Karen
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Posts by Karen Kaminski:
Back In Poop Jail
Doc’s been on antibiotics since his last ER visit a month ago but Monday the pain (that he was still having! even with a month of antibiotics!!) changed and got a lot worse. We went back to the ER and he got admitted to the hospital again…aka “poop jail”:
(Our friend left us a delightful card with a slice of cake)
We think we can spring him from poop jail today and then we’re probably going to talk to the surgeon about a fix, since this keeps happening.
Meanwhile, my schedule has changed and I’m at the hospital late, and this is what Toby has to say about it: 
Claus’s Pots
We’ve been cleaning up the yard and I’ve been admiring my pots of spring bulbs. They’ve really taken off with the warm weather and it feels so fancy to have an array of color coordinated flowers so early in the season!
Well, it DID feel so fancy…until I saw Claus Dalby’s reveal of his spring seasonal bulbs:
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Oh, to have a giant garden and a greenhouse and a helper named Preben…
Friday Links
1. I recently found cook and author Julia Turshen and she’s so great (check out her salad charts! and she’s a powerlifter!). As I was reading through her newsletter archive I found this one about cooking as “relentless care,” which I try to remember now when I feel overwhelmed by the world, or by the inexorable need for humans to eat three meals a day:
It is work, it is effort, to care for ourselves and each other. Fortitude requires this essential labor… [Cooking] is not just figuring out what to make (that’s the fun part!), it’s also grocery shopping, budgeting, setting up, cleaning up, considering everyone’s needs and likes and dislikes, and doing the creative problem solving of figuring out how to use up what’s leftover. It’s keeping a constant mental inventory of what’s on hand and what’s needed. It’s all of this multiple times a day, every single day. Its never actually ends.
Within this familiar endlessness is relentless care.
2. I was this fox this week:
3. But some of that might due to lack of quality sleep because we let our pet sleep on the bed with us and now he’s taking over the world:
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Thursday Poem
This is by Langston Hughes, who I could really be more familiar with, and it feels appropriate for big uneven feelings.
Island
Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:
I see the island
Still ahead somehow.
I see the island
And its sands are fair:
Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
Chaotic Mood Board
It’s been an emotional roller coaster but it’s also been a meteorological roller coaster, enough so that the NWS put an actual roller coaster on their social media graphic:
On the other hand, we can embrace nature being different every day along with our moods and our efforts (I guess):
I finally finished my taxes last night. To do so I had to hunt down my current employer’s state tax info and then pretty much take my best guess at my past [bankrupt] employer’s info, and this really sums up my mood:
Easter makes me miss my mom and her birthday is coming up Saturday, too. I cannot agree more with this:
Okay! We’re all doing our best and it might snow again tomorrow. Hang in there, friends.
Spring! Feelings!
I took a long weekend and the sun was out–FINALLY–but it was kind of a roller coaster of feelings: Saturday I cleaned up the yard and made cookies and did some sewing and it was lovely. Sunday we met friends at Red Butte for the bonsai show but then the day just felt long and empty and I missed my mom and how she would always make a big deal about Easter. Then on Monday I went to IKEA to get a new desk and everything about that was a struggle.
And now today I’m back at work (at the new desk, which finally got assembled) and the sun is out…so maybe the feelings will level out.
Friday Links
1. I’ve been reading all the chatter about AI and how good it is and decided to start playing with ChatGPT for ideas and brainstorming. I can conclude that my job is safe (for now)…but it’s a useful tool to get started. Austin Kleon writes about treating AI as an intern, and I think that’s about right.
This first round of primitive AI agents like ChatGPT and Dalle are best thought of as universal interns… [They can] write a rough draft, suggest code, summarize the research, review the talk, brainstorm ideas, make a mood board, suggest a headline, and so on. As interns, their work has to be checked and reviewed. And then made better.
2. However, if I were a designer at Balenciaga, I’d be a little worried about AI taking my job:
3. The last line here!
4. The SUN is coming out for the weekend and it might even be WARM. This is me (by Sarah Hagale):
Dream Vs. Reality
I recently found the Danish gardener Claus Dalby, who seems to be kind of a Euro Martha Stewart (he has books and an Instagram and retail offerings and a YouTube channel). He’s also famous for his container displays, especially of spring bulbs:
I looked at Claus Dalby ideas during the last three snowstorms here (I even ordered his book!) and bought some pansies and primroses and bulbs at Home Depot last Saturday, planting them up in the cold wind.
Was the yard cleaned up? No. Was this anything like Claus’s lush display? Not really. But they looked a lot better on Saturday than they did yesterday morning:
It’s supposed to get dramatically warmer here over the weekend, so if the planters don’t float away in all the melted snow they’ll start to perk up again. Maybe I can even add more, if spring is actually here.
Knitting During Meetings: The Investigative Report
The NY Times just published a report on people who knit during meetings, starting with the question, “Is it rude to knit at work?”
They present both sides: “Knitters say it isn’t the same as sneaking a phone under the camera or scrolling the internet. Knitting, they say, sharpens their attention, allowing them to focus more than they would with idle hands.”
They bring in expert opinions!
The fine-motor movement required for knitting, crocheting, doodling or using a fidget spinner activates the same parts of the brain used for focus, said John Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. So, these activities really do help to sharpen awareness. But other activities that require too much concentration, like reading a social media feed or playing a game on a smartphone, can push a person out of productivity and into unfocused multitasking.
“Being involved with something will make a person with flagging attention be more attentive,” Dr. Ratey said. “You will turn on the prefrontal cortex if you’re doing something like knitting.”
We reach no definitive conclusion, but knitting during Zoom calls is probably ok, depending on your workplace. Whew!