Category: Reading

There won’t be anything interesting here today – this is a brain dump and an organizing post for me.

Things to do today:

1. Vote. Local elections and primaries are just as important as national elections. We sure learned that the hard way in North Carolina. Vigilance in all elections is vital.

2. Get the tapestry stitched onto the mat board, put it in the frame, and pack it to ship to Leslie before Friday.

3. Laundry. House cleaning and studio and porch cleaned up.

Tomorrow: Susanne will come over to talk about pet sitting.

I’ve already started packing for our trip simply because my nerves are shot. I want to see if I can get everything into my backpack luggage, which is carry-on sized but I will check it. We have a long trip ahead and a couple of our places have washing machines, but Portugal for the most part does not have dryers in homes because of the utility expense. I have no problem wearing clothes several times if they are reasonably clean, but if we wash anything, we will have to be aware that it might take a couple of days to dry depending on the weather. It will require planning.

Also, we will be traveling a lot by train and bus and getting to destinations hours before we can check in. Packing light is essential, and a wheeled suitcase on cobblestones is not a good idea anyway – it is just going to get wrecked. Originally I was going to pack an empty carry-on within a larger wheeled suitcase for whatever goodies we bring back. Now I’m thinking that we will just adjust to that situation if it happens that we need an extra bag. I’m beginning to recall the difficulties with luggage during our Ireland/England trip. We cannot pack those backpacks so heavy this time!

I got everything planted and I’d like to do a little more clean-up in the front yard. The aphids are just going to party on – I don’t have the time or energy for that. Sandy hired another guy to mow the yard for half the price that the person who kept standing us up charged. I may still hire him now and then for larger harder jobs, because I like that he has an organic philosophy and knows his plants. However, I’m done with the ghosting behavior. I find it disrespectful, even though he may not see it that way. He is probably just really disorganized, but when I bought a bunch of plants because he told me he was coming to work at my place that day and he forgot, that was pretty much the third (or fourth) strike.

Anyway, I got the cortisone shot in my ankle (the bursa) and since Tuesday I have had no pain whatsoever. The podiatrist said that as long as they continue to work for me for such a long period I can continue getting them with no worries.

It’s gonna be a busy week and somewhere in there I’ve got to figure out when to do our Covid tests for the trip. It will have to be either a PCR test on Friday morning or a rapid antigen test on Saturday morning. Maybe we’ll do the PCR and see if the results come in on time for our flight leaving on Sunday afternoon, and if not, do a RAT in Boston. Friday is also commencement day at work so it will be a challenge. Of course I did not think of all this when I re-booked the trip in August.

Reading: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. How did I miss this one? It was published 11 years ago! Also, it was a Netflix series? Really? I am so out of touch.

I just finished the fourth Louise Penny mystery. I’m not much into these “cozy cottage” murder mysteries set into quaint villages, but I do really like the characters and the complex backgrounds she created for them. It is the entirely unlikely complicated murders that bother my Vulcan sensibilities, but I needed something light after I finally finished Baltasar and Blimunda by José Saramago. I wanted to read at least one novel by a Portuguese writer before I left, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this one. Well, it was a real slog, but I did it. It was worth it in the end, but it was NOT light reading. I now know a lot more about early 18th century Portuguese history and culture, though.

TV: We just started watching Outer Range, with Josh Brolin. I’m hooked after two episodes. The new season of Better Call Saul is out, but I’ll have to buy it since we don’t get AMC. The second half of the last season of Ozark just dropped too.

Normally I do not drink caffeine after noon since I became a certain age. There was a time when I drank coffee, really cheap bad coffee, all day and night. I think about my past with coffee sometimes as I walk to work at my local university. Just as I walked to classes from the opposite direction forty years ago, I bear a mug of coffee. The past trip would have included a stop at Friar’s Cellar for a refill, a pack of cigarettes, and a toasted bagel. Friar’s Cellar is long gone now, replaced by a coffee house that serves much better coffee and pastries, without the shelves of dusty wine bottles.

I noticed the sparkle in my bedroom windows and thought I’d share a photo. That is bubble wrap on the outside of the windows for insulation. These are really old windows and one of them is cracked. The bubble wrap is a great idea for upcycling – it provides insulation all year long and privacy while letting the light shine through. Our houses here are very close together, so the house next door is about ten feet away. At some point I’ll spend the money to get some of these Craftsman double hung windows repaired, and if I end up living here a lot longer get a better grade of glass.

Yesterday I enjoyed my day at home. I wove on Cathedral and did laundry off and on all day. I finished “The Cruelest Month” by Louise Penny. I had mixed feelings about this at first. Everybody seems to be crazy about Louise Penny but I guess I’m not a big fan of the cozy murder mystery genre. Agatha Christie never appealed to me either. I was put off about the disparaging descriptions of various disheveled or out-of-fashion or cheaply dressed characters, since they pretty much described me to a T. But once I got over that, I was caught up in the story and enjoyed it. I’ve read the first three of the Armand Gamache series and will probably find the fourth one somewhere. I have the fifth one on my shelf, and I like to read and watch series in order. These came from one of my local little free libraries, so they will go back. For now I’ve picked up “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” by Fredrik Backman, also picked up from a little free library.

This past week I didn’t shop for the Doc Martens, although I’m still considering them. I cleaned out about half of the clothes from my closet and chest of drawers and they are in the car ready to be donated or in the trash. Some are in a box to be repurposed as fiber art, but I don’t want to do much of that since part of the problem is that I have too much fabric. One of my favorite tunics from Gudrun Sjoden had holes in it so I cut it into strips to be woven into a rag rug at some point. I mended a couple of favorite pants. I still have a lot of cleaning out to do in this closet and a chest of drawers that contains all kinds of crazy stuff, mostly art related.

I finalized the final piece of the puzzle of the Portugal trip – the trip to Boston to catch the flight to Lisbon. As much as I wanted to be done with Southwest Airlines, I had points with them and there was no reason to let them have them, so we booked a one way late night flight with just points. Then the flight was changed to get there earlier, and in this case it was a very good thing. I’m glad we chose the cheapest flight. We’ll still get to the hotel in Boston late at night, but hopefully before midnight. Now we can only hope that the circumstances out of our control will be kind to our fate, but my anxiety has lessened since I got this taken care of.

Also, I brought home the rest of my supplies from the print studio at the Arts Center and put my membership on hold for now. That means that I need to clear them off my work table to make space for my upcoming online art classes. Jude has begun another phase of her teaching journey and Leighanna is teaching her Vintage Metal Deck class on Zoom in March. I took this class in person way back in 2010, but I had a migraine that day. Even so, I came away with some work that I loved and I’ve always wanted to take it again.

I need to do some house cleaning and clutter clearing today, but for the most part I’m going to weave and since the new season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” has dropped, that is definitely on the agenda.

Honestly, this is my happiest time. Late Saturday morning, after a restful night’s or morning’s sleep, surrounded by the cats, who are hopefully not misbehaving. This morning the sun is shining and the high temperature is expected to be around 70 F. Tomorrow winter returns and rain and snow is in the forecast, but it will be the sloppy kind of winter weather.

I was thinking about how I regret that I never took photos of my childhood home other than family rooms at holidays. That led me to take this photo of the view from my chair here. The walls need plaster repair and a lighter paint job. This is the color it was when we bought it in 2001. The foundation has been repaired but the plaster has not. One day we will get around to it, or not. It’s a cozy spot, where we eat our meals and watch Ozark and Mom and Doc Martin and Sandy watches his zombie shows.

The woman who plays Ruth on Ozark is just amazing. I hope that she wins an Emmy this year. She must have been exhausted after shooting this season.

Here’s the arty shot:

This week I finally got the return trip from Portugal changed to a much less stressful itinerary. It took me getting tearful on the phone to Orbitz, and a much more sympathetic customer service agent. I said on the record for Orbitz in case anyone ever listens to that monitored recording that I do not understand why Orbitz lists Aer Lingus flights if it is so difficult for them to communicate with them. Finally the customer service agent canceled my flight and rebooked it, so now we will travel back from Lisbon to Boston all in one day. It means that we will stay Wednesday night in Lisbon instead of flying to the Dublin airport at 1:35 a.m. and spend Thursday night near Boston, since I couldn’t find an affordable flight back home on Thursday night. All this was about the same price, and even with the extra hotel rooms cheaper than flying all the way home on Thursday. At least we will be better rested.

This week was the first week since winter break that I have worked all five days without having to take sick time for headaches or stress.

The plan today is to go to a local shoe store and shop for Doc Martens to wear in Lisbon. I’ve always wanted a pair and the women in my Portugal expat Facebook group recommend them. Lisbon is tough walking with the cobblestones and uneven pavement and steep hills. Apparently a lot of these women wear them everywhere in Lisbon, including restaurants. I hope that I can wear them because I have funny feet – very high arches, wide, and a bone spur on the back of my right heel. If not, I’ll go back to my men’s Merrills.

I’ll go by the studio at the arts center today or tomorrow and pick up the rest of my stuff. I canceled my membership this week but I have until Feb. 23. It was a good idea but the heat was too much. If it is not too hot in the room, I’ll lay out the panels for the shirt blanket and pin them together for sewing at home.

Tapestry weaving is on the agenda, of course. My loaned out Mirrix is back home so I may warp it up for something simple or for sampling. I want to finish warping the Macomber for a rag rug. I have too many unfinished projects, though. I also need to get the lake tapestry mounted and framed.

Sandy bought one of those meal services where they send you a box of groceries and some recipes and you prep and cook it. I should say, he preps and cooks it. This is his deal, and he is owning it. This week he cooked barramundi with a salad and roasted green beans and I have to admit that it was really good. It was thoughtful of him, too, because I love fish and he doesn’t.

I finished reading “A Fatal Grace” by Louise Penny and have started on the next one, “The Cruelest Month.” I understand why she is so popular. I enjoy them but murder mysteries aren’t really my thing. I would like to find another historical fiction or fantasy/sci fi novel to lose my self in that is not too depressing.

We’re considering changing our phone service from Credo (Sprint) to T-Mobile. If anyone has any feedback about T-Mobile, I’d appreciate hearing it.

Our house is 99 years old this year.

Sandy has rearranged the front “living” room, which is a long narrow room stretching across the whole front of the house. In other Craftsman bungalows this room is divided into two small rooms. It’s always been hard to decide how to arrange this room, with the wood stove on one side and the cable connections on the other. It is 11 feet wide on this end and about 13 feet wide on the fireplace side, and I’m guessing about 30 feet long. There used to be French doors leading into the “dining room.” We have usually tended to divide it up like two spaces. For a while I put room dividers of books and art supplies and made this part my studio, but it was always too dark and crowded. I like it right now – cozy with the big sofa and big chair, art books beside me, ottoman to put my feet up, cat tree between the sofa and chair, soft lighting. My mother’s little reading floor lamp is in the corner, with a watercolor paper shade that she punched and snipped a design into. Yes, the plaster needs repair!

And that front door – oof. One day.

When we first moved in here, we were so used to living in a tiny space and so intimidated about what to do with this room that we left it empty for months.

Anyway, I am happy about the change and I suspect it will get me out of the bedroom more often, although I prefer it without the TV on.

One thing that I regret is that there are no photos of any rooms from my childhood home other than the living room, where we seldom spent any time, or a few dining room shots that only show the counter with food on it. So I’m trying to resolve that with this home. One thing that I love about the digital age is that you can take lots of photos and not worrying about the expense of wasting film!

I figure that if we ever get around to remodeling the bedrooms and Sandy’s man cave, and boy, do they need it, we can sleep in this spot. The floor and ceiling and sliding closet doors and walls need to be redone in the small bedroom where I sleep. The old ceiling tiles in there are stained and bulging from old roof leaks and the wallpaper is the only thing holding the cracked plaster in the walls together. The sliding closet doors are metal and difficult and noisy to open and close. The whole house tilts to the south. We did fix the foundation years ago, at least.

When we go into our neighbors’ houses, it is always interesting to see how they have dealt with this similar layout. Most of them knocked out the wall that made this room two rooms. One has a tiny foyer because they put in stairs and built a second story.

These things will have to wait, but luckily I am not the sort who has to have everything just right. However, I did always think that I would have these repairs done long before now, and we can’t just let the house fall apart. We have spent a lot of money on this house on the more basic stuff – electrical repair, new HVAC system, roof, new chimneys. I admit that the solar panels were a bit over the top – they will never pay themselves off, probably, because Duke Energy is going to keep raising their fee to connect them to the net metering system unless politicians have the will to stop them. (The unfairness of this kept me awake a couple of nights this week, until I convinced myself not to worry about something that I have no control over.) I do like that I am producing renewable energy on my rooftop. I probably should have spent the money on something else, though, in hindsight. I never regret spending money on travel.

I have been reading a book that surprised me – The Master, by Colm Toibin, a fictional biography of the author Henry James. I picked it up a couple of times and gave up after the first chapter. I was disappointed because I had picked it because I am focused on Irish writers and this was not about Ireland. Once I managed to get into it, though, I was entranced with the complexity of the characters and I felt as though I had met a twin soul, as far as his introversion and inner turmoil. In particular, the women caught my heart. It made realize that I had never read Henry James, or seen the movies based on his books. So I downloaded “The Portrait of a Lady” and I am watching it on Amazon Prime right now.

I took my last prednisolone this morning and I am looking forward to Sandy being off of his steroid doses, as his are much stronger and more frequent that mine were. It suppresses your immune system so it has made me more anxious about catching a variant of Covid-19. My heel is somewhat better but I haven’t really put it to the test yet. I will be on meloxicam for another three weeks, so I stopped drinking. I haven’t forgotten what strong anti-inflammatories did to my gut years ago. The fridge has lots of good ales in it, and I haven’t touched one in a week. It is very tempting, but I will try to save them to take to the lake in a couple of weeks.

Now there is beef stew in the crock pot. A few carrot tops that had sprouted were planted in one of the containers at the front. I haven’t done this before so we will see if they take root or if they become snacks for the squirrels. I hear our neighbor across the street playing cornhole with his grandkids. We are about to go out and do some shopping (with our masks on) and later if the light and temperature is good on the porch, I’ll weave a little bit on the lake tapestry. That will be for tomorrow’s post.