Friday Links

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1. I will always read something about the heyday of printed catalogs. “Longing” is such a apt word choice here:

As a form of media, mail-order catalogs themselves were a story of longing and aspiration that came to define shopping as an American way of life. What you bought and where you bought it from was a statement about who you were and who you could be. This was as true of the inch-thick catalogs from department stores like Sears (whose holiday-season edition was upgraded from mere catalog to “Wish Book”) as it was of the thousands of specialty retail catalogs, from J. Crew and Tweeds to Swiss Colony and Fingerhut, that followed its lead.

(What I wouldn’t give to have saved the mid-90s J. Crew and Tweeds catalogs!)

 

2. It’s So Hot That Japan Needs a New Word for It: “kokushobi,” or “cruel heat day,”

 

3. Now that the floor in the garage is done it’s time to start organizing stuff (and painting the footings, and maybe the door, and then adding more lights). This will be me rearranging the tool cart:

I Think It Worked!

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I rolled epoxy on the thoroughly rinsed floor yesterday morning. Last year I tried to fill some low spots in the concrete with two-part epoxy (I was already planning the Great Garage Beautification) but one spot didn’t set up for months, so I was extremely anxious about putting it on an entire floor.

But this time I timed the mixing and set a timer for the pot life and generally followed the instructions as completely as only a person with generalized anxiety disorder can do, and I think it worked! It’s handling foot traffic just fine this morning; tomorrow I’ll try the tool chest on it and then Saturday night it will get the car test.

I understand now why the epoxy garage floor is so popular with suburban dads–it looks so good! Especially with the matching stair treads I found for the unfinished steps (not installed yet, I just had to preview them with the floor color). Maybe I too am a suburban dad…

A half-painted garage floor. The left side is covered in tan epoxy, the right side is bare concrete.

A woman's feet on a tan painted garage floor

Looking down on steps leading into the garage. The top step has a tan vinyl stair tread on it and the bottom step is raw wood.

Wednesday Poem

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I usually try to space out the poem posts a little more but I saw this last week and “Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey” has been going around in my head so here you go. Don’t mind if I do.

 

Goodtime Jesus
by James Tate

Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it? A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn’t afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How ’bout some coffee? Don’t mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Big Pants + EMU TOP

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Remember those barrel-leg pants I made back in November? They remained very snug; then I saw these RTW pants in the spring, so I remade them in a size up in khaki and now I kind of love big pants?

But the real star here are the EMUS, of course. This is fabric from Doops Designs that I’d been sitting on since 2021 or so. I only had a meter but cropping the Willow Tank by three inches and using commercial bias binding made it work.

If I had a leave-the-house job I’d wear the hell out of these pants with a little top (here I’m dressed up for a therapy appointment, lol). But the EMU TOP will work with any pants on Zoom, so it’s a win-win outfit.

Hot Times In The Summer

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The wall paint in the garage is now 90% finished! (I’m waiting on the door wall/behind the shelves because I didn’t want to move everything off and then back on again to do the floor.)

AND the concrete is etched and rinsed! (And rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed again, and rinsed one more time in the afternoon because this is the step I’m the most nervous about. Hence the dropcloth runway.)
An empty garage with built in shelving. The walls are freshly painted white.If everything dries over the next few days (it should; it’s going to be 100 degrees today) then I’m going to roll on the floor epoxy Wednesday morning and hope for the best.

 

In between concrete rinses yesterday we went up to play in the stream, because wow does that garage get hot when you’re working in it. Am I mostly posting this because the light is making me look swole? Yes I am. A woman sitting on a rock in a river. She's wearing short shorts , a tank top, and a baseball hat.

Friday Links

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1. I’d heard that Jon Oliver had a guest appearance on General Hospital and this piece collects all the clips and gives us details of the bonkers plots. As the subhead says, “It’s nice to sit back and watch a man have the time of his life.”

 

2. Perfect headline: Australian officials ask fans to respect the privacy of Neil, a 1,000 kg seal who respects nothing

 

3. “There’s a lot you can do in a hi-viz vest”

@elisejoshiBench + Fully Funded Transit > Waymo

♬ original sound – IG: elisejoshi

Work Moods

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Me clocking in:
Image of a cat in a tie saying "Hope I don't have a lot of meetings" in front of a factory building that is labeled "lots of meetings factory"

 

Me wondering how to organize a fully remote workplace:
Screenshot of a Wikipedia entry with a black and white illustration of Romans and this text:Commoners in ancient Rome occasionally exercised a social strategy called secessio plebis, or secession of the plebs, in which the entire working class would evacuate a city en masse and refuse to work or fight in the army, leaving the patrician class to fend for itself. The secessions were an effective means of winning legal and economic concessions. Above it, someone has tweeted the image and this text: anyone want to secessio plebis with me tomorrow? we could head to the beach? maybe grab some snacks on the way?

 

Me thinking about the company’s mandated AI use and everything else going on in the world:

 

Me listening to the the reasons for the mandated AI use:
An image with the title, The AI Argumnt. A stick figure stomping on the head of another stick figure. The stomping figure is saying, Getting stomped is inevitable. It's already happening. Better to embrace it than get left behind.

Wednesday Poem

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This seems fitting for all work on the house lately. Those last couple lines!

 

Domesticity
by Catherine Pierce

Sometimes everything hurts with how desperately
I love it, and I do mean desperately. Like I want
to hold tight to every tender object, the gifted rock,

the basketball sneakers. Everywhere, piles
of undone, the tangle of should and will and want.
So many hours blurred to the necessity of sleep,

and how is any corner supposed to stay uncobwebbed
when also I need to consider mortality, love
the word gloaming, tweeze a tick from behind a knee?

How am I supposed to keep safe everyone
in this house while holding open the door
and saying have fun, make good choices, know the world?

Outside the wind has kicked up and the trees shush
even the leaf blowers. The hunger in my chest
could nearly lift me off the ground. Once I thought

domesticity was a gentle trap, a bed soft with quicksand.
Now I know it is a wild place, toothed and flowering.
Unnavigable, and not for the tenderhearted.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Patio Pants

Karen

At this point in my life, I like what I like and I have enough of a blog record to prove it. Case in point: Colorful stripey fabrics and big pants, as discussed in 2019 / made a few weeks ago.

A woman wearing rainbow striped pants and a leopard top takes a selfie in a mirror

I took Sunday afternoon off from garage work and hid from 109 degree heat (!) in the basement, sewing up another pair of Elizabeth Suzann Florence Pants  (lengthened by 4 inches again; I also upgraded my pocket addition to be anchored in the waistband and they’re so much nicer). The fabric is a Kaffe Fassett stripe from Harmony and the colors are so good.

Home Improvement Weekend

Karen

Lots of garage progress this weekend: I finished priming and then my brother and nephew came up with the 4,000 psi! gas!! pressure washer!!! to get the floor clean prior to painting that.

I can’t get over how nice and clean it looks now. This week I’ll do actual wall paint (with lots of drop cloths) and hopefully I can do the floors next weekend, so we can all start parking inside again.