Month: June 2021

Tuesday Project Planning: About To Slipcover

Karen

I’ve made big home dec things like curtains in the past and decided that making big home dec things is too much of a headache. But the cushion on the chaise lounge outside is ready to be replaced and I just didn’t feel like spending $100 for something, both for the waste and because I know I can make it for less.

So I’m going to try making a slipcover, in this outdoor fabric from JoAnn (not online, or I’d link it):

I think the green will make it look more refreshing out there in the full southwest exposure. I also like the black background, which will match the “adult kiddie pool” I picked up that’s going out there:

It’s going to be so fancy! Just like this pool at the Parker Palm Springs:

Friday Links

Karen

1. As I see more and more grey hairs, I’m more and more interested in other women’s take on it (and I still wish for a cool gray streak, but no, it’s coming in evenly). From the New Yorker about giving up coloring during the pandemic: Silver Linings.

2. Also related to women of a certain age: If you’ve had a vaccine, maybe you want to read this.

3. Still reading everything I can about the future of remote work. This Ed Zitron article was a link from a Charlie Warzel newsletter (I think; I get a lot of newsletters).

The drumbeat around hybrid work is not remotely about spontaneity or collaboration, deep down. Sure, there’s a vague element of “it’d be nice to see everyone,” but I think at the core there’s just an expectation that people have done this for years, and thus it’s the way things work…And, if I may be a little dark, I think that there is an executive function that asks “what am I getting for this money?” and doesn’t want to admit that part of that thing they’re getting is a person’s physical presence as well as the time, so that they may feel that they own them.

 

Wednesday Poem

Karen

This was in Laura Olin’s newsletter last week and it’s a doozy.

Earl
by Louise Jenkins

In Sitka, because they are fond of them,
People have named the seals. Every seal
is named Earl because they are killed one
after another by the orca, the killer
whale; seal bodies tossed left and right
into the air. “At least he didn’t get
Earl,” someone says. And sure enough,
after a time, that same friendly,
bewhiskered face bobs to the surface.
It’s Earl again. Well, how else are you
to live except by denial, by some
palatable fiction, some little song to
sing while the inevitable, the black and
white blindsiding fact, comes hurtling
toward you out of the deep?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Tiger Shirt For Doc

Karen

It’s been a bit since I’ve made a shirt for my love. Considering that I forgot our anniversary in March, he deserved a really nice shirt when he got one again. Maybe in some…TIGER PRINT RAYON?

Those tigers came from The Fabric Store in New Zealand and the quality is just gorgeous–opaque enough for a shirt, buttery soft, and cool (temperature wise, but also it’s just cool). I used the New Look 6197 that I’d used a couple times before, so no construction mods or issues.

I pattern matched the hell out of the pockets but the center fronts didn’t turn out quite as accurate as I’d hoped. But overall, I think I did the fabric justice.

The River

Karen

We went up the canyon (as far as we could; the upper half still isn’t open) and did our Afternoon River Hang (TM) for the first time this summer. In my 41st year, I’ve realized that I really like the water? I’ve never been a strong swimmer but I realized that hanging out by a lake or a hot springs or getting into a river is all I’ve wanted to do for the last year.

I am, of course, going to quote The Wind in the Willows:

Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

 

Friday Links

Karen

1. Would you like to see every Bob Ross painting ever done, with links to the show where he paints it? I thought so.

2. Here is Mona Eltahawy talking about grief literacy, in a post-pandemic sense and also just in general.

People in a grief literate society would understand and accept differences in grieving styles, in terms of gender, race, and culture, and they would feel comfortable to talk about their own loss experiences and to ask about loss experiences of others, instead of avoiding the subject or showing discomfort.

 

3. Yep:

“aaall right”

Yes Please

Karen

Maybe unsurprisingly, taking a long weekend off work did not actually make me more willing to go back to work today. I’ve been reading (and posting) a lot about burnout and the effects of the pandemic, so this Charlie Warzel newsletter, in which he argues for companies enacting a lighter workload for the summer seems like a brilliant idea. From It’s Time for a Summer Slowdown:

All of us are emerging from the darkest days of the pandemic with a good deal of unprocessed trauma and a bone deep fatigue. It’s been described as burnout or hitting the pandemic wall. Some of it is the result of existential depression, and some of it is a sense of isolation or languishing. Organizations have tried to acknowledge the difficulty of the moment — while also expecting their employees to continue working, with little to no fluctuation in actual productivity.

…The last year of remote work has required a concerted effort to ignore the giant Covid-shaped elephant in the room. There were very, very few formalized HR policies to address the dull ennui of extended quarantine or the particular type of anxiety that accompanies a year of worrying a grocery store run could leave you or a loved one in the ICU. And so privileged remote workers labored (safely) on, through exposure scares and terrifying push notifications and attempted coups and insurrections. There was work to do — and very little else.

But for those who’ve been vaccinated, components of pre-pandemic life are returning: hugs, extended family, indoor dining, and all kinds of glorious, time-wasting bullshit. In other words, perfect excuses, after 15 months of isolation, to not be productive.