got in the car she was listening to the radio report on the UK's supreme court shooting down Boris Johnson's attempt to shut parliament.

When I got home from the grocery store, I looked at the Guardian to read up on that story. The top story of the hour, however, was that Nancy Pelosi has announced an official impeachment inquiry.

Wow.

I have barely looked at the news since I moved Sept. 1. I see the Guardian has a new banner [above]. I like it.

I also like Greta Thunberg's new Twitter bio, using Trump's words, "a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future".  Ha!

A Porch with a View

Blogging on the front porch this morning of fall equinox. The trees are just starting to turn.

The other day I gave Mr. Furniture an old pamphlet from the 1970s––"Genocide in America".

Mr. Furniture is the guy who makes collaged anti-racist outfits (his IG).

"That's what I like about you, San Francisco," he said.
"You're always looking out for me."

Little Red Things in the Forest

Field trip! 
Patti had a rental car yesterday, so we drove north and took a walk in the woods. Penny Cooper spied many little things on the forest floor, some of them red.

"A tree ball!"

The Unknown Idler Saves the World

The idler, the loiterer, the flâneur––my people!
 
It was Free Museum day yesterday––bink and I went to the Museum of Russian Art (styled TMORA on their sign. . . ).
I was excited to discover "The 36 Unknown": 
In each generation, according to Jewish mystical legend, there are at least 36 righteous people who justify man's ways to God. 

(An article in the Times of Israel says this is a riff on the story of how God couldn't find ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah to justify saving the city, at Abraham's request. I love that Abraham argues God down from fifty people, but even ten was too many).

The 36 are unknown, not only to the world but to themselves. 

The sign at the museum said, "Righteousness is not dependent on earthly power or respect."
Artist Ben-Zion illustrates the 36 as common people, including a ditch digger, a wedding jester, a prisoner, and––my absolute favorite––"The Idler", with wine, a book, and a friend. 
bink snapped the photo.

Book's Art That Isn't Scarface

I put up the poster of Scarface in Book's the other day partly to balance out the other images I've put up--all donated.

Every used bookstore has "The Bookworm", right? 1857, by German painter Carl Spitzweg. This copy came in torn and unframed. 
The bio of Mary Shelley is by a local zine artist whose name I can't remember...

Below, on the back wall: "Young Girl Reading" by Fragonard, c. 1769, and a younger yet girl by Jessie Willcox Smith

(Plus more book pairings, on purpose (book covers with top hats), and unintentional--the color matches on the left and right hand sides.

I also put up "The Fairy Tale" v by German artist Walther Firle, 1929.

I love all these, but I wanted to add some less sentimental or expected images. 
Scarface has nothing to do with books (that I know of), but the poster had been around in a tube all summer, and I decided it would do.

Movie Moment: The Original Minnie Beebe

My doll Minnie is halfway named after Minnie Beebe, the sensible little niece of the Reverend Beebe in Room with a View (1985).

The real hero in the scene is Mr. Beebe. When Minnie suggests getting away from the Honeychurches, with whom she is staying, Mr. Beebe treats her seriously. No one else does. He replies that hers is an excellent idea, though you expect he'd like to stay with the family––he's half in love with half of them––and off they go. 

Such a slight detail––her childish clarity and his granting her full personhood––I love that the filmmakers (Merchant & Ivory) bothered to include it. They could easily have left Minnie out altogether.

P.S. Minnie is a nickname for several names. Minnie Mouse's first name is Minerva.

Early Autumn

Penny Cooper is in heaven, with new shoes. Here, on our new front steps.

P.S. I posted a similar photo on Instagram edited with "tilt shift". I don't know... It looks cool, and toy photography on IG tends to be flashier, so it's fitting there.
Penny Cooper says that's not what it really looked like though.

Happy Birthday, bink!

It's bink's birthday! 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, dear friend, from me and the Girlettes

There've been some costume changes. L to R: Bounce, Minnie, SweePo (seated, in new jammies), Penny Cooper (new shoes), Sparkle, and Low (seated, with new doll)

Penny Cooper wants to make clear that she did not write this sign--her handwriting is much better. I'm actually not sure who wrote the sign. It might have been me.
 

Bookish

Slowly I am getting back to booking--reading in the evenings and putting extra effort in at work to make the BOOK'S fun.

I found a brooch that looks like a punctuation mark to wear on my apron with my "bookish" pin, to begin with. It should be reversed to be an apostrophe, but the sparkles are on this side:

The broken glass on the display case was finally replaced, so I can put expensive books out again. I'd mentioned the book with the Julia Child signature a while ago. I priced it $100. 
Ditto the first US edition of Hitchhiker's Guide, which arrived in a bag of otherwise undistinguished pop fiction. I like when my spidey sense catches something like that. The accordion fold Chinese book is obvious, this was not.

Putting up a poster of Al Pacino as Scarface behind the door to the BOOK's room gave me a lot of pleasure.
He's looking at the Cookbooks & Food section. "toast it!"

I guess it pleased me because customers won't see the poster unless they walk around the door to look at books--so Big Boss, for instance, who doesn't browse in Book's might never see it.

I showed my "It's Never Six O'Clock" coworker, and he reacted just as I'd hoped---with a string of quotes from the movie.
"Say hello to my little friend."
I've actually never seen the movie, but I've heard the quotes.
Guys love this movie, or some guys do anyway, same as some guys love The Godfather.

I'm like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail when Tom Hanks tells her to "go to the mattresses".

I so, so wish You've Got Mail weren't about a woman who forgives the guy who guts her indie bookstore––
"Oh, that's OK; now I can write children's books!"––
because it's got some great stuff in it:

Food, Mood, and Woo-sah

I lost my temper when a coworker was late to replace me at the cash register a couple days ago.
I apologized immediately. 

"Are you hungry?" my coworker asked.

I was. 
Besides the hundred usual stressors at the store, I hadn't eaten all day, and it was 2 p.m. I also hadn't taken the CBD oil I usually take before a cashiering shift due to the hundred predictable stressors, plus the ten unpredictable ones.

The next morning I made myself eat a can of tuna fish, took my CBD, and was a sweetheart all day.

The next day I ate breakfast but decided not take the CBD. It helps, but it's expensive, and ideally, I should be able to calm myself without it.
Mz meditates and we were talking about how useful Zen would be in the stresses of the hood. But the Zen center she does to is full of white suburbanites who go trekking in Nepal. A hard sell to anyone.

Before I started work I was walking around the store, and Mr Furniture said, "Are you doing woosah?"

I asked him what that was. "Just relaxing before you start your day."
Ha! Zen is already in the hood.
The phrase comes from Bad Boys 2. I said it all day when something annoyed me, and it worked--provided that crucial bit of space between annoyance and reaction.

Watching Paint Dry

For the past month, I've blogged an awful lot about watching paint dry.
And I'm not done yet.

Yesterday my friend Annette more or less announced that she was coming to my new place to help me clean––bringing her top-of-the-line vacuum cleaner, recommended for asthma sufferers. (I don't have asthma, but I like a vacuum not pumping out dust.)
When would be a good time?

Are you kidding? 
"How 'bout now?" I wrote back.

She arrived––her hair in a bandana under a shower cap, and a dust mask on her face––pulled her canister vacuum into my bedroom, and shut the door.

(I'd just dumped all my belongings in the middle of my room when I moved in a couple weeks ago. I've been focusing on the shared living spaces since then, while Patti has continued with home repairs.)

I went out and bought a long-handled bristle brush and proceeded to scrub the wooden back deck with Borax.
With all the rain this year, the old wood is growing slippery pond scum.

Three hours later, I opened the door to my room.
It was like Mary Poppins had been.

 
Recently I'd been feeling as if I were stuck on a long trip and couldn't go home. I didn't want to move back to my old place, not at all, but I felt uncomfortably adrift.

Having my room set up for me gives me a base camp again, as well as making me feel cared for. (Thank you, Annette!!!)
I still pay attention to where I get off the bus, and do we have a Phillips screwdriver? (Yes.) 
But being in a new place is feeling like a fun adventure again.

This afternoon I took the light-rail train downtown. 
This is my train stop---across from block-long grain elevators.

The train approaches downtown in the opposite direction from my old place. [Awkward sentence--how to express this?]
Out the window I spotted a Starbucks I'd never seen before. I got off the train and that's where I am now--across the park from the new Vikings Stadium. I tried to take a photo, but it just looked like a big stupid building. Still, it's fun to be somewhere else.

They went to sea in a sieve.

In my continuing & mystifying efforts to create an IKEAish room [?!?!], yesterday I bought a generic wrapped-canvas seascape print for three dollars at the thrift store. Unrelated, I also bought a strainer.

The girls love this! And so do I.

Also pairs nicely with my IKEA curtains!

I'm not sure what's going on with me and all this waffle beigeness. 
I think it's some kind of palate cleanser.

Only Averagely Tired

Catching the bus in 15 minutes, but want to keep up my attempts to blog in the morning, so--a brief hello. 

I've been catching up on emails at a nearby coffee and bike shop, the Angry Catfish.
Nice, but kind of expensive---$3.50 for a cup of coffee (vs $2 at the place I went in my old neighborhood).

My  hair is wet because it's raining... again. Feels like October.

Thursdays are usually a day off, but I'm going in, eager to catch up on getting books out. I was so tired last week when I went back to work, I went in for my cashiering shifts but skimped on book hours.

Moving went well, but with all the extra cleaning and painting, it was an ordeal. I was happy to be only averagely tired last night, after working 10-6.

Aesop's Flyleaf

This is a copy of Aesop's Fables donated to the book store.

The first check out date on the library card is 1936.

Nefarious! What I'm Reading

Finally I am settled in enough at my new place to start reading again. Mostly lightweight stuff (haven't gotten back to Jane Addams), including, since I have a kitchen, cookery books.

Nick Hornby's Funny Girl was a pleasant story with a happy ending, as you'd expect, and a bit interesting too--it's about a young woman in British comedy as it moved from radio to TV in the early 1960s. It would have resonated with me more if I knew the history.

Speaking of serious, living with Patti is a bit like living with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who resisted the rise of Nazism from its early days in power. 
That is, Patti's someone who takes action based on her religious and political concerns. Always has, but now that means the rise of ... not sure what she'd call it... American fascism? 

Among other activities, for instance, in November she's going to the protest in Fort Benning, home of the notorious School of the Americas--her second time there, though she was politically active during the time of Oscar Romero too.

I don't see myself becoming politically active––the face-to-face work at the store fits the bill for me–– but I'm happy to house sit her dog, Prince. 
Every activist with a dog needs a friendly sitter!

From the "Socialist, Feminist, Anti-Racist" publication, Solidarity:
(with the recognizably heated language of such publications--nefarious!)

"No Classes for Torture! Protests Escalate Against 'School of the Americas'” ––Anne Schenk

SPURRED BY AN enormous and unexpected victory in Congress, thousands of protesters will gather later this year at the gates of Fort Benning, GA to demand the closure of the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), a military facility that provides training for Latin American and Caribbean soldiers and officers.

The November 20-21 event will mark the anniversary of the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1983 by SOA graduates.
An amendment to eliminate much of the funding for the School was adopted by a Congressional committee during the summer appropriations process offers an important opportunity to terminate this nefarious institution."

Teddy Nation

I live one block from Roosevelt High School now (and, across the street from the school, the small Roosevelt branch public library). Yard signs read TEDDY NATION, and I wait for the bus by this mosaic trash can.
I feel mixed about Teddy Roosevelt--plus: his Kirk-like swagger; Minus: his militarism––but of course love the bears named after him.

You Can Read If You Want To

^ Graffiti at my new bus stop near work.
I hear, "You can read if you want to," set to "Safety Dance".

"We can go where we want to, 

a place where they will never find...

Your friends don't read, and if they don't read, 

Well, they're no friends of mine."

A few books from work.

The Story of a Bad Boy (1870) "is a semi-autobiographical novel by American writer Thomas Bailey Aldrich, fictionalizing his experiences as a boy in Portsmouth, New Hampshire." –Wikipedia

___________
^ Bad Girl (1928), a romance set in New York, was made into a American Pre-Code film in 1931. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
You can watch it on YouTube.



The title is the name of the shortest street in Paris, Rue du Chat-Qui-Pe^che--The Street of the Fishing Cat:

From 1936 Kirkus Review:
Story of a young woman and her family, who migrate from Hungary to Paris  in the 1920s. "The whole story is a commentary on the dangers of nationalism, the problems of social barriers." 

In the Alley by Work

A Little Super

I'm heading off to work in 15 minutes... 

I've been so distracted & overwhelmed with moving and work for the last month, I feel kind of blank in the brain.
Blogging should help...

Uh, let's see. I can report that I like living with a toaster again. I'd never devoted space to a toaster in my Kitchen in a Corner. Cinnamon-raisin toast with peanut butter this morning. 

My new dusty-pink mug from IKEA matches Sparkle's dress. 

The Reds now want to be known as girlettes. They got the idea from the nearby corner store, Dokken's Superette.

Superette--isn't that a great word?
A little super.
The store's awning still advertises VIDEOS, along with MILK and other things. 

Today after work, I pick up my bike--the one I got from bink. It's getting a new back wheel, after someone stole the old one, when my bike was parked in front of the thrift store last week. 
Luckily I live near four bus lines and a light rail stop. 

The wheel was quick-release (doesn't need a tool to remove), and I knew I should replace it with a bolt, but hadn't gotten around to it...
The sort of bad decision you make when you're distracted and overwhelmed.

The store is in a poor and crowded neighborhood. Anything that's not nailed down does not stay in place long.
The day my wheel was stolen, I saw a guy surreptitiously selling packs of frozen meat out of the back seat of his car. 
It's like that.

Waffle & Coal

Unhappiness with my former place spurred me to move. This new place where I've moved appealed primarily because it was Not There.

It turns out, the neighborhood's also nice in itself. People are so friendly, I thought it might be Stepford. I don’t think so though. It’s just a place with low population density, with lots of little homes that regular people can afford and still have money leftover for planting flowers. 
(There’s a little place a couple blocks away listed at $180k. It's run down, but that price would barely buy you a condo in my old neighborhood.)
 
Jim and Merle run the hardware store--they advised me to put my paint roller in the fridge if I'm going to use it again the next day; Kelly, a waitress at Buster's, grew up in the neighborhood and chose to stay--I'll like it here, she said; Dan, who owns the coffee shop, would like to move to Key West but that's too expensive; and Olga at the bakery, from Russia, sold me cinnamon-sugar donuts--75¢ each.

The street I live on dead ends three blocks down, at Lake Hiawatha,
so only locals use it. I stood in the intersection this rainy morning to take this photo of no traffic. 
I'd have been roadkill if I did that on my old street.

My room is starting to be nice too.
The paint that looked like Band-Aid wet dried into an unexpected, handsome Captain Kirk Gold. (The paint color's name is Belgian Waffle, which could be one of Kirk’s nicknames.)

I went to IKEA and got a gray duvet cover and drapes with wavy lines in waffle & coal (my names). The chair is from IKEA too––I rescued it from the alley long ago. 
It's like I'm recreating an IKEA showroom. The Waffle Room. Not very imaginative, but I don't care. As Lucky Jim said, “Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” 
Waffles are nice. So is not being woken up by people fighting or weeping.

I'm already tired of being handy though. 
When I was thinking about moving into this house with a yard, I pictured myself doing home repairs and gardening.
Now I've done the teensiest bit, I remember how I don't have the patience for those activities. They're satisfying, I guess, once they're done, but I just don't care that much. 

I woke up this morning wondering, Why should I bother to finish painting over the primer? I've barely had time to read a book!

An Alarming Sign

This notice in an elevator in a downtown skyscraper does not exactly inspire confidence, does it?
Feel free to rewrite.

P.S. There was no button marked ALARM.

Will I ever be done?

I guess so, but it seems like for-ever...
Funnily, the color I chose is much like the room's old color, just a bit darker.

BEFORE

 

Oh, no. In this photo, the still-wet paint looks Band-Aid colored. Pleasegod it looks better dried, I REALLY don't want to have to repaint!

Currently in Residence

The Crow asked which Orphan Reds remain.

Here's the current crop at my new place, with cookies from the bakery two blocks away, A Baker's Wife.

Left to Right:
Penny Cooper (with Minnesota) and SweePo (with cow) = the original two (now that Red Hair Girl has hit the road).

Standing in back row, three new girls--wearing temporary (?) outfits from the store:
Minnie (blue romper), Opal (Matrix coat), and Olive (pink jacket).
We don't know them yet.

Seated in front: the Las Vegas twins, Sparkle (pink dress) & Bounce (gold); and Low, looking out the door––I think she's in psychic touch with Red Hair Girl!

Send Us Mail!

New mailbox (from the thrift store). But it's empty. . .

Thank you, Red Hair Girl

With heavy heart, I must tell you that Red Hair Girl has hit the road. The scamp! 

Red Hair Girl ^ in Texas, 2018

It may seem like Penny Cooper is my favorite Orphan Red, but RHG was the first doll to come to me, and my secret favorite.

Leader of the Pack

Still, she was a rogue! 
I wouldn't be at all surprised if RHG convinced SweePo and Penny Cooper to stay with Mz on Labor Day, so they'd be safe, then she stayed in my backpack which I left on the bus...

I called the bus company, and the bag wasn't turned in, so I'm sure someone picked her up. (The bag was almost empty otherwise.)

I've never left a backpack on a bus my whole life long. 
I'm thinking RHG is like relics of saints in medieval time:
it was believed that if a relic got stolen from a church, it was because the saint wanted to move along!

I wonder if RHG is an agent provocateur, going from place to place with a mission to start colonies of Orphan Reds... 

Certainly a healthy pod has taken hold in my place. 
Two are still at Mz's. When they come back, we will hold a Shinto "Thank You Doll" ceremony for Red Hair Girl on her new travels.