Uber the river

  

I want to have a blog post, one of those that flows from finger tips to cyber space, with maybe a pause at auto correct because no three letter word is correct. Even two letter words. Proof reading remains the last job before post. Even then…

I suppose it’s the thick atmosphere choking me these days. My brain really sags under Foggy Bottom. The Prez who got a wall. We’re used to that insanity. How about the federal parks bill just passed by the Senate? Some deserving parks and Joshua trees received great help. This park I live in was passed over again, for the usual road and building repair backlog.

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park seems to be the only park that leases back farm land to wannabees. The same farms emanate domained a mere fifty years ago, allowed to fall into ruin, and now a half dozen of the four hundred odd small holdings have been renovated and leased. One of the farmers is loved and supported by the community, but that not enough to weather the shutdown. Their CSA program is axed for 2019, as the National Park system attempts its 11.6 billion dollar maintenance backlog.

Trapp Family Farm

I turned to more local clips for better news. Sometimes the local local is best of all. In Chagrin Falls, a village enough bigger than mine to provide Uber service, some poor mother still was called upon to drive her son home. The Uber driver exited the car often and circled it, bemoaning driving in snow. Eventually he returned to the village, and that alternate mode, Mom, was engaged, a week ago. When it snowed.

Shots fired, Wilding Chase! This also from the Chagrin Falls police blotter, completely stumped me. A Wilding chase. How dreadful. Chagrin Falls roads are like ours, winding, uphill and down, two lane, through the Chagrin River valley. After much unfruitful thought, I searched the definition of “Wilding”, and google returned Wilding Chase, a residential street in Chagrin Falls.

The National Weather Service issued a Pup Alert!, a small dog warning. The storm that left inches and inches and inches of snow from Washington State to Ontario, Canada, has a wet underbelly of massive rain and heavy wind. A winter storm underbelly in this country generally means rain in the Ohio River valley and south. 

But this storm’s snow ended in Detroit, and the rain began at Lake Erie. Laura told me over supper, she walked almighty fast to get to the bus shelter this morning, and not be blown down the road or soaked to the skin.

Catherine and Peter and other happenings

          

Supper generally includes a “What happened in school, today?” segment, and tonight Laura led with her win in “Eastern Civs”.  Her presentation was a summary of Peter the Great, followed up by defending Peter the Great against Catherine the Great, as presented earlier by another student.

“You mean you presented him as greater than Catherine, and defended that!?”

“Oh, he was not prepared!” Laura said of her opponent.

“Ah, you out-Catherined him with Peter!”

“It didn’t hurt that I ended by comparing Peter to Inigo Montoya.”

We have et mighty high on the hog since my stand against water soup. Last night I followed my nose to the kitchen in advance of supper being announced.  The only smell I recognized was bacon, and it can be difficult to let that alone.

Laura was making soup from a mix she bought. The bag was full of split peas, lentils, and more stuff. Alphabet macaroni were promised, but we think the split peas gobbled them down. The recipe is on the bag, as are the very best recipes, so I must keep an eye out for this one on the shelves. Tonight was leftovers, and now it is gone.

In the last important news, Laura’s quilt is penciled in on Jan’s calendar, when we get back from grocery shopping tomorrow. Pictures to follow.

Since you last heard from me...

Yesterday was such a nice day. I opened the door, and it swung shut, several times in a row. So much for a strange winter and shifting foundations. I slid Fat Man over to do his old job.

I've mostly been weaving. The stack on the left is called "cayenne". Pretty close. Then two of the plum color from the previous warp, and some cream.  I try to finish a warp in the color of the warp, rather than risk coming up short of weft.

Today has rained all day. At lunch time there was an email that my new warp was delivered, to my mailbox. Our mailboxes are communal, with boxes on the lower tier of various sizes for delivery of packages. 

I retrieved my box of warp in a reusable grocery bag from the car's back seat. The box was ten or twelve pounds, and I managed it with no fear being in trouble. But what a long way still to go!

Back in the loom room, a glance out at the wet, wet weather. Today was in the fifties and rain all day. Tomorrow the same, then back to winter on Friday.

The cone flowers out the window have great sections of seeds missing. I have never had a cone flower from seed, so I will put the missing seeds down to sparrows. 

And that is most of the news that's fit to print. Laura passed her follow up joint smoking test, as she should have.  

Tomorrow I need to make a trip to the post office, and I believe I'll stop at management's office and see if any plans for one bedroom units have arrived. Sadly, probably nothing until February, the longest month of the year, is past.

Sunshine all weekend and we hardly went out

Laura worked on her quilt top

Filling the bobbin

I wondered if any pockets on my jeans "made the cut"

They did

Pressing open seams

I took off a "double" run of towels, to cut and hem today

And since I really have little I feel like writing about, here on the back door my piece of stained glass. My neighbor likes seeing it. 

And a selfie. The fall leaf came in a thank you note.

Hate is a cancer

Winter has peaked; we’re on the downhill side. I wonder if ever we will be on the downhill side of undesirable human traits and behavior, or come to an acceptable way to eliminate unacceptable behavior.

Remember the #MeToo movement in its beginning,  exposing so much sexual harassment and sexual assault. How many well known men were caught up, and many famous and powerful, under the force of public opinion, left their post or office. 

Accusations against Senator Al Franken were a sad disappointment to me, and after a short reflection on his championship of women, I admitted to myself there is no do over, just a start over.

Which brings me around to things still so very wrong, and we do not have the national will, or even individual will to address. Seventy percent of Americans feel the government is failing at combating corruption, up from fifty percent two years ago. 

The man in the red hat was going to drain the swamp. And, it’s almost two years until our next opportunity to start over.

We have the governor of Virginia waffling on owning up to being the fellow in black face or the fellow in KKK sheets or neither or both of them, but he can’t remember, and blablabla. He must resign. No do over.

Do we really understand how pervasive open racism is in our country now? I admit I came of age in the March on Washington era. One of the originals, when Peter, Paul and Mary sang. I always tried to see us getting better. It’s close to impossible, now.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) spent his first week at work since the government reopened harassing a Muslim colleague on Twitter with suggestions that she hates Jewish people. Both were named to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Rep Zeldin was named the second ranking member and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a freshman representative.

His accusations were based on an anonymous anti-Jewish voice mail he received.  Rep. Zeldin invited Rep. Omar  to co-sponsor his resolution naming her and known white supremists as examples of anti-Semitic hatred. That in response to her invitation to tea and a discussion of fighting religious discrimination.

How to start over. I don’t know. I wonder if it will be warm enough tomorrow to cut back the sedum and butterfly bushes, or if we should leave them through this week’s snow storm for protection for birds and mice, and cats.