The Fourth Bee Gee: The Soothing & Fire Jesus

Nobody at work ever puts up new art in the common spaces such as the break room. (Or anywhere else much either--I'm almost the only one who has decorated her workspace).
Whatever's on the walls has hung there since Catholic volunteers started the store thirty-five years ago.

I've occasionally added a piece of art to the walls though.
I framed the Time cover of the Rev. Dr. M. L. King Jr. (below), for instance, and put it above the Xerox machine.
The moonlit Jesus has been above the door for thirty-five years, I expect--I love its gentle, Grade B sadness and was delighted that it turns up in the TV show Reservation Dogs--one of the Native families has that print, and the daughter of the family, Willie Jack, waves and says to it, " 'Sup, white Jesus?" *

BELOW: A few weeks ago I added a Jesus of my own too, above the computers where we workers clock in and out. (Also, over time, the angel plate, those abstract land/sky scapes, and the icon of Saint Vincent de Paul and Black Baby Jesus.
But I do not put up text quotes: they're the visual equivalent of the droning wah-wah noise the teachers make in animated Charlie Brown cartoons.)

 
Can you read what I added?

Oh, huh––that matches better than I'd thought... I just now looked up "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" (1977) on YouTube and discovered it's sung by Andy Gibb, brother of the three Bee Gees but not a Bee Gee himself. So, yeah, like the fourth, and the most White Jesus-y looking of the brothers.

I wasn't certain if anyone at work would object, but no one has.
I didn't mean to be disrespectful of Jesus (I like Jesus), but definitely I meant to poke (affectionate) fun at this Breck Girl Shampoo presentation.

One volunteer did go out of his way to give me kudos for it. But he's Jewish and does stand-up comedy, so not representative of the mostly non-denominational Christians I work with, like Big Boss.
Big Boss didn't say anything. and I don't like to ask...

P.S.  A YouTube comment on the Bee Gees Greatest Hits:
"I never will stop moving to these soothing and fire grooves!"
________________________

* Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis)

bink's brain-damaged art

Due to her brain having been knocked about, bink has to measure out her energy and focus in coffee spoons. 
In traffic light terms, her neurologist says,"It's okay to go into the yellow, but avoid the red."
Going into the red makes her feel disgustingly sick––for hours, or even days.

bink is an artist. Not using her hand/eye coordination for months is making her sad.
Last Sunday at our weekly coffee morning at my place, I said, let's try drawing with our eyes closed. We drew sunflowers we'd seen at the farmers market.

When she was first concussed in mid-April, even thinking about seeing things gave her a headache--vision happens inside the brain.
But now she's a little better, and drawing one picture was okay.

This Sunday, she drew two more with her eyes closed.
I think she's onto something: these drawings of her little dog, Astro, are more charming than her usual open-eyed sketches!

Good example of damaged brain fog:
bink drew these one after the other and labeled them Drawing #2 and Drawing #4.
Drawing #3 is nonexistent.

 Luckily the damage does not affect her personality at all--except for making her sad. And bored.

Green pickle on a pink plate

I had thought I might return the vintage milk-glass pastel plates, but food tastes great on them!
Here's my Sunday lunch.
Pink & green is my favorite color combo this summer.

The towel was handwoven by blogger Joanne of Cup on the Bus.
Joanne's towels are glowy on the eye and to the touch, they're tough & absorbent, and they come in many colors.
I highly recommend them.
You can buy them on her blog or at her site Everything Old Is New Again.

Substitute Order

Thrift is a constant and unpredictable mess. There are patterns to it, but you never know what will come in the door, or in what form.
(Or when.
Sometimes a customer will ask, "When will you get XYZ?"
Let me get my crystal ball...)

In comes...
Heavy metal objects in lightweight paper bags. (Lift bags from their bottoms, not their handles)
Fragile glass in flimsy bags, not infrequently pre-broken. (Don't plunge your hand into bags.)
Mouse droppings in the bottom of boxes and bags;
objects covered in mold and mildew;
objects smeared with fluids and sticky substances.

There are treasures too, of course.
A first edition. Vintage designer shoes. Gold (very rarely). Relics of saints, for godsake!
A volunteer takes beat-up silver objects to a buyer when enough pile up--we get a few hundred bucks for things like a pile of single dented silverware that wouldn't sell in the store.

Mostly we get perfectly decent, useful items, like mugs and T-shirts and almost-current bestsellers.

Anyway, you never know, and that makes it fun, but the flood gets to be a bit much sometimes, and everyone can feel overwhelmed.
If I do, I usually feel less whelmed if I stop. breathe, and create some order, however fleeting.

Ass't Man creates the end-cap displays in Housewares. Sometimes I add to them, but it's his deal. He does a great job, but I notice he tends toward dark and earth colors in his displays. (He's Taurus, an earth sign.)
Even this summer, one of his displays is all red and black objects.

Ass't Man is on vacation for two weeks. Yesterday I set up a bright display, at the entrance.

I mostly chose multiples or things with repeating patterns--lining up the sort of thing that calms me down.
I was especially pleased to come up with table knives, on the orange plate. (Though they wouldn't stay in any particular order, they make their own.)
And those vintage Pelicans!

(Those gold boxes on the bottom are vintage puzzles with wood pieces and no image of the finished picture.)

This is what it looks like when you first walk in the store:

Substitution

Outside the store, rampant disorder is on display. Street business is on high again the past couple weeks. People dancing half-clothed in the street, etc.

Nothing much you can do about it in the short term.

Yesterday Jerry asked me to help him move a longtime regular, a once-lovely guy who has gradually slid into deep alcoholism and unlovely behavior.
This guy was lying, half-passed out, IN the alley, where a car could easily run him over before they saw him.

Jerry had tried to get him to move, and he'd refused. Knowing I like this guy, and he likes me, he asked if I'd try.

At first I said no, I wouldn't. I didn't think this guy would move for me either, and honestly, I was just fed up with all the need and futility.

But I did try. Of course. Because Jerry looked at me with his "I am a fan of the Grateful Dead" eyes. [That is, the eyes of people who think Love & Tie-Dye is stronger than Fear.]

What helps, I've found, is ... SUBSTITUTION.
Swap one thing for another.

I said to Jerry, Okay, let's get him a lawn chair or something comfy to sit in instead of lying on the ground.

So we did that, and with much persuasion--"Remember how I love you!" I said--and a literal hand up (he couldn't really stand), we moved the guy to a slouchy chair on the sidewalk.

(No point in calling detox, the guy has been in the drunk tank a thousand times.)

So, it's disordered out there, for sure. You do the little things you can. Or not. I'm not judging anymore.

Let's listen to a perky song!
The Righteous Brothers, "Substitute" (1975)

Matilda in the Garden of Fuschia

I painted a watercolor card for Fiona, an Instagram friend in Berlin, from a photo she sent of her doll Matilda on her balcony, gardening in a pot of fuschia.

 

It was a treat to get cards in my new mailbox (thank you!)––it helped me believe I live here.

Knowing how nice it is to get mail, I keep meaning to paint and send more quickie watercolor cards like this... and then I don't get around to it very often.
(Oh, our awful friend Procrastination.)

I was inspired to do this one after going to the post office to send a package to Fiona.  I did mail it, but postage has gone up so much, I can't afford to keep sending presents to Europe as I've done in the past. (U.S. postage is outrageous too--except for media mail.)

But sending one card overseas is still a good deal: only $1.40. 
Fiona is kept inside by a chronic illness, so most of her social life is online. I figure it's extra nice, when you can't go out and about, if a little missive from the physical world comes to you.

Seeing the Trees for the Forest

I. Seeing the Trees for the Forest

Below: Vintage metal shoe trees I'm going to use for forest trees in the Dolls' Midsummer Dream. I hope... To get them to stand up, I'll need to stabilize them somehow.

They are more metal recycling castoffs from work.
But aren't they cool objects?
Has the store even tried to sell them?
They sell online for around 10– a pair. When I'm done with them I'll take them back to the store and see if they'll sell.

[I took a set of 4 (of the 9) place settings of the Dansk flatware back to the store. It didn't seem fair to keep all of them--more than I need--knowing they could bring the store $$$.
I priced the set (20 pieces) at 240–.

I'll be curious if the Dansk sells at that high price (high for the store, average for online...).
Probably have to knock the price down, though you never know.
The two saints' relics I posted last week sold the very next day, at 10% off. Two for 550–.
I'm glad they're gone, it made me a wee bit nervous to be selling body parts, even if they are only, as Michael of OCA pointed out, a wee bit of extraxisse particulas ex ossibus: “extracted particles from bones”. ]

II. More of my thrift store haul...

After three years of having nowhere to put stuff and therefore buying nothing, I am off the leash...
I truly need some practical items, like a colander and measuring cups. Other things, not so much. I don't want to clutter up my beautiful new open space:
stuff I don't truly love and use, I'll take back.

Milk-glass (white undersides) bread plates, unbranded, probably 1950s. Forty nine cents each.
Online these only go for a couplefew bucks, but 49 cents? I don't know why the housewares staff refuses to take-in that people want vintage stuff.

(I might take these back though. The girlettes are all into Jordan almond pastels, but I'm not sure I want that much candy color around.)

BELOW: A velvety silver & pink rectangle pillow, donated new with the price tag on (not all that uncommon).
I'm often flabbergasted to see what stuff costs new. I don't recall the maker's name, but the pillow was marked 130–.
I paid 4– (no, 3, with my store discount).

BELOW: When I unpacked this wood doll (vintage, from Poland), I swear she said that she was Linda Sue (blogger of Lady Margaret's Curlers).
But maybe she was saying she was FOR Linda Sue?

I emailed Linda Sue, and she said send her on--she's just the person to teach sculpting to the orphans!

Today is a day off, and I'm off to the PO.
I found the perfect box--Art Sparker sent doll clothes in it, a couple years ago, and I'd saved it. It originally held William, MMA's replica of an Egyptian faience hippo (a ceramic material made of ground quartz).

III. Weather note

We're having the weirdest July weather: nice!
It was actually chilly last night, I put on a blanket.
The forecasted high is only 77º today.

I usually dread July's smothering heat. Our temps here are normally more like what Europe's been suffering this year, up around 100, and corn-growing humid.

Just saying because it's so weird. And so, so nice.

Furnishing Benefits

Aaaand... it's me chatting again about furnishings and things, which I once swore was the Most Boring Thing.
Ha.

I don't care about owning things that match--I prefer a jumble of styles--but I was excited to see a set of matching flatware come into the store yesterday. I only have two knives/forks/spoons, and I've been hoping to find more I like.

This was a set of nine--far more than I need *--but it's suitably Star Trekkish for me... stainless steel and teak, modern Scandinavian design:

But.. eek, it's Dansk, which is expensive.
I took it to Ass't Man whose policy is--because staff is paid so little--to way under-price stuff for us. Even when we weren't getting along, he always gave me a good deal.

I told AM that the silverware was Dansk––another manager wouldn't have known what that meant, but he does, and we've discussed liking Dansk before, when their cooking pots have come through (I have a couple). I said I knew it was worth a lot and that he should price it a fair (to the store) but hopefully a deeply discounted price.

He went with "deeply discounted" and skipped the "fair (to the store)" price:
He charged me our usual price for silverware, 49 cents per piece. Minus my 25% staff discount.

"I won't regret it later," he said, "but look it up and let me know what it really costs."

So...
It's not the super expensive and quite similar Dansk Fjord from the 1960s, made in Germany. It's later (1980s?), made in Japan.
But still––wow––you can find ONE piece of this silverware selling online (at an inflated price, but still) for what I paid for the entire set.

This sort of thing that staff does for one another helps keep down the resentment we all feel about working in sometimes unfair circumstances.
(Sometimes I get so angry about workplace crap--total disregard for any safety procedures, for instance, that I want to leave. We all do.)

It's not just AM. Other managers and staff do it too.
It helps in way more than financial ways.

Example: Every so often, we get workers who are doing community service time they've been sentenced to (for traffic violations and stuff). Frequently they are, um, reluctant workers. Sometimes worse. (Like, they steal stuff.)

But this month, we've had a great, great guy helping out--he is cheerful, considerate, and jumps in to help everyone. (It's a mark of the sort of workers we get that his behavior stands out as GENIUS level.)
He has a little boy who came with his mom to pick him up one day.
This little boy loves cars, so when a new, in-the-box electric Batman car came in--the kind a little kid can ride in--the worker asked if he could buy it.

Mr Furniture sold it to him at $25.
It's $200 at Walmart.
It's seeing this kind of kindness extended to others that matters to me even more than the financial benefits I reap.

Not that that doesn't make a huge difference in my life:
I almost never buy anything expensive like this Dansk silverware, but I do get almost everything I need at the store, and that makes the low wage (and no benefits) livable.

(Sadly, the free-food distribution in the parking lot every Wednesday has stopped, due to supply chain problems, complicated by the weird politics of "charity"--I won't go into it. But that free food was important to the staff too, and it's a big loss.)

I pass this benefit along too.

I've stayed in touch with a Former Volunteer [FV] at the store who left because the sexism of the place bothered her so much.

It is sexist, for sure, but it's a kind of honest, aboveboard sexism that doesn't usually bother me. Like Mr Furniture rags me about not shaving my legs!
But he also rags AM about how pale his legs are. I even joined in! "Like skim milk," I said.

The store's got all the other social problems and prejudices a place could have, but at root, my coworkers and I respect one another and even, for all our complaining, try to extend that to the worst of the customers, who can be lying, thieving, rude and even dangerous SOBs, big time.

Anyway, I always felt bad that FV got such a bum deal--she'd tried to talk to management and got nowhere. (They felt attacked and got defensive, and it's true FV has a rather rigid personality, but she was still right.)

When she was at the store, FV and her husband were finishing up a five-year project painstakingly restored his dead parents' beat-up old house, almost entirely by their own hands (hiring pros for the dangerous bits, like electricity).

They liked doing it so much, they've bought another trash house and have started again.
This one was built in the 1890s so it's got nice bones, but it was updated many times over the years with gunky materials, and it's been mostly stripped of original hardware.

FV has been looking for affordable replacement bits and bobs at garage sales and junk stores.
When this batch of door (and some window) ceramic and brass hardware came into the store, I sent her these photos, saying she could have the batch cheap, if she wanted it.
She was thrilled.

Those door key plates with the wings--aren't they're like some fantastic beast out of Harry Potter?
I don't want Victorian stuff myself, but I appreciate it.

And I love that people cherish and do the hard work of taking care of broken things.

_________

P.S. I used the silverware last night at dinner, and it was comfortable. A review of Dansk silverware said it would be, and that silverware designers face a unique question:
how does it feel in your mouth?

* PPS. After I wrote this, I realized I wasn’t comfortable taking such a deal from the store, so I took a set of four of the nine Dansk pieces back and put them out in the display case at an appropriate price.

That feels fair to me.

"It's not that important." (What Helps?)

I asked Supershopper Louisde, an older Black coworker, how she maintains her emotional cool.

I have witnessed her being insulted or dismissed by others, and I can literally see her right herself from the blow (she sort of pulls back and gathers herself together, physically) and then respond by saying, "Okay then."
I've never seen her argue or be mean.

She can be quite irritating in her own way (unfortunately),
but I see her as dignified, and I admire her.

Conversely, we have a wealthy volunteer, a white man my age, who goes around the place almost shrieking in complaint about a million little things. There are a million little things wrong--he's right.
But he's like a Howler--the screaching, exploding missives in Harry Potter. Not helpful. Not admirable.

The times he is effective is when he FIXES something. He'll actually get out an electric drill and put up a hook where there needs to be, for instance. That helps.

When I asked that first coworker how she keeps her cool, she told me,
"I think to myself, It's not that important."

Coming from someone who survived growing up in Mississippi in the 1950-60s, that carries extra weight with me.

I thought, Okay, I'll just try that then.

_______________

Another thing that helps: a little frivolity.

Here's Ass't Man leading a coworker's grandchildren in a "Waddle Like a Duck" troop through my BOOK'S section:

P.S. I'd asked Mr Furniture how he keeps his cool too, four+ years ago when I first started.

"Look at my eyes, San Francisco," he'd said. "If I'm here, I'm high."

LOL. It was helpful to know he also felt the stress and takes steps to alleviate it, but his way is not my way. (I don't like the stuff.)

Apostrophes and Other Complexities

The binkster's brain was feeling stable enough that she could walk with me the five blocks from my apartment to the farmers * market yesterday.
Here bink is, below left, holding herself together so the waves of light coming off those sunflowers don't knock her apart:

 

ALL THAT LIGHT. bink's concussion reminds me how smashingly bright the world is, which you barely notice usually.

bink's problem is with her vision. If she were a doll, I'd say that the bangs on her head pulled the rubber bands that hold her eyeballs in place out of whack, so her eyes don't work together in perfect synch.
That makes her dizzy and nauseous.

I suggested she go to a Doll Hospital.
She's seeing a neuro-ophthalmologist instead. There's nothing wrong with her eyes themselves, luckily, it's the brain connection (the rubber bands, I guess), and that will get better, though she might have to wear some funny glasses and look like a scruffy kid in Charlie Brown or the Bad News Bears.
She's hoping she'll be okay by her wedding in a couple months, but concussions can last a long time. (She's in her fourth month now.)

I'm relieved that I'm feeling well again--my sore shoulder righted itself within three days. Lucky! It hurt badly, but I must not have been very injured. Maybe I just slept on it wrong?

It was nice to sit still for a coupla days and read the last two volumes Harry Potter, in reverse order. The last book, HP & the Half-Blood Prince is the best, partly because... there's no quidditch! *
Then I wanted to back up and remind myself what led up to it. I skipped the quidditch but was still reminded of the books' flaws.

What bugs me most is the treacly Victorian goal: a cozy world with large Christmas dinners for all the happy married couples and their adorable children!
(Good God, it's my bugbear hygge all over again.)

And the story's stereotypical sexism makes it read like it was written in the 1970s rather than the early 2000s. 
But I still liked immersing myself in the complete, coherent world of magic that J K Rowling created--she's absolute genius that way.

Her characters are wooden and predictable, and she's got no sense of humor––sort of like Harry himself––but you know, a good story can withstand a lot of flaws.
Look at Shakespeare...

The Dolls' Midsummer Dream

The girlettes loved Harry Potter (they are not critical like me)--they just saw the magic and ignored the characters. But none of them want to play any of the female roles in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
"They are not fun ones," they say. 

AMND's female characters are either boring or they're royally screwed: the royal wedding that frames the action is between Theseus and the Amazon he conquered in war, Hippolyta. She's his war loot.
He says,
''Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword
And won thy love doing thee injuries…''

Gross!

So the girlettes are mish-mashing the characters--I think they've imported some magic from Harry Potter, and they've renamed their play  The Dolls' Midsummer Dream.

It's coming along slowly, which is fine except I notice the light is juuuussst starting to tip toward fall....

"We can adjust that", the say.

And there are all those hot August nights ahead. We'll be fine.


*Should there be an apostrophe in Farmers['] Market?

Answer (from Merriam Webster): If you want there to be. Variants with or without an apostrophe are acceptable.

However, "Since a farmers market is a place where farmers convene, but that does not necessarily belong to the farmers, many style guides recommend eliminating the apostrophe and treating the plural noun as a modifier: farmers market, a market for farmers."

P.S. Insert Erroneous Radish [Here]

"The British have a term for an erroneously inserted apostrophe: the greengrocer's apostrophe, predicated on the notion that a produce vendor’s handmade sign is likely to have an apostrophe where a simple plural is called for (e.g., radish’s rather than radishes)."

Interesting! But, geez., that sentence drips with disdain for people who misuse apostrophes. I hate when people act as if grammar is a moral issue.

"Erronesously inserted"?

"Doctor, I have erroneously inserted a radish up this grammarian's nose, predicated on the notion that their brain is wilting and needed an infusion of bright, snappy crunch."

"A simple plural"? Punctuation rules are not so simple. And they're not some sort of eternal Ten Commandments of Language.

I see lots of apostrophes used to mark plurals. It makes sense:
people got the idea in school that they should mark an addition but never absorbed the reason why.
This does not mean they are stupid or bad.

Article "The Mysterious Origins of Punctuation" suggests that our emoticons are the first new punctuation marks since the printing press froze marks in their stride.

That's interesting--I was just thinking about this when I handwrote a chatty letter to a friend this weekend and found myself drawing smiley (or frowny) faces in at spots.
I actually stopped to ask myself if I wanted to do that, and decided yeah, sure! Why not? They've become such handy accent markers.

** Bloody Quidditch 

I looked up the spelling of "quidditch" and see that the real-world game was renamed last week because J K Rowling is seen as "anti-trans".
OMG.
Keep the game she invented, but change the name?
Why is appropriating the stuff you like and denying its creator okay?

That seems dishonest and underhanded.
How 'bout if you feel so strongly about her, you just stop playing the game?
No one is playing quidditch because there aren't other terrific ball games. They're playing it BECAUSE of the association with Harry Potter, in other words, J K Rowling.

Below: Reading J K Rowling with visiting Pixie. She comes in the back door, which has no screen door (but I leave it open anyway, for air flow).

I LOVE that people are mish-mashing gender/sex/whatever--loosen it all up! In Christ there is no male or female. cf Galations 3:28

But I hate that the discussion around trans stuff is so divisive--among people who really want the same things: liberation!
There are plenty of people who really ARE anti-trans, as in, they would love to destroy trans people.

I hate that there's not really a free discussion among imaginative people who DO want to bring magic to gender roles. Too many people are going at each other with beaters bats, like if they disagree they're bludgers. (Quidditch terms.)

Is it really anti-trans of JKR to object to "women" being referred to as "people who menstruate" (because men can menstruate too), or, worse, "menstruators" (like dementors?).

Menstruators?

Come on! That's like "bleeders", or like the offensive name for straight people, "breeders".

Meanwhile, the words man & men remain the same, so far as I can see. Ah, the norm we all aspire to, eh? those [relatively] sealed, dry bodies.

Once again I notice that people who are hot for inclusion often overlook Old People and Other Variants on the Supposed Norm.
People who've come up with this new name seem to have overlooked that bodies that menstruate only do so for about half a body's lifespan, if all systems are go.
And if they're not go, or if you age out... then what are you?

Couldn't we do better than this?

I tell ya, I am glad I work in a workplace that flies under the radar of that particular social issue.
We've got plenty of others, and not that we're not affected by the question of menstruation and bathrooms too.
A couple examples:

A customer was asking for a change of clothes because she had her period and had bled in hers--to prove her point, she pulled down her underwear and showed the cashier her bloody crotch.
(Our policy is to give a change of clothes to anyone who asks anyway, no need to prove the need.)

Another customer peed on the floor in the corner of the store.
Should we reopen our bathrooms, which we closed when Covid came?
I think we should, though I admit it's been really nice not having to deal with the problems that come with public restrooms, including people shooting up in them.
Should we cut the bottom of the doors off so we can get in if they OD? (I think we should.)

So, yeah.
And off I go now, to this wild ride of a workplace.
I love it there so much, but I was disturbed last week to see that the gauntlet of drug dealers lining the street outside the store had returned.

In the ongoing whack-a-mole with the City, the dealers & co. had moved a few streets away at the end of last summer, but once again the police came down on them, so they've shifted back.

I don't know. It gets complex if you go much further out than this, but I continue to try to see us all as Beings Who Need Water and Food.

Who gave these creatures consciousness, and why did they think that was a good idea? We've got it though, and since we've got it, we also need some really good stories, flaws and all.

Toy Transformer

My shoulder is much better—I’m so relieved—I’d thought it’d take weeks. I could use my right arm again —not to go to work yet, but to cut and strip copper wire for A Midsummer Night’s Dream TOY TRANSFORMER —another version of Puck (or possibly Oberon, king of the fairies).

Cool Yer Turtles

If this is my Jupiter summer, how can I interpret pulling my shoulder (painful!) yesterday as lucky?

This morning these lines from a Donovan song came to mind…

“Do few things but do them well, Heartfelt things go slowly…”

—From Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the hippie St. Francis biopic

Okay, I’ll go slowly. I can’t lift with my right arm, so not much point going to work, and I’m wary of biking, but I can explore my neighborhood on foot. I know the area pretty well but I’m positioned in an entirely new angle to everything. 

I’ve never lived so close—less than a mile?—to the Lake Harriet Rose Garden, for instance, with my favorite fountain.
I’ve walked here and am sitting on a shady bench. Can you see it’s turtles spouting water?

It’s a pleasantly windy, hot sunny day.

Luckily the other day I’d idly started rereading the last Harry Potter book —I’d found a nice copy and was going to take it into work to donate. I’d skimmed it when it came out (2007!) but never paid close attention. 

I’d only ever liked HP because of Alan Rickman’s Snape, and this is the volume that spells out his story, so before I gave it away I thought I’d see if I’d enjoy reading it more thoroughly. I am enjoying it, despite the sometimes distasteful caricatures.  Rowling uses “hook nose” as a bad thing, for instance—was she totally tone deaf to anti-Semitism? 

Where was the editor?

And why is Hermione always crying, and why is the talent of a grown witch (female) demonstrated by her ability to magically clean an oven, while the wizards (male) have a propensity for motorbikes?

It makes me wince sometimes, but it’s good entertainment for a partial invalid. The other book I’ve been reading is a bio of Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations  —worthy, and interesting, but I’m feeling more like pudding than meat.

 And along those lines, I’m walking to the grocery store now to buy food I don’t have to chop with a knife. 

Housewarming Gift from the Universe

My neighbor's kitty, Pixie, came in my open back door to visit this morning. Neighbor says the cat was a stray, likely a Russian Blue. I like Pixie, but I put her outside again after a brief while.

I'm so happy here at Apartment 320, and it makes me even happier that people have been celebrating my new home with visits, messages of good wishes, and gifts––the tool kit from coworkers, a pot of impatiens, outdoor chairs (sister's old ones, still good), a gift card for Penzey's spices (I'd left most kitchen things behind, wanting a fresh start), etc.

The only person who's been unhappy is HouseMate, even though she'd told me when I returned from house-sitting that she preferred living alone.
She emailed last week that she wanted us to talk about unresolved issues. 
(Shades of her Dementor ex-husband? Not my problem.)

I told her that any roommate issues between us were solved by us not living together anymore and that while I'm grateful for her generous hospitality (I am, in fact), I don't want to get together with her at this time.
She means well, and I think that will be the end of it.

Moving on!

I. Life on the Cheap: Foraging

Since my rent is almost as much as I earn at the thrift store, I've been thinking about how to live on my salary.
Cooking at home is key, and now I have my own kitchen and can keep it clean, I want to cook again. I need to lay in supplies.

I was biking home down the alleys yesterday, and--bingo! Someone had set out a big cardboard box labelled Free Food--as people do when they're moving. (Where I live is between a very rich and a very poor neighborhood. This was heading toward the rich area.)

This was nicer-than-usual discarded food, though.
Most of it was from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods; everything was clean and new, with distant "best by" dates; mostly never-opened packages: if any were open, the contents inside were individually sealed; and--a funny inclusion--there was a green and white striped little rolling pin, the only non-food item.

Marz came over, and I shared some with her. She had not given up her apartment, luckily, but she had eaten up most of her food before she left for shipping school.

She's going to look into other options to work on ships, but after last week's ordeal, she just wants to take this week off and read.
She's in a good mood though, like people sometimes are when they return from Somewhere Else:
"There's a world out there!"

II. Hot 

Good idea to lay low this week--it's hot, in the 90sºF.
Unusually, it's not as hot as parts of Europe. Summers here are always hot and sticky, so most people have a/c.

Between the window a/c in the bedroom and a ceiling fan in the living room, this apartment stays comfortable. 

I still have lots of unpacking and setting up to do, so I'm taking today off. It's sort of a drag to have to close the house up to stay cool, but at least it does stay cool. 

My work area is hot! The donations door is a huge garage door, and it often remains open (because bad planning), so hot (or cold) air swamps our workspace.
People have suggested solutions, but management... [I have complained enough in this post, so I am not finishing that sentence].

Complaints aside, I am very happy at work.
Our pay is fair enough since management voluntarily matched the city's new minimum living-wage requirement for big companies before they had to: we're a temporarily exempt little company.

We've all signed up for the State's frontline workers pay too, for people who had to work in person during the first year of Covid, so we'll be getting a little bonus soon. Up to around $750, they estimate.
More groceries!

And you can see from what I posted earlier today, donations continue to be totally fun and interesting. (Relics of saints!?! What job offers that? Maybe that's why I've been having good luck--their magic rubbed off on me!)

Sales are up all over the store, including in my areas of books and toys---and, more and more, I dig up and price vintage odds and ends too.
This week, Housewares had put this vintage gasoline can with the cool moveable spout into metal recycling. People collect these.

I did not leave the gas can there by the boxed sets of LOTR and the first 5 Harry Potters (+ the last two unboxed)--I just set it there to photograph.)

That's something I share with Ass't Man (AM)--an eye for cool old things, an "Our Workplace Is a Fun Scavenger Hunt" attitude
That makes me happy at work too--being on good terms with AM. I'm residually mad at him for being such a jerk at first--we could have been having fun all along!

Donated Relics

These two holy relics of Roman Catholic saints––Catharine Labouré and Pope Pius X––were donated to the thrift store a couple years ago. They ended up in my area, because people know I like religious knickknacks, and I finally got around to looking them up. Relics (some of them) sell online for hundreds of dollars, so I priced them high and put them in the jewelry cabinet.

Some people think relics are creepy. (Some people think dolls are creepy.) I like them. Relics only work for good intentions.
And I love their little reliquaries.

The Church says relics are not magic––magic is superstitious or demonic in their opinion––but I definitely see relics as magic.
I like magic.
These sort of things are like toys--powerful if they activate your belief.
Placebos work! It's a fairytale world we live in.

Paperbacks

I set up a display of donated vintage paperbacks at the thrift store yesterday. I put them in poly book bags (I'd bought some myself a while ago)-- to prove they are special, don't you know, and worth more.

I’m especially pleased that I’d started setting aside covers by Edward Gorey, to put out together when I had a few—his name isn’t on the books.
High-priced for this store, though they sell for more online… (The Kafka is cheaper because it's water damaged.)
 The cover of The Masters is one of my favorites of all time. (Tried to read the book once but gave up.)

Harlan Ellison--what beauties. I hope people don’t steal these, but it’s not worth putting them in the locked glass case.

"one shilling"
I love the old Penguins but am not sure if they’re local favorites. Usually our paperbacks are 99 cents, so these are a test—I'll be curious to see if they sell.

Making Mechanicals

I’ve been collecting bits from metal recycling at work to make costumes and props for the Mechanicals in AMND.

Today bink added a broken watch. I removed its back and SweePo is wearing it innards-side out as a belt.  (The Mechanicals are described as "hempen homespuns" so their costumes will be made of some oatmealish textiles.)

Much tinkering to come, but already the parts are coming together into a forest.

San Francisco Pizarro Is All In

I. The Right Stuff

My arm chair is moved, and I turned in my old house key:
I am all in my new place! (if not all unpacked).

On the ottoman is a present from my workplace--a Stanley tool bag stuffed full of tools for apartment living and doll-sized theater productions, everything from nails to a small Dremel rotary saw.

My workplace isn't the sort that celebrates birthdays or sends get-well cards. Not at all. So I was surprised to get any gift.
And such a nice one, too.

Big Boss gave permission for it to be a gift from the store, and different coworkers found donated tools for it, but it was mostly put together by Jesse, the keeper of the tool room. I've let him know that his fluency with an electric drill impressed me. (There's one in the bag, with different bits.)

The other day in the break room, people were swapping last names. I said most of us probably don't know each others'.
Jesse walked in, and I asked him if he knew mine.

"Um... Pizarro?" he said.

"Close!" I said, "You got the P and a Z".

Pizarro! I love it.
Mr Furniture calls me San Francisco. That could be my new, real name:
San Francisco Pizarro.

II. The Wrong Stuff

The Marzipan, aka Top Kid, is back!
She hated the military style school, not surprisingly.
"Why do I keep thinking I can do group things?" she said.

Example: One student had smuggled a Cuppa Noodles into the dorms, where food is not allowed.
As punishment, the entire cohort had to go outside and do push-ups while the instructor yelled, "Fuck you and your Cuppa Noodles!"

Marz laughed telling me this, and I laughed to hear it, but there was a lot of such yelling, she said, and months more of it coming up.

When she told the instructor that she was leaving, she said,
"You said you could guarantee that someone would drop out in the first week. I'm that someone."

And he said, "I thought it might be you, Haney."

LOL. I'm sure she semaphored her misery quite clearly.

The instructor told her he'd thought about taking her aside and asking her if she wanted to be there but decided to let her figure it out for herself.
Smart!
It's good, I think, to let situations play out in their own time.

She left on a shuttle full of working mariners who'd come back to upgrade to another rank. They told her she'd made a good decision and told her horror stories about what they've been through-- not allowed to get off the ship at ports so they couldn't quit, for instance.

They also told her how she could work for other shipping companies if she gets her Water Safety credentials.
She says she might like to try one ship cruise.
Whatever, I'm super proud of her trying stuff out. It's a big world out there, and for now...

Welcome home, Top Kid!

Lucky Move

First, let me get one thing straight.
Jupiter is not billions of miles from Earth.
I wrote that it was, and then I looked it up.
Nope.
Jupiter's distance from Earth changes constantly because both planets travel in an elliptical path around the sun.
When Jupiter is closest to Earth, it's 365 million miles (588 million km) away. In that position, Jupiter is so bright in the sky it outshines Venus.
At its farthest, Jupiter is 601 million miles (968 million km) away.

What do I know?
"Jupiter in Pisces" is just a catch-all name for my inexplicable good luck this year, from getting a temporary part-time job wrapping packages at the antique books store, to the four-month house sitting gig, to getting this apartment, 320. All while not getting sick (fingers crossed).
It be like:

 

Even helping BJ while she was dying this spring was lucky, in a way. I mean, lucky that I was positioned in the right place, able to help . . . and did actually help. That doesn't always work out.

I park my bike by BJ's apartment building across the alley from the thrift store, and after almost three months I'm still a little blown away that she's not there.
Her personality packed a punch; she was a salty little Disney character... the sort that leaves a gap when they're gone.

Sigh.

Today after work, Ass't Man (AM) is taking me in his pickup truck to pick up my big armchair at my old place. HouseMate won't even be there, so I'll leave my key, and that is that concluded.

Here's a really unexpected piece of luck:
AM has become sort of a friend this year! He's made significant changes, partly in response to our discussions.

Mostly I've pointed out that he's not been communicating effectively.
I don't say, "You've been a total asshole".
I say, "I see your frustration that you're not getting the results you want. Have you thought about rethinking your approach?"

Thinking about this helps me think about how I communicate too, so its a double win.

Work continues to go well, in general, factoring in SNAFUs. (We got broken into again, for instance––seems to be a yearly event––but nothing much was taken.)
Yesterday Big Boss told me a customer had praised me to him.
She, the customer, had asked me if we had any books by Hemingway. I went right to the H's and handed her the two we had. She bought them both.
And that's why the humans made up alphabetization.

I've been surprised how hard people find it to alphabetize.
A couple times I've asked volunteers who I know can read (mystery books) to alphabetize the fiction section--the only alphabetized section.
They get the first letter right, and after that it's a goner.

Having worked in libraries since I was twenty-three, I have a skewed view: I didn't realize alphabetizing is a specialized skill. But it is.

Let's see... What else?

The Marzipan texts me several times a day in a different mood about  shipping school--varying from hilarity to disgust.
She said she's glad she's there though, even if she leaves tomorrow:

"As with the goat farm, I can't say why. It's like taking a tour of life and looking into a new room."

I'd say that's exactly why. Even a bad trip shakes you awake in a good way, making you feel alive and engaged in a big world.
I put that in the LUCKY column.

 

bink, though, has had one of the worst years of her life--her concussion creeps in centimeters toward improvement... At least it is improving, but because her vision is wonky she can hardly move her head or work on anything for more than a few minutes without becoming nauseous.

But even in this spectacularly bad year, she's having fun planning her wedding to Maura.
I got their invitation in the mail the other day, calligraphed by Maura:
"After 23 years we've decided to tie the knot".

Yay! I'm looking forward to this--most of the other dozen guests are people I've known for decades. It's all very historic.
Only downside: once again I have to shop for an outfit.
Help me, Jupiter!

Becoming Bottom

Puck the fairy and Bottom the weaver who's turned into a donkey by Puck are the outstanding characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and several girlettes want to play the two roles.
So we're having multiples.
Why not?

FrankColumbo immediately popped on the strainer I'd brought home from metal recycling:
Donkey ears!

I'm fine with remixing Shakespeare--most of his stuff was revisioned material too.

Russell T Davies (of Doctor Who) tweaked AMND for the BBC in 2016.
In a Guardian interview, "It sounds like a sex version of Midsummer Night's Dream. And it's not", he explains:

In the original script, all the women at some point refer to killing themselves.
“But I refuse to transmit those lines now.
In 2016 I’m not having lovelorn women say they’ll kill themselves. I’m not putting that on BBC1; I absolutely refuse. Because I hope young girls will be watching this, and I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to say – ‘I love you so much, if you don’t love me I’ll kill myself.’
I think that’s untransmittable, I’m not having it.”

He also changes the ending to give the two powerful women a fitting finale:
In the original, the fairy queen Titania caves into Oberon, and the Amazon Hippolyta is forcibly wed her enemy Theseus. In Davies's version, instead the women (are fairies women?) end up kissing each other.

Davies says:

"We shouldn’t start having headlines about a lesbian kiss – because it’s better than that.
[Theseus is an Athenian fascist dictator] So he's got to fall, you’ve got to get rid of him – because that bigger, sexier, joyous world of the supernatural that unites everyone and allows everyone to fall in love is at the window, it’s encroaching on Athens.
Let it in!”

So if we have a play with many versions of two characters, that'd be swell!
Anyway, the girlettes aren't going to put on the whole play anyway--they mostly just want to dress up and make sets.
And by "they", I mean "I".

Still Settling In

Day 13 of living in my new apartment--almost two weeks!
I'm still unpacking and settling in. Every daily task is new--I have to think, How do I drain the dishes dry? Where do I put my toothbrush?
It's a lot to process, and I am a tip-toer.

This morning I did my laundry for the first time. There's some Law that says if 4 people live in a building, two of them will want to do the laundry at the same time.
And sure enough, one of my neighbors took my clean, wet laundry out of the machine and put hers in. Which is fine and fair--just funny.
The other women in the building seem very nice, but I've just met them in passing.

I haven't been cooking much, but I've gone to two farmers markets. So this morning I took a heap of the wilting veg in the fridge and made vegetable stock.
We've been having a weirdly pleasant July--often it's too hot and humid to turn on the stove, even in the early morning, but it was cool enough.

I've been in a great mood for a while now--not just from moving, which makes me deliriously happy, but even before I started looking for an apartment.
I put it down to Jupiter in Pisces. Must be the stars, right? because Earth isn't exactly a bundle of joy. I don't read the news, but it's all around.
And work, as usual, could be the setting for a comedy of errors.
So, yeah, must be some planet a billion miles away making me happy.

Whatever. I'll take it.

Inhabiting Their Characters

"We need to inhabit our characters", I was informed this morning by the girlettes.
Where do they get these things?
 

SweePo here (at bink's) is wearing ears that will be dyed brown for her character Bottom the Mechanical, whom Puck turns into a donkey:

I'm excited to make The Mechanicals' costumes.
They're the group of workers who are rehearsing to put on a play (within the play) for the royal wedding:
Bottom, the weaver; Quince, the carpenter; Flute, the bellows-mender; Snout, the tinker; Starveling, the tailor; and Snug, the joiner.

I'm going to collect bits and bobs of mechanical things from the store to make their costumes. Our metal recycling bin is full of goodies--old gadgets with indicator windows, wind-up counters, sprung coils... all gone haywire.
Perfect!

I'm really only interested in The Mechanicals and the Fairies.
The Athenian Court and the Dopey Lovers... who cares? (I think I am not alone in this.)

Bottoms Up

Marz called this morning to say she doesn't want to inhabit the role of (that is, to become) a merchant mariner!
Turns out--AS SHE WELL KNEW--you are away at sea for months at a time, sometimes for many months.
"I'd miss the people I love!" she said.

LOL.
Well, okay, then.
But––she is going to give it some time. At least a month.
(That's what I'd counsel.)

"Maybe it'll turn out I'm just here for the stories," she said.
Yes! The pickings are rich already--like the humor of The Mechanicals.

I told Marz maybe it'll be like how I studied at the U to become a funeral director. After a quarter, I realized no way was I suited to help grieving family members fill out insurance forms, but I never regretted the time I spent studying it.
It too was rich in loamy humor.

Marz at Sea: "This is already hilarious."

Marz flew away at 7 a.m. this morning to Seafarers School.
She called when she arrived a couple hours later, waiting by the baggage carousels for the school van to pick up her and the other new students.
"I see other people wandering around in new steel-toe boots," she said. "I bet they're going too."

Just now she texted from the van,

"This is already hilarious."

Oh, thank God.
I can go with few qualms to the highfalutin birthday of an opera-loving cat-owner where I know nobody, knowing more or less what to expect, but I had NO idea who or what Marz was facing going to merchant mariners school.
She wasn't much worried--figured they'd be like her seven brothers who work in the military or oil fields or carpentry...

I'm not sure she'd thought it'd be hilarious, though there were intimations: 
contact she's had with the school has been quasi-slapstick.
Instructions on admission forms, for instance, warned that you had to fill everything out in detail.
When she'd called to say she didn't have some piece of information, she was told, "Oh, that part isn't really important."

What is this, a Fisher Price outfit?

Below: Marz holding an FP boat I gave her; bink in concussion gear (to block light) to her right

I'm super proud of Marz and super eager to hear all about the school, but they keep you busy--washing dishes, scrubbing decks, and standing imaginary guard at midnight.
Also classes such as Ship Familiarization (colloquially, Ship Fam), First Aid, and Fire Fighting class, where they put you in a fireproof room and set a bale of hay on fire.
"At sea, it's just the crew," they emphasize.

This first stage is on land and lasts three months. Then there are two training voyages.
I'm hoping she can come home for Christmas, because I'm getting a tree! And making pot roast, like I always used to do.

On my tenth day here in my new place, I'm starting to wash away that place I lived before. The longer I'm away, the worse the emotional tenor there seems in retrospect.
I don't even want to go back to pick up my big armchair: I wouldn't either, except Marz left her unicycle there too, and I want to retrieve that for her. She might want to take it on a ship!

I have today off, and I have so many little things to do, like buy a broom and dust pan, and vinegar and baking soda.
And keep reading A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I just started.

I wasn't necessarily going to reread AMND for the girlettes' production, instead drawing on my memories, but just glancing at it I got sucked in.

I'd totally forgotten it's Puck who says,
"Lord, what fools these mortals be."