Category: Blitherings

Fixing Things

I like the idea of being independent of experts as much as possible. Maybe being as self-sufficient as possible is a better way of expressing it  This way I don’t have to wait for someone to do something for me which I can do on my own. A lot of things are best left to the experts, but a lot of daily stuff doesn’t have to be that way.

The experts I absolutely insist upon are accountants for taxes (I used to get the 1040-EZ back with corrections as the English is nonsensical as far as I am concerned), auto mechanics, and doctors. Appliance repairmen are often overpriced and not as good (and inexpensive) as my husband.  He is good at figuring things out and fixing them. He can research things on the internet and then buy parts.  I am no good at fixing those kinds of things.

However, I do think about the things I can fix or figure out how to fix on my own.  I can deal with computers pretty well, software and hardware.  I can adjust small mechanical things.  I can sew clothes, cook, preserve food, garden, and jerry-rig a lot of stuff.  I can knit and weave and spin (oh, what a domestic I am!).  If I had hand-powered tools I could do a lot of carpentry, but I don’t like high speed electrical tools, except maybe drills. And handheld sanders.  Things that go too fast annoy me.

And, I do like sewing machines.  In the past few months I have bought two to work on.  One I got working, and then something went wacko, so I am going to have to get in touch with my mentor and have him help me out.  Another one had a stuck feed dog area, but that I figured out and with oil and heat got it working again.  Computerized sewing machines are not for me to fix, but the ones I have run beautifully, so I am not worried about those.  However, cam stacks and upper thread tensioners are things I might want to take a try at one day.

When I think of it, though, I don’t want to fix sewing machines a lot, like in doing it on a regular basis.  Instead. I want to know enough to make the little fixes they might need, and know enough about them to troubleshoot and fix issues.  I had to find this out by actually working on some machines.   That knowledge and experience is definitely a worthwhile skill to have.

I come from and married into a family where doing and making things is part of daily life.  My father could build a house, plumb and wire it, as well as sew and farm and build things out of metal and wood.  He was an engineer who designed air planes and fighter jets.  My mother could do a lot of things, too, more on the domestic front, but she studied engineering and was a television cameraman in the 1940s.  My married-into-family sew, knit, bead, build harpsichords and furniture from scratch, and bake and cook, manage TV news stations, do music and video editing, and build airplanes and cars from scratch.  These are all skills, old and new, that make for creativity and self-sufficiency.

Self-sufficiency and self-efficacy are intertwined and make for a happier life than relying on someone else to fix or prepare or supervise one’s life.  It doesn’t mean you are separate from everyone.  It means you are able to rely on yourself, rely on others, and others can rely on you.  Skills bring people together, and this, in turn, community and connection and interdependence.

 

Burnt Breakfast and Random Thoughts

Yes, my oatmeal is scorched.

I got distracted by my monkey mind.  Luckily, no fires, and enough saved to have breakfast.  Oatmeal is perfect on cold mornings, with raisins, walnuts, and yogurt.  I’d go for brown sugar, too, but as I am addicted to sugar and could happily main line it, I try to keep it toned down in my daily life with a square or two of Valrhona 72% dark . . .

I got the first of my two Covid vaccines yesterday, the Pfizer version.  I can return in the next 3-6 weeks, per the County, for the second.  I don’t understand how people cannot take this virus seriously, but as my husband pointed out, many people in the generation after me (like from 1812 on) have not seen or had the diseases I enjoyed in my childhood – chicken pox, measles, polio, diphtheria,  etc.  That may well be the case.   However, I wonder about their failure to realize or understand science and so on.  Certainly I don’t get people who follow conspiracy theories, such as those proposed by QAnon – and I know some who think such things are true.

Having worked with people who are schizophrenic, I do understand that there are different versions of reality for different people.  And, in novels, I love a good conspiracy theory!  However, there are some that are just too weird to think of as real.

What is reality?  What is belief?  What is a potential not yet seen?  Think about TV – it wasn’t “real” until the last century.  Airplanes in 1903.  There are things we imagine that may not come about for a long, long time, such as travel and colonization of other planets.  These make for great stories – but what about germs and virus and other things on those planets to which humans are not immune?

Belief is defined as an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.  But is that belief grounded in fact?  Some religious people say that in order to pray, you have to believe.  Others say in order to believe, you must pray.  That is a dichotomy.  Also, what we now know to exist was often a myth or a thought or a potential reality at one time.

Well, enough rambling.  Time to get the day moving along with the excitement of doing dishes and other mundane tasks before wandering about in my own planned fun activities!

Olde Berlin

I look at YouTube in the morning after reading the news. The problem is that it is an addicting site. I look at it for art techniques, sewing information, photography, and when it pops up, history. I do enjoy history, modern history probably more than ancient.

When you come across films from different time eras and different places, there is a sense of reality that photos and stories cannot elicit. Here we have one from Berlin, Germany, during what is obviously the 1920s, probably before the depression set in. People are well-dressed (everyone looks well-dressed compared to today’s sloppy standards) – and, it seems, comfortably well off.

Wealthy, middle class.  Life in the better parts of the city.

And then . . . enter the world of Christopher Isherwood may have frequented.

Day in the Life of a Kitchen – and A Woman

I am not sure whether to laugh, or cry, or be in awe of technology.

Mother waits hand and foot on the males. They leave stuff for her to clean up. It’s okay for men and boys to be slobs (although the boy nicely places his plate on a counter so Mother can clean up more easily). Little girl comes in late to breakfast – like females are irresponsible – looking a bit slovenly and sloppy.

The refrigerator glides around like magic, with a vacuum to help, so Mother can clean. It has an ice maker and opens automatically with electric sensors. The freezer is on the bottom.

The oven is self-cleaning – yay for technology. 

The “Space Walk” is the newest dance craze.

Mother wears spike heels all day to do her chores – does she never take them off?

Yep, being a bit snarky, but these clips are important bits of social history. And the history of technology. Some things continue, but much has changed.

I didn’t know there were ice makers in freezers in the early 60s, did you?

Another Look Back

I try to paint every day, and in general, I seem to accomplish this.  I have been working mostly in gouache and watercolor.  There are times when I make studies – try to copy – the works of people I admire, or do an exercise in a “how to” art book.  You learn from both.  Other times, I just make something up or interpret something I have seen.  Landscapes are always my favorite subject.  These are some of the things I have done over the last two months, not in any particular order.