Is it?

Grumpy Bookseller (c'est moi)

The longer I work with the public, the less grumpy I find Shaun Bythell and his bookshop diaries. I treated myself to his latest one––Remainders of the Day (2022)––and am reading it in the sunny window of a nearby coffee shop. Two other people in this small café are reading books too—the rest are talking to someone. I’d come here more often, but a cup of tea is four dollars, plus tax—then you throw the change in the tip jar and that’s five bucks gone for a teabag. But once in a while, it's worth it for a sunny window.

I stopped keeping the thrift-store diary, (it was upsetting me too much), but this book does inspire me to keep better record of BOOK’s (my section of the store ). Plenty of material there—and plenty of human behavior to note (complain about).

Beauty & Coolness Now

Stephen King says in his book On Writing that reading Harry Potter is good training in writing: "It's all story."

Yes! Rereading HP this summer, I thought, How does J K Rowling weave all these elements together and move the plot forward almost seamlessly? Impressive.

I always miss psychological insight in those books though. This exchange, below, is one of the few with any step-outside-the-action insight, and it's a good one. (It's in the last book, HP and the Deathly Hallows.) I'd photographed the paragraphs and just found them now, going through my photos for a 2022 Year in Review.

Ron saves Harry, and then brushes off Harry's thanks, saying "That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was."

Harry replies [my italics], "Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was. I've been trying to tell you that for years."

 

 

Yes, we may do what we do because we find ourselves in circumstances where we feel we have to do it, not because we're "cool".

BUT... the way we ascribe coolness to others but not to ourselves, even when we do cool stuff (and sometimes it is cool--Harry is both right and wrong) may be related to how we discount our beauty in the present moment. We may look back with kinder eyes, as Moira Rose says in Schitt's Creek, and think,
"Dear god, I was a beautiful thing."

This is true even for us old bloggers. We may not be in our reproductive prime, but sometimes we truly are beautiful, cool old people.
The trick is to collapse time, to step outside of time, so you can see your beauty & coolness objectively now.
Some trick! Moira advises the young woman Stevie...

"You're already flying upside down." And now... the dishes

It was extremely cold last night, Christmas Eve, but I didn't have to go anywhere! Five guests came here.
The price for hosting?
Dishes all the next morning... (Such pretty dishes, though.)

I. Sprucing Up

Since I moved into my new place with almost no kitchenware six months ago, I've brought a lot home from the store––(much free-to-me, on staff's store credit). I put almost every piece to use for last night's dinner. There was *squeakingly* enough for six place settings, if I gave myself non-Dansk silverware and served whiskey in Star Trek water glasses.
I don't care if stuff matches, I care that I like each piece.

This out of focus photo catches the overall glowy mood.

bink's crackers worked, with loud explosions that threw the contents halfway across the room. Good stuff! The hats were perfect.
Me, below, reading one of bink's cracker jokes. I liked the ones she chose.
Q: How does a Christmas tree get ready to go out?

A: It spruces up.

For the first time, my pot roast was perfect. Always before I've overloaded the pan with root vegetables. This year I added only onions and carrots with the meat (and wine, and Lipton Onion Soup mix).
I roasted the potatoes separately.
Bingo!

The apple hand pies were very nice too, but you know what?
Even though I want to bake more, I want to stop eating white flour. I've been cutting down on simple carbs, and when I eat it, it makes me   s  o  o  o  o  sleepy. I don't like that.

This morning I ate the apple & walnut filling out of the leftover pie.
I composted its white-flour crust. (The City provides little green trash cans for food waste.)
My Stated Desire for 2023: Keep doing that.

I thought about going to Christmas morning Mass this morning, but decided it was too early (9 a.m.), too cold (even to walk two blocks), and likely to be too crowded. People closer to me have been catching some nasty viruses, and I don't want to.

I'm around a ton of people at work, though--why haven't I gotten sick?
It might be that the donations door, a huge car-repair–sized garage door, opens frequently throughout the day, so while it's HOT in the summer and COLD in the winter, we get a ton of fresh air diluting the viruses.

Riding the bus, I sit by the exit door whenever I can, and that opens at almost every stop, blasting me with cold air too.
I don't know though--mostly I reckon I've been lucky. So far... I keep expecting that surely I will catch at least the average flu.

(Hm. That reminds me, I am not prepared to be ill---I need to grocery shop for canned soups, etc. to have on hand, in case.)

II. "You're already flying upside down."

Anyway, the evening was lovely––it was so nice, a balm, really, to gather with old friends, in my own place . . . until the very end, just before everyone left, when a guest started to talk about increased crime in the city where we all live, and told us some x, y, z terrible and terrifying statistics a police officer told them.
(I went to bed after, with my eyes wide open. My new magic blanket calmed me down, with its North Star in the winter blue night.)

They want to relocate to [a lovely coastal town near a mountain in northwest WA that some may know]. They work online, so location doesn't matter.

More power to moving somewhere you can flourish. godknows crime is up in cities across the US, and leaving may be a smart choice. I moved to a quieter neighborhood when I moved to HouseMate's, and now again, here.

And yet, I feel I would rather go down with the ship, the city, than leave...
Perhaps I'm being stupid––and also self-deluded and that's not even true, it's just me thinking in puritanically romanticized terms? (Hm, but is that likely? Yes, yes it is.)
I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who said his place during the Nazi reign was in his country, Germany. I'm making no claims to be like him! OMG, no. And there's little good in staying, just for the sake of it--you have to DO something, even just ("just"?) bearing witness, as they say.

Like in Mad Max: Fury Road: "Witness me!"
I just rewatched that film, and, hm, come to think of it, it's a mix of people who choose to stay and fight (Furiosa), and those who choose to wander (Max).
And both are good.

Still, when I've house/cat sat in rich neighborhoods where people talked during Covid (and after George Floyd's murder) about things like how sad they were they couldn't take their annual trip to Belize [actual example], I just feel that, I just... I wouldn't fit in well.

But, also, the Pacific Northwest? I saw Pacific Rim, and that's where the kaiju are coming from!

So, fine. Don't want to move, Fresca?
Don't move.

You makes your choices and you pays your price.
Or, as it says in Deep Survival, a book I just reread, advising people to take risks--to take informed risks, because, after all,
"You're already flying upside down."*

That's like what I wrote for my blog header that I can never bear to change because I still like it so much--that I am, we are...
writing at 100,000 kilometers/hour, just sitting here

III. I Heart Overthinking

Did I ever mention that I studied Philosophy & Theology?
The state U doesn't offer Theology per se, of course––my BA is in Classics (Religious Studies)––but a favorite of mine was a series of classes on Medieval Philosophy, and that's what that is.

I love that stuff!
It shaped how I think--especially its mathy metaphors and twisty semantics💓💓💓:

"God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."**

Anselm's definition of God being "that, than which no greater can be conceived."

People have told me over the years that I overthink, or that I'm too intense.
But that's what I like, and I'm sticking to it.
That, and dolls and bears.

Wishing to all a Merry Christmas and/or Parallel, Antecedent, Cousin,  Offspring Holidays.

May We Be Good Ancestors, Flying Upside-down!

ABOVE: Planets in the solar system, Copernicus, De revolutionibus, bk. I
__________________________

* Re, You're already flying upside down. [boldface mine]

"Survivors know, whether they're conscious of it or not, that to live at all is to fly upside down (640 people died in 1999 while choking on food; 320 drowned in the bathtub). You're already flying upside down. You might as well turn on the smoke and have some fun. Then when a different sort of challenge presents itself, you can face it with the same equanimity."

-- Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, 2003.

** "God is an infinite sphere" is from Liber XXIV philosophorum, (Book of the 24 Philosphers), a Latin booklet by an anonymous author, earliest copy from the 1200s:

‘The text of the Book of the 24 philosophers is extremely topical […] The modern time till nowadays is not, as we generally say in a superficial way, a period of atheism and abandonment of faith, but a time in which God has become […] a logico-mathematical structure, which is the real symbolic Gestell of our age […] we haven’t yet understood how science is still and unbelievably deeply theological’

Marc Richir (Beligian philosopher, 1943–2015), And God became Space (via)

Almost Christmas Eve…

Six people will just fit for Christmas Eve dinner—perfect!

Everyone gets an animal with a holiday hat at their place,
and a Christmas cracker:

 

 BELOW: Bink made cracker hats out of the edge of the paper tablecloth! (I didn’t have wrapping paper.)

The pot roast smells terrific—now going to make apple hand pies—guests are due in 2.25 hours.❤️❤️❤️

Crackers

I bought snappers to make Christmas crackers, from Olde England Crackers (Linda Sue recommended--they were $8 for 24). They came in the mail at Halloween; I saved up t.p. rolls, collected little toys at work to be prizes inside . . . and I have yet to assemble them. Classic.

I do well with a last-minute rush though––I'll put the crackers together this afternoon while the pot roast cooks.
Ergh, I forgot to get tissue paper to make hats--maybe I could use t.p.? I have to write up some Dad jokes too. (Nothing my father would ever have told, but a lot of the guys at work genuinely do love these . . . basic jokes.)

The bigger animals in hats looking on will be place settings for dinner tonight. There are five--one for each guest.

It's cold (–5ºF, as I write at 7:30 a.m.), but not as wicked and windy as the past couple days. The windows aren't completely frosted over, just on the edges.
I'm in a good mood but feeling a bit housebound. I haven't gone outside in two days, so I'll take a walk later.

Aside from the crackers, the house is as ready as it's going to be for Christmas Eve. The baby is even born already. Surprise, it's a baby asparagus!

My sister dressed Mary; the embroidered house ornament was made by our blog friend Kirsten; felt stars are from Linda Sue; sheep ornament from bink; and the animals' button eyes from Art Sparker.
THANK YOU, everybody!
(Everything else is, of course, from the thrift store.)

I'm going to get the pot roast going now. Happy Day to you all!

Christmas Cards

I posted two girlette Christmas cards from former years on IG--you may have already seen (or received) them, but here they are again.

Above: Skating on Lake Hiawatha, 2019. Inspired by The Skating Minister (see, at the Nat'l Gallery of Scotland). I was new at toy photography, but this is one of my favorite girlette pictures.
It's one of the few where I relied on photo editing. The ice was too thin to hold a human, so to prop her up, I put Minnie Sutherland on a doll stand, which I positioned on the lake with a stick. Later I blurred out the base on the computer.

Above: Santa going to work--at the Hiawatha rail yard, 2020. I don't think I edited this at all on the computer--the light of the gray day was perfect.

I took these photos while I was renting from HouseMate (2019-2022).
I love living alone now, but I do miss that old neighborhood---lots of small, working class bungalows by the grain elevators and trains, a mile from the Mississippi River. There just weren't apartments over there.

Happy Birthday, Linda Sue!

The girlettes are so excited and impressed:
Linda Sue has the luck of being seven AND six today.
They think she is awfully talented for being two ages at once, and such good ones too, and almost as many years as they are. (They are eight.)

The toys had to scrounge for flowers for a birthday bouquet for Linda Sue--the snow is blowing sideways past the window, so I vetoed their idea of going outside to make snow flowers.
They gathered some friends for a BIG CHEER though:

Grumbling about Xmas Crap... (but loving the lights)

I actually like the holidays just fine. I enjoy having a tree, and lights (Hanukkah, Solstice, Xmas--all the lights), and I love cards in the mail. But after Grateful-J set up the red dinosaur mauling a kitty in a display case at work (below), I came along and added the Alien eating one of Santa's reindeer.

What I hate about the holidays is the plastic crap people buy, which we're already drowning in. We see the detritus, donated to us at the thrift store.
And it's not just plastic. Everyone ordering online means cardboard, cardboard, cardboard.
We can't even sell our cardboard (for pennies) to the recycling places anymore, because they have too much. The store has to pay a garbage company to haul away a recycling dumpster.
I doubt they can sell it either, so it goes, you know, to the landfill.

I thought a manager might take our tableau down, but none of our three managers did. Maybe they didn't look closely? Or maybe they share the sentiment?

I. Fire It Up

Across the street from the store, "our neighbors" selling holiday cheer in a needle have set up a patio umbrella to protect their fire.
I guess the police have given up, after clearing the fire camp out twice?
(This is not a homeless encampment, this is street dealers.)

When I saw their latest innovation though, I had to laugh. When I walked past, I even gave them a thumbs up. As long as they're burning wood and not garbage with toxins in it, I don't mind. Someone donates firewood to them... or they steal or buy it from outside gas stations? I don't ask. The cashier told me they buy big bottles of hand sanitizer (w alcohol) from us every morning---and use it as fire starter.
Humans are clever squirrels.

Clever squirrels with guns. The other day as I was leaving work, Big Boss said, "You might want to give it a few minutes, there was just a shooting out there."

"Oh, okay," I said, "I'll check before I leave."
I looked out and everyone had scattered, so I headed to the bus stop. Cops and emergency vehicles arrived as I was getting on the bus. (Too cold and icy to bike.)
I tell ya, you can get used to anything.

The neighbors totally drive customers away though--and, more, and more importantly, donors. The store had a good year, financially, but I know we'd do better if we weren't in a war zone. Still, we do good by serving the people who live in the 'hood and have few choices about where to shop--especially since a lot of businesses have not been rebuilt after the uprisings after the police murdered George Floyd a mile away.

I think the scene doesn't get to me too much because I'm only at the store for around 24 hours a week, not 24 hours/day.
That's why I stopped blogging the Thrifstore Diary regularly--writing about it was bringing work craziness into my home. My mood improved a lot after I stopped re-creating the energy by writing up every shift.

I've worried a bit: was I becoming numb, callous, shut down?
But, no. My coworkers and I vent a lot together––laugh, rage, remind each other to "woo-sah" (chill out), share stories and food...
It definitely can be bleak some days, but it can also be a very fun workplace.

The coming of the new cashier, Emmler, has helped. She's a rocket. She grew up in the neighborhood, so she is unphased.
Here she is imitating a duck. "I fucking hate Christmas," she says. But she took the twisted duck ornament home.

II. Christmas, Though

I set up a Winter Solstice bubble nightlight last night:

Marz really got into decorating at Christmastime when she moved here in 2011, and she showed me how fun it is to brighten up the dark.
She's decorating at the apartment building where she lives--she's become tight with the caretaker there, and some of the other tenants.

Until my mother left the family when I was thirteen, she made Christmas fantastic--candlelight Christmas Eve dinners of buttery oyster stew and champagne, and for Christmas morning, marzipan sweet rolls.
Her specialty was filling our stockings with little things.
I remember the best stocking of all, when I was about ten years old. She'd stuffed it with a wind-up metal robot, a long looping string of pearly baubles, a bottle of bubble bath, a mini wooden farm-in-a-box (made in Germany), and the tiny boxed set of Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library (c. 1962).
When a set got donated to the store this year, I nabbed it. (The dust jackets are missing, but it's the first one that's come in since I started in 2018.)

 It was sad the first year without my mother––grim––but I got used to it long ago and can't call up any emotion about it now. I haven't had an extended family that expected to gather for Christmas in more than forty years.

I tried alternatives. When I was in my late teens, early twenties, Wicca and a revival of pagan celebrations––bonfires and handmade gifts––were very much in, and Christianity and capitalism was out. For a few years, I celebrated Solstice instead of Christmas.

I eventually went back to Xmas though, because the alternative felt cranky, for my part––saying, "I don't celebrate Xmas" felt like it sent out negative vibes–– rather than being creative--like, finding a meaningful way to do Xmas, which is unavoidably present in the dominant culture all around.

bink and I celebrated happily for many years with homemade gifts and meals. Going to midnight Mass at the Basilica was great for many years too. It starts at midnight, (not like many churches that end their service at midnight), so you'd leave church around 2 a.m. into the cold and silent night.
Maybe I'll go again one year, but not this one--it's too cold!

A mainstay has been Christmas cards, which I make (usually) every year. (Though I only realized yesterday when I got cards together for my coworkers that I haven't mailed all of mine. Eek.)
I'm sad that e-communications has led to far, far less cards in the mail.

And for many years, I made pot roast on Xmas Eve, which I'm doing again this year.
Oh! That's in two days!  *leaps up and pulls the roast out of the freezer*

Sister is coming over this afternoon to exchange presents. I was going to work, but it "feels like –31ºF" and there's a winter weather advisory out: "you will die outside".
So, yeah, no.

Wishing you a happy––or, not too dreadful––Holiday-time to you all!

III. Toward the Small...

Oh, let me add a passage from Michelle Obama on what to do when overwhelmed---Michael posted it on OCA, and I relate totally to it, for me it's the girlettes and toy photography, or lately, baking cakes!

"Any time your circumstances start to feel all-consuming, I suggest you try going in the other direction — toward the small.
Look for something that'll help you rearrange your thoughts, a pocket of contentedness where you can live for a while. And by this I don't mean sitting passively in front of your television or scrolling through your phone. Find something that’s active, something that asks for your mind but uses your body as well. Immerse yourself in the process. And forgive yourself for temporarily ducking out of the storm."

"Guided"

Ever since I re-priced a vintage Faribault Woolen Mill blanket at the store, up from my coworker's price of $8 to $20--and then went home, looked the blanket up, and saw I should have added another zero, ever since then I've kept my eyes on wool items going out on the floor at work, to make sure they're priced correctly. (A few months ago, we priced a Pendleton at the high but fair $150.)

It's funny--good quality things often stand out. They... I don't know, they attract the eye, they look... good. Pleasing. I can often catch them with a quick glance. Usually my coworkers catch expensive labels now we all know they're worth so much, but last week I pulled a vintage Pendleton shirt out of textile recycling, priced it $10 (it was worn at the neck), and hung it on display in my book section.
It sold in minutes.

Yesterday I spied an attractive blanket hanging on a rack to go out on the floor, and, sure enough--Faribault Mill. This is old mill in Faribault, Minnesota, that--along with Pendleton in Oregon--"are the only vertical mills in the US, which means their work starts with raw wool from the sheep and ends with the final woven product." (via)

The blanket was priced $10. Sigh.
I was going to point it out to the linens person, and then I thought--wait! I want this. Without looking it up online, I bought it at the store price.

I do not need any more blankets, and it's not my usual style---red, white, and blue? but it really attracted me.
I found an interview with the designer, a Minneapolis-based artist, Dyani Red Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota). The interview is recent--from January 2021.
She titled the blanket "Guided", though the name is not on the blanket itself. What she said about designing it––in winter––explains why I was drawn to the blanket, though I couldn't have said so myself:

"I went for a run,... for uninterrupted thought and prayer, ... the evening of the full moon. I headed out at the end of the day and was surprised how quickly the sun set.... I thought I would be back before dark, but I miscalculated. I ended up being so grateful though because on my route home, I was running toward the full moon. It was really bright and low in the sky—a big, beautiful, golden full moon.

"I was thinking about the blanket and what it meant to me as I was trying to decide on the title. I thought about winter, the North Star, stars in the winter sky, that celestial presence and the guidance embedded in our [Lakota] symbolism.
I also thought about how life and the necessity of guidance can be different in winter. I thought... also about the importance of finding a title that provides an open invitation, ... allowing folks to apply meaning that speaks to what guides them."

The little white patterns are tipis.
She says:

"The stars were placed first. The four direction crosses came in next. I tried several variations in the striping [background], ... experimented with some zigzags, and nothing was working.
Then I thought, "Oh, tipis!" and as I put them in, it spoke to the feeling of winter for me. I envisioned all these quiet lodges, a camp in the snow against a quiet deep blue sky."

I've had bad, anxious dreams a couple nights this week, though I've felt fine in the days.
I slept under the blanket last night, and my dreams were good.  I love it so much.


Oh! And I should give a cake report:
the cake I baked for the work potluck yesterday, the day I bought the blanket, turned out great!
It tasted as good as I'd figured it would (can't go wrong with eggs and butter), and it looked beautiful when it was cut into

I have a ways to go before I enter the Bake Off...

 WHY did I think I could learn cake decorating in one evening after work--and with insufficient equipment. Halfway through the $3.99 hand-mixer I'd brought from the thrift store conked out, and I don't even own a spatula.
At 11 PM last night, I was frosting the cake... with too-funny frosting...  (no more powdered sugar to firm it up.)

BUT... it should taste fantastic, for all the eggs and butter in it!
And at least I have a cool mid-century, rose-gold, spun-aluminum cake carrier.
These sell for $25 and up online--I pulled mine out of the store's metal recycling. Its a bit dinged. Doesn't matter.

It's almost zero outside, and Ass't Man is picking me up with my cake. It's a birthday cake for Big Boss but also for today's holiday pot luck.
Gotta go!

Nights of Miracles and Wonders

 Happy Second Night of Hanukkah!

Stefanie has the perfect sized menorah and was happy to lend it to the dolls and bears! (She uses a more human-sized one.) Golda the bear always does the candle lighting and the others say the prayers.

“ These lights we kindle for the miracles and the wonders and the salvations and the victories that You performed for our ancestors.”

I wonder about their ancestors. PennyCooper always says they were dinosaurs and ferns, but in between then and now, I mean…

Emmler-Bemmler

 My coworker Emmler and her separated-at-birth twin.

Days of Miracle & Wonder

Ouch! It's hard to type this morning because I grated a nice slice out of my index finger yesterday while I was grating ginger for cake.
I'm so used to dull, old graters, I was careless--this is a new grater and it's sharp! (I hardly knew graters could be sharp.)

I. Don't Grate Your Brain

Dinner last night with my brain-injured friends was so sweet.
Sophie can't have an Xmas tree this year because her brain is doing all it can to recover from a stroke in August. Luckily, I hadn't decorated the girlettes' tree yet, so I got that out, and Sophie really got into decorating it with the tiny wooden figures from Taiwan.

Sophie, far left, Mrs. and Mrs. (Maura, & bink with Pearl Duquette on her head):

Penny Cooper is back! just in time to help too. She'd been staying with Sophie, "like Florence Nightingale," Penny said.

I've genuinely missed Penny Cooper. I'd asked if she could come back for Christmas, and Sophie said she could come home forever, that Penny was a big help but not needed any longer.

Sophie still has miles to go, but it's amazing to witness:
BRAINS REPAIR THEMSELVES.
But, . . .  s  l  o  w  l  y  . . . .
Sophie is currently reading the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. "I can only read at a third-grade level." She sounded as if she were ashamed of that.

"Sophie!" I said. "When I saw you in the hospital four months ago, you couldn't decipher a. single. word. Written language was total gibberish to you."

"That's right," she said, brightening up, "Thank you for giving me perspective."

bink's concussion is much, much better too: she can use her eyes to look down for long spans of time without being made nauseous. She's started to read her first book in eight months.
And she could concentrate on setting up the tiny creche.

II. Mary, the Unfucked [–Up]

The tiny creche has two Marys––Mrs. & Mrs. Mary; a contingent of the Heavenly Host arriving on skis, like Finns on the Russian front during WWII;
and the Magi bringing a big teddy bear for the baby.

I don't much relate to parental metaphors in spiritual stories. The Cosmic Mother, Father of Waters (Algonquin name for the Mississippi), and so forth.
I'm not a mother, and mothers have been problematic for me. Fathers, even more so.
I relate more to non-personal metaphors from physics: grace as gravity; love as kinetic energy--that sort of thing.

Mother Mary had never meant anything to me, so when I entered into the Catholic faith story in my mid-thirties I decided to do a deep dive.
I was shocked: she's revolutionary!

Her song of triumph to her cousin Elizabeth is a war cry.
It's BIG in Catholicism, where it's called "Mary's Magnificat", and it is fundamental to Liberation Theology (sort of a small-c communist catholicism that preaches "preferential treatment for the poor" as God shows in Mary's song).

A former–fundamentalist evangelical friend, however, had never heard it, even though it's in the gospels (Luke 1:46-55).
You can see why--this is no 'meek and mild' teaching. Here's a snippet [italics mine]:

"God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty."

Yeah, Mary's God is no fan of right-wing Trumpers.

The question of Mary's virginity has hurt a lot of people, including people I know.
The Church and Co. has held up Mary's supposed perpetual virginity as a virtue that women should aspire to--or feel dirty, sinful, and lesser if they don't. Men, of course, are tainted with this perverted teaching too.
My parents raised me with a 1960s' brand of humanism, outside of any church, and that kind of thinking was seen as dead and gone. (It's not, alas.)

In the Bible, Mary conceived Jesus through union with the Creative Force of the Universe, not by having sex with a man.
But the Bible never says Mary was a virgin for the rest of her life--in fact, as you know if you've read the gospels, it's implied that she and Joseph have "union" after Jesus was born, and Jesus has siblings. [Here's a run-down on that.]

I never call Mary 'The Virgin Mary' because that emphasizes a later teaching that I reject. It has no meaning to me.
But Mary conceiving a baby with a divine creative force?
That's juicy with generative meaning, and I love it!
There're lots of stories in religion/myth/fairy tale about divine children with human mothers, changelings, and half-humans of all sorts. Greek myth is full of half-divine characters.

III. "If I knew where babies came from, there'd be a lot less of you."

That sentence above is what Rosaria, my Sicilian grandmother, said to her ten children when she was in her 90s.
When she was 17 years old, she had not wanted to marry Vincenzo. Her father had not liked him either and refused to grant him permission to marry his daughter.

So, with a couple cronies, Vincenzo kidnapped Rosaria--forced her into a car as she was walking home––and held her overnight. "There was no pinky-ponky," said my grandmother (who always presented this as a humorous story). Rape wasn't necessary to ruin a girl's reputation and force her into an unwanted marriage.
This was in Milwaukee, 1917. Bride-kidnapping remained a thing in Sicily until modern times (and is still practiced elsewhere).

So, in that context––thinking of my grandmother who was forced into marriage with a violent man, and without knowing how children were conceived and with no recourse to birth-control, bore ten children, at least some of whom she didn't want––I absolutely love the idea of Mary being unfucked, as in Unfucked-up by the Patriarchy.

If you think about what sex and marriage was like for many women––girls, really––in history (and sometimes now)... it's often not so great. Mary was a teenager about to be given to some man she didn't choose. Seems he turned out to be a good guy, but if he hadn't been, there'd have been nothing she could've done about it.
Like my grandmother Rosaria.

Did God rape Mary?
No. The angel tells Mary she's been chosen. She expresses amazement (Who, me?) and then she says, Yes, okay.
This implies she could have said No.

Some prophets, like Moses, do say no to God.
Admittedly it never really goes their way--but then, we don't hear about all the prophets who hid under their beds until God said, okay, okay, I'll get someone else.

So, I don't mean to interpret the story for other people--there are a million facets to it, but just to say how I see it. As a Catholic Christian, even if a misfit-toy outsider one (sometimes the best kind!), it's my story and I can do what I want with it. Within reason. And I don't even depart from Scripture, here.
This is not the word used, but scripture says:
Unfuck yourselves!
(There must be fifty ways...)

Meanwhile, speaking of miracles and wonders, Hannukah started last night, and the girlettes have a tiny menorah to light. I left the tiny candles at work though, so they couldn't last night, but we'll light the Second Night candle tonight.

Happy ALL THE RETURN OF LIGHT!

Misfits (Would you fall in love with you?)

Good morning! (8 a.m.ish, as I write). Here I am after one cup of coffee showing off my favorite new thing (from the thrift store, of course)--Moose & Bear p.j. bottoms. They remind me of old shadow lampshades at a motel in Duluth.

Wildlife Report

I've been quizzing Ms Moon about wildlife in her Florida yard. Alligators?
No, but they are in a nearby creek. (!)
Panthers?
"Uh? No?" But there is an orange cat that bites and scratches.
(I looked it up: Florida panthers are almost extinct in the wild.)

I've seen a moose once in my life--in a wilderness park in northern Minnesota, almost in Canada. It walked across the trail I was on, far ahead of me but still massive and stunning.
I've never seen a bear in the wild, but they're pretty common once you're out of town--they ransack garbage cans in people's yards or campgrounds. A coworker who lives in a nearby small town sees black bears regularly.

Mostly, I see squirrels and sparrows. Very efficient life forms; like us humans, they eat anything and can live with concrete.
Once in a while you'll see a raccoon when it's dark. The storm sewers are their underground highways. But they're smart, and they keep out of sight.

Lots of animals live along the Greenway bike path between the Mississippi river and the chain of lakes in town, but a lot of them, like foxes, are nocturnal. Also, great at hiding. A friend saw a deer one night when she was biking home. Mostly I see feral cats.

Being on the Mississippi River, this city is on a migration route. Lots of bright little things pass through in the spring--you see bird watchers out with binoculars. Also big honking geese and swans and duck-like things (loons! are pretty cool)––and eagles––including bald eagles, easy to spot with their white heads--and hawks.
Once I saw a hawk swoop onto a squirrel in an alley--the squirrel zig-zagged and got away.

And that's my Wildlife Report.

II. Misfit Toys at the Holidays

Toys Recreate Paintings is taking a break over the holidays because I have to CLEAN THE APARTMENT!
They are going on vacation to the Island of Misfit Toys.

 
I'm hosting two Christmas get-togethers. Each is small, but the work is almost the same whether it's three or thirty people.  I don't mind, but I don't want to recreate a painting at the same time.

The one this evening is normally given by Sophie around Winter Solstice. She had a stroke this summer, however, and while she's a lot, lot better, she's not up for entertaining. The main event at this event is always the ginger cake, which I'll be making. It's made with half-a-cup of fresh grated ginger. I'm also making shepherd's pie (with beef, so technically cottage pie, but no one calls it that)--fast and easy.

The other is the return of my Christmas Eve dinner--until I moved in with HouseMate, every year I'd invite people over for pot roast (also easy, though not fast). Of course with Covid, I couldn't have done that anyway. Now I can again.

I've mailed my cards and mailed or handed out the 2023 girlette calendars. I don't do much in the way of gift giving. Working at a thrift store, I see lots of things for people, but I usually give them away when I find them, rather than saving for later. Because I'm impatient.

Recreating paintings with toys is an exercise in patience, for sure. I never get mad at the toys, but sometimes I do swear with frustration. Then it helps if I stop and eat something.
Yesterday's Judith took so long, I realized I hadn't eaten lunch--unusual for me.

Oh! DO check out Linda Sue's Judith--as always, she cracks me up and impresses me with her free-wheeling excellence.💓💓💓

My re-creation's challenges were mostly technical--like, dyeing cloth for Judith's gown--not so much imaginative challenges. The result looks great, but the impact comes mostly from the dramatic lighting. In photography, that's sort of a cheat.

I put a lot more creative interpretation into the Manets, and they are my favorites so far. Maybe my top favorite is the bundle of asparagus.
I feel that I would fall in love with someone who recreated a painting of a bundle of asparagus with dolls. (I'd think Judith was totally awesome, yes, but kind of . . . expectable. *)

Are there things you do that would make you fall in love with you?

I would love the things I do, but would I fall in love with me, overall?
I don't know.
I would love to know me, I'm sure, but I might find me too prickly and judgmental to fall in love with...  I adore those people who don't get ruffled by other people. (I think I've met two.)
I am not one of those people.

I really don't know. I would like to make dinner for me though, I am sure of that! And now I must get going on that.
Change out of my moose-and-bear jammies first though. Wouldn't want to get them dirty--they are now my favorite item of clothing.

Happy Misfitting!

 

* P.S. While I was writing this post, Ms Moon left a comment on my Judith recreation that made me rethink my dismissive judgement ("a cheat... expectable"). I think I may not be seeing my work objectively.
Ms Moon wrote:

"The lighting, as you said, is indeed the star of the show.
But somehow you have created magic with those girlettes. You have created and crafted the intensity and tension of the painting with these simple dolls. You have turned them into actors in this world you have made and oh, how they shine! "

Once I'd emailed someone who believes in spirits (literally), "But of course, the girlettes are me."
She'd written back: "Don't be so sure. I think you may have called down some lively little sprites."

Ever since then, I've wondered... At any rate, it's not accurate to call the work I do with them entirely expectable.

Judith and Abra

Done! If I were a Better Person, I would keep on trying, but OMG, my eyes are swimming.
There are some problems (the sword blade is at the wrong angle!), but I chose the photo recreation with the emotion in Judith's stance that I like best. 

She's unnamed in the original story, but by tradition, Abra is the name of Judith's maidservant and helper. "Abra" is Latin for maid.

Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofornes

BELOW: On the left, Oil painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, Italy, c. 1623-35, view it at the DIA.
On the right, another girlette version, where you can see the sword. Abra is better too-–her colors!

But in my first version (above), I see Judith start with alarm––"What's that?"–– rather than cocking her head to listen––"Do I hear something?"–– in my second (below), and that's the most important thing.
Also, the draperies and Judith's hair ornament show up better in the first.

I didn't use the Edith Mode (Edith Head) doll for Holofernes's head after all. She introduced an element of humor that, in the end, I didn't want. I think any toy would have added some unwelcome cuteness or discomfort.
Instead, I used a black and red glass rock (I'd photographed the glass in my windows a while ago). It doesn't show much, but I figure you can fill it in, right?

The girlettes say they chopped off the head all by themselves, and won't hear otherwise. "We are heroines!"
Well, so they are. But there are some things girlettes just cannot do, not being fully articulated.

This recreation took longer than any others, but it was worth it. I like it very much.
Actually, I love it.

But the mess. The mess! I wouldn't mind, but I'm having three people over for dinner tomorrow...

Snowy evening.

 Waiting at the bus stop after work.

Work was good. Santa comes tomorrow, and jolliness was all around as we got the store ready. Kids twelve and under get to pick a toy from a table full of NEW (in box) donated toys. Donations come from several private ($$$) Catholic schools. The toys are expensive and desirable, plastic and predictable:
Barbies who look like sex workers, and Nerf guns that look like automatic weapons.
Cynically (but realistically), I said that I will see these toys in the spring, when they're donated back, dirty and broken.

I'm happy for the kids in the neighborhood. They'll be thrilled! Normally they get $2 grab-bags of old toys I put together.

I’ve been setting aside like-new books over the past month, so kids can choose a book too. There are some very nice ones, but I expect most of them will still be there when I go back to work on Monday. Not my problem—they’re there if anyone wants them. 

Snow Bridge

I woke to a snowfall perfect for a girlette scene inspired by Hiroshige's woodblock print Taiko (Drum) Bridge (Japan, 1857).

Hazard of filming in heavy snow:
clumps of snow falling off the trees and hitting the doll umbrella hats (or falling down your neck!).

Another one, under the evergreens...

I'd recently posted Hiroshige's snowy-day print, and I'm glad I had it in mind. These "little" set ups always take a lot longer than they look, but it was doable on this morning I have to go to work.
I want to do and Bruegel's Hunters in Snow, but that's going to take a lot more prep.

Collateral Learning: Turmeric

Rotten, rotten morning for biking. The nastiest road conditions: it RAINED yesterday, now it's frozen. Definitely another bus day.
Hm. The colors might be good to re-create Breugel's Hunters in the Snow though.

Let's see....

Okay, I just went and snapped this photo, right, through my window--Dog Walkers in the Snow.
Yeah, pretty good!
The sky is never going to look like Bruegel's, unless a tornado threatens, which turns the sky an odd yellow-blue. But we don't get tornadoes in snowy seasons.

Yeah, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, Fresca. First up: Judith!
Started prep this morning on the kitchen table.
Of course it's going to be as futzy as I'd feared... Though it looks pretty good thrown together with draped fabrics.

Edith Head guest stars here ^ as the Head of Holofernes. She's "Edna Mode" from the Disney movie The Incredibles.
I will look for something less humorous though.
Hm, or not. She actually works pretty great--in real life, she's rolling her eyes, but that expression makes her look dead in this context.

Judith is draped in goldy stuff from a cut-up pillow cover. I wish it were more yellow. I thought about dying white cloth with turmeric.

Aaaand... I just got up and set a couple different white cloths (one cotton napkin and one shiny polyblend) in a bowl of turmeric water. Instantly it stained my fingers and the countertop too, so hopefully it will stain the cloth?

Doodleyoodleydoooo... Yes, it should. I looked it up and found instructions that said to simmer the fabric in turmeric water for an hour, so I'm doing that--or, until I leave for work in half an hour.

I like the collateral learning that comes with making something--physical and historical.
What do a doll's blinky-sleep eyes look like, out of her head?
Why was Judith chopping off Holofernes's head?

And, more about the painter Artemesia Gentileschi---Ms Moon pointed me to an article about her in the New Yorker.
Here's a fun note. A.G. moved to Naples in 1630:

"Naples became her base for much of the rest of her life, although she disliked the city, which was crowded, poor, and violent. In a letter to Andrea Cioli, a minister at the Medici court, she complained of “the warlike tumults, the badness of life, and the expense of things.”

Warlike tumults, the badness of life, and the expense of things? Sounds familiar! Though the indoor plumbing must have been far, far worse.

Hey! Ta-da, it worked!
The turmeric dyed the cloth wonderfully––after only 20 minutes–– including the non-cotton stuff, which is good because Judith's dress should be shiny.

"Well, I told you so, darling."