random thoughts – Day 2,389 (Thursday 10/1) – falling gently

The ferns are changing.

The day was warmer than recent days with a springlike high of 71 degrees and I was on board with it. During an early afternoon walk to fetch the mail, drop off a book at The Little Library, and admire the neighborhood leaves, there was a quick chat about books with a neighbor while at the mailboxes and then we were each on our way.

Day by day, the foliage is turning colors and it’s pretty. The trees are taking on shades of red, orange, and gold. It’s still a gentle transition, but soon, it may look like a riot of color. Even the ferns are getting in on the wardrobe change from summer green to fall yellow. I don’t remember noticing this last year, but it’s possible they were mowed down before the color change.

Along with foliage season, dance season is in full swing with new choreography in the works with the dance bestie/duet partner. The music was chosen quite a while ago, the research was underway, and ideas were percolating. She arrived at my house with an outline for the dance and we got busy reviewing traditional steps found in our initial research. It was fun. It is always fun. 

random thoughts – Day 2,388 (Wednesday) – prepping projects

The scrap bins.

With nothing on the calendar for the morning I was free to make it up as it went along (like many days, because life is good). I decided to browse the containers of scrap glass and cut some pieces for new patterns for the next time I’m in the glass studio.

It had been years since I last looked in the scrap bins. More precisely, the “bins” are two frozen mini éclair containers, one cardboard box, and one rectangle Rubbermaid container that live on the future cutting table in the future craft room at the house. The bins have existed for nearly 20 years since the last time I worked in glass. They contain a variety of colored, patterned, and clear glass. 

While looking for pieces that would have minimal cutting for the patterns, I discovered a trove of scrap already clean-cut in rectangles, triangles, and squares. These were set aside for a project that could be arranged to require no cutting or grinding.

Purple project number one,
cut and ready for grinding.

During the cutting of glass for the second project, there was an abnormal of bloodletting. I don’t usually get cut working with glass, but today was a different story. There were several tiny nicks but the many dots of blood on the pattern paper, the newspaper covering the table, and the glass made it look worse. 

Partly because of the cuts, and partly because it was a good stopping point, it was decided to stop when the pieces were rough cut for the second project. The glass for each was set into a plastic bag, ready for grinding and assembly. And it was good.

random thoughts – Day 2,387 (Tuesday) – dancing double header

Tuesday dance bag.

Tuesday is dance day. For a few years, there was belly dance on Tuesday nights in Hudson. This past summer, when belly dance class was on holiday, there was Denishawn in Fitchburg on Tuesdays in the late afternoon, which has been running for many years without me due to the inconvenience of a job that prevented attending an afternoon class, and then the conflict with the timing of belly dance class.

After a couple months of Tuesday afternoon dancing, beginning three weeks ago, belly dance resumed and the time space continuum caused the two dance forms to overlap. The distance between Fitchburg and Marlboro prevented attending both without missing a chunk of one, the other, or both.

As of this week, the Fitchburg dance group (two hours long) starts earlier, leaving me just enough time to get to the Marlboro class (one hour long), barring traffic jams, accidents, etc. And so it was done. The dance bag was packed with suede-soled ballet shoes and volleyball knee pads for the floor work, plus belly dance coin belts, a pouch with zills, and the light rubber soled shoes I wear for belly dance. That worked out, because the floor in Fitchburg was so slippery today I ended up wearing the rubber soled shoes to avoid wiping out and breaking something. As belly dance progresses, there will be veils and skirts needed, increasing the wardrobe packing.

The biggest impediment to connecting the two dance classes, roughly one hour’s drive apart, lies in leaving Fitchburg. Route 2 is across town from the dance site, with traffic lights and heavy volume in the way. With a lifetime connection to Fitchburg, I had anticipated this, so it wasn’t a surprise, just mildly annoying.

Another impediment in the journey is the inconsistent volume of the navigation on the phone. It might be the phone, it might be the app, I don’t know. What I do know is if I turn down the volume while playing chess on Duolingo, when it is turned back up for Waze, most of the time the navigation is at whisper level, at best. This leaves me on high alert the entire drive, radio silenced, ears staining to hear the traffic alerts and navigation, which can change based on traffic conditions.

Despite the navigation challenge, the driving was tolerable and both dance session were great. In the first dance group, we ran through all the warmups, stretching, and center technique, followed by the repertoire of dances. In the belly dance group we did an warmup and some hip technique exercises, followed by working on choreography. We finished up with arm technique exercises and a touch of improvisational movement. I almost wish every day was a double header dance class day, just without  the driving part. At least the scenery was pretty, with the leaves turning red, orange, and yellow along much of the routes. 

random thoughts – Day 2,386 (Monday) – glass and roasting

Crescent moon, foiled and ready for solder.

Mondays weren’t always fun, but with retirement and then stained glass class, that reputation has changed. It’s great spending time in a fully equipped studio with access to the expertise of the instructor. The plan for the day was to do the final grinding and fitting of the glass in the crescent moon which was cut in tones of yellows with greenish-gray that was started last week. The assembly step involves applying copper foil tape to the edges, and applying solder along the foil lines on both sides and the outer edges.

When that was done, there was time to start cutting the glass for one of the patterns I drew last week. It features clear textured and iridescent glass and a diamond shaped bevel. Before leaving for class I had browsed my clear scrap bin and chosen pieces large enough to work for the pattern pieces.  It was quick work with the cutter to score the outlines.

I have a cutter and lots of scrap from past projects just waiting to come out and play so I may hand cut the pieces for several projects and package a kit for each one to bring to the studio. This will let me spend my studio time focused on grinding, foiling, and soldering.

Fall roasting season has begun.

After class and back at home, the crescent moon was hung and attention turned to kicking off fall roasting season. Roma tomatoes, carrots, and onions were sliced and brussels sprouts were halved. Everything was coated in olive oil with salt and pepper and roasted in the oven. The veggies were delicious and served with creamy mushroom risotto and a satisfying way to celebrate a productive day.

random thoughts – Day 2,385 (Sunday) – weather and mystery

View on a wet and windy day.

The weather was wild throughout the overnight stretch from Saturday into Sunday. I was tired and went to bed at the very responsible hour of 10:00 and read for a bit, until I was sufficiently sleepy. There was a brief nap and then I was awake all over again. Still awake (and annoyed) at 1:00 am, with the wind howling and rain slamming from every direction, I did the thing I usually manage to avoid and picked up the phone. Soon, I was deep in a Doomscroll and it was suddenly 2:00. The phone was put down and I tried to sleep, unsuccessfully, and suddenly it was 3:00 and I was really annoyed, but I finally fell asleep.

A bit after 8:00 I woke up tired, but got up anyway. It wasn’t until the coffee grounds and water were in the machine and nothing happened that I was aware the power was out. A text from the power company about the outage and a map on their system indicated 450 people in my chunk of town were out of power. The estimate for repair was 4:00 pm, which felt very far away.

Kudos to National Grid for under promising and over delivering. The power was restored at 9:20 am, coffee was made and consumed, and my world was returned to its axis. The weather was still wretched with a forecast for a full day of it, and it was decided to stay in and enjoy the rainy day.

There was another installment of the seasonal game “find the rest of the sweaters” when I prepared to dress and couldn’t find the one I wanted to combat the chill in my other game of “don't turn on the furnace.” The targeted sweater was finally located with a bunch more, and the final analysis is that I have many more sweaters than I need. Maybe. Life is uncertain and I can’t see the future, so it would be risky (foolhardy, even) to discard the nice office sweaters or the dressy sweaters just because they weren’t used last winter. 

Maybe I’ll finally create a social life in my new city and have a variety of places to go and things to do. Maybe I’ll be 20 years old again and be crowned the queen of some remote country due to an unknown lineage like in a Hallmark movie. Anything is possible, right?

In the weirdness of the weather and the power outage and the sweater agonizing/organizing, it was 11:00 am when I realized Kiki hadn't been seen since Saturday night when she got her treats before I went to bed. I walked around the house, calling her name and looking in all the rooms. She was in none of her known places. I finally found her blending in with the shadows in the darkest corner under the bed, which I had already checked. It felt a little like our first few weeks together in Lowell when she hid inside the box spring for weeks on end.

And suddenly, she appeared.

Once, I laid on the floor and stretched my arm under the bed to hand feed Kiki some treats. She stayed under the bed until nearly 9:00 pm, when she finally emerged, acting like nothing was different and she hadn’t been MIA all day. She wanted her cheeks rubbed and let me pet her from head to tail. 

It seems to be a continuation of Kiki mixing things up since a month or so ago when she stopped sleeping on top of the bed and with me at night, as suddenly as she started.

random thoughts – Day 2,384 (Saturday) – books, fabric, toad

New used books!

There were several things on the calendar for today and the threat of heavy rain and wind from the Nor’ Easter altered most of them. The situation is the same for events planned for Sunday, one of which was a belly dance show now postponed to January.

Today’s Octoberfest in downtown Gardner was modified and the bands were moved inside to the brew pub. The Chair Luge race component was moved to next Saturday. That was okay because it eliminated the street closures which made it easier to get to the library book sale. Not that I need more books, but that didn't stop me and of course I went.

Being indoor shopping for books was a great way to spend part of a cloudy, drizzly, windy morning. I stuck to the non-fiction section of the room packed with books. Unlike the fiction half of the room, the non-fiction books were grouped and labeled by major category, so it was less overwhelming. Plus, I had made a list of a couple topics I needed.

Cool skirt fabric, future dance stuff.

For the pittance of $8, I got some good ones including The City and the River (a history of Fitchburg), and books on gardening, stained glass, writing, and quilt blocks. Stained glass, gardening and quilt blocks were on my list, the rest were bonus books. The quilt block book will be helpful with stained glass designs, which is how I started out with them decades ago, with books borrowed from the library.

On the way home from the book sale, despite my best intention to be strong and avoid The Salvation Army Thrift Store, the car propelled itself into a left turn into the parking lot. It was the darndest thing, but it worked out, because I found a skirt in a really cool red, purple and black iridescent fabric. There is enough material to transform it into a belly dance belt and dance bra cover.

Itty bitty toad.

A trip was taken to the back yard to fetch the pot of lavender. When I picked it up, something on the edge of the pot moved. At first, I thought it was a leaf, but it turned out to be the cutest, tiniest little gray and lichen green toad, barely the size of a quarter. 

It sat on the edge of the pot long enough for me to run into the house for my phone, and come back out to take pictures. My little model was camera shy and kept turning its back to my phone's lens. After a couple pics it jumped off the pot edge onto the ground where it blended in with the landscape. 

The wind was crazy all day, and it rained intermittently, but it wasn’t the storm I expected. Facebook posts from friends in other towns reported downed trees, power outages, and flooded streets and I was saddened for them and glad that wasn’t the story in my immediate area.

The evening’s entertainment was baking an apple crisp with apples from Mom while the rain alternated between slamming against the house and falling gently. The hardest part of the baking was the fact that orange concentrate is no longer made by the major producers and is hard to find. I ended up researching how to make my own by boiling down orange juice. It wasn’t difficult, but it also wasn’t as thick as real concentrate and the apple crisp filling came out wetter than usual. It’s fortunate that that was the worst thing to happen in my day.

random thoughts – Day 2,383 (Friday) – shopping and pizza

The stream at the end of the street.

The weather forecast is for some crazy wind and rain so preparations were made. Luckily, not much needed to be done. The potted plants, solar lanterns, and small yard bird figurine things were all taken inside. The flower boxes near the front stairs were brough to the back landing under the carport. It took just a few minutes.

There was a trip to Aldi for the regular grocery shopping of the items I know cost less than Hannaford which is basically everything except Ben and Jerry ice cream (2/$7 at Hannaford, $4.85 at Aldi). It seemed to be annoying customer night. 

One guy stood at his cart which was stopped in the middle of the aisle, with two kids around eight and nine years old hanging off it and horsing around. Three of us stood there waiting for him to move the cart so we could pass. He finally did, and out loud to all of us said, “it’s a daughter thing.” Dude, how about you be the adult, not blame your kids for your obliviousness, and move the cart? Just a thought.

There was a couple shopping for pasta dinner things who absolutely reeked of pot. I smelled it before I reached them and it lingered in my nose after I had moved on. Right about the time I shook the smell, I found myself with them again in another aisle. It reminded me of the time a skunk sprayed near the house and the cloud hung in the air for several days. Usually I enjoy taking my time shopping in Aldi, but tonight I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

The ride home featured a sky tinged in pink over the tree tops that blocked most of the view that I was sure was or would soon be spectacular. I love trees, but there are drawbacks. I paused to enjoy the pink sky reflected in the stream at the end of the street. 

Friday night pizza party.

Back in the house it was pizza party of one night, with the just bought $5.99 refrigerated four cheese pizza from Aldi. I added mushroom and onion slices and more mozzarella cheese before it went into the oven. I usually get six or seven meals out of it at one or two slices each, so it’s well worth the price. I love the comfort of knowing there are individual slices wrapped in foil in the freezer for those times when hunger hits suddenly or I just don’t feel like thinking about food.