I guess it’s summer- we’ve had some pleasantly hot days where we could leave the windows and doors open, and some when we closed up. The flowers are blooming- the roses are not so vigorous as they were, but there are several colors of lilies, and dandelions, there’s campion (and of course the knotweed is trying to take over everything). We had a bit of rain, but I’ve been able to do one wash a day and hang it out without worrying. (OK, I got caught once.) The farmstead has raspberries, early blueberries, cherries, and lots of tomatoes and lettuce. I got one pack of lettuce and a tomato plant in hopes John will have something fresh while we’re at Pennsic. I wish I’d thought of it while they still had cucumber sets. We repotted the Pennsic morning glories and put poles for them to start climbing.
Last weekend the girls went to CanobieCon- Willow’s cosplay was Thor and Kat’s was Loki. Sadly she didn’t get any good pictures of them individually. Kat had the cutest little horns, and Willow had a headband with the wings Thor has on his helmet. The key point of course is that people can tell what you are, but that it won’t be too hot, and get in your way on the rides. Rather than a hammer, Willow had a walking stick like Don Blakes that said “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor”. And it doubled as a cane, if she got tired. Cool!
And thank goodness it was cool. (We celebrated when it got down to 75º) It had been really hot on Thursday, but Friday it cooled down. (That was when it rained.) I think we still had a few leftovers from 4th of July until the weekend. It seems odd, but I’ve hardly been cooking at all, and don’t have much urge to. (Odd for me, anyway) But no one else has much urge to eat, so the satisfaction from doing it is lessened.Today I made a batch of the sandwich rolls we like to keep in the `fridge in the summer for when we either get too hungry, or it gets cool enough that we feel like eating- but not putting anything together.
Thursday, Willow went down to Tufts and had two back-to-back dentist visits. It doesn’t seem to have changed much. The dental students are very careful and very friendly, and the professors who come check them seem really competent. The only drawback is how long it takes. Willow had a full mouth worth of X rays taken, and they weren’t really good at it yet. Meanwhile I took Kat over to get her roots done so she’d look good this weekend as Loki. I hope they haven’t grown out too much by Pennsic.
Willow’s started making the burn balm for Pennsic. She uses the 100% aloe, and has a bit of a hard time working out “how many bottles at 24 oz, do I need to fill 20 8 oz jars and 20 4 oz jars…” (math word problems from hell). It looked like not enough, so Kat and I tried to find a couple more jars, and apparently most of the stuff out there is water and glycerine with aloe added. No wonder Willow’s works better! They won’t need herbal fly repellant, but she’s also got to make the oops ointment and other ones. And tonight she got a commission, and doesn’t have the blanket on hand, nor the right colors of fleece! How frustrating! She’ll probably pick the fleece up tomorrow, cut it out and sew it at GNEW- or wait until we get back.
I foolishly agreed to go to the blood drive tomorrow- figured we could do it on the way, but then Willow pointed out that after you give blood, you aren’t supposed to lift any heavy objects, and she didn’t want to have to unload and put the tent up by herself. GOOD POINT! We’ll find another drive when we get back!
I figured that if I had “nothing to do” I could get the booklet on the witch-trials done. I was wrong. Now I’m trying to get the various handouts for the 5 classes (and one meeting) I’ll be doing. Mark came over and read to me a while which I enjoy. I have been (sort of) enjoying the books on the witch trials (I’m being so careful not to call them witch hunts, witch craze, or persecutions, but I am made a bit uncomfortable by the idea that when economic and other social pressures get hard, it brings out the worst in us, and we attack each other. It feels too current. I did get the short hand-outs done, and I’ve mostly finished the full booklet, but I keep finding things I want to put in. When Kat and I were out I picked up a book from the library that’s about how people are most violent when they are feeling virtuous. Well, of course, if you aren’t sure you are right, you aren’t going to hurt someone over it, are you? I fear it wasn’t until Friday or Saturday that I finished taking the various components of the subject, turning it into an outline, and then wrestling the various paragraphs I’d put in into the outline. There has to be some sort of organization! I kept looking at how other books had been organized- but kept finding things I thought I should include. Really, you should have a point, and what you say should build up to it and since I was just gathering information, I didn’t have a point to make. I fear that the point is, that it’s so complicated, you can’t hang an explanation on any one or even a few factors. I am convinced that misogyny is a large part of it- it can’t be 80-85% of the victims were female without that as an underlying cause, but I think part of that is so built into western Christian culture that we don’t even see it anymore. Women hated and feared each other and themselves. I was hoping we were getting better, but the news, the little I allow myself recently, doesn’t make me feel hopeful. The world rallying around the trapped kids in the cave was nice, though. It’s a shame it diverted attention from the thousands torn from their families (with some of the records destroyed). I sometimes feel like we’re blowing out candles on a cake next to a burning house.
Friday when it cooled down I relaxed, and finished reading Nero Wolfe- League of Frightened Gentlemen. Excellent writing! Witty, not predictable. I enjoy reading the books on the witch-trials, but fiction is lovely. Movies I’ve watched this week include They Live– apparently a cult classic from the 80s where special sunglasses allow the hero to see that some people are actually aliens, programming us through subliminal messages so they can take over. He starts killing them, as far as I can tell, just because they are different, so it’s OK. I would like them to have been a bit more dangerous than just being “in power” and different. I also watched Kismet, and the Errol Flynn Robin Hood. Costumes and heroic shenanigans, are far more my speed just now!
That’s it for this week- going to GNEW should generate something interesting. I hope your week was good.
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”Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” Eeyore! (a.a.milne)
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