I haven’t gotten out the papers and glue for a book or a box because I’ve had too many other projects going on: planning a new stove and a tile backsplash in the kitchen, still working on that quilt, deciding I needed more outer layers and getting three jackets going at once in the sewing room.
I like how all the projects are geometric at the moment. We can definitely use more order and symmetry in life.
I may have dropped both quilting and bookbinding for a quick fling with outdoor gear-making, but I plan to pick both of them back up. I’m even going to take a bookbinding class in September! And then maybe I need to plan a trip to Venice, because I didn’t realize it was the center of printing and binding right after the invention of the printing press:
During the 15th century, printing defined much of Venice’s street life. As explained by Alessandro Marzo Magno in Bound in Venice: The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book, the city’s tiny calles (streets) were filled with the workshops of various craftsmen involved in the book industry. People interested in creating books went there to buy loose sets of printed pages, and then took them to binders, illustrators, and goldsmiths to create a volume.
The linked article talks about Paolo Olbi, a 78-year-old traditional binder and one of the last still practicing in Venice. Better get that ticket bought before he retires or the ocean levels take the city.
I really felt this Danny Lavery list: Problems I Sometimes Have That A Gorilla Who Lives At The Zoo Might Also Have:
I think I need more enrichment in my little enclosure or more reliable rewards. Maybe both.
I woke up yesterday and Toby had hunkered down in the basement, obviously feeling poorly. He proceeded to be really sick–even throwing up water–until late afternoon, so of course I just hung out with him in the basement all day, contemplating when to start calling emergency vets.
He started to perk up and eat and drink after about 4:00, and even made it upstairs by 6:00 when he seemed back to normal. He’s completely fine this morning, so we can only assume he ate a spider or some other bug Saturday night. Senior pets! There’s always something!
Anyway, in my hours and hours downstairs, I was able to get a lot of strips cut and blocks planned out and existing blocks trimmed for the next quilt. Nothing like something simple and orderly when you’re worried.
Just some colors from the photo roll lately–I’m back at the gym after covid and it all seems ok? No weird lung stuff, hooray!
It’s June and that means it’s rose season. Doc was feeling energetic enough Saturday to go visit the botanical gardens here, which have a whole lower part dedicated to roses. They were so extravagant, it was wonderful:
We visited my dad Sunday and I picked a few of my mom’s roses to bring home as a reminder to be extravagant, to be beautiful and maximal for no reason other than you feel like it:
Dare I say that things are looking up? Like summer might be simple and easy, with no hospital stays or sick kitties? I’m still chasing the summers of my teens–and I probably won’t get them until I retire–but this post from Tumblr really made me feel like it was possible:
Doc is home and doing great–walking around, eating normal food, not really in pain except for the first thing in the morning. When you consider that just five days ago he had a large section of his guts just removed, it’s pretty amazing.
This is our first experience with any kind of laparoscopic surgery and we’re both just fascinated by it. We didn’t expect there to be multiple incisions! They superglued the skin wounds closed! How does a surgeon even practice this?! There’s a special gut stapling tool??!
Doc even found video of the actual surgery. It stops at a paywall before any stapler action, right after they show someone’s sigmoid colon getting pulled out of an incision like a magician pulling a scarf out of their sleeve–which was honestly enough for me. But still: cool and fascinating!
Neither of us have had a surgery before and going into this, I was still scarred by my mom’s failed surgery. But this surgery went really well! The surgeon did a great job and we want to write her a thank you note! These are strange new feelings where doctors are concerned, but I’ll take them.
I was able to mask up and visit the hospital yesterday and Doc is doing so, so great. He was sitting in a chair all day, he didn’t need a nap, he passed the physical therapist test of stairs and taking off his socks, his pain is just getting managed by Tylenol, and he’s in high spirits. I think he can come home sometime over the weekend!
I’m also feeling better–yesterday my test had the faintest positive line after 10 minutes–so wow. Things have turned out better than my wildest imaginings and I know my therapist is going to act smug when I tell her all the catastrophizing I did never came to pass. (Still working on that one.)
Anyway, enjoy the weekend! Hug the things you love! Try imagining the best instead of the worst!
Doc’s surgery went really well yesterday and the hospital did a great job of keeping me in the loop–I got calls from the OR nurse, the surgeon, and the recovery nurse, and when I called the nurse’s station on his floor that night they took 15 minutes to explain and look things up. By the very end of the day he was even texting me coherently, so hopefully we can get him out of the hospital in a couple days and get him home, minus a large part of his colon.
Meanwhile, my friend Mike found the best vintage ad and I might have to insist Doc makes it his new profile picture:
