Puzzle It Out

It's -12ºF/-24ºC this morning. I'm glad to have the cold weather as an excuse to stay home today. I'm still feeling a bit rundown from a cold three weeks ago.
Going to Iowa wasn't as restful as I'd hoped--partly because it was just as cold there as here (around zero), and partly because it was emotionally tiring.

I should lighten up with sister. "Light" is not really my speed, but we get along better when we do more frivolous and fun things. We had a nice time, for instance, doing a puzzle together at the airBnb (me, below).

I didn't love Decorah, but I loved the airBnb (here). It's an 1850s house, and it had great furniture, handmade by Paul Cutting (his website)--one of the two men who restored and run the place.
Below is a butternut record cabinet--the record player was removed because it's broken. (Reminds me, I'd like a record player.)

 

Sparkle Inside

I love that Big Boss is always willing to puzzle out the deeper meaning of anything, from policing to retail––in his case, with references to Christian scripture, and sometimes sports.
Recently I learned the term "an audible" from him. (He'd used it when I was suggesting we have another staff meeting at the new year--to check in on what we're wanting/doing in 2023.)
Do you know it?
An audible is when a quarterback on the field changes the game plan by calling out an agreed upon signal (word? I'm not sure how this works--must ask more).

Anyway––I'd told Big Boss that when I walked the baby sems around, I'd compared our neighborhood to a geode. He didn't know what a geode was, so I stopped in a rock shop in Decorah (for the relocated Californians who need crystals, I guess) and got him an unopened one. You hit it with a hammer to reveal the crystals inside. Four bucks.

Big Boss preaches at his church (nondenominational) sometimes. When I gave the geode to him yesterday, he said, "There's a sermon in this."

"You could save it to crack open at the pulpit," I said.

P.S. Tips

Oh--I asked BB and a few other coworkers if you should tip a mechanic who checks your tire pressure. They all said yes, but it was sort of theoretical because they also said they'd just do it themselves.
But I think they said yes in sympathy with the person who is expected to go out of their way to help strangers as part of the job.
Mr Furniture fumed for free about people who don't tip him and other workers who help load extra-heavy furniture into vehicles: "This marble sideboard weighed 300 pounds!"

I googled the question and the consensus is, tipping a mechanic is optional and not expected, but it's a nice thing to do.

Linda Sue asked if I get tips at work.
Very, very rarely––and only twice money––but is it ever nice! A customer gives ten dollars in a card to some of us on our birthdays (including me last year), and another gives $5 grocery store gift cards to us all at Christmas.
Another regular gives cans of pop to anyone who's working--others bring in food to share (usually baked goods). A few times a customer has given me an object they think I'll like--most recently some old clown dolls. (I didn't like them, but Emmler did.) Sometimes when people drop off books, they tell me I can keep any that I want for myself.
My favorite--a handwritten note thanking me, saying BOOK's had made their day.

Two Circles, a Square, and a Mirror

Some stuff at the thrift store yesterday.

Below LEFT: Chicago ashtray, made in Japan (so, c. 1960s). (I should have peeled the sticker off to show  it better.) I lived in Chicago with bink while she was getting her MFA in the late 1980s, and I thought about buying the dish to put keys and coins in. It's likely to be sold by tomorrow though, when I return to work.

Below RIGHT: Endless calendar, in Finnish.
 "Minnesota has more residents of Finnish ancestry—about 100,000 people—than any other state", via a 2022 article in the StarTribune.
Finns settled here in Minnesota, mostly farther north, logging and mining on the Iron Range.
Some left Finland because "I don't want to have anything to do with Russia's wars."
Russia borders Finland all along its long eastern border, you know. Finland was under Russian rule in the 1800s, and the Soviet Union tried to overpower the country again during WWII.
A friend in Finland says that Russia's invasion of Ukraine causes a lot of ongoing anxiety there.

A square thing--below--a Houses of Parliament tin. Made in England. We get a lot of faux antique tins donated--sometimes pretty convincing at first glance. Always with the give-away though: Made in China.

And... another mirror pic.
Right, center, a sliver of me (wearing a knit hat and my coat hood) reflected in the mirrored sign in the window of Irina's Stitch In Time--a clothing alterations (and design) store about a mile from my apartment.