5/28/2021 Pattern: M'sters XS
Click here to download .pdf directly. Pattern also available on Ravelry.
2021--Just a note: Weebly seems to be acting goofy, and when I view this post from the site editor, it shows an image of my Ever Evolveeeng afghan square. If you are seeing that as well, don't let it throw you off, this is indeed the pattern for the miniature Frankenstein monster.
The last apartment I lived in was in a neighborhood that saw plenty of Trick-or-Treaters come Beggar's Night. Our first Halloween there, on a whim, I started whipping up little stuffed crochet candy corns to handout instead of candy. The apartment was that of Adam's mother and brother, and his mom also handed out candy, so don't worry, if you were...the kids got some tooth-rotters as well. The stuffed candy corns were a big hit, and there was one family in particular who usually came later in the night who, when they came back the next year, said that they hoped we still lived there as they liked the candy corns so much. They kept them out and played with them year-round. They wanted to see what I would have in store the next year, and the next. I only ever spoke to those people on Halloween for a few minutes at the door. Their costumes were always elaborate and original. One year, the boy-age 11 or 12 maybe--went as a venus fly trap, the plant. He had done such a good job that I knew what he was, he didn't have to tell me. Anyway, I had so much fun that first year that I made it a tradition and went on to make something different each year and designed a few different miniatures to handout. M'sters XS represents maybe the 4th or 5th year that I was adhering to the tradition. In fact, I designed them for our 3rd Halloween as nomads and handed them out at a food bank where I happened to be volunteering on Halloween. The next year, our 4th Halloween as nomads, I hammered out the pattern, published it, and gave the samples (pictured) to the gals at McDonald's where we bought coffee and sandwiches on Halloween morning. When writing up the pattern, I came up with the idea to use white in place of the green and use a piece of pine needle in the neck (to represent a knitting needle) to make a Micheal Myers doll. I plan to publish the knit version in time for Halloween this year. Some quick pattern facts: Yarn ... medium weight 7 yards/6.5 m of a Main Color and 2 yards/1.8 m of a Contrast Color Hook ... 3.5mm Additional Materials ... 3 pinches stuffing, embroidery needle, approx. 12"/30cm red embroidery floss, optional: toothpick or dry pine needle for embellishment After making a few, pattern is not difficult to memorize and takes about 20-30 minutes per doll. 5/25/2021 The Path
I had a dream last night in which a theme that has popped up before recurred again. I was writing down the dream this morning and pondering through pencil and paper why certain things in my past were what they were. Then on the 3rd page of writing, I finally came to an epiphany that I thought was worth sharing. It's nothing new, but I think it's important.
In the end, you are the only one who can help yourself. Others might be able to show you the path you need to take, but ultimately, you are the one who must take it. Even then, what others are capable of showing us is really only their own path. If we feel someone has shown us the way, and we've had a moment of clarity, and we saw the direction in which we need to go, what has happened here is that god has placed all the elements exactly where they needed to be exactly when they needed to be there in order for you to see your path. This other person, in the example here, doesn't necessarily know that they are showing you anything or that there is even something to be shown. They're simply one of the infinite elements of the universe that aligned in the right place at the right time and, perhaps, have said the right thing that all added up to you catching a glimpse of the right path for you. When we try to help other people, we are only ever capable of emulating what we think help looks like. The key there is that we only think we are helping when what we are doing really might be keeping the struggling on a path of struggle. In the case of a toddler heading straight for a hot stove, hands outstretched, sure we probably snatch them up so that they don't get 2nd or 3rd degree burns. Or if you are trying to accomplish something in a computer program, someone with more experience using that program might have some tips for you that can be quite helpful. Eventually though, the toddler grows and matures and no longer needs us to guard them from physical harm. But when it comes to how we should live, we are almost all of us lost, and some of us may be trying to find a way, our own path, a righteous path, and no one else can help you find that path except yourself. Other people may play a part, sure, as other people, just like every rock and every tree and the sun are part of this universe, but it is not necessarily their purpose to show you the way. That's not to say that finding your way won't ever involve looking to other people, we are social creatures after all, but in the end, we must define our own paths for ourselves, and we must walk them ourselves. Of course, it is up to you whether you are happy with the path you are walking, though whether or not it is righteous is not for you to decide. God does not interfere when we need help because he has bestowed freewill upon us. It is our choices that get us into the psychological, emotional, and eventual physical struggles, and likewise, it is our choice to exit these states of mind and states of being. God simply observes, unjudging, while we make our own choices. 5/23/2021 Zoo-nope-ia
Earlier this year, I read an article from 2019 about a "celebrity" tortoise "couple" that "broke up" after over 100 years together. Quotes to imply the anthropomorphism of it all. So apparently both tortoises hatched in the late 19th century and in the 1970s were moved from their birthplace, Switzerland, to a reptile zoo in Austria. First off, I'd just like to point out how very far away central Europe is from their native South American island habitat. The story goes that when one of the keepers was approaching their habitat one day, Bibi, the female, suddenly lurched at Poldi, the male, biting his shell. While tortoises don't have teeth to speak of, they do have a jagged ridge-like jaw and are capable of killing. Bibi actually drew blood. This happened back in 2011. Apparently it "shocked the world," but this was the first I was hearing of it. The zookeepers then spent 8 years...EIGHT YEARS...trying to force the tortoises to "reconcile." They tried everything they could think of--they even implemented a synthetic decoy tortoise in hopes that Poldi would be comforted and Bibi would...I dunno, rediscover her love of "romantic tomato-eating" or something. Tortoises like tomatoes. No dice. I guess a lot of publications made a big deal out of it, projecting Hollywood romance fantasy onto the creatures, calling it a tragedy and all sorts of things like that. TIME magazine, which by the way, named Adolf Hitler "Person of the Year" twice, said something to the effect of, "If these tortoises can't make it work, then what chance do we have?" I'm not even sure where to begin identifying how fucked up that statement is. You want tortoises, whose natural tendencies are polyamorous, to stay together against their will so that you can justify the unnaturalness of your institute of marriage. Two wrongs don't make a right.
That's right. I did a little extra reading on the subject, and tortoises don't even practice monogamy in the wild, let alone keep a lifelong partner, so this relationship was against nature from jump. I'm sure the zookeepers know this as they claim to be passionate about reptiles. In fact, the husband and wife who owned the zoo (past tense because the husband has passed away, but the wife and their progeny run the place now) originally bonded over their shared passion for reptiles. So surely they knew exactly what was going on, I mean, they're experts, right? While I'm gawking and shaking my head at the audacity humans have to project their own ideals onto others (don't even get me started on how those ideals are even formed in the first place), Adam points out that it was never about the tortoises. As soon as he says it, it becomes obvious. Nobody wants to go to the zoo and see divorced pairs of animals. They want to go to the zoo and see happy couples getting along, eating tomatoes together, getting neck scratches together, sitting in the shade together, and hey--mating. Who doesn't like a good show? It's the same reason every movie plot is the same: Boy meets girl. Girl makes boy jump through hoops. Girl lives happily ever after. Boy lives miserably ever after placating girl but pretends like it's his life-passion. Oh, sorry. No, in the movies, the boy's not pretending. Well, the actor literally is, but the character is always all too happy to be the woman's object/slave. So it's no wonder the zoo keepers tried for eight goddamn years to keep the tortoises together. Their jobs were on the line! I guess they ended up building separate habitats for Bibi and Poldi. They did, however put a window in the wall separating the gardens in hopes that seeing one another might "rekindle" their "flame." Apparently whenever Bibi sees Poldi through this window, she hisses and otherwise ignores him and turns her back. The article seemed to portray Poldi as sort of indifferent and Bibi as aggressively hateful and resentful toward Poldi. This strikes me as oddly similar to the storyline people like to believe about their own heterosexual relationships: that the man relentlessly loves and admires the woman, no matter how tempestuous the woman becomes. In the case of the tortoises, I'm betting the bitter feelings are mutual. I don't really think zoos are even necessary in the first place. I guess the point of having them, in some cases, is because some humans feel the need to give certain species a safe place to reproduce, especially if the species is threatened by extinction. This is certainly understandable, and I don't necessarily disagree with the practice. On the other hand, I think the point of the regular old run of the mill zoo is, well--tourism and money for the city but under the guise of giving average joe citizens the opportunity to see animals they wouldn't otherwise get to see in their lifetime. In the real world, we wouldn't be chained to a desk crunching numbers or service window taking food orders. We'd be free to go where we want--when we want to go there. Thus, we'd have ample opportunities to witness wildlife in its natural environment. Unfortunately, you are chained to your desk, and traveling to places where you might be able to see polar bears and penguins swimming is very costly. So your only hope, unless you quit your job, is to just pay the $39.95 or whatever it is, and watch the depressed orca kick a football through a flaming hoop in exchange for what is probably a rotten fish. Then again, if you quit your job, you would certainly have the time to make a trip halfway around the world to see a wild panda bear, but that would be the last thing you do because you'd run out of money, and then you'd wind up homeless in China. Not that that's any better or worse than homeless anywhere else on the planet. Not to mention, the people who you put in charge will hunt you down and kill you, and if they don't kill you, they'll certainly leave you for dead, and there's no way you're getting to the Sahara to see a lion take down a gazelle like that. 5/18/2021 Bring on the Elements
Just finished up renewing the waterproofing elements on our tent! We've been using this tent for about 15 months now, and about 6 or so months ago, I noticed the factory-applied Durable Water Repellent (DWR) wasn't as effective anymore. Instead of beading up and rolling off, some of the water would soak into the fabric. About 3 months ago, I started noticing the Polyurethane (PU) coating on the inside was starting to flake off in some places.
So we placed an order for, among other things, a bottle of DWR and a bottle of PU coating. I'm not sure if the PU coating is actually PU, but it's labelled for renewing sticky or peeling PU coatings.
Here are the materials. The egg carton functioned as a measuring tool, being about a foot long. The volume guide on the DWR bottle suggests about 50 ml per 10 square feet of fabric, so I used the egg carton to estimate the area of various portions of the tent so I could appropriately distribute the spray. Also to aid in the even distribution, I marked off approximate 50 ml increments. It involved a little math, but it wasn't too difficult. The hardest part was angling the bottle just right so that the sunlight would penetrate and I could judge the remaining volume of liquid.
If you're going to do this, I would recommend pitching the tent. That way all the surfaces are relatively taught, exposed, and easy to work with. It was breezy when I did it, but I would just wait for a break in the breeze before spraying, and it seems to have turned out just fine. 5/13/2021 Ass Outta u & Me
While waiting my turn at the local food bank today, a gentleman on crutches was exiting, and upon seeing me and my bags (I had my duffel, a pannier, and my backpack on with my bike helmet hanging from the backpack strap), he said, "You look like you must be campin'!" I get that a lot. Not many people ride around with a pannier on their bike, let alone the duffel and backpack. Even in bike-friendly towns, the most you usually see is a little pannier on a city bike. Anyway, "Yeah," I say. Then the inevitable, "Where at?" "Ohhh, I don't like to say, really..." I let the rest of the sentence trail off as he sort of interrupts me. Not really in a rude or narcissistic way, just in that enthusiastic friendly-conversation way. Or maybe it was a narcissism thing, but he's just better at hiding it than others. At this point, and this became clear pretty immediately, he assumes that I'm scared stiff of intruders. You know the ones. They're the ones your parents use as scare tactics to get you to lock your car door and never go out at night by yourself. Those ugly, scruffy, rapists, thieves and murderers. They're everywhere. Actually, I agree with this, but not in the sense that others usually mean it. He proceeds to tell me about a woman he knows who lives outside town who's got acreage and would be happy to host us so that we could have a place where we would feel safer. At this point, he thinks I'm by myself as I haven't mentioned Adam yet. I give the usual polite responses that are expected of me in a situation such as this: "Okay, cool!" and, "Thanks, I appreciate it." During this shorter exchange, he mentions the safety issue at least twice. Since by this time it is my turn to go into the food bank, we agree that he'll wait outside in his car for me to go through then he'll give me the woman's phone number.
I go through the pantry, and to be honest, I got distracted and completely forgot about the dude. I apologized about it at the beginning and end of our subsequent conversation. He didn't seem bothered by it at all, but the woman in the car with him didn't really seem amused. She was looking at her phone for the duration of the conversation, sometimes nodding yes or no, though I'm not sure whether it was along with the conversation or to things she was seeing on her screen. Our second interaction here is where it really got interesting. So he gives me the woman's phone number whose property I'm "welcome" to stay at, for a fee, of course. That fee being her use of my able body for her own ends. Apparently, I'd be helping to build greenhouses in exchange for camping and access to water and, "all that good stuff." Not that I necessarily have anything against building greenhouses, but no one on this planet that I have encountered has just "let" me stay with them without expecting something in return. Especially in the last 14 years. Once, after Adam and I had moved to Indiana from Ohio, I was considering going back to Ohio for a week for a dance thing. I was asking friends in Ohio about staying for a week, and one of them, I shit you not, told me we could stay there, and that "we could work something out like doing some yard work and walking the dogs. Stuff like that. "Seriously? I'm staying for a week FOR A GIG, and you expect me to live your life for you?! Hell fuckin' no. You're the one who got the fucking dog. You fucking walk it. I didn't go back to Ohio for that gig. I didn't really want to in the first place. We just needed somewhere to go. You're the one who wants to build the greenhouses, you fucking build them. Again, it's not that I wouldn't do it. I'm all about gardening! Shit, I love it! There are few things that bring me as great a satisfaction as eating food that I raised from seed. I just don't appreciate the insinuation that it is expected of me. If my welcome at your home is contingent upon me doing your work for you, then that, in itself, is the antithesis of welcome. Welcome, like love, is unconditional. To say you love a person unconditionally is redundant. Same goes for welcome. So the guy and I are discussing subjects along the lines of "living your life," and "going with your gut," and how God's knowledge is innate and that most people don't use it. You got that right, buddy. But for the wrong damn reason. So he's on and on about "not being afraid to take adventures," and "shutting people out of your life and the experiences you'll miss because of it." I manage to get in edgewise that, "Yeah, that'sss......part of why I'm out here on my bicycle." Now, I don't necessarily disagree with him on this point. If you live your life in fear, then yes, it can paralyze you, and that's not living. He related an anecdote: "I was married to a woman for 30 years," he says. "She was abused as a child," and he goes on to explain how she had built a castle wall around herself and how she was the only one inside, and, "Guess who was on the outside?" Of course, he was begging for my sympathy here, but he did not get it. "Everyone." I say. "Yeah that's right, everyone," but the answer he was looking for was himself. He then went on to ask, "How many experiences did she miss out on because she was blocking people out of her life?" What I said at the time was, "That's too bad, I'm sorry to hear that," and it is. And I was. But later it occurred to me that he's asking the wrong question. What he should be asking is: "What have I done in my life to establish and perpetuate the environment against which she had to defend herself?" He obviously wanted to be inside that castle wall, no matter the cost to his wife. He thought he deserved it, and in my opinion, the very act of thinking he deserved it, rescinds the privilege. It sounds to me like he just wanted her to be who he wanted her to be instead of who she was. He didn't care about her healing, he only cared that he was outside that castle wall and wanted to be inside it. He only cared about himself. Same situation in my conversation with him: he didn't care about my safety. He didn't bother to ask why I don't like to tell people where we're camped, he assumed the answer which allowed him to justify assuming the role of savior to me. For the record, the reason I don't like to tell people where we're camped, and I did end up getting to tell him this, is that it's not that I necessarily think he has nefarious intentions, or even anyone he might tell, but maybe someone they might tell, or someone they might tell. Not that that person would be like, "alright, Friday! 10pm! Bitch rapin' time!" but that person might just end up somewhere near where I'm camped by chance because, hey--it's public land. Maybe they get drunk. Maybe they're an opportunist. Maybe they think, "hey, this is where so-and-so said that chick was camping, I'm gonna see if I can find her." They might not have bad intentions that first time, but, like I said, maybe they are an opportunist, and upon seeing me and what I have, what's to stop them from just taking it or coming back and trying to create another opportunity for themselves to take what I have? Or maybe they tell someone else about something that I have and say, "hey she's homeless, just go take it from her, what's she gonna do?" And why do I want a pop-in like that? I'm content with my own company and that of Adam. I don't really care for the pop-in. Especially from strangers. Actually, to be perfectly honest, it's the strangers I mind less. The random strangers just out on a hike? They don't usually stick around too long. The people I know generally just want to spectate my life as if I'm a sideshow at the circus. Whether it is to mentally criticize to lift their own low self-esteem or to spectate something they themselves long to do but know they never will, I still don't care for it. I didn't get that far though. When I told him about, "maybe it's not someone you might tell, but someone they might tell, or someone they might tell," with a know-it-all, let-me-stop-you-right-there," tone in his voice, he says, "I'm interested in statistics and numbers and all that." Puzzled at the sudden subject change, I say, "oh yeah?" He says, "The likelihood of something like that happening is so small." "All it takes is one, though." I reply. He agreed, but I could tell he didn't like it. He went on to talk about how dangers are all around us. "Airplanes could fall from the sky!" "Exactly," I say. So we're agreeing that the dangers are all around, but he just doesn't want to accept that maybe, just maybe, I just don't want visitors. He would rather believe the falsity that I am unhappy with so little contact with others in my life than the face the truth that I might just not like him. So the end of the conversation starts to roll around, and he starts on with a new tactic. Now he's giving me a pep talk about going with my gut and just trusting people. He says that his head is sometimes right but has steered him wrong plenty of times in life, but his gut has "never been wrong." I'm agreeing with him because, y'know...I've had bad feelings about people in my life that absolutely turned out to be true...who hasn't, right? But in my head, I'm going, "kinda like now?" I ask him if he watched Seinfeld when it ran, he says, yeah a bit. So I relate to him an episode where George is wallowing in his sorrow of having lost his ex-girlfriend, Susan. Kramer comes in and George asks him whether or not he should call Susan, "Now what does the little man inside you say? See you gotta listen to the little man." A devastated George replies, "My little man doesn't know." Kramer: "The little man knows all." With that, I give a very Kramerian exit. For comedic effect, I turn around and raise my hand in the air as I take a few steps away from the car. I come back, we shake hands, he makes a few last attempts to convince me that I don't know what's good for myself and that he does, and he leaves. I pack my bike up and head home, where I can be at peace. 5/4/2021 A Trophy
So the other day, I was reading up on updates to Android 11 from Android 10, and I came across a few that caught my attention as they are just over-the-top, absolutely absurd to me. First up was the new App Suggestions feature. Apparently it's only available on Google's Pixel Phones, so the Samsungers will just have to keep using their brains. What's going on is Google's AI is observing your behavior on your phone (and reporting back to headquarters), and it will automatically add and remove apps from the dock on your home screen depending on the time of day they've observed you using them. So for example, if you always open your FitBit app first thing in the morning to check out your sleep patterns from the night before, your phone will automatically move the app to the dock every morning so that you can access it from there. Man, good thing we don't have to do that whole swipe up and tap thing. That was getting pretty out of hand. I sat there, jaw dropped and brow furrowed when I read this. Just thinking about it, I'm making the same face again. The second feature that had me shaking my head was the Smart Reply feature. Now, you don't even have to think of words to say to other people, Google's AI will do it for you!! All that using the brain stuff was just too hard before. Anyway, the AI will read your text messages (and report back to headquarters) and present a list of suggested replies on your screen. So now, your brain no longer needs to (read: gets to) swirl up the chemicals necessary for communication.
I'm having a hard time coming up with the words to describe my reaction to this. So obviously, speechless is one of them. Sad is among them. Depressed, even. Confounded maybe but I can't say I'm actually surprised. Almost embarrassed and ashamed to be counted one among the race of humans of this century. Not because of the features themselves, but the unfathomable reason that features like this seem necessary to people. I would guess that the average smartphone user reading this (I've looked at my analytics, I know no one's reading this, but still I want to say it) would think that these features are "neat" and make "life" just that much more "convenient." Since when is a calculator worn on the wrist necessary to determine how you slept last night? When you wake up, you either feel rested or your don't. If you do, you get up and go about your day. If you don't, you can either choose to stay in bed longer or get up and maybe take it easy that day. Might doze off sometime in the afternoon for a spell then feel rested after that. That's just it though. You don't give yourself that choice. That very fact makes it all the more difficult to get adequate sleep, so the issue compounds. I think it's been pretty well proven that doing the same things at the same time every day...day in and day out for your entire life is actually really bad for your brain. Sure, an efficiency develops, but I think it needs to be moderated with periods of challenge, or else there will be no growth and your mental and physical well-beings will atrophy. In physical activity, there is a term called muscle confusion, or if you're a "muscle confusion critic," then maybe progressive overload might be the term you would prefer. The idea with muscle confusion is that if you do the same workout routine week after week, your body (muscles, nerves, connective tissue) will stop progressing on its journey to strength because the activity becomes predictable. This is a part of what's called muscle memory. The activity becomes easy because your brain has sent the same signals to the muscles so many times, and as a result the neuro-pathways are thick and strong, so there is virtually no effort involved in sending the electrical impulse from brain to muscle. With muscle confusion (as opposed to muscle memory), what you do is you change up your workout every few weeks. Do things in a different order, work different muscle groups with one another, things like that. This way, your body has a harder time predicting what will come next, so it takes more energy to achieve that goal. The path that the neuron takes through the brain is ever so slightly different before it gets to the nerve to send the impulse to the muscle. Progressive overload is a simple premise. Over the course of both the individual workout and also the whole workout program in general, you gradually increase the amount of weight you're lifting. This way, your muscles are constantly working a little harder than they did last time. Maybe you add reps or take a shorter break between sets. These are also concepts within the progressive overload principle. In both principles, muscle confusion and progressive overload, there are consistent but small changes from one workout to the next. It is these small changes that contribute to growth. This variation, to me, seems to reflect the rest of nature more closely than the idea of waking up at the same exact minute every morning because an electronic device has been programmed to make a sound loud enough for long enough to disturb your sleep. Trees, under the force of wind, develop cells on the side of their trunks opposite from which the wind is blowing in an effort to strengthen that side and build it up so that the tree doesn't lean and eventually fall under its own weight. It's called tropism. That's like the progressive overload. The changing of the seasons is like the muscle confusion--changing light and temperatures send the plant through the cycles necessary for it to maintain life. |
Archives
February 2024
CategoriesAll Eats Gear HSFRL Lifestyle Nugs Opinion Patterns Recipies Travel |