infryq

Yesterday I made substantial progress on the sewing room; one of the tables is nearly clear, and all the miscellaneous cardboard boxes of junk have been broken down and sorted into bins.

Ran out of podcasts and audiobooks; resorting to Pandora. I’ll get sick of french bossa nova eventually pls send recs

Yesterday I made another batch of lentils and millet, cleaned out my clothes closet, and cleared off the futon in the nest, aka The Coldest Place. Dew point was hideous all day.

P had a wretched night. He tested negative for COVID on Monday but if we don’t hear back from the doctor today I may have to call them.

Yesterday mom called to deliver the final news on grandma. There will be not a funeral, a service, or a memorial, but a party at the end of next summer.

With the rest of the day, I submitted orders for soap, luffa sponges, and oatmeal and polenta. I cleaned the upstairs kitchen and did all the dishes. After lunch I put in the laundry, then we did the crossword and I hung the laundry out on the line. Snack, then I opened packages from last week, one from a wicca supply place and one from a tooling supply place.

The first had some ingredients for incense, including makko powder and mugwort. I ground some up with a couple frankincense tears (very sticky; I’ll try freezing it next time), added water, kneaded smooth, then rolled a long thin rope. My ultimate goal is to break it into little bits that burn completely in 1-3 minutes, which is the opposite of everyone asking advice on the internet. Mugwort is new to me, but I like it in its raw dried form. If it burns as beautifully, I should look into growing it.

The tooling package contained new tiny drill bits, this time with a constant-size shank so they’ll be easier to get straight in the chuck. Unfortunately they’re too large for the pin vise I have, and I wasn’t in the mood for the dremel, so I picked the basswood prototype pieces back up and trimmed the last one down to the line with a fresh razor blade. By then it was time for dinner, then P took in the laundry while I did dishes. Laundry fold, finished 1993 Tales of the City (wat), started Crashing but it’s so full of people not talking to each other I probably won’t finish it. Did some mending on Monster, snack, sleep.

Yesterday I converted the sewing room. I put all the fabric scraps in their bin, cleaned up most of the stacks that have accumulated, put all the hand-sewing notions in my little sewing box, and fit the remaining table clutter into the drawers of the sewing cabinet. I collapsed the ironing board, unthreaded the sewing machine, and put it in its case in the closet. I then set about taking the cabinet machine out of the cabinet. The thing is cast iron and weighs a ton, but I managed it with the help of some videos online. There are two set screws holding the body of the machine to the hinges, and then there’s supposed to be a way to unplug the power cable but whoever refurbished this machine last I guess did away with it in favor of gaff tape which. no. don’t do that. That whole cable needs to be replaced anyway so side cutters it is. To get in there I also had to remove the skirt guard, revealing some expired glue and worn felt. Fractal repairs are not normally my favorite but for whatever reason I’m excited about the details for this project. It also needs a new indicator knob for the top tension, as well as the new drive tire I already knew about.

COVID-19 update: CMU is moving to all online instruction next Wednesday, with Monday and Tuesday’s classes cancelled to give instructors time to prepare (laughable, a good online course takes a year+ to develop, but we’ll do the best we can with what we have). Students may stay where they are or come back to the dorms at their choice. This addresses the problem Harvard and others are having with what to do about students who are otherwise homeless, but creates a new problem re how to feed them. Dorms depend on cafeterias, and food service staff can’t really wfh.

Meals all good, still reading Ancillary Sword, still watching DS9.

Yesterday I woke up feeling fine, but got out of bed feeling like crap. Wound up skipping breakfast and lunch in favor of slow rehydration and animal crackers. I sent P to the farmers market for blueberries, plums, green beans, carrots, and some canning supplies. While watching episodes of Legends on and off I deep-cleaned the stove, made mujadara, ate, and made elderberry juice for jelly. I went out to the garden with a ball of fabric ties and a hori knife and wreaked some order in the chaos. There’s now more air amongst the orange plum tomatoes, calendula, and carrots, some of the ruder sunflowers are back in line, and I kicked the crap out of the creepers taking over the back fence. That branch of the locust needs to go soon. I read more of Enna; it’s mostly built out of people-not-talking-to-each-other but still entertaining.

I’m maybe okay now, except for a weird eye thing? We’ll see how I feel once out of bed.

Yesterday I did the ironing. We went to open studio and I made three larger (2#) bowls/bakers and trimmed three of the bakers from last week. I brought an old protein canister to use as a water & reclaim bucket and it worked great. Home, lunch, crossword, then I was possessed by a small cleaning spirit and vacuumed the sewing room, hall, and bits of the bedroom and nest. I traced off another shirt on the black challis, this time with a double thickness in the yoke. There’s a yard of challis left; I can probably get another shirt out of it if I use a contrasting yoke. I do still have all that dupioni I got for yokes a couple years ago.

Nearly finished with Talking to Dragons.

Dinner, Legends, snack, sleep.

G update: search as they might, they could find no mass anywhere. I would think it was a smudge on the earlier image if it hadn’t shown up on multiple scans from multiple hospitals. Whatever it was, it’s not there any more. He’s homefree, though the next few times he has GI symptoms like that they want to see him for a scan to be sure.