More of Other Things

More of Other Things That Are Not Work... That's what the doctor ordered. 

UPDATE: Such as The Rite of Spring Toy Orchestra posted on Orange Crate Art.
Yes, yes, yes!!!

I'm looking for a new job, but in the meantime I want to keep my weekly 24-hours at the thrift store to 24-hours in my brain.
Easier said than done, since emotional content acts like water--seeping under and through barriers...

I feel conflicted about leaving my job because it is so interesting and I learn a lot, which is worth a lot.
I've never worked among such a diverse crew.

A retirement-age coworker from Mississippi was telling me her mother cleaned houses for "rich white ladies" all her life, and how in her mother's later years, she'd go get one of these ladies out of the nursing home to accompany her (the mother) to the doctor.
The white lady was a doctor herself, and when she was present, the mother would get good care.
And when she wasn't, she didn't.

My coworker eventually moved up here to get health care for her disabled son.
"I miss the food and the friendly people," she said.

"What food?" I asked, and she told me about all these fruit desserts---peach pie and berry cobblers... MMmmmmm.
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Making Stuff Displaces Intrusive Thoughts

I read an article about how during Covid, work has become even more of the all-defining factor for Americans, who are already defined by our jobs.
That's true for me.

To displace work concerns, I was thinking I'd need to find other people, join groups, etc., but really, I can simply do more creative ME things.
Another larger project with the girlettes, for instance.

Last summer I'd worked on "Penny Cooper Undaunted: the Blitz".
Prepping for it, making clothes (bink made 9 pairs of Mary Jane shoes out of black paper!), and setting them up filled my brain in the best, fun way.

It turned into a couple wonderful tableaux, not the movie I'd originally intended, but the WORK was the thing. My work, good work.

bink took me scouting for locations for a new project along the Mississippi River yesterday. A mile or two from my house.

Penny Cooper has a new pink coat (I was surprised, but she loves it), and Option E wore the new rain poncho.

"We can film over there."

Below are the operation buildings for Lock and Dam No. 1.
Built in the early 1900s and last renovated in the 1980s, they're like  Cold War bunkers.
I've always wanted to set an espionage movie there.
Penny Cooper, Secret Agent?

That's an old turbine for water power behind bink. We had turkey pastrami sandwiches (not pictured, but important) from my new favorite place, Cecil's Deli.

A Visit to the Library

Afterward, I went to my local library, newly reopened.

Penny Cooper spotted all the books with "girl" in the title.

I only checked out the book I'd put on hold:
Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences by Lawrence Weschler = photos and essays about one of my favorite things: how things look like other things (my blog tag).
I have 18 posts about that ^ including how the War Room in Star Trek: Into Darkness, top, looks like the one in Dr Strangelove.
Not that that's an accident.

HouseMate and I just started watching Designated Survivor on Netflix, and there it is again--a moody, cavernous room, with an overhead light frame, square this time:

In reality, the Situation Room in the White House, below, looks like something in the basement of a motel:

 

I hadn't been able to check out a library book in more than a year.
I felt a pang of happiness when the check-out machine pinged its family ping.
I said hello to a librarian too, to make human contact.