Karen

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Posts by Karen Kaminski:

Friday Links

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1. I’ve made 3 different pasta salads in the last week. And not fancy ones, more like the ones my grandma and mom made, the kind you get a a Midwestern church potluck. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Taste of Home will show you (make sure you read the head notes for high praise such as “This will feed a lot of people”).

 

2. The classic text tones as dance moves:

@cost_n_mayor Reply to @krustykrustykrab ♬ original sound – Cost n’ Mayor

 

3. Really feeling this, but enjoy the long weekend regardless.

Taking A Break From Rage: Jewelry-Making Class!

By in crafts No Comments

I escaped during the workday Tuesday and met our Canadian friend at B. Golden Jewelry School, which I’ve heard about for years but never looked in to. Reader, it was so fun! Our class was an “intro to precious metal clay,” aka a mix of silver dust and binders that acts just like clay.

You roll it out on a texture plate and cut it to shape, then let it dry a little. (If you’re friends with our friend, you can also bring a 3D object and use her silicon mold-making supplies to make a mold of it and then press the clay into that mold.)

Then–the exciting part!–you torch fire it with an acetylene torch (!) to burn away (!!) the organic binders in the clay and sinter the silver dust into a solid.

Then you scrub off the residue from the firing and add patina if you want, and polish it all up:

And then you have JEWELS! That are fine silver, that you MADE! Including a couple casts of a Toby claw that I’m already planning on learning how to add a cap and a bail to:

I haven’t talked about it here but this year I’ve gotten into fine jewelry, which started when I got some of my mom’s to wear. Is jewelry making the next step? Can I afford a gold smithing hobby? It’s probably about the same as a gold collecting hobby…

Wednesday Poem

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An excerpt from “Right to Life” by Marge Piercy; full poem is here if you want to be even more fired up.

… I am not your cornfield,
not your uranium mine, not your calf
for fattening, not your cow for milking.
You may not use me as your factory.
Priests and legislators do not hold
shares in my womb or my mind.
This is my body. If I give it to you
I want it back. My life
is a non-negotiable demand.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Patio Chair Cushions (so you can watch your rights erode in comfort)

By in sewing, Tuesday Project Roundup No Comments

Even though I was pondering fancy “egg” chairs, I ended up buying some mod IKEA chairs for the patio. The IKEA chair pads made me sad (too thin and too beige) so I made my own:

Joann had outdoor foam in a 15×17 inch size so I didn’t even have to cut it. I used an outdoor jacquard that was on sale from there, continuous zipper coil from Wawak, and the Sailrite tutorial I used for the chaise slipcover.

It took me three weeks or so to get around to making these, but the actual sewing time was under an hour. And now we can sit more comfortably and watch the slowpocalypse from the deck!

It’s Morning In America

By in politics No Comments

…and a gun or a corpse has more rights than I do! (No, I hadn’t read the news when I posted Friday.) Here are some memes and links to enjoy if you, too, have been reduced to a vessel. But guess what? If I can’t be a person, I can be a problem.


And some things I read over the weekend that gave the tiniest glimmers of hope:

AOC’s thread on what Democrats can do now

The NY Times on how to discipline a rogue court

Mass online volunteer training happening July 17

A few questions you can ask yourself on hopeless days

Friday Links

By in Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Summer Solstice was overshadowed by cat health crises this week, but happy belated longest day. Maybe you recited the Orphic Hymn to the Sun?

Agile and vig’rous, venerable Sun,
Fiery and bright around the heav’ns you run,
Foe to the wicked, but the good man’s guide,
O’er all his steps propitious you preside.

 

2, Marimekko has launched a library of all its fabric prints (!) called the Maripedia. Someday I’m gonna visit those Scandinavian countries and return with so much Marimekko and Josef Frank.

 

3. This. So much this.

Thursday Poem

By in poems

I try to be careful about sunscreen but I’m at the age where any sun exposure really brings all the latent UV damage to the surface of my skin. (Oh well, I’m not going to avoid the life-giving daystar.) Looking in the mirror and thinking about all the summers past reminded me of this poem

 

Dark Charms
by Dorianne Laux

Eventually the future shows up everywhere:
those burly summers and unslept nights in deep
lines and dark splotches, thinning skin.
Here’s the corner store grown to a condo,
the bike reduced to one spinning wheel,
the ghost of a dog that used to be, her trail
no longer trodden, just a dip in the weeds.
The clear water we drank as thirsty children
still runs through our veins. Stars we saw then
we still see now, only fewer, dimmer, less often.
The old tunes play and continue to move us
in spite of our learning, the wraith of romance,
lost innocence, literature, the death of the poets.
We continue to speak, if only in whispers,
to something inside us that longs to be named.
We name it the past and drag it behind us,
bag like a lung filled with shadow and song,
dreams of running, the keys to lost names.

 

Feelings And Memes

By in gram time

Toby was a champ at the vet and barely stopped eating just now when I gave him his first unsupervised insulin injection. So that’s a relief. But I’m sure he feels this just as hard as I do:

This is so accurate and I change what side of the bus I sit on every hour, sometimes:

Live footage of me at my job:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by F M R (@futuremindreader)

This Poor Cat Can’t Catch A Break

By in Toby

Well, it’s a good thing we’re going to the vet today because yesterday afternoon I looked at Toby and said, “Wait, does your other ear have a hematoma now?”  Reader, it does:

The ear on the left in the picture is the one that got misshapen from the hematoma three years ago. The ear on the right is the swelling level as of this morning, and it’s already crumpled. I guess now his little crumpled ears will match? (I am not handling this well, actually.)

So we changed our morning vet tech appointment to an afternoon visit with a real vet, to drain the ear and then learn how to give insulin. This poor cat.

A Mixed Bag

By in weekend report 2 Comments

I have very few pictures for my time off but a lot happened, not all of it great: I stained the deck but didn’t get new outdoor cushions made (or a trip swimsuit); I saw a lot of friends but also had to log in to work to write an “emergency” email and manage a “crisis” about a tradeshow booth; I did my quick trip to Lava Hot Springs but worried about Toby for most of it, since we heard from the vet about his second blood test and he does indeed have feline diabetes.

So I also added “read all about treatment, schedule a vet tech appointment to learn how to do the injections, and visit a compounding pharmacy to pick up a cat-sized vial of insulin” to the list for my time off. The appointment and first injection is tomorrow and I’m hopeful that he’ll start improving really soon.

Anyway, here’s a picture of a waffle from a place in Lava Hot Springs called “Lava Waffle,” which has been repeating itself in my head since yesterday. “Lavawaffle… lavawaffle… lavawaffle…” 

 

 

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