Category Archives: Mostly me

Bookbinding, Crafting, My own damned opinion.

I never thought I’d be living in a real life American Horror Story.

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This will not end well. It’s been three weeks and the entire world is aflame, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe it’s hyperbole. At any rate, I have to stop doom-scrolling. I’m making myself sick.

So to change the subject…

I’ve done the final print of the book I’m working on. I have a cover design. The next step is to sew the signatures. After that, comes pressing the signatures and preparing the text block for casing in, trimming the edges, and creating the covers and spine. And then the final assembly. After all that, I will apply silver foil to the cover design. A final couple of hours in the press and the book will be done.

I’m also working on some simple notebooks in case the Maker Space decides to participate in any sort of artsy sale this year. Whenever we have have one of these events, I do well. Well in a relative sense. I sell handmade junk journals, blank books, zines, and book related items such as book cloth, bookmarks, and repurposed books.

I make way more money than I put into the items with regard to cost of materials. I really don’t factor in my time because I make things to use up the myriad supplies and equipment I have purchased over the years and to keep myself from just lying around on the couch scrolling through Pinterest and Youtube or re-watching Supernatural, Buffy, or Star Trek/Wars for the umpty-hundreth time.

Not that I actually watch any of those. Yes, one or another is playing in the background to provide voices so I don’t have to listen to the noise in my head. I discovered that there is an actual name for the music I hear in my head – Musical Ear Syndrome. So instead of just the incessant buzzes, mumbly sounds, and dings of tinnitus, hearing what sounds like the 1930’s and 1940’s style big band music and carnival calliopes is a real thing.

Chalk it up to my black and white youth. I watched old movies from that time period. And most of the television shows were black and white or if they weren’t, I watched them in black and white. My family didn’t get a color television until just after I started college in the late ‘60s. I watched the first season of original Star Trek in black and white. I didn’t know there were red shirts until I finally saw it in color. It was just that certain people seemed to be targets. I thought that maybe the aliens thought those guys were important and they were going for the leaders.

Silly me.

Mostly me, My own damned opinion.

I am wavering between terrified and not terrified

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I’m the sort of person who looks like I can be from all sorts of countries. I have been asked if I’m Sicilian, Israeli, Spanish, Native American, Indian, Arabic, Black, and several other nationalities. I am the sum of my ancestors going back centuries. The earliest occurrence of my last name in this country appears in 1725. The newest will probably arrive in the next few days or months.

I have no desire to have to prove I belong here when my family goes back generations before most of our current politicians ever showed up. Particularly that person who looks like a giant cheese puff and acts like a toddler. I am totally disgusted with the current political situation. Pandering to an egomaniac starts wars. Wars end badly for all concerned except the dead. They’re past caring about who was right and who was wrong. No one really wins.

I have no desire to encounter those to whom I look like I don’t belong here. I’ve gotten those funny looks my whole life. I confuse people. They don’t know where I fit on their ethnicity scale. I can look and act like an upper class twit or just your average passer-by. I’ve lived in all kinds of neighborhoods. I’ve been poor and I’ve been better off. Right now I’m just middlin’.

I am concerned about my Social Security. Losing it would mean a few set-backs. My house, food, and utilities are more or less covered. It might get cold without Canada’s electricity and oil. I have ways to keep warm and cook food. I might have to give up my car, but I have alternative transportation. I would still have my basic necessities. I wouldn’t be able to afford craft supplies or new books. I might have to give up the internet. The public library is walking distance and so is the grocery store, relatively speaking. I can walk the two miles.

I live in a tiny former farmhouse in a neighborhood that used to house families that worked in the fertilizer plant or at the meat packing plant. The area was built up after the last big war. I say “last big” war because we’ve been in a constant state of war, either a shooting one or a political one, that seems like forever.

In the last 60 or 70 years or so, we been involved in almost every war, small or large in other countries, because we want the world to be like us. And actually a good portion of it is turning into us —- mean-spirited, aggressively attacking other countries, destroying cities, killing for religious reasons, political differences, skin colors, resources, and any other stupid reason the war-mongers can come up with.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t fight, although what damage a tiny woman armed with a cast iron skillet can do, I can’t say. Maybe they’d die because they laughed too hard. I can tell you there’s some guys out there that probably used to get together and and go, “hey, remember that time we tried to get that woman out of that house and she stood in the door swinging a skillet on a rope at us until the cops showed up?

Public speaking intimidates me, unarmed bullies, not so much.

My own damned opinion., Stuff

Food math – rotisserie chicken style

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Is it worth driving 8.3 miles and paying $65 a year to buy a $5 chicken twice a month? Or is it better to drive 2.7 miles and pay $8 a chicken unless I buy 2 at $6 each? Or is it better to drive 5.1 miles for a $5.99 chicken that’s the size of anemic parrot that gets eaten in two meals by a single person and makes slightly strange tasting soup? It’s the seasonings, not the freshness.

So I’m talking about three different stores here, Costco and two other multi-location stores that are also in town but don’t offer the same foods at all of their stores due to size differences.

The Costco chicken was huge compared to what I usually buy. I have a square container that can hold one of the brick shaped two quart cartons of ice cream. Every rotisserie chicken I have bought before the Costco chicken fit snuggly in that container and I could press the lid shut.

I had to put foil over the top of the container because I couldn’t use the lid for that chicken. I ate a leg or a thick slice of breast or thigh every day for an entire week. I finally tossed what was left at the end of the week into my giant soup pot with water and seasonings, carrots, celery and onions and simmered it until the carcass fell apart.

My original intention was to put it in the slow cooker, but it didn’t fit. So it cooked in the big pot and after picking the meat off the bones, I added noodles, and ate thick, meaty, chicken noodle soup for a week. So I’m debating in these perilous times, (bird flu reducing the chicken population, you know) where I should go for the best chicken value. Ultimately, they all become soup. What matters is the flavor and how much chicken winds up in the bowl with the noodles and veggie bits.

I saw large white free range eggs on sale for $9.99 a dozen at one of the local stores. I don’t eat that many eggs and lucked out with some local eggs at $3.49 a dozen. There were empty spots where some other egg suppliers were not able to supply eggs.

For baking, I have powdered eggs. For eating, I usually throw 10 eggs into my rice cooker for hard boiled eggs. I have some from a previous dozen to boil and by the time I finish eating those, the ones I bought last Sunday will be ready for boiling.

I should check with my son as to whether his friend will be able to supply us with eggs. Or maybe, I’ll use some of the lumber odds and ends and wire fencing that I’ve got in the garage to make a chicken coop and a run. A license costs $10/year to keep 4 chickens. I could build a winter shelter in the back end of the garage with hay and a heat lamp or some sort of heating set-up for them. I think the math works out to around $4.75 per egg, factoring in the food, shelter, and the chickens themselves. Quite the bargain, right?

Something to think about.

Crafting, My own damned opinion.

All is not well

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Rumors abound about raids last evening. Homes and manufacturing places invaded; restaurants and bars visited. I haven’t found anything on the news, just purported eye-witness accounts. Is this the new reality? That we are not safe in our homes and no one reports that we are missing? Oh sure, most people don’t have to worry. Except law enforcement frequently makes mistakes.

Are we going back to children in cages who are never returned to their parents? Who die of callous neglect in flimsy shelters, cold and hungry, and forgotten? Cruelty and callousness are not a good look for “The Greatest Nation On Earth.” As it is, we as a country no longer have too many friends left and the new regime has been in charge less that a week.

I used to read a lot of classic dystopian fiction when I was younger. I never expected any of it to become reality. They were just exercises in what could be if certain theories were played out in real time. It seems like Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 were not the images of the worst we could be. We will soon have the Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Lord of the Flies in real time.

We barely missed The Andromeda Strain and The Stand with the pandemic. But give us more time. There are too many undereducated people out there who will follow the latest tabloid exposé on health and well-being, and will continue to refuse inoculations for preventable diseases.

“My ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge,” seems to be the trend. And how did I wander away from what is supposed to be about making things to a political diatribe? Just fate I guess, and a lack of any crafting content. Which tells me I need to get off my hiney, take my meds, and get crafting.

Later, folks.

My own damned opinion.

I ATE’NT DEAD, JUST DISAPPOINTED

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Just like Esme Weatherwax, a character created by Sir Terry Pratchett, I ate’nt dead. Just missing from posting regularly on the blog. Unlike Granny Weatherwax, I can’t go borrowing the mind of flying creatures to view the world. I can only open YouTube, pull up my favorite independent news people and go “he’s not dead yet.” I’m talking about my least favorite politiical entity.

I’m not going to mention any names, but I am finding as I get older, I have less patience with political foolishness. If I had a time machine, I would go back to the founding fathers and tell them while the Constitution is a great document, they need to add a maximum age limit on politicians in all three arms of the government of 70 years, a maximum of 4 terms in total for Congress, and that no member of congress should be paid more than 4 times the minimum prevailing wage per year. Members of the Supreme Court should have term limits of 10 years maximum so they can keep up with the changing societal norms.

Radical, I know, but I’m tired of old men trying to turn back social, educational, and economic progress and return us to the good old 19th century. I’m tired of dealing with under-educated people who can barely read and have little understanding of what they read unless it’s in the form of a 200 character, more or less, message of the most extreme rumor, innuendo, and mis-information.

The major problem as I see it is the destruction of the education system, whereby your ignorance is as valid as my knowledge because you were passed along every year, because no one wanted to make you feel bad. No one did any favors to those kids who needed remedial classes by passing them down the line.

And then there’s the poverty aspect. Corporations were allowed to offshore manufacturing to countries with lower wage standards. The next result is the currently impoverished and the not quite impoverished populations that we have now. The minimum wage was supposed to guarantee a minimum standard of living that included the ability to afford a family with a decent place to live, food on the table, and clothing for the seasons.

It should have worked. It did almost work for a time. You could say the 1950s and early part of the ‘60s were the epitome of the “live on the minimum wage” times. The Depression was over, the World War had ended, there was that bit of a war that ultimately divided Korea. Soon to come was that utter crap shoot of a land war in Asia.

And sex, drugs, and rock and roll came along with the dystopian feeling that things weren’t quite right because it was a new decade and a new war. And we’ve been at war ever since and putting less money into people and more money into weapons and wars. And here we are. I’m celebrating the holiday that this day is, and not the other thing that’s happening today. It’s a day of mourning for what we could have been.

It’s my opinion— that is all.

Mostly me

My favorite automobile.

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I missed that daily post, but I have to say my favorite automobile was a 1998 Saturn SL. I drove it for 26 years, kept it maintained, and would still have it if my shoulders and knees hadn’t gone bad. Unfortunately, I let my son have it, for a price, and he traded it in for a car he couldn’t afford which has been repo-ed so that he is currently on foot or dependent on rides to and from work.

The Saturn was the second car I got new. Other than a Plymouth Horizon, all of my previous cars have been used. In fact, my first car was a ‘52 Chevy, yellow and green, that I paid $50 for 1976. It was in one accident where I was turning left on a green and a car jumped the light and plowed into the passenger side. The door was bent, but the car only rocked. The guy’s front end was not so lucky. My car was still road worthy and the cops let me go. I drove it for a couple of years before giving it back to the friend I had purchased it from.

My second car was also yellow and green – a ‘63 Buick Special, for which I paid the grand sum of $100 to a neighbor of friends of mine, who had had the car for several years in the garage after her husband died. My friends had checked the car out as they were considering buying for a second car. It was too small for their needs.

It had been maintained in running condition in case the Widow wanted to use it, but she preferred to have her son take her where she needed to be. He persuaded her to let him sell it. It was an okay car with quite a bit of rust on the body that would chip off. It took us cross-country while hauling a trailer that probably out-weighed it. I know the headlights tended to point up at the sky at times during the trip. I owned that one for 4 years and several long trips, but without a trailer. The neighbors used to laugh at my ugly car, but it always started no matter the wind-chill, and usually only cost $40 to fix other than when I bought tires.

The next car was insisted upon by my then husband. He felt humiliated by the fact that I drove the crappy rusted car. His peers would always ask why I drove the car and his answer of ‘It’s hers and it runs,” was embarrassing to him. So we went to a dealer and he bought a ‘76 Buick, maroon in color. My poor green and yellow car died in the driveway of a broken heart and had to be towed away.

I got the crappy maroon Buick in the divorce. Yay, me! He didn’t realize that the title had both our names on it or he would have taken it and left me with no way to get into town except by bicycle. So after he bought his own car, I had him sign the Buick over to me. A year later, it self-destructed in the parking lot of the apartment building I was living in.

After the death of the Buick, I was reduced to shopping and going to work by bus. That was fine. I support public transportation. It was limiting not to be able to go places on my own schedule, but I made due. After working a couple of years and re-building my credit, I was able to get a car loan to purchase a new ‘86 Plymouth Horizon. I drove the car for twelve years.

In 1998, a friend of mine had his car blow up. Quite literally, turn the key, see flames, jump out, BOOM! He asked me to take him car shopping. It was interesting. Once the salesmen (yes, they were all men, not being sexist) heard me say I was just here with my friend, I ceased to exist. That is, until we went to the Saturn dealership.

My friend went off with the salesman when I said I would wait in the lobby, but one of the salesmen came over and said something like “while you’re waiting for your friend, let me tell you a bit about our cars.” He didn’t give me a sales pitch as such, but just pointed out the safety features and showed me the cut-away model.

The next day I went back and got the same salesman. I pointed out that my Plymouth Horizon was 12 years old and starting to fall apart. We talked about used cars on the lot and what I would pay per month. He then pointed out that I could lease a Saturn for 3 years and turn it in to lease another if I liked it. I took a test drive and the car fit me. I was only 5’2” at the time. I’m shorter now.

I liked the fit and the feel and wound up leasing the Saturn. My friend also bought a Saturn. I had the base model and he got one with a moon roof, leather seats, and some other features I can’t remember. It turned out we both got red with a grey interior. It caused a bit of confusion if we weren’t paying attention when parked near each other.

Now I have another used car with over 130,000 miles on it. But this one won’t have to last as long as the Saturn did. I figure I have another 5 or 6 years or so before old age slaps me really hard in face and says “don’t you dare get behind the wheel and drive off.” There’s a bus stop at the end of the block, just in case.

Crafting, Mostly me

I had an adventure

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I’ve had an adventure Monday. It was Craft night at the Maker space. No guests came but there were a few members in other areas working on projects. One other member was in the Craft area waiting for guests. He’s usual our door warden on nights when we do tours or orientations.

A third member, Linda, one of our resident artists, came in around 6:15.and we wound up watching A Muppet Christmas Carol. After the movie, I headed to Target to get an electronic pencil for one of the grandkids, Rowan. I wandered around a bit and got to the register – no wallet. I went out to the car, no wallet. Texted Linda to find out if she was at the shop. One of the members found my wallet in the parking lot. I was going to go get it. Ha! Ha! No keys. Locked them in the car when I looked for my wallet.

Called AAA, estimated time of arrival 11:35. Got a call from AAA. He’s on his way and will arrive in 15 minutes. Linda was on her way with my wallet. We got the door unlocked and the alarm turned off. Linda drove up with my wallet. I was able to pay for my stuff and finally got home. 

Tuesday, I spent the day wrapping presents and finishing the personalized tee shirts I started. I had to make a couple of name changes because for years I’ve thought one of the cousins was named Ben. He is not. And another is legally changing their name.

Tuesday evening, we had our annual family gathering at my youngest granddaughter’s Oma’s house. It’s been our tradition for the last 18 years. Other than my son and his daughter, I have no other family locally and my adopted family is no longer around. I received several hand-made pieces as well as another cat teapot to add to my collection.

It was a very nice evening. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever holiday you celebrate at this season. Peace and Long life.

My own damned opinion.

Oh, my.

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A group of Catholic fundies put a bulletin board next to the highway in response to the Freedom From Religion Foundation putting an exhibit in with the annual holiday decorations at our Capitol. The thing looks like it was designed by a high schooler who was barely passing graphic arts. Actually, it looks like something I might have designed in the days when AOL was the internet. It’s not that attention grabbing.

Picture stolen from The Friendly Atheist YouTube channel because I’m too lazy to drive across town to take my own photo.

Gosh darn! Religious people are so uptight. I have my own standards of morality – to do no harm, to donate generously to food banks, to be as honest as possible. I have no objection to finding something positive to say about someone I loathe so as not to be cruel.

There’s no point in hurting a person’s feeling because I don’t like them. I once worked with a person who was ugly as a carp, but I found something nice to say when asked about them. Probably the only person I can’t say anything nice about, is a crooked politician. Pick one. Any one. Or perhaps, my ex-husband since I don’t know any politicians personally.

I have never intentionally hurt anyone and have helped persons I genuinely loathed, when asked to do so. There’s no point in being rude and callous. I worked with a woman a university library who would not hire foreign or minority students. Her reasons were always that their schedules didn’t fit her vacancies.

She’d send them to me because I’ll hire anyone (not true) and I would hire them if their schedules fit. Most of them were great workers and got chances to improve their spoken English. I learned a lot about them by talking to them and their English improved. Well, most of them.

I had one who liked shelving books so they didn’t have to speak. They were very shy and not confident with spoken English. No problem, I just listened very hard. Their English improved a little because we talked together.

Anyway, back the subject – the holiday season is for everyone. Almost every religion and culture has a fall/winter festival. It’s a time to celebrate a successful harvest and petition the god/s for a prosperous coming year. The food is still fresh and plentiful because the harvest is done. The food animals have been sold so they don’t need to fed over the winter. The winter season can be spent preparing for spring.

Have a good holiday season, however you celebrate.

My own damned opinion., Stuff

Indifferent Turkey Day!

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Just can’t get in the spirit of over-eating. I bought a tiny turkey breast, expecting my son to show up, but he had Friendsgiving with a former roommate. The guy’s only living relative, his mom, died recently, so he had nowhere to go.

The usual holiday meal didn’t take place because my youngest granddaughter’s mom and sister have whopping cough. So the big dinner at her Oma’s was cancelled. That’s where we usually get together, but I really don’t think anyone was in the mood.

In crafting news, I’ve been writing up class offerings for next year. I’m going to offer my introductory bookbinding class again, as well as another binding class for binding single sheets into a bound volume. That will include a Japanese stab stitch type book, an accordion spine album, and a glue bound book using a glue gun, glue sicks and an iron. Other bookbinding classes will focus making mini books, junk journals, and zines.

I’ll also be offering a class or two for those who sew on how to read a sewing pattern, including explaining what the symbols mean, fabric selection, fabric grain, as well as thread selection, and how to adjust a pattern to fit. I’ve also had members ask for sewing lessons so I will consider a class or two for whomever is interested.

Soap making and paper making will also be offered again. I plan to ask other members if they have something to teach as well. In the past, there has been a class in paper marbling, a session on gelatin printing, and various sessions of origami, fabric flower making, and card making. These were all offered by members of the maker space.

The classes listed here are just the ones offered in the Craft Area which is the area of the space I am in charge of. Other areas of the space offer classes in various aspects of ceramics, laser cutter use, welding, wood turning, decorative wood burning, jewelry making, stained glass, fused glass, and many more.

As an organization, we offer many of our classes and workshops to members of the public and work with a couple of area schools to offer classes to their students as part of their curriculum. We are completely volunteer run. We’ve been in existence for ten years and have grown from two people sitting in the library talking about making things to over 680 members.

About me, Mostly me

Have you ever looked up and seen your face on someone else?

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I don’t mean did you meet a sibling or a cousin on the street or someplace that you didn’t know was in town. What I mean is have you ever looked into the face of someone and said, “you’re the person people tell me I look like.”

It’s happened to me twice. Once when I was still in high school, I was on the bus, which was unusual for me as I normally walked to save money to buy books. i was on the bus and happened to look up and across from me was a face so similar to mine, I could only stare. She stared back and we both said to each other that people kept saying they knew someone that looked like me.

We went to separate high schools that were down the street from each other. She went to the Catholic school and I attended the public high school. She was a grade behind. The second strange thing was, when we talked about our siblings, one of her brothers knew my youngest brother, but they didn’t look alike.

The third weird thing was she lived around the corner. The street I lived on backed onto the neighbors’ yards, which in turn edged a nature area. The side of the street my parent’s house was on, spanned the length of three blocks because of that undeveloped land. So around the corner wasn’t in close proximity, but her parents’ property also edged up to part of that land around the corner.

We never became friends, but we did talk when we’d meet on the bus which wasn’t often. The only time I rode was when there was heavy rain or snow. We’d talk about classes we had – I had French and German; she had Italian. I was active in Theater and she did other things. I can’t even remember her name.

The second time I saw my face was today. I was on YouTube and a video was in my feed from someone I didn’t follow. When the video loaded, it was like looking in a mirror. I took a screenshot and sent to two friends with the caption “I just saw my face.” They agreed the woman looks a lot like me. I wonder if she’s the girl from the bus from 60 years ago.