Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1129
Sick daughter, gardening chores, Anaïs Nin exhibit, Teenage Engineering, Angela Chao and glass breaking fears, weekend visitors
Good morning. Hello. How was your weekend? Was it nice? I hope so. Mine was good. Had Friday off supposedly, but ended up working all day, so that was a bummer. Rest of the weekend was lovely, though. Our friends Meghan and Henry came for the weekend. We did not do a whole lot. Every time we tried to do something, Jane threw a big tantrum. That was a bit of a bummer. She never wanted to leave the house. We have raised a… well, not introvert. She was very happy to see Meghan and especially Henry, and she seemed to be happy to go to breakfast with Henry and I in the morning. But anything after lunch? Forget it. Absolutely not.
And, of course, I am a neurotic weirdo with an obsession with getting chores done.
But we did get some good tromping through the woods done, and Meghan and Henry got to see Emma’s spring discovery, along with a second spring that she found. Our property is lousy with springs. It is great. Valley Meadow bottled spring water coming right up.
And I sent Henry home with some great parting gifts – Peach Iced Tea Icebreakers, a DJI Pocket 2 on loan and a reissued mini Stylophone. Can’t complain about a visit like that!
Jane is sick again today. She is behind me, at her computer. She has a (slight) fever and her cough seems to be getting worse again. I feel like a bit of a failure not convincing her to go to school, but also why bother what is the point, school is a social construct, etc. etc. who cares. But *I* care, apparently. I am wrestling with the meaning of these feelings it is all very confusing. It doesn’t help matters that she seems to be feeling very smug that she got one over on me. I cannot escape the feeling she is playing sick, Ferris Bueller (I will never get over that Bueller doesn’t have an H in it) style, even though the cough is legit and so is the fever. It is weird. I have too many conflicted feelings over this issue, it is confusing. I am confused.
Listening to the “Indie Record Store” variant of the new Kacey Musgraves, very nice clear with spatter pour. Record is solid I am really enjoying it. Now that the relief has passed I can dig a little deeper and it is a clever, introspective gem.
Anyway let’s cheer ourselves up a it by talking about all the awesome chores I did this weekend. That I did not photograph. I am sad I did not photograph them. You would like the pictures. Anyway, I leveled and straightened and placed those two raised beds outside the greenhouse, with the arch trellis going between them. And then I hauled something like 15 wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the hoppers to the beds and loaded them into the beds. My god, that was so tiring. I am still so tired from that. But it is done.
I cleaned up the one raised bed I left at the main house and added a bunch of new soil to it and planted a North Carolina native pollinator-and-monarch-butterfly attracting wildflower mix. That is exciting. Seeds are a couple years old, though, I hope they take. I also cleaned up the little wheeled raised bed and mother-in-law asked me to plant some chives in there, so I will be doing that today or tomorrow, as soon as I remember to bring them back from the other house.
Did a ton of work on the greenhouse. Hung the string lights. Got the two light switches and two fans connected to the wifi so I could automate the turning on of grow lights and turning on and off of fans to make sure my hothouse seedlings don’t get leggy. I am very proud of all of this work. The greenhouse is now mostly automated. Except for the drip irrigation, still gotta do that.
I planted one of the two rose bushes that go on each side of the front door landing at Chore House.
I ran Cat6 cable coming from the greenhouse up through the crawlspace into the server closet. Removed the old alarm panel from the server closet as the next step in eventually getting that room properly organized.
I did a lot of work on my floor plan for the attic, taking additional measurements and working a bit more on the illustrator file.
I keep thinking about Angela Chao drowning in her Tesla. I do believe that it being a Tesla probably had something to do with why it went forward instead of reverse or whatever: the new PRNDL situation in Teslas seems absolutely psychotic and homicidal. But in terms of not being able to get out of a sinking car, well, that is universal. Being a Mythbusters fan, I have watched all three of the episodes dealing with this situation. There are two ways out: break the glass, or wait for the car to fill up with water and then open the door when the pressure has equalized.
But what I have learned recently is that laminated glass won’t break no matter what, even if you have one of those nifty glass breaking tools — which I recently purchased and put into my car again, not sure what happened to the old one. So I did a bit of looking at the glass in my Lightning, and it is laminated in front, tempered in the back. So I am going to have to crawl into the back seat if I want to break the windows. I’m sure my giant out-of-shape fifty-something ass will have no problem with that nope no siree.
Maybe I can get Jane to break the glass.
She is playing with the quirky handheld game machine, the Play Date right now. I am glad. I bought that thing when I was still susceptible to the wiles of Teenage Engineering’s design chops. I have… gotten over it a bit? Or at least I take too much issue with their pricing strategy. I foisted Taylor Swift the Long Pond Sessions on Meghan and Henry, because Henry doesn’t like Taylor (though he knows every word to “Love Story,”) but he does like The National, so I thought it might be a gateway drug. And then of course I had to show em the part where Justin Vernon doesn’t bother to show up and does his part from Wisconsin, with a mask on his face because apparently Justin Vernon doesn’t want people to see his face these days. Anyway on his mixing desk in that scene he has the stalwart Teenage Engineering OP1. I have never used one of those things. People say they’re amazing. But c’mon man. Two grand? Jesus.
Cuckoo.
There is an amazing Anaïs Nin exhibit going on right now in Santa Monica at Gallery 33. Looks amazing. So much shit you never get to see in public. Includes some of Anaïs’ personal paintings by Henry Miller. But it is only going to March 22nd. I am sad. I would totally travel for this but it is just so short. Would travel for this were there time. Boooooo hoooooooo.
The good news is that it is co-sponsored by Elizabeth Banks’ production company, because apparently they are working on a new series based on Anaïs’ life? I did not love the Juno Temple Delta of Venus adaptation, no fault to Juno she is great in this season of Fargo. But I do think a sort of biopic of Anaïs’ life could work? The whole kit and caboodle? Maybe with some flashbacks to her youth? It would be hard, but if you could nail it, it would be amazing.
Hrm we seem to be short a Media of the Day but that’s okay. I am now listening to Daydream Nation cuz Sonic Youth has the best Bandcamp page and they have these affordable, no-frills vinyl pressings of a ton of their records. They are not 180-gram, they are not colored vinyl, they are not in super thick sleeves. They meticulously recreate the inserts from the original pressings. I’ve been filling out my vinyl Sonic Youth collection with these, having purchased Confusion is Sex, Evol and this one. Strong recommend. They sound great too. I’m excited. I haven’t listened to this album in years.
Talk tomorrow!