Friday, I participated in a #BLM Black Lives Matter march at a busy intersection in town. Got catcalled once; old white guy on a motorcycle hollered at us "fat broad go home." Since the other protester with me was an older white lady like me and the third person at that corner was a black male, the two of us females just looked at each other and laughed. Could've been worse...It was a peaceful march. No violence, no stopping traffic, everyone behaving. And lest you think that sounds condescending, I mean in light of looters setting our towns on their ears and putting us under curfew, and in light of increasing police violence. We were quite peaceful. Got lots of honks in solidarity, and a few head shakes.
Maybe it's just my way of coping, but I just waved at everyone as if I actually EXPECTED them to agree with me. I held up my sign: Equal Justice Under Law... and it's not like I made that up; it's on the Supreme Court! I was interviewed and photographed and then trolled. Which made me laugh...
The article was on the online paper and some troll said, "What a bunch of unemployed losers and a dumpy Karen." Apparently, owning your own business makes you (me) a dumpy Karen... I'm figuring it's some guy named Bob in his mother's basement.
I estimated about 300 people, but the newspaper said 100...I don't know. I'm not good at crowd-counting, but it looked like the old days when I participated in fancy dinners; I used to be good at eyeballing a crowd. But it was kind of hard to guess when we were spread around the area called "6 Corners" -- the confluence of three streets, resulting in 6 different intersections. This pic is where the majority of the folks stayed. It's the corner of Raynor and Ruby. My corner wasn't too busy, for which I was grateful. All but about 6 people (honestly, that I saw) had masks on. Social distancing was a bit tricky, which is why I escaped to the far corner. And stayed there. However, we had one person keel over, in that crowd in the pic above. And about 45 minutes before the march ended, a fellow protester said to me, "You ok? You're awfully red in the face." Well, that's my cue to leave. There was a nice breeze and we were in the shade, but what with the medications I take for my heart issues, sometimes processing heat is a problem. I waddled my rear end back (crossing ONLY with the proper lights, thank you very much) and got to my car.
Which was in a situation of being triple-parked...So it was ok - I have A/C. I sat in the A/C, listened to about 20 minutes of a detective radio show on Sirius Radio Classics and finished off a bottle of water (I should have had another one or two). Then I was able to go. My friend walked with me; and we thanked the cops for being there. It takes about 2 seconds to say something nice.
And yeah; on Wednesday, I'll be getting tested for COVID-19. The state health department recommends that if you've attended "large gatherings" to get yourself tested. Urgh. Not looking forward to getting a Q-tip shoved up to the back of my brain.
I did that in January for that erzatz bronchitis they diagnosed me with.
How My Garden Grows...
Well, we have CATERPILLARS!!! Swallowtails, to be sure, and they apparently prefer flat-leaf parsley. Of course our dill is only about 2" tall right now. There are about 5 or 6 of them. The milkweed? We're still thinning it out.
We ate romaine from the garden and I'm sorely, SORELY disappointed in the leaf lettuce and radishes.
They went to seed pretty much immediately. And the radishes? I have one. ONE. Not happy.
I might be able to get more romaine starts, because I only bought 4 of them.
And today, after "church" (we had technical glitches, but it wasn't only us; many churches that are reopening cautiously seem to have overloaded the Internet), we decided it was time to trim our front yard maple. Here it is before the trim. We needed to trim the branches that were over the public sidewalk, and that one lower branch going to the left side of the picture...it was really a pain in the butt, and we should've done it a few years ago. The branch was way over into our neighbor's yard. 
I was in charge of lopping the branches into smaller pieces for the yard waste bins. Hubby did break out the chain saw, and of course, I'm nowhere near that thing...they scare me, honestly! This is the "after" version. We still have plenty of shade in the front yard, and I think this will actually help the flower gardens because it lets a bit more light into the space. I'm having one of those "two-takes" moments where I glance out the window and it's like, "Wait, something's missing..." But we'll get used to it, and so will the birds and squirrels!
So I showed you a picture of the poppies in full bloom. That was last week. This is them now. A sure and certain reminder that everything in life is fleeting. In yoga philosophy we do study some Buddhist writers. One of my favorites is Pema Chodron. She talks a lot about impermanence. Thich Nhat Hanh also talks about it, probably more in depth. The poppies: Enjoy them while they're in bloom, but don't mourn that they're fading. It's an "in the moment" thing -- be grateful they've bloomed. I'll have loads of seed pods for my friends.
And here's a bit of serendipity. I was hoping that the phlox would re-bloom in the pot. Sometimes, the ones you pot are often subject to the freeze in winter and they don't survive. But lookee!!! Pansies and phlox!!
Honestly, I thought they were pink. Obviously....they're not! The pink ones haven't bloomed yet; they're in the bed with the brown-eyed Susans. Under the now-trimmed maple! So we shall see how they do now. I've taken allt he oriole feeders away from the hummingbird feeders. It took a few days, but the hummers are now coming back slowly. I think the orioles just bullied away or scared away the little guys.
I had oranges sort of "strung" along toward where the feeders ended up; but I removed a couple sets of the oranges and we're back to just one feeder with fruit.
The birds figured it out!
I've got buds on the tomatoes, but no fruit yet. And the kale is doing nicely; almost time to take a few of the young leaves, when they're tender and you can actually eat them in a salad rather than having to saute them in garlic and bacon fat. (But then again? Bacon fat? Not a bad thing.)
I'm not sure what the Broccoli Rabe is supposed to look like; I've gotta check that out. Otherwise, maybe I'm just growing weeds there?? With the way the garden is going this year, it could be anything.
Knitting and More...
So my progress on the Breathe & Hope Shawl is moving forward. I'm on Section 6, and honestly? I'm not liking it. I know; it's all about the textures in this shawl. But I'm not liking THIS section of texture! It's knitted rows alternating with K1b rows; and there are ridges that I just don't like. Maybe I will -- it's an 8-row repeat that's to be done 8 times. That's a lot of rows. It's nearly 200 stitches at the end of this section. Then we repeat the section you see there with the vertical stripes. That section is interesting because that's where the Blueberry "solid" (which isn't quite solid, but so gently tonal that you barely notice it) really pops nicely. It gets rather buried in the other sections with that flaming flamingo pink.
The close-up here shows the vertical stripes and a bit closer on the texture of Section 6. The bottom of this shot, the K1b is kind of brioche stitch; it's very squishy. I'd like to experiment with maybe a sock leg (start small, works for me) to see how that works out. It has a nice feel to it. And again -- this is on smaller needles. So maybe the whole thing will look and feel different when I do it again, using the proper needles.
I went shopping.
Consider that the only "shopping" I was intermittently doing was a random grocery or pharmacy run. But today, I went to Joann Fabric to pick up buttons. I'm not quite sure how all this jumped into my arms. Because I did sort of go to look at fabric for masks, and somehow found lots of it. I'm going to try a different mask patter with the two fabrics that have alpacas on them. And I bought the seam binding because it's a different method for the ties, too. Will show you progress pics. And the snowflake stuff? I couldn't resist. (A) because I like snowflakes, and (b) because it will annoy people...
The white buttons are for the crocheted "head bands" for those who have to use elastic behind their ears. Got feedback from the one I did and it needs to be a bit longer. I was just out of buttons.
I also bought muslin (lower left) and some 50% off yellow gingham (lower right) for the insides of the masks. Or ties, maybe - we'll see.
Tomorrow is "back to sewing" day as well as "get your butt in gear on your online classes" day.
It's going to be a busy Monday!
Random Picture...
I have a haircut on the 12th and I can't wait. But I also can't wait for a pedicure. I may have to drag out my Dr. Who blue again... I love that color. I usually bring my own polish; I prefer to do that and I only go to the same salon each time. Before COVID, I had all the colors planned out (yeah, go ahead...tease away). But now I'm behind on my schedule. I haven't heard yet whether I can go do the pedicure, but I can afford to wait a few weeks.
I'd rather get my hair cut first. It was doing really, really well, because Sarah cut it extra short, but now? It's just out of control.
Much like my garden.
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