Girlettes in the Rye

I am slowly collecting tea strainers and mesh boiled-egg scoops and the like from metal recycling at the thrift store to become hats for The Mechanicals in A Girlettes' Summer Dream.

(I don't like how SweePo's hat (right) looks like a pith helmet here though; I want to find a way to make the ring on top stay standing up.)

This is wheat, not rye, outside my living room window.
It's planted in the city land along the street to hold the dirt down till native plants take hold. I love it so much, I wish it were permanent.

Sunny Khan's outfit (left) is made from bundles of gold thread tied with pink that Kirsten sent--thanks, Kirsten!

They are going to do Girlettes/Shakespeare in the Park one evening this August:
I am going to take them to the beach by Lake Harriet (past the park with the turtle fountain I posted last week)--the metal shoe trees will stand up in the sand!

ReTooling

I need some more little tools, tea-strainer size, to adapt doll costumes.

And new tools for stress too.
Reading and watching videos about managing stress & trauma, I was happy to note I already have a lot of the tools and use a lot of the techniques, including PLAYING.
(Though playing is not in the contemporary Top Ten lists for adults, it does turn up as therapeutic.)

Also EXERCISE:
I've long noticed that I feel a ton better if I bike home from whatever job I'm working--the movement physically works agitation out of the system.

(I think that's one reason last winter was hard--it was so icy, I couldn't bike as long into winter as I usually do. I would bus home to a restrictive place--no wonder I was sleeping so much!
I only felt totally at home in my bedroom, especially IN bed...)

This winter if it's too bad for biking, I will find more indoor activities--at least I could exercise easily at home.

I asked another coworker how he handles stress, yesterday:
"I never see you lose your cool," I said.

"I'm medicated", he said.

Ah, yes. No one's pupils are naturally that dilated all the time.

I tell ya, all my coworkers are traumatized. That's one reason I feel at home there.
Like a Xanax-taking, former coworker said,
"No one here is going to tell me to take a bubble bath and light a scented candle. Fuck that shit."

I do want to work on my annoyance level though. 
I wish I could ignore "why don't you light a candle" fluff.
Instead I feel rage.
Rage!
Kind of an outsized reaction, donchathink?

When my Bosnian pal mentioned she is intolerant of " other people’s irrelevant bullshit", I made the connection that my impatience is part of my overreaction to stress.
That's top of my list of things to figure out:
how to relax that reaction?

("Thinking differently" about it isn't enough--I've tried that for ages.)

The girlettes don't care:
"Bubble baths and candles? We want to do them!"