zirconium: Photo of 1860 cast of Lincoln's hand (Lincoln hand)
Today's subject line comes from this weekend's Live from Here broadcast, in a reading by Lulu Miller, I think around 1 hour and 40 minutes in.

Today's photo is of a jar full of stars -- a birthday gift recently delivered to me:
jar of stars

I do not like having to multitask as often as I do, but being able to fry bacon and mushrooms while attending my church's congregational meeting is a plus, especially as it trundles through its second hour. The meeting started with an exceptionally good tutorial, and I've been jotting down Zoom navigation tips from other members (new to me: to change your name within the Participants list while in a meeting, put the cursor over your name and click "More ->").

The frying is for a quiche I'm pulling together, since there were carrot and kohlrabi tops from last week's market bag. In looking up how to prepare kohlrabi, I ended up giggling at this bit from Martha Rose Shulman [NYT]:


Every time I work with kohlrabi I wonder why I don’t buy it more often.

If you receive it in your CSA basket and you’ve never worked with it before, you may find the thick-skinned vegetable puzzling, maybe even daunting. As the nutritionist Jonny Bowden describes it in his book The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, kohlrabi “looks like a cross between an octopus and a space capsule.” That’s true, especially if the greens are still attached. If they’re not, it just looks like a space capsule.


As I told a friend last night, I'd like fewer bugs (both literal and figurative) and more sleep. I'm saying "no" and "later" to various projects to make the more sleep possible, but the docket still overfloweth. The congregation meeting hit the two-hour mark right before the chalice extinguishing. Up next, in my Franklin-Covey-ish blocks:

[A]
  • finish assembling the quiche (with a substitute for the heavy cream we don't have on hand)

  • prep for Monday presentation to interns

  • mark edits to wills/directives

  • attend an online birthday celebration

  • write Postcards to Voters

  • participate in a CalTwerk or Limon workout

  • do enough Duolingo to stay in Diamond League

  • log into an SFEMS workshop (aka getting my butt kicked in both theory and sight-singing to get better at both)

  • laundry



  • [B]
  • pick up batteries, mayonnaise, and other sundries

  • whale through more work

  • collect library holds

  • financial housekeeping

  • yardwork

  • some personal correspondence


  • [C] (aka not tonight but this week)
  • finish three library books, with a Vary the Line post related to the one on translation

  • yet more paper slinging and filing

  • research for a nonprofit task force

  • dance homework

  • start learning The Armed Man for Stay At Home Choir. First UU's choir sang it 11 years ago for Music Sunday, but I remember very little about it and may well have jumped in on soprano or tenor instead of alto.

  • continue working on the pieces already assigned to me

  • more cards and notes, including to some addresses on the Americans of Conscience list

  • figure out what to plant in the straw bale
  • :

    IMG_5314

    [D] (aka things I might not have time for but may do anyway if I get too crispy around the edges)
  • watch Stratford's Love's Labor Lost

  • improve the peanut-butter-whisky + coffee slushies I started mixing last week. I totally admit that I bought the bottle because of the label. (Netting an appalled look from the BYM was merely a bonus.)


  • Signal boosts:
    The Okra Project
    Wiggle Room (disclosure: a friend is on their team)
    The SIJS (Special Immigrant Juvenile Status) Project (disclosure: a friend runs this)

    Onward, y'all. Stay safe (within what's feasible, especially considering the demands made by both the rest of society and our individual souls) and keep in touch.
    zirconium: me @Niki de St Phalle's Firebird (firebird)
    I rarely enlist the BYM on my projects, in part because of hereditary pigheadedness on both sides and in part because I want my asks to carry sufficient weight (like updating our wills and directives *sigh*), but could I resist the #MuseumFromHome excuse to re-create Giovanni Bologna's River God? Of course not -- especially since after (very predictably) rolling his eyes, he (also very predictably) proceeded to fix the composition like a champ.

    In an Ackland Art Museum catalogue:
    Giovanni Bologna's RIVER GOD

    Chez nous:
    Me as Bologna's RIVER GOD

    In other foolery, I am delighted to see my friend Bill (a global epidemiologist who used to work in Chicago) retweeting artsy riffs on Mayor Lightfoot telling people to stay home:
    https://twitter.com/KateSchaefers/status/1245833882219487233
    https://twitter.com/BereavedBlessed/status/1245038098905542657

    Today's original plan had included yardwork and dance classes, but I sacked it when I didn't end up sacking out long enough overnight, in spite of hitting the hay well before midnight. I did take a stab at cleaning my laptop (almost literally, lifting out like a cat's worth of fuzz and crumbs with toothpicks while half-hysterically muttering jokes to myself about chametz), which (also predictably) has munged something up with my arrow keys, but at least the board as a whole is less disgusting now.

    I also tossed assorted sheaves of magazines and clippings with new realism goggles on: recipes containing reflux triggers, cosmetics reviews (so many seasons ago that the products may not even be on offer anymore), travel advice (because who the hell knows what will reopen, or when) . . .

    plantable page

    Last year was so nuts that I hadn't actually opened the April/May 2019 issue of Garden & Gun until now. It contains a plantable page of mind that I shall plunk into the front yard. The roses are spotty. Nothing else looks okay except the mint and the radish seedlings, but the violets continue to be abundant, with a few buttercups here and there.

    Indoors, the Christmas cactus is providing some pre-Palm Sunday pleasure. It is next to the aloe plant I picked up at the Presbyterian waffle shop last Noel, which has plumped up nicely under my care.

    Christmas cactus on eve of Palm Sunday Christmas cactus on eve of Palm Sunday

    There are also pepper seedlings ready to transplant. There's plenty to do (including a massive report to proofread, Sabbath notwithstanding, hence my being determined to rest the past 24 hours).
    zirconium: Photo of cat snoozing on motorcycle on a sunny day in Jersualem's Old City. (cat on moto)
    Today's mailman asked about the dog, having not seen her for a while. He said she was one of the few who didn't bark at him. I might be snuffling as I type. Read more... )
    Finally: I started this entry some hours ago. Night has fallen, so let there be light.

    first night
    zirconium: mirliton = grinning squash from NOLA (mirliton)
    bean blossom

    From what I can tell, there are several different species chomping at my bean plants, so who knows if there'll be anything to harvest. I'll have to do more research on pest deterrence before I sow the next batch. Nonetheless, it was lovely to see the start of some blossoms on the stalks this week.
    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (measured 1)
    Frelling insomnia. I blame the Australian Open (for hosing my sleep cycle) and the to-get-to list.

    That said, there are some major going-to-be-fun things on that list. One of them:

    MeasuredExtravagance-Cover600x800

    Upper Rubber Boot will be publishing my first book of poetry this spring (in time for my reading with Joanne and Mary at the Nashville Public Library on March 24). It will be available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, GoodReads, Kobo, and some other venues, formatted for ePub, Kindle, and pdf-reading machines.

    Another big thing is that I'll be turning 42 in May. Since it's a rather special number, I'm planning to host an open house that will double as a supply drive for LP Pencil Box.

    I'm mentioning this now because it happens to be on my mind, and also because I suspect some of you local peeps may not want to wait until May for an excuse to splurge on office supplies (or to thin down your existing stashes of them).

    I can just see the too-cool-for-school kidz rolling their eyes at that last paragraph, but part of being 41 going on 72 is being at peace -- or at least some semblance of detente -- with one's dorkiness. Plus, I'm a calligrapher: having a fetish for paper is part of the territory. ;-)

    There'll be more details about both the book and the birthday party once they're closer to showtime. In the meantime, I have my mug of herbal tea, a red pencil, and someone else's book to proofread. But first, a list:

    41 things I've gotten to )

    Subject line brought to you by a conversation during brunch yesterday, when a friend observed that extroverts often think introverts are boring when we're merely quiet. (Everyone was kidding, of course, but it still got me thinking about relative values of "quiet" and "boring.")

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    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (Default)
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