National Pet Adoption Weekend

Starting tomorrow, which I see is just a few minutes away, is the 2014 National Pet Adoption Weekend at PetsMart.  People who know me (or have read this blog for a while) know I am not a big large corporation promoter type.  Most previous posts about big companies have been about why I don't shop at one or another (lucky me, that 2010 Target donation to a Tea Party-esque candidate kept me from using my credit card on their substandard system during my 2013 holiday shopping; it turns out bad decisions are a lot like potatoes chips of legend, there is rarely just the one).  & did I ever mention that kid at Sports Authority who when I asked if they had any not-Nike running gear asked my why & I said Michael Vick & he said & I quote "You people need to get over that".  So while I doubt very much this is the Sports Authority corporate policy, I still have not been back. 

 

Maybe someday I will get my panties all bent...in a twist...  I digress, but for now, I am encouraging everyone who is thinking they might like a furry roommate to take a stroll through their local PetsMart this weekend.

 

This sleepy girl came from a rescue that does adoptions most weekends at our local PetsMart.  She is an adult female, already spayed & housebroken, almost certainly purebred cocker spaniel.  The rescue pulled her from an overcrowded animal shelter a couple counties over where, if she had not found a home, she would have been euthanized.  Her adoption fee was a whopping $150, mostly because everyone- me, the rescue, the vet that worked with the rescue, everyone -was upfront & clear that she had some dental problems that would need to be addressed.  Soon.  

 

You can get a puppy from a high end breeder, pay a lot more money, do all that training yourself & have a wonderful companion for your life.  You can also go to PetSmart this weekend. 

 

& don't worry about having your heart stolen away & ending up with a pet you are not really ready for.  Most rescues make sure there are a few hoops to jump through with good reason.  If the breeder ho sold her had told the obviously pregnant coupe that a barky little mini-dachshund might be a bad fit for their upcoming life, at least one less barky little dachshund would have gone back to same breeder (no refunds, by the by).  We actually suspect something similar happened to make our own barky little dachshund available; she is very nervous whenever she hears a baby cry on TV but could not care less about other louder, more unpleasant TV noises.

 

So this weekend, at many PetsMarts across the country.  Think about it.

January is

I am having some trouble getting back into the blogging routine.  I having trouble getting back into the breathing routine, to be honest.  While rumors of pneumonia were exaggerated, I am still on prednisone & still not taking full breathes.  Yesterday I forgot my morning dose of cough medicine by midday was back to the dry hacking cough that made me light headed & ultimately sent me to the doctor last Monday.  As for the blogging routine, well, that has been flying through my fingers for the better part of a year.  I try to sit down & get something down once or twice a week.  Whether or not you want to read it is one thing, but I think it also keeps me from marinating in my own...lets say thoughts.


& so, new years resolutions being in the wind I thought I would resolve to.  You know.  & I thought maybe a few simple runs at regular topics might help.  So here it is:

January is National Mentoring Month.  It is also National Stalking Awareness Month.  Am I the only one to find something a bit off about that combo?  I should say that I have been, maybe still kinda, am a bona fide, on paper, written up in reports & all that sh*t mentor.  I have been a Big Sister since the 90s (she's in her 20s now & while we try to see each other more often, we are pretty much guaranteed to see each other at book club because I have co-opted her into my book club.  Also, she works at the local library, which is handy).  When she was younger, mentoring was a bit like stalking.  & she was an EXCELLENT mentee.  I mean, she never showed any sign ever of not wanting to hang out with me.  I hear those mentees can be surly & testing & she never was.  So stalking & mentoring can seem to go hand in hand.  That's all I have to say on that subject, though, so what else.

January is Get Organized Month.  Right.  NEXT.

Lots of winter foods:  soup& hot tea month.  Also peanut brittle day-the 26th, if you care & just to round things out nicely, California Dried Plum Digestive Month.  I guess they got those bases covered, so lets move on.

Be Kind to Food Servers Month.  Also Bath Safety Day at least in Texas.  International Wayfinding Month. Uh-huh.

For me January is:  Get your head back in the game month.  Get off the couch & baste that quilt month.  Maybe, next week it can be clean that stuff out from the back of the fridge day.  That should segway nicely into buy new food storage containers day right there at the beginning of February.  Okay, I made that one up.

6th block

Not long after the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group started (technically before the group started because before we were a group, we were a mailing list), we started a thing called the 6th block.  As has been covered ad nauseam: we swap in sets of five; you send five blocks you get five back; ideally none of your own.

With each swap, every person has the option of including a 6th block.  They do not get back a block for this one; it goes to whichever member of the group asks for the 6th blocks.  As in all good (& bad) giveaways, there are strings.

• The quilt or quilts made from these block should go to a person or persons, not a fund raiser.  In other words, it is OKay to give it to a homeless shelter for residents use, but not OKay to give it to the shelter to use in a raffle.  If this seems petty, I'm sorry.  The idea was to eliminate any concern the funds raised would be used for something you maybe didn't believe in.  The real-world example I gave is that while I had no problem contributing mucho blocks to a group that made quilts for babies cared for at a  low-income birth center, I would have been less than thrilled if the quilt had been auctioned or raffled or whatever & the funds used in anti-choice activities (another function of the birth center).  This rule makes it possible to send quilts to a large variety of beneficiaries, all around the world, because we can all agree to help a person in need.

• Ideally the quilt should go to someone not specifically known to you.  This is almost impossible as often quilts going to say, people in hospice are made by volunteers at that hospice.  There is going to be overlap.  It can go through a national organization like Project Linus or Quilts of Valor.  Or an ongoing local quilt drive, perhaps through your quilt guild or church or some other volunteer venue.  Or even a limited time project like relief following Hurricane Sandy.  What the 6th block quilt should not be is a personal gift from you to a person you know. 

• The quilt should get where it is going in 6 months to a year after the blocks are forwarded, but in the real world, this is not always possible. Naturally, the quilt should get where it is going sooner rather than later, just so long as it doesn't linger in a UFO pile indefinitely.  To keep things moving, while one 6th block quilt is undelivered, you cannot reserve another set of 6th blocks.   

• There are not always enough 6th blocks to make a complete quilt & quilting thread, batting, & other materials needed for quilting are not provided by the quilt block swap group.  It is not OKay to ask for that stuff from members of the group on the group page or message group members asking for more materials.  I include this because we once had this problem:  after requesting 6th blocks a former member of the group sent messages asking for supplies or money to buy supplies.  So...when you ask for these blocks do it with the understanding that the balance of materials will need to come from somewhere else:  your stash, your sewing circle, wherever.

• Finally, I give seasoned swappers first dibs.  I also ask that someone participate in two other swaps before asking to receive the 6th blocks from a swap.  I used to do this because I thought "proven" swappers were more likely to follow through.  After a year+ of tracking the 6th blocks I discovered it did not make all that much difference; there was no real correlation between the length of time with the swap & how long it took a person to follow through.  Now I ask it so a swapper can get a feel for the group & an idea of what they are likely to get back, but in months when someone has an interest but has not participated in two swaps, I don't hold things up.  The only exception is that in order to get the 6th blocks in any given swap, you MUST participate in that swap.

Now the happy side of this.  I find when strip-piecing, I make extra blocks without realizing it & I am pretty sure I am not alone in that.  More than once I have finished a quilt top with a leftover or two.  I call them orphans & throw them in a bag which I clear out every couple years (ideally), either giving the blocks away, or making something (pillows, tote bags).  The 6th block was just a way to head those orphans in the same direction where they could become something for someone in need.

The 6th block is entirely voluntary & more than that, I don't really keep records.  I rarely know from one swap to the next who sent 6th blocks & who didn't, I just keep track of who receives them & cross them off the list when photos of the completed quilt are posted. 

I hope this helps people who swap but not through the group understand what the 6th block is.  If you would like to see some of the quilts made & given away, the easiest thing is to join the group & go through the photos.  They are all there (except the ones that FaceBook ate  *sigh*).

Proud to be a consumer

I don't know when it started but for years I have been telling anyone who will listen (usually my mother, sorry mom) that I am a GROWN-UP with my own CHECKBOOK & everything.  This is of course a big fat lie; I haven't had my own checkbook since I got married 18 years ago, but the gist is still there:  my own money is my own business...& my own problem.  As a married person it became our own business/problem, as the case may be.

If you got this far & are now worried I am going to start talking about fiscal responsibility, fear not.  I am thinking more about holiday (or non-holiday) on-line shopping.  Even more specifically about iGive.  The short version is iGive is a free-to-you service that collects a percentage of your purchase from the on-line seller & gives it to the charity of your choice (provided they are registered with iGive, which I am told is not all that hard if you are indeed a charity & not some backyard faux-non-profit cash cow). 

What that percentage is depends on the vendor. Amazon for example gives only  part of one percent, but because of the volume of orders that go through them (it's not just books anymore, baby), it can add up fast.  UnderArmour, who I started loving because they are not Nike (in fairness Nike is also an iGive company), then I loved more when I learned they will do embroidery for say, horse crazy middle aged women's specialty catalogs & now of course gets my love all over again for their 3.2% (same as Nike, but they are in a hole so deep I doubt I can ever love them).

So...I would encourage anyone reading this to double check if their favorite charity (alas you can only specify one....at a time) is listed.  Several of mine were but I quickly chose one that does valuable work & to whom my $8 (so far) does make a difference.  After I made my choice (& did a little shopping), I could see how much my cause has received so far - check by check, what their next check amount will be & how much of that is attributable to me.  I have never been a huge on-line shopper having preferred to spend my money locally, even if it is at a chain store, at least those are local people employed there, but ever since the kid at S***** A******** told me I "need to get over that" re: Michael Vick, Nike et al, I am just as happy to bypass some people all together.  Seriously, I may never leave the house again.

More on red

I have already blogged about the March Block Lotto block, so I will spare you except:  it is red, I didn't have much red & then once I bought some red I figured I may as well use what I had selvage-to-selvage set & made four sets of most.  As I was doing this, I remembered C****** really likes red & black (she really likes light blue & black, too; I guess it would be more accurate to say she likes black & other colors) & so I thought I would toss a few black & white blocks in there.

By the time I was done, one set of red&white will go to the block lotto winner(s), which still leaves me holding more red&white blocks, almost of them triplets & much more than I could ever use, especially after I had thrown in the black&white blocks I made soooo....

I thought about this post on the Block Lotto blog.  To be brief, she collects 8.5" unfinished/8" finished red&white blocks & makes quilt for leukemia patients (& you can read more here).  I had actually already thought I would send her whatever I had left after I was done with the first part, but I had not yet thought thru the whole C****** likes red&black thing either,  so I have more left over than if I just used the spare red&whites.

Off these go, to France as it happens, altho' I am guessing they won't necessarily stay there.

Baldrick & green beverages

For today a saint that is not a saint.  Was never even a person, actually (or if there was a person named Baldrick, no one ever attempted to canonize him as far as I can tell).  & does not have an actual day.  Saint Baldrick celebrants aim for sometime around Saint Patrick's Day, usually a week-end day just to be convenient.

How to observe a saint's day that never had a saint?  Why shaving your head of course.  Well, actually, having it shaved.  I know I said to do this around Saint Patrick's Day, but celebrants are usually stone-cold-sober when they participate.

A few years ago at a Saint Baldrick's Day event, my sister had her head shaved by a clown -an actual clown- while an accordion was played in the background.  Then same clown painted flower/flames/not sure what they were really on her face.  My brother says this is one of the rings Dante neglected.  I'm not sure I disagree.  I like accordion music (I still have my old Gerard Blanchard albums for when the apocalypse erases all your new-fangled digital music), but clowns make me nervous.  Clowns with clippers, well, I just don't need that kind of anxiety.

At this point, if you are still reading, you are asking "Why?"  I have no idea why clowns & accordions & facepainting, but the shaving is a fundraiser for research into childhood cancers.  I have a vague idea that they gather the hair for cancer wigs, but I might be wrong about that.  It is entirely possible the shaving is incidental.  Well, not entirely, money is raised by getting sponsors much like a walk-a-thon only nobody has to walk anywhere & the proof of accomplishment is right there for all to see.

That's all I've got really.  No history to plumb...or embellish.  The patron saint of barbers has actually already been covered in this blog & believe me, I was as surprised as anyone when I looked it up.  I could find no patron of clowns or circus performers, but I will keep looking.  As for accordion players or manufacturers nada, although if you google "accordian saint", Saint Paul, MN comes up a lot.

Public Lands Day

Another worthwhile holiday you have never heard of has rolled on by; yesterday was National Public Lands Day.   I don't know what happened where you were are, but here the state parks were looking for help cleaning up Washington Oaks Gardens State Park.  The link from the Florida State Parks twitter account originally went to eco-jobs work site in Europe...& in German, but they resolved that & now it goes here.

It is also possible to find out what went on closer to you, though, if you are interested.  The good/bad news is chances are they will be happy to see your smiling face even now that National Public Lands Day has come to an end.  That is also the bad/good news.  Even if you are not prepared to break out the work gloves, etc. you might discover something close by you didn't know you owned.

Lost city of readers

I need another bookclub like I need another....quilt block swap.  Speaking of which, is any one else pressed up against the glass over at Block Lotto?  Maybe it is the stars aligning -yes, I am sure that is what it is- but their September lotto block is very similar to our October swap block.  It kinda makes me want to make a funky stonehenge just to commemorate the moment.

What was I saying?  Oh yea, bookclub.  Tonight is the first meeting I attended of the museum volunteers bookclub.  I will not be attending the October meeting, because I already have plans that night, & I am well & truly up in the air about any after that.  It would depend on the book list, which was a well kept secret.  I went in knowing only the first two books, The Lost City of Z & The Philosopher Fish.

While they look like good choices from the variety of natural history perspective (it is a natural history museum bookclub, after all), both of these books are approximately 330 pages.  That is kind of a lot for one month's reading. I read more than almost anyone I know & I always did & I would have trouble shoehorning 330 more pages into my month.

Neither of them is all that easy to get a hold of either, unless I am prepared to buy a copy, which I am not.  Our local library owns just one copy of The Philosopher Fish.  I put it on hold the moment I knew what the second book would be.  I am number one out of five, which means the person who has the book now can keep it for 30 days, & then I can (but I won't) & so forth.  I  think it is probable another four people who would like to read this book for the October meeting won't be able to, at least not via the library.  That every single copy of The Lost City of Z the library owns (both hard copies & audio copies) are all currently checked out does not bode well.

As for the Lost City of Z....it was Okay.  I mean, I don't consider the time I spent listening to it (yes, I got it on disc from the local library) wasted & I put the author's other book on hold.  I also learned that Brad Pitt has optioned the book & I would see that movie.  I hope they make it with variable endings though, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman.  & I am curious how tonight's discussion might go.

Armed Forces Day

Today, as you may or may not know, is Armed Forces Day.  I know because Florida State Parks honor Armed Forces Day with free admission for everyone (except in particular parks that do not even offer free admission with a Florida State Parks pass-I don't get it either).

Armed Forces Day  is actually observed in many different countries, albeit often on different days.  It is specifically intended to honor current, active military personnel, not veterans -except in that a veteran may also have been reactivated, especially now-  & not military dead.   With the exception of the Florida State Parks & a few other events, mostly within the military itself,  Armed Forces Day does not get much press, despite all of the "Support Our Troops" rhetoric.  I can only speak for life in this country since the end of the Vietnam War, but I have lived in three different regions, two of them much more militarily inclined than I am & it still looks like "out of sight, out of mind" to me.

Soooo, in the interest of supporting troops that are still above ground & still fighting for us, I thought I would list a few organizations that support the troops every damn day:

American Red Cross:  we have started to think of the ARC as an emergency relief organization, but they are also the go to emergency relief organization for military families.

Quilts of Valor:  this group makes quilts for wounded personnel, which makes most people think "veteran" but the drop dead truth is wounded personnel are recovering & returning to active duty.

Books for Soldiers:  pretty self explanatory, this one.  You will often see collection boxes at the local library or used book stores.  The application process is a bit involved (the application needs to be notarized) but not all that tricky really.  Just a little FYI-if there are no mailbox stores near you (The UPS Store or Mailboxes Etc. or whatever), in the olden days, many pharmacists were also notaries & in small towns like ours, often still are.  Even if a notary knows who you are, they need to record what form of ID you presented, so remember to bring your drivers license or some such.

There are slews of local programs, too.  Not round here, but in other parts of the country there are foster-pet groups that take the dogs & cats of deployed soldiers.  No doubt there are national programs that I do not know about, so feel free to include a link in the comments.

& maybe think about celebrating Armed Forces Day without flags & parades (because let's face it- they mostly won't happen anyway) & instead reach out one person to one person & do one small thing.

Baby. it's cold outside (not really)

As this posts, last call has been called for the Floral Sunny Lanes block swap & we are moving on to the last of the six month-3 block set:  Baby Snowballs.

You can find the directions here.  If you would like to swap, the best thing is to join the FaceBook Quilt Block Swap Group.  Like I said, this is the last of a set of three, but three more blocks will be posted around the time this block gets swapped.

Not a whole lot more to say about this, really.  Come on down & swap! You make five blocks, you get five back.  You have the option of including a 6th block that goes to the group member making a quilt for an organization in her neck of the woods.  Previous quilts have gone to Project Linus in PA & TX, Quilts of Valor, it's an eclectic mix.  The April blocks are intended for the Prudence Crandall Center in New Britain, CT.  These are going to a group in Port Ste. Lucie, Fladidah who make quilts for brand new people.  You know, babies.

Blatantly soliciting donations

This weekend is the local Big Brothers, Big Sisters annual fundraiser.  They need to raise a minimum 40K over the next few weeks to keep the doors open. 

Not long after I first became a Big Sister, Jeb Bush & the rest of the GOP had dealt many other regional BB/BS chapters a death blow by cutting funding by as much as 97% to this kind of charity.  For those who do not remember/know when Jeb Bush was Governor, the Fladidah economy was BOOMING at the time.


This particular chapter survived through some very generous donations, including that of their own building.  They use one office suite & rent the rest of the building to generate their own income.  The downturn in the economy (& the drop in in potential renters) has cut into this source & others are just not available.

My Little Sister is a grown-up now.  She works more than full-time, she pays her taxes, she has done some volunteering herself, regularly attends book club &, as I like to say, she is not pregnant so far.  I am not taking the credit for this (except for the book club bit-that was definitely me), I am just saying that without BBBS, girls & boys in her situation will just not have the opportunities she has.  

I realize you might be curious what frivolities BBBS spends their money on.  There are the usual overhead charges (you know: lights, AC) but the last time I saw the budget, the big line items were staff & insurance.  Not health insurance for the staff, but insurance for the kids when they are under the supervision of their Bigs (I'm sorry to say that is what we are called; the kids are called Littles.  gack).  You can read more here.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you have seen that there has never been one advertisement, there are no pop-up ads or anything like that.  In return for not having to scroll through ads/wait for loading in the sidebar, you get free quilt patterns, political rants, random recipes, emu care tips, etc.  If you have ever found anything useful here, please put a dollar or two in an envelope & mail it to:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mid-Florida
1155 NW 13th St.
Gainesville, Florida 32601

Passing the good deed buck

As I have blogged before, I manage a facebook quilt block swap & this month's block was an altered 9-patch in red, white & blue.  As an extension of the usual swap, we also have a thing called "the 6th block".  No, the name was not inspired by The Sixth Sense.  It is because we swap in sets of five: you send five & get five back.  You can also send a 6th block that is put aside for the group member who has committed to making a community service quilt for that swap.  The idea was a minimal effort from many & a one-time greater effort from one, results in a whole quilt for someone who needs it.  This is very close to something from nothing which is very close to my heart.  The first set of 6th blocks were collected in August 2009.  They went to Pennsylvania & were part of 4or5 (I forget) quilt tops for the local Project Linus.  This time, the 6th blocks are going to Texas to be made into a Quilt of Valor quilt. The funny thing about this swap is it was this 6th blocker (& her community recipient of choice) that solidified the 6th block idea for me.  It has just taken a few cycles for it to come around to her.

As for the block itself, I could not be more sick of it if I had to look at it for another six months.  I have been making this block in red, white & blue on&off since last June.  I have made it at a variety of local venues (the library, community center, shelter, for friends, for anybody who asked) because it is a good basic pattern with complex potential.  It is traditional with a modern twist & I just cannot take it anymore.  Unfortunately, I also have the fabric, cut & prepped for quick assembly if anyone should want to give it a try, to demo this a few more times.  There is nothing for it, the blocks must be made.  Then earlier this year, with an ever-lightening heart I read this month's sixth blocker was thinking of having her son's cub scout den help with the project.  I checked with her first (it is the right thing to do before making my crap her crap after all) & she said "yes".

& so this weekend, all those pre-cut squares are going into the 6th block package with the blocks from across the country & I never have to see them again.  YAY!  Next they will meet Cub Scouts (yay, again), who will do whatever with them, hopefully learning something about sewing (yay) & maybe even becoming part of a Quilts of Valor.  & all I have to do is get them in the mail.

Father Maximillian Mary Kolbe

I absolutely & unequivocally confess that Maximillian Mary Kolbe originally caught my interest as the patron of drug addicts & the story on the saints index implies a misspent youth, but what stopped me in my tracks was his martyrdom.

Let me be clear, martyrdoms are often graphic stuff. The technique, if you will, can have a lot to do with what you become patron of: the patron saint of cooks was grilled. I do not mean questioned for hours by law enforcement types, I mean grilled.

As for the whys of martyrdom, they are not usually so engaging. Mostly it is because the other guy hates you, hates your religion &/or generally wants to make an example of you. The why is usually the predictable bit.

Enter Maximillian Mary Kolbe, one of many many many & more to die at Auschwitz.

When the Nazis entered Poland, he was one of thousands gathered & taken away. This was not just bad luck, wrong Pole in the wrong place at the wrong time. His family had a history of rebelling against the presiding authority: his father was hanged for treason fighting for Polish Independence in 1914. Moreover, ill health kept Father Kolbe from doing his original assigned tasks (teaching ) & gave him time to to dwell on what he thought was the single greatest threat to his church & G*d: apathy. & no one ever fought apathy sitting in a church (or a school or a community center) waiting for someone who wants to hear what you have to say to wander in. Fighting apathy usually happens out there, in the street, with the apathetic. Best case scenario they think you are a kook, they give you whatever spare change they have on them & later that night might wonder if you found a safe place to sleep. Worse case, your apathetics are Nazis.

In the end, the almost end, he & his fellow brothers were arrested for harboring 3,000 Polish refugees in & around their monastery, an estimated 2/3 were jews. On May 28, 1941, he was deported to Auschwitz. In July that same year, following an escape, ten random remaining men were singled out to be killed. One of them, Franciszek Gajowniczek, despaired aloud of seeing his wife & children again; Father Kolbe requested & was allowed to die in his place. As Prisoner 16670, he was starved & dehydrated with the others selected, & died August 14, 1941 by lethal injection.

I have many many problems with the modern catholic church (with the older church, as well, but there is little point in hanging on to those). Not the least of which was the underhanded assisting known Nazi war criminals in relocating to Syria, South America, etc. to avoid trial for their war crimes. The more recent appointing of a former Hitler Youth to the papacy was just the cherry on top. Finding Father Kolbe on the calendar makes it easier for me to breathe.

What really held my attention though, heart rending story aside was the nature of his martyrdom. I have cruised up & down the saints lists looking for another who did not die for of his religion or even for his own direct actions or safe in his bed after a church-y life. Random chance could have made him one of the original ten chosen & we would not be talking about him now. Another take-me-instead volunteer might be in the pantheon, but I have not found him/her so far.

Father Kolbe is the patron of drug addicts (as I believe I mentioned), political prisoners & Auschwitz.

How much wood would a botanist log if a botanist would log wood?

I am no botanist. But I am a logger, a data logger. For a few years I have spent a few days/weeks in the Herbarium doing general herbaria chores. Initially I went so I could learn the proper way to collect & record botanical specimens. In return for this training, I was also taught how to mount these specimens & then I was let loose on a decades-old pile of specimens improperly documented that now makes up a good portion of the local synoptic collection.

As I was working my way through the pile, I learned that there was no one, No One in a position to enter this information into a database, thereby making the synoptic collection more available. My new career was born.

More recently I have undertaken the digital recording of the existing wood collections (yes, plural) that have been merged and carefully cross-referenced....on index cards.

Last semester I finished the Acanthaceae. They made up about an inch & a half of index cards. I have now been working on the Anacardiaceae for what seems like a lifetime. I have recently arrived at poison ivy. Guess what still has toxic oils even after 60+ years in a cabinet? At five to nine months or so a drawer, I am looking at job security for the next several years. If only they were paying me, but you cannot have everything.

I have talked with a few friends who used to have paid work & now have no work but eschew volunteer work & I admit it leaves me stumped. How can it possible be better (for your resume, for your psyche, I would say for your self esteem except I do not actually believe in self esteem as defined by our culture), how can it possible be better to just wait; maybe you could reconsider? Why not do something while you are waiting? & you never know, you might meet your future employer while volunteering.- your volunteer job might become paid. This happened to one of the herbarium volunteers & could have happened to me but I would rather...set my own schedule. Yeah, that's it.

Sooooo if you have been not getting in touch with your local volunteer center because: you need to be available (if only cell phones had been invented), you do not want to make a commitment you cannot keep (no one ever heard of a temporary volunteer job), you want to use this time to catch up on things around the house (it can take weeks to dust behind the fridge; it takes me years), please take some of your busy, full day & think about doing something that does not remind you of what you are not doing.

Solve for X: X(3x3)=X(2x2)

I have posted before about the small on-line quilt block swap I run, maybe ten maybe twenty participates any given swap. About half the participants are local & another half know me but do not live nearby & the third half joined through a Facebook Group.

Everyone gets the same written directions & anyone local can hear them as well. If anything this is a disadvantage; I am not so clear spoken as you might think. Also, I talk with my hands which makes directions via telephone double-challenging. But all the confusions seem to be coming from the FB group: the group who gets the directions in writing (did I mention I used to write instruction manuals? & got paid for it? actually got good reviews for them?). The April swap was for a 4-patch; the previous completed swap was for a 9-patch. Of the eleven FB participants four of them sent the wrong block.

The funny thing about the wrong blocks is that with one exception (which I really think just got mailed too late), all the wrong blocks were actually morphs of more than one swap. The options were blue&yellow 9-patch, followed by tone-on-tone 4-patch. I got blue&yellow 4-patches & tone-on-tone 9-patches. I am genuinely at a loss.

I have decided to rearrange my planning so that no two alike blocks are ever scheduled back-to-back. & this seems to have worked. The third swap was an on-point basket of any kind. It did not matter if they were tone-on-tone, blue&yellow or whatever so long as they were vaguely discernible as baskets (& to be fair, mine was the vaguest of all). & every block that arrived was what it should be.

The next block is almost abstract: a center square that can be pieced or appliqued or not with a border or borders to bring it up to size. The idea is that it should be appropriate for a kids quilt, but that could mean anything.

//let me get out ahead of everyone who is looking at the equation & deciding there really is a whole number answer. You do not need to message me, I know what it is.

Evil empires in wood

I am ssssssllllllloooooooowwwwwwwllllllllyyyyyyy working my way through the card catalog that is the only current record of all the wood specimens at the herbarium. This is how it goes:

-I take a card.

-I figure out which of two-five numbers on it refers to the herbariums own number.

-I look through the drawers, boxes, etc. (some in the room I usually work in, others in "the old wood room").

-I find the probable specimen & then I use something else to confirm I am indeed looking at the specimen referenced (a collectors number, a genus or common name, etc.).

-I mark the back of the card with the correct herbarium number so that when I get run over by a truck & all the computers simultaneously erase their databases, my worthy successor will know what has & has not been checked.

-I sit down at the computer & start recording the information from the card. Would you believe this is where it gets time consuming?

Not all of the cards are organized along the same lines. It is safe to say there are five major systems & I could not even guess how many minor ones. They mostly record the name of the specimen; collector's number &/or name or not; the date the specimen was collected or not; the location from which the specimen was collected or not or maybe the name &/or location of the organization that provided the specimen. All of this would be as nothing if each card had this information in the same order. They do not.

Still some systems have distinct hallmarks, frequent places from which specimens are collected, frequent co-collectors. Certain record keepers always put particular information in particular places & I have started to recognize their handwriting. & typewriters. But still I would be lost without GOOGLE, GOOGLE translate & WIKI-Species. There are a slew of more specific archives on-line but often my question can only be handled by a cross-reference between all three. For example when Sandwich appeared on one card for a particular variety of palm only this trinity could help me figure out what Sandwich was the person who collected the plant? the collection in England from which it was donated? Nope. Sandwich was the island on which it was native, the only island on which it was native. & in the very valuable index this would have been almost impossible to find out because not only has the palm changed names but so has the island.

It would be easy to get bogged down in the stories of the specimens. It has happened to me before. I spent a sad month in 2006 mounting plant pressings gathered by a father & son team in October & November of 1941. Then there was a gap until the father alone started to submit specimens again in 1944. He collected on off until the early 1960's, but always alone. There is a lot of information in what is missing on those old typed labels.

For the past couple of weeks it has been beautiful wood specimens from some of the most frightening places on earth. These are the places nightmares are made of. The first was a row of wooden blocks labeled "Queensland". It would be easy to assume Australia but it would be wrong. This Queensland is long gone from western thought, except perhaps in Orwellian Literature classes. The second were specimens all collected in South Africa in the 1950s. The third was the single specimen from Rwanda.

I am sure none of what happened was anacardiacaea's fault. It is just a plant, a good-sized family of plants in fact. A family that includes poison ivy. & pistachios.

Newt no more

Newt the foster dog has gone to his new, permanent home. It was earlier than we expected but as he got healthy he got dominant & a 20lb dominant terrier & a 65lb pitbull-mix with a high threshold for pain was not working. Poor A ended up at the ER & Newt needed to go into solitary.

The good news is (& it really is mostly good news) he was here long enough for something permanent to be arranged. He is now living with his dad's fiancee who loves him & has just wrapped the semester so she has time to deal with him. A month ago, she was too crazy-busy & he was not healthy enough for less than 24/7 supervision.

Would I do it again? Probably. But no terriers, I forgot how much they did not suit me. & no newly altered adult males; this is good life advice, too, frankly.

Meet Newt

This is the new man in my life. His name is Newt. His dad is in Iraq until ?November? & Newt's original (post-dad's-deployment) living arrangement was not working out. So he is staying with us while an alternative arrangement is made. Yeah, we expect to have him right up until Thanksgiving.

Today, we are celebrating Memorial Day trying to help a future veteran not lose someone he loves while he is away. It does not have quite the same patriotic fervor as buying new appliances, but the fact is, all my appliances work fine. & I do not need any more sheets. & we just painted the house last year.

The end of a good thing

For a while a while ago, I used to volunteer a good chunk of my time here. & here is still there, but the part I saw grow will soon be gone. I am not entirely sure when S** got the idea but she decided/thought/reasoned that a small cottage industry-type arrangement right there at the house to occupy the residents, might make a little cash maybe, but more important it would give everyone involved the general idea of what it was to show up for work, organize your schedule & take pride in what you can do & that this was a good thing. & while she was there it was a wonderful thriving thing.

But on her leaving, things changed. The person that replaced her understood S**'s concept, but somehow someone else in the organization looked at the little sewing space & saw dollar signs. & all the trying to convince her that I am actually pretty good at this & I could not support a dog on what I would make versus how does she think complete novices to the concept of work are going to do it made any difference. Actually it did: it made her tell me I was too negative. & I took my contrary ass home.

I know it is useless going to the board & showing up this folly. In December '07 I got an earful from one of the board members on how he thought the CI should set aside time for Quilts of Valor. Do not get me wrong, QoV is a wonderful program. & the people who send quilts in win awards for their work; they did not learn to sew last week. I could not tell if I should be insulted on behalf of the truly outstanding pieces donated to QoV, or invite him to CI to see what kind of work a new sewer can actual handle (& how many years it would take to piece the quilt top he proposed). In the end I just sat there with my mouth hanging open & a "you are f*cking with me, right?" look in my eye.

I think my favorite part of this whole story is this same manager is actively pursuing opening a restaurant under the AH/CI umbrella. She knows nothing about the food business (or she would know the odds of an experienced willing-to-work restaurateur failing) & she knows what the residents are capable of in terms of cooking ...& hygiene. I am telling everyone who tells me that she should be encouraged in this. Complete catastrophic failure might be the only thing that saves the rest of the organization.

Sooooo, anyone who has been holding onto orphans for the Dali bags, or scraps you have leftover or fabric you bought when you were drunk, you can keep hanging on to it I am not going back. & before anyone calls me & says they are sure the CI is still there, I know it is. & I know it will not be for long, no matter what the plan is.

& no, I am not bitter.

National Adopt An Animal Already In Rescue Day

That is what today is, at least according to one of the blogs I follow. & it is not the worst idea anyone ever had. The tricky bit is being realistic about what you can do & then following through. Maybe you cannot actually bring a horse into your family. Okay, scale down: smaller animal, smaller commitment.

How about expanding the spirit of the day, just a bit. If you cannot adopt from a shelter, help an animal not go to a shelter. The animal that comes immediately to my mind is a dog, probably 3-8 years old. This dog lives with an elderly person or couple. Every time you see this dog you notice it is overweight OR rambunctious OR yanking those little-old-people from one end of the block to the other. Introduce yourself. Offer to walk that dog one or two evenings a week. Say it is no problem, you could use the exercise (you know you could). Voila.

Today is also Ground Hog Day. If you look out your front door & cannot see someone whose life could be made much better by a little effort on your part, there WILL be six more weeks of winter. Maybe even more.