So sad. So cute. So much!

So much this morning.
I just saw that Rosalynn Carter died yesterday. She was a good person who did good things, and that's really something.
I feel sad for Jimmy Carter--the first candidate I voted for to be president* (in 1980, when he lost to Reagan). He's ninety-nine--his wife gone, and the Middle East, where he'd helped bring a smidgen of peace, now worse than ever.
I think, I hope, he shares with Star Trek's Captain Picard the “deeply flawed inability to not hope in the face of hopelessness,” as the Borg Queen so awkwardly put it.

I saw the news on Orange Crate Art, and in the comments we talked about maybe Jimmy held on for Rosalynn, who had dementia, so that she would not be the one left. It seems like him (or her, if the situation had been reversed).
JC said, “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished”.
_______________________
* Speaking of awkward: "I voted for to be president"? What? How do you say this? LOL, I need my own personal "improve your writing" team!
Uh... let's see... "the first presidential candidate I voted for"? Yes, that's better, but I'll leave it the funny clunky way I first wrote it.

I. Cute, Neat

Let me put up a cute thing!
This morning sitting with coffee by my front windows, I heard a woman walking by say "Awwww" to her friend when she saw the holiday mice I'd set looking out. (From the thrift store, of course.)

And, below, a neat thing!
I spent yesterday mending with Julia at her place, and she helped me lay out the wool scraps from the Faribault Mill in various patterns. They'd given the pieces to me for the bears and dolls; but if I cut them down to toy-size, I'm afraid the un-edged woven material will fray away. Left as is, there's enough for a lap blanket. Love!
(And still lots of little scraps for the toys.)

The green yarn ^ is blue yarn that Julia dyed in turmeric. I had the idea of the Mississippi River running through the landscape. I think this will be my winter project, to hand stitch the pieces together.

II. Lunch Lady

Today is my day off, and I'm going to finish the girlettes 2024 calendar. Then, I return to being Lunch Lady.
I'd taken a break from making hot lunch for my coworkers after only six weeks--going to the food shelf, planning what to do with whatever was on offer, transporting food by bike, etc., was starting to bug me.
I am not poor-poor (thank you, dead relatives!), but mygod does poverty eat up time. There's a whole lotta waiting in line.

Anyway--I'm up for it again, and someone handed me a donation in a box on Friday.
"What is it?" I asked, so I'd know which area it went to.
"It's a frozen ham."

Okay!
I told Big Boss I'd slice the ham and set up another make-your-own-sandwich lunch spread for our coworkers Thanksgiving week (this week). Everyone likes those.

"How can I help?" he said.
Help? Oh, happy day!

He's going to pick up heavy stuff in his car---pop and ice cream (to go with pie that comes in the weekly bakery donations)--and on my bike I'll pick up the lighter stuff––sliced cheese and non-pork meats, lettuce, tomato, mayo, potato chips––which the store will pay for!
Manageress said she'd like to decorate the break room for our Thanksgiving lunch--something she's got a good touch for.
And--ta da, it's a party!
Nice.

III. We are in the middle of this story.

My, my. What times these are. As all times are. But these are ours.

I got Star Trek Picard, season 2, on DVD from the library. The season got terrible reviews, but I'm loving it--its theme--that humanity will reach a juncture (ANY TIME NOW) where we have to choose for or against a fascist future (one which looks like the Hunger Games in this show).
"The only moment is now" says one of the characters.

Most personally to me, I love the show's take on the USA, 2024, when the characters travel back in time.
Raffi, below, lands in a homeless encampment in LA that looks just like the ones I pass on my way to work--complete with accurate details such as plastic bags tied on shopping carts.

In the background (below), a billboard for a forthcoming interplanetary mission rises above makeshift tents. Raffi comments,

"I've never been able to understand how a society can exist with so many contradictions
and not collapse sooner than it did."

[It's Star Trek canon that Earth will beyond 'hit bottom'--we will crash land on bottom––nuclear war––before we undergo a paradigm shift and achieve world peace. (Make it so.)]

Above photos via Trek Movie.

This episode weirdly cheered me up.
Maybe just to see my life--our lives-- reified, placed in historical perspective: "Yes, this is really and truly something humanity is living through, that I am living through. Other people see it too and spin it into story."

And I felt buoyed when one of Picard's crew says, "It's not all bad," and we see through their eyes people handing out water on the street, and later, a doctor (Sol Rodriguez, w/ Penelope Cruz vibes) who runs a free medical clinic for undocumented people--including one of our time travelers.

It reminds me that I WANT to be doing the work I'm doing.
I don't usually doubt that (well . . . not much), but sometimes I do feel bitter and envious when I hear, for instance, how much $$$ money other people make, while my coworkers and I make minimum wage.
Talk about galling contradictions!

I do resent the unfairness of our society--and especially for my coworkers who have no options––but I chose to be here, and while I'm not doing anything grand, if Picard & Co. came to visit, I would not be personally ashamed to be seen doing it. (Yup, just making lunch.)
That's really something.

IV. Speaking of Aliens...

This, below, is an Earth life form named Julia holding an Earth life form named a SCOBY––a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, you know, created from the fermentation of tea––the "mother" for making kombucha.
I'd had one long ago, but let it dry up (die). Julia is fermentation royalty--she has many floating in her endless brew and was happy to give me some.
And I'm happy to have it.
It does look kinda scarily alien to me, though.