Good morning RK. Though you are likely to be sacked out now.
And a good morning to AJ and everyone else.
It is Friday already?
I can remember when it was only Monday.
The other day there was a discussion about dress in years past compared to the present. The dressy days of old, including suits and dresses when in public, to the wearing of sweatpants and pjs anywhere of today, because “inside” clothes are now wherever and whenever clothes.
🙂
—–
“Wouldn’t It Be Wonderful If Coronavirus Brought Back Dressy Clothes?”
“The wardrobe of an average American woman is endless, but mostly consisting of what is essentially inside clothes, only she wears them everywhere.”
Wong noted that perhaps the most important function of the “inside clothes” is framing her home life. It outlines the physical and mental space where she dresses purely for herself — and Instagram, apparently (not that there is anything wrong with that). Where Western women differ most from immigrants is the degree to which sartorial comfort signals the domestic realm. Second-wave feminism promoted an erasure of boundaries between private and public, and the way American women dress has something to do with it.
Just like the conversations about the details of our private lives, about family violence, miscarriages, and menstrual products, have leaped onto the front pages of glossy magazines, or the government has been invited into personal decisions pertaining to childcare and work, formerly intimate forms of dress have become acceptable in public. Or at least not totally unacceptable—the Walmart people shopping in their PJs raise an eyebrow, but only slightly.
Likewise, in the 1970s, young women on the punk scene wore lingerie as statement pieces, the practice Madonna took mainstream a decade later. Come 1990s, underwear as outerwear became fully incorporated into mainstream youth fashions. All of these trends have been described at one time or another in feminist terms.
From Yoga Pants to Other Yoga Pants
Also, of course, there is the ubiquitous movement towards casual garments for both women and men. In the workplace, especially here in California, it means a near-total abandonment of the suit, initially in favor of the black beatniky sweater, like Steve Jobs’s, and now some outdoorsy vests.
If in the ’60s weekend-casual included blue jeans, even those seem too stiff and formal now. Young people simply roll out of bed, and change pajamas for sweats — basically the same concept. A trained eye is necessary to distinguish which pair is intended for sleep, which for jogging, and which for hanging out with in-laws.
Millennial and Gen Z women have been assimilated into this sartorial indifference from birth. The PJs they wear to sleep are the leggings they wear to play, and half the time they don’t change out of their “play wear” for special occasions. They continue the same clothing habits well into middle age.
The wardrobe of an average American woman is endless, but mostly consisting of what is essentially inside clothes, only she wears them everywhere. It’s not that we leave our homes open to germs, but that the domestic sphere took over the public one. If personal is political, what was once private is now splattered all over.
I Spent Two Hours on My Face and Two Seconds on Clothes
Her excuse is liberation through comfort: the sister is doing it for herself. She feels unrestrained, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’ll wear leggings to church, and the leggings will have pockets. But then she glues on false eyelashes.”
Good Morning. It may be Friday but it will be a busy one. I have a few problems to solve today and am taking advantage of free designations offered by the National Association of Realtors.
I am waiting on my 9am Coffee Zoom with the office then this afternoon we will have Wine Down Zoom at 5. At least it punctuates my day.
Nice capture on the header, AJ! What is that bird known as besides Skinny Legs?
I was suppose to be on a Zoom call at 10 but it got cancelled due to the originator having a sinus headache. I hope that is all it is.
I have another church group prayer call this afternoon. I feel most alive these days when on our prayer calls where two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name. Of course being here with you all virtually gives a similar feeling.
Yesterday I had two calls requesting prayer. One was from the front desk person at Art’s office. She said she use to call her mom for prayer but now her mom has passed away so she called me. It is an honor. She wanted prayer for an elderly couple because the lady is very sick and her husband who is trying to take care of her has dementia. I prayed for them and for the one who called and her family. Then the church prayer hotline rang. The one requesting prayer was a church member I had meant to call because she went to school with someone in Art’s church who is in the hospital and may need surgery and is asking for people to call her. So I prayed over the request and then gave her the info to call that person in Art’s church. God sure works things out for people. He is in the details. Now I need to call the one in the hospital.
Janice, I am praying for them too.
I know what it is to be responsible for a helpless person when you are falling apart too.
To me, “Just make it through another day” has real meaning.
Morning! The sky is blue and the ground is white. Walking will be put off until later this afternoon when hopefully the ice will be melted off these roads 😊
Janice”
I went back and read your 10:20. You said the husband has dementia.
That cannot be. A person with dementia doesn’t even know where they are. They may be aware of the present time, but not related to anything else.
If it is really the case, they need help form someone who can think.
I can think. That may be all I can do. But I can pray and think.
We’re supposed to get a few inches of snow tonight.
Previously, I have mentioned how “strong” my Nightingale is, and how she denies being strong. Today I think maybe the more suitable word could be “determined” or “tenacious”. Or whatever the word would be for someone who digs their heels in and doesn’t budge in whatever their determination is.
Three months ago, Nightingale applied to FAFSA (Federal Student Aid) for when she goes back to school in the fall to work towards her RN degree. She hadn’t heard anything yet, until she recently got an email. It turns out she has been “chosen” for some kind of audit-type of thing where she needs to fill out a lot of info, and there is a “task list” she has to complete.
She thinks this is ridiculous, especially since she has received a student loan from them before, which she diligently pays, and they already have all this info on file. So, Nightingale being Nightingale, instead of heaving a frustrated sigh and going through with the “tasks”, she emailed them back, telling them that she is a nurse working overtime in this pandemic, and also a single mother overseeing her son’s schooling at this time. She went on to say that she is not going to do “this nonsense”, and she will be applying to the school and starting in the fall.
Wow. Good for her, but I hope she isn’t shooting herself in the foot.
Also, she told me that she is willing to “waste time” on phone calls, going as far up the line of bosses as she needs to, to deal with this. And what makes that so notable is that Nightingale hates having to make phone calls. But if that is what she needs to do, she will do it.
Sunshine here but we are expecting rain later. I’d better get going and make it outside for my walking time before the storm rolls in. The second half of the golf course was closed for construction yesterday, they are putting in new water lines. Good thing cuz I did not have the energy. Then I drove around trying to figure out some other roads. I ended up near another section of the course so got out and walked some more, another three holes. That was fine, but I was almost too tired to make it back to my van. I sure slept well.
Just heard from a longshore worker who says their bosses told them to expect a 40% drop in work / jobs if this continues and that they should start saving their money.
Cargo flow already is down by 30% during the first quarter of this year. While the factories in China are beginning to come back online, retailers here remain closed. And with so many people out of work, no orders are being put in for too many more goods. No one’s shopping. Christmas orders usually start flowing in by mid to late summer but I’m guessing there won’t be much of that this summer either.
And as michelle posted on FB today, the coyotes are enjoying their newfound freedom with all the people now in retreat. The beaches are all theirs! They can take up surfing. Life is good for the wildlife.
Chas, I think that was the only way the person asking for prayer knew how to describe it. It would be something along those lines but not all the way there yet. She did not have full details.
I had a nice conversation with the hospitalized person from Art’s church. She has a speech impediment, but I knew her well enough in the past to be able to understand most of what she said. I could have talked even longer but they brought her lunch in. I told her to pretend her beef broth was roast beef. “Yeah, right,” she said.
I didn’t stay home today. It’s my day at school to get work ready for next week. I make 21 packets for those who can’t do the work online, then post the work on the online planbook for those who do have internet access (50 some odd). Actually, I just upload the files and they either print them off, do the work, then send me a photo of it by email. Some of them don’t print it off but do the work on notebook paper and send a photo.
And now I have a stack of papers from the first week to check.
I’ve reached out to our local coyote expert from Ireland (who’s been researching urban coyotes, rats and other pesky wildlife here in SoCal for a couple years now) to see if there’s a story on changing wildlife behavior anticipated during mating, birthing and pup seasons. Maybe, maybe not, I’m thinking — or perhaps just some anecdotal observations.
Yes, things are slowing down a bit, but that’s good after a whirlwind of craziness.
And speaking of our more relaxed, stay-at-home wardrobes, this was included in the World Magazine “Sift” email today:
~ Dear Friend,
Our local fire department in Wichita, Kan., sent out a notice this week that it called “kind of funny, kind of serious.” It had prevention tips for kitchen fires because so many more people are cooking while they stay at home during the pandemic. I chuckled a little while also taking heed. But I laughed out loud when I saw that police in Taneytown, Md., issued a reminder to people to wear their pants when they go outside to get the mail. Evidently, the problem is not widespread, since the notice was directed at one person. “You know who you are,” it read. “This is your final warning.” ~
Kizzie, I am glad that Nightingale is standing firm on that request. At the same time, I hope she treats requests from auditors In a diplomatic way. They are doing their part to check against fraud and save taxpayers money. A computer generates a certain percentage to be audited for such things. It was not a personal but random thing that she came up. I hope she gets all she is entitled to receive. I know she deserves it.
I have to do a wellness check with my Primary Care Doctor on Monday by video call. I have to have a blood pressure cuff, scales to check weight, and logs for blood pressure and glucose. I have the first two but not the logs. This will be a new thing to accomplish on my smartish phone. It does not seem very private. I am suppose to think of three concerns or questions. I may ask for referral of a book title that addresses what to expect physically as I age. That will help me to know the difference in what is normal and what is not.
Good afternoon, everyone. Snow from the weekend is melting, as we’re up into the 50s today. Tomorrow is predicted to be in the 60s — delightful!
AJ’s link at 8:50 reminded me of attire around campus when I was in college in the early 80s. A fair number of people, though not I, wore sweat pants/shirts to class. My piano professor, ever a classy dresser, commented at least once about how sloppy the students looked dressed in sweats. The meh, whatever, attitude toward public dress was already in full swing at that time.
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been getting dressed up for online piano lessons, as I did for in-person lessons. I have not been putting on any makeup, though, which I started doing for lessons when I began teaching at the music studio in February. My eyes had been getting irritated more easily when I started wearing eye makeup again, even though I only had it on for a short time, and not even every day. There’s probably some hypo-allergenic makeup out there, but I don’t feel like going to stores to look for any. I can do without. No students of mine have quit lessons because their teacher — gasp — isn’t wearing makeup onscreen!
This morning I felt like wearing a skirt. It’s a soft and super-comfortable J.Jill piece. I don’t wear it in public anymore, though, because the elastic has stretched out too much to stay up on me and I have the waist tucked with a big safety pin so the skirt doesn’t fall down. There’s a funny-shaped clump of material where I pinned it that sticks out under all but the baggiest of tops. But excessively baggy tops look sloppy on me, IMO, thus my not wearing the skirt anywhere but at home and off-camera.
Works for me, and the skirt otherwise still looks quite nice, while being a practical color that doesn’t show dirt easily, given the multi-colored brown tones in it. I feel better going about my day when I’m not dressed in dumpy things.
In my inbox this morning I found a most lovely email. My sometimes-duet partner, my friend who organizes the local piano concerts, wrote me just to chat, see how it’s going, talk (music) shop, etc.
The subject line was “Schubert,” and she wrote that she was listening to the Schubert piano duet we had performed a couple of years ago, remembering with joyful tears in her eyes how much fun it had been to work on that together and play it. She mentioned also that she’d like to perform it again sometime, which I would also love to do.
I couldn’t believe the coincidence of the timing of that email. She sent it last night a little after 9pm, and just perhaps an hour before that, I was feeling in the mood to play something different on the piano than I’ve played in a while. So I had gone to one of my music shelves and pulled a copy of Schubert Impromptus and sat down to play the Op. 90, No. 1 piece.
Not long into the piece, I started thinking about my friend and I who played the Schubert Fantasie in F Minor duet — the same friend who emailed me less than an hour later, reminiscing about the same performance!
What fun to see her email this morning!
Our spring concert was canceled this year, so I haven’t seen her since the one in December. It was really lovely to chat with her via email today and catch up a little on what we’ve been doing during our stay-at-home days. 🙂
When I was a janitor in the business building of the university campus, I’d see girls come to their gen-ed 7:30 AM classes with wet hair and sweats. Later, they’d be all dressed up for their business classes. It was the only department to require business formal clothes to class.
Another time I was the janitor in a small girls dorm. A girl came out wearing nice clothes. Her usual was blue jeans and a t-shirt or sweater. I complimented her and she said “I have a speech today.” A week or so later I saw her dressed up again, so I asked if she had anoher speech. “No,” she replied. “This is the only clean clothing I have.”
My parents and I were out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant, the kind we would dress up for, when we saw someone (maybe more than one person) wearing sweatpants and sweatshirt (or maybe it was a t-shirt). I think I was still in high school, so that would be 1979 or earlier. So dressing down is not something new that the younger folks invented, but they are continuing a trend started by their elders.
It would be interesting to know how some of the clothes that we would consider “dressing up” would have been considered when they first appeared.
I had friends in Nashville who had more money than I, and who sometimes went to nicer restaurants than I, and who invited me to join them for a few meals. One evening they called and invited me to a restaurant, and said they’d be by in five minutes. I told them I wasn’t wearing anything fancy, and they said that’s OK, they weren’t either. Well, we ended up going to a “nicer” restaurant than expected, and I felt awkward–until I looked around and realized no one was even close to dressed up, at a nice restaurant on a Friday night. To me it was rather weird–why would you go to a nice restaurant in your gardening clothes?
When my husband and I were getting ready for our first date, some friends took me shopping for clothes. The friend who was buying the clothes told me about one pair of pants that they’d be good for that date. I said no, I already had my outfit for that date, and that I was wearing a dress. She told me I didn’t “have to” wear a dress, and I said no, I wanted to. I’d waited many years for that date, and it was special. (So she bought me a new dress, too.)
I love Jjill. Someday I’ll go back there, when there’s money & open stores so shopping can happen again.
I never wear sweats out of the house or backyard, even to walk the dogs — I’ll switch into jeans at least lol.
I think the overly-casual dressing firmly took hold in the ’70s. But weren’t the ’80s kind of a return to dressiness? I remember wearing mostly skirts and blouses and dresses during that era. I wore more casual dresses and skirts came out in the ’90s, early 2000s.
Then, after 2010 or so, it all went somewhere in a hand basket.
Thanks for sharing that clip AJ! We got all teary eyed watching it, knowing our Lord is so very gracious and merciful to us all ❤️
When I was a child our family always dressed up to dine out. Of course it was usually after church or after we had our family portrait taken at Olan Mills!! 😊
I don’t have sweat pants but I do have leggings. I always wear a long sweater or tunic top while wearing those 😊 When it is very cold outside I will wear jeans…nice jeans…to church but I always have on a really pretty tunic top and nice boots!!
All lof this talk about what clothes to wear is beyond me.
I wore a suit to church and to work.
Other than that, I never considered what I might someplace.
A wedding, etc. would get special attention.
But I didn’t think much about it.
you know everytime I look at the header picture I like it better. The blend of colors and the focus of the bird. Aj, good shot, you can leave that one up for a while.
oh, someone recommended the Trailblazer books for kids. They are missionary tales, but told from the perspective of a child who meets the missionary. For 40 dollars you can get a cd that has all 40 books in different formats. So you can read them on a kindle, a nook, a computer, an ipad, etc. Maybe 3rd to 6th grade range. Of course you could also do read alouds. I gave them to my daughter for her kids. I believe you can have them on more than one device as a family. So if your grandkids need something to read, this is an option. They are written by Dave and Neta Jackson. So the web address is daveneta dot com.
Michelle, do you know how one opens what you have linked? I’m probably about in the middle in this crowd in terms of technological know-how, and nothing I’m clicking on is working. Of course it could be that I don’t have whatever I need, either.
Station 1 – “Gov. JB Pritzker announced today he is suspending in-person learning at all Illinois schools for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.”
Later in the day – “IL Governor cancels remainder of school year, releases WiFi hotspot map for students”
Station 2 – “BREAKING: Illinois governor closes schools for the rest of the school year.”
Now, how do you interpret these? The first one is more accurate to me, as it’s clear that we’ll still be “teaching”, but won’t have classes. The second one makes me think we’re done for the year, with the Wifi part contradictory to that idea. The last one seems to me to say school is totally over.
The story: students still need lessons, they’ll just do them at home.
Headlines — they often have to “fit” (either in time or space), which makes them tricky. It’s an art. Broadcast news writing was especially hard for me in college, it is very restrictive.
My headlines (yes, now reporters have to write their own since nearly all copy editors are gone) are usually too long as I try to get as much in as I can 🙂 But that’s not necessarily considered a “good” headline which is designed to draw you into the full story.
I worked yearbook for three years in college, and the second year we had a really creative design person. She had attended a high school that focused on art and design. The yearbook was divided into sections (sports, academics, assemblies, student life, portraits, etc.), and each section got its own “look” with a variation between the pages of that section. For instance, pages in the sports section might all have a small area of three photos joined by a “filmstrip” design, and the photographers had to look for a chance to get action shots to fill those.
Well, one thing she designed was headline styles for each section. So, for example, you might see “Women’s Volleyball Finishes a Winning Season.” “Volleyball” would be in a large font, with “Women’s” smaller above it, and the rest of the phrase would be in small type at the bottom. So every headline in that section had to follow that pattern. “Men’s Basketball . . . Focuses on Rebuilding” or whatever.
Sometimes the layout people came up with some really pretty fonts that worked together well, but made things extremely tricky for the writers! A particular “section” of the headline might have to be six to nine characters, for instance. We learned the hard way one year that “Women’s” didn’t fit the mold. In the first deadline, we’d sent two or three men’s sports, but the women played later in the season, or we didn’t have enough photos yet, or something, and women’s sports didn’t go into the first deadline. And alas, that big wide W took up about half the space allotted for where “Men’s” had fit (the capital M in that font wasn’t nearly as wide as the W, and men’s is two letters shorter). Nobody had thought to try it out! We couldn’t check such things by computer in those days, but manually. We were left with no good choice but to have men’s basketball and girls’ basketball and hope no one got upset! (This would have been 1991 or 1992.)
The writer who wrote the headlines got so annoyed with the restrictions that she took several pieces of the layout paper and handwrote “Gag Me with a Headline” in several of the headline styles and posted the sheets around the office computer. (The computer was used only for typing in articles and other text, not for layouts or anything requiring graphics.)
Wandering Views 
Good morning!
LikeLike
Good morning RK. Though you are likely to be sacked out now.
And a good morning to AJ and everyone else.
It is Friday already?
I can remember when it was only Monday.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Nope, still working. Waiting for repeat labs so I can transfer a patient.
LikeLiked by 4 people
It snowed again last night. Probably only an inch this time, but I told my son I’m declaring it a snow day and we’re staying home.
LikeLiked by 7 people
We’re staying home too, Pauline
Chas
LikeLiked by 3 people
The other day there was a discussion about dress in years past compared to the present. The dressy days of old, including suits and dresses when in public, to the wearing of sweatpants and pjs anywhere of today, because “inside” clothes are now wherever and whenever clothes.
🙂
—–
“Wouldn’t It Be Wonderful If Coronavirus Brought Back Dressy Clothes?”
“The wardrobe of an average American woman is endless, but mostly consisting of what is essentially inside clothes, only she wears them everywhere.”
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/17/wouldnt-it-be-wonderful-if-coronavirus-brought-back-dressy-clothes/
—-
“When the Private Becomes Public
Wong noted that perhaps the most important function of the “inside clothes” is framing her home life. It outlines the physical and mental space where she dresses purely for herself — and Instagram, apparently (not that there is anything wrong with that). Where Western women differ most from immigrants is the degree to which sartorial comfort signals the domestic realm. Second-wave feminism promoted an erasure of boundaries between private and public, and the way American women dress has something to do with it.
Just like the conversations about the details of our private lives, about family violence, miscarriages, and menstrual products, have leaped onto the front pages of glossy magazines, or the government has been invited into personal decisions pertaining to childcare and work, formerly intimate forms of dress have become acceptable in public. Or at least not totally unacceptable—the Walmart people shopping in their PJs raise an eyebrow, but only slightly.
Likewise, in the 1970s, young women on the punk scene wore lingerie as statement pieces, the practice Madonna took mainstream a decade later. Come 1990s, underwear as outerwear became fully incorporated into mainstream youth fashions. All of these trends have been described at one time or another in feminist terms.
From Yoga Pants to Other Yoga Pants
Also, of course, there is the ubiquitous movement towards casual garments for both women and men. In the workplace, especially here in California, it means a near-total abandonment of the suit, initially in favor of the black beatniky sweater, like Steve Jobs’s, and now some outdoorsy vests.
If in the ’60s weekend-casual included blue jeans, even those seem too stiff and formal now. Young people simply roll out of bed, and change pajamas for sweats — basically the same concept. A trained eye is necessary to distinguish which pair is intended for sleep, which for jogging, and which for hanging out with in-laws.
Millennial and Gen Z women have been assimilated into this sartorial indifference from birth. The PJs they wear to sleep are the leggings they wear to play, and half the time they don’t change out of their “play wear” for special occasions. They continue the same clothing habits well into middle age.
The wardrobe of an average American woman is endless, but mostly consisting of what is essentially inside clothes, only she wears them everywhere. It’s not that we leave our homes open to germs, but that the domestic sphere took over the public one. If personal is political, what was once private is now splattered all over.
I Spent Two Hours on My Face and Two Seconds on Clothes
Her excuse is liberation through comfort: the sister is doing it for herself. She feels unrestrained, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’ll wear leggings to church, and the leggings will have pockets. But then she glues on false eyelashes.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I listened to this interview yesterday evening, from the New York doctor who treated and survived Ebola in 2014 and now treats COVID-19 in New York: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/n-y-doctor-uses-experience-as-ebola-patient-to-fight-stunningly-similar-covid-19-1.5534587
LikeLike
Good morning, all, staying home today. There was some frost.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Good Morning. It may be Friday but it will be a busy one. I have a few problems to solve today and am taking advantage of free designations offered by the National Association of Realtors.
I am waiting on my 9am Coffee Zoom with the office then this afternoon we will have Wine Down Zoom at 5. At least it punctuates my day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t that the truth, Kim?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good morning. I am staying home today, too.😀
Nice capture on the header, AJ! What is that bird known as besides Skinny Legs?
I was suppose to be on a Zoom call at 10 but it got cancelled due to the originator having a sinus headache. I hope that is all it is.
I have another church group prayer call this afternoon. I feel most alive these days when on our prayer calls where two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name. Of course being here with you all virtually gives a similar feeling.
Yesterday I had two calls requesting prayer. One was from the front desk person at Art’s office. She said she use to call her mom for prayer but now her mom has passed away so she called me. It is an honor. She wanted prayer for an elderly couple because the lady is very sick and her husband who is trying to take care of her has dementia. I prayed for them and for the one who called and her family. Then the church prayer hotline rang. The one requesting prayer was a church member I had meant to call because she went to school with someone in Art’s church who is in the hospital and may need surgery and is asking for people to call her. So I prayed over the request and then gave her the info to call that person in Art’s church. God sure works things out for people. He is in the details. Now I need to call the one in the hospital.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Janice, I am praying for them too.
I know what it is to be responsible for a helpless person when you are falling apart too.
To me, “Just make it through another day” has real meaning.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Morning! The sky is blue and the ground is white. Walking will be put off until later this afternoon when hopefully the ice will be melted off these roads 😊
LikeLike
Lovely green heron shot, AJ! I haven’t seen any yet this year.
LikeLike
Janice”
I went back and read your 10:20. You said the husband has dementia.
That cannot be. A person with dementia doesn’t even know where they are. They may be aware of the present time, but not related to anything else.
If it is really the case, they need help form someone who can think.
I can think. That may be all I can do. But I can pray and think.
LikeLiked by 4 people
We’re supposed to get a few inches of snow tonight.
Previously, I have mentioned how “strong” my Nightingale is, and how she denies being strong. Today I think maybe the more suitable word could be “determined” or “tenacious”. Or whatever the word would be for someone who digs their heels in and doesn’t budge in whatever their determination is.
Three months ago, Nightingale applied to FAFSA (Federal Student Aid) for when she goes back to school in the fall to work towards her RN degree. She hadn’t heard anything yet, until she recently got an email. It turns out she has been “chosen” for some kind of audit-type of thing where she needs to fill out a lot of info, and there is a “task list” she has to complete.
She thinks this is ridiculous, especially since she has received a student loan from them before, which she diligently pays, and they already have all this info on file. So, Nightingale being Nightingale, instead of heaving a frustrated sigh and going through with the “tasks”, she emailed them back, telling them that she is a nurse working overtime in this pandemic, and also a single mother overseeing her son’s schooling at this time. She went on to say that she is not going to do “this nonsense”, and she will be applying to the school and starting in the fall.
Wow. Good for her, but I hope she isn’t shooting herself in the foot.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Also, she told me that she is willing to “waste time” on phone calls, going as far up the line of bosses as she needs to, to deal with this. And what makes that so notable is that Nightingale hates having to make phone calls. But if that is what she needs to do, she will do it.
Go, Nightingale!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Sunshine here but we are expecting rain later. I’d better get going and make it outside for my walking time before the storm rolls in. The second half of the golf course was closed for construction yesterday, they are putting in new water lines. Good thing cuz I did not have the energy. Then I drove around trying to figure out some other roads. I ended up near another section of the course so got out and walked some more, another three holes. That was fine, but I was almost too tired to make it back to my van. I sure slept well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well I’m staying home today too.
Just heard from a longshore worker who says their bosses told them to expect a 40% drop in work / jobs if this continues and that they should start saving their money.
Cargo flow already is down by 30% during the first quarter of this year. While the factories in China are beginning to come back online, retailers here remain closed. And with so many people out of work, no orders are being put in for too many more goods. No one’s shopping. Christmas orders usually start flowing in by mid to late summer but I’m guessing there won’t be much of that this summer either.
And as michelle posted on FB today, the coyotes are enjoying their newfound freedom with all the people now in retreat. The beaches are all theirs! They can take up surfing. Life is good for the wildlife.
LikeLike
Oh, the like button works again.
Chas, I think that was the only way the person asking for prayer knew how to describe it. It would be something along those lines but not all the way there yet. She did not have full details.
I had a nice conversation with the hospitalized person from Art’s church. She has a speech impediment, but I knew her well enough in the past to be able to understand most of what she said. I could have talked even longer but they brought her lunch in. I told her to pretend her beef broth was roast beef. “Yeah, right,” she said.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for praying, Chas.
LikeLike
I didn’t stay home today. It’s my day at school to get work ready for next week. I make 21 packets for those who can’t do the work online, then post the work on the online planbook for those who do have internet access (50 some odd). Actually, I just upload the files and they either print them off, do the work, then send me a photo of it by email. Some of them don’t print it off but do the work on notebook paper and send a photo.
And now I have a stack of papers from the first week to check.
Oh, and since it is Friday, and most of you are at home all day, here’s some enjoyable reading material.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve reached out to our local coyote expert from Ireland (who’s been researching urban coyotes, rats and other pesky wildlife here in SoCal for a couple years now) to see if there’s a story on changing wildlife behavior anticipated during mating, birthing and pup seasons. Maybe, maybe not, I’m thinking — or perhaps just some anecdotal observations.
Yes, things are slowing down a bit, but that’s good after a whirlwind of craziness.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And speaking of our more relaxed, stay-at-home wardrobes, this was included in the World Magazine “Sift” email today:
~ Dear Friend,
Our local fire department in Wichita, Kan., sent out a notice this week that it called “kind of funny, kind of serious.” It had prevention tips for kitchen fires because so many more people are cooking while they stay at home during the pandemic. I chuckled a little while also taking heed. But I laughed out loud when I saw that police in Taneytown, Md., issued a reminder to people to wear their pants when they go outside to get the mail. Evidently, the problem is not widespread, since the notice was directed at one person. “You know who you are,” it read. “This is your final warning.” ~
LikeLiked by 3 people
Kizzie, I am glad that Nightingale is standing firm on that request. At the same time, I hope she treats requests from auditors In a diplomatic way. They are doing their part to check against fraud and save taxpayers money. A computer generates a certain percentage to be audited for such things. It was not a personal but random thing that she came up. I hope she gets all she is entitled to receive. I know she deserves it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to do a wellness check with my Primary Care Doctor on Monday by video call. I have to have a blood pressure cuff, scales to check weight, and logs for blood pressure and glucose. I have the first two but not the logs. This will be a new thing to accomplish on my smartish phone. It does not seem very private. I am suppose to think of three concerns or questions. I may ask for referral of a book title that addresses what to expect physically as I age. That will help me to know the difference in what is normal and what is not.
LikeLike
Stubborn! That is the word for Nightingale! (Since I have known how stubborn she is all her life, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier.)
Janice – Yes, she is wording her emails firmly but politely – or diplomatically, as you said.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Janice, you could do a log on paper and just send a picture of it to the doctor.?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good afternoon, everyone. Snow from the weekend is melting, as we’re up into the 50s today. Tomorrow is predicted to be in the 60s — delightful!
AJ’s link at 8:50 reminded me of attire around campus when I was in college in the early 80s. A fair number of people, though not I, wore sweat pants/shirts to class. My piano professor, ever a classy dresser, commented at least once about how sloppy the students looked dressed in sweats. The meh, whatever, attitude toward public dress was already in full swing at that time.
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been getting dressed up for online piano lessons, as I did for in-person lessons. I have not been putting on any makeup, though, which I started doing for lessons when I began teaching at the music studio in February. My eyes had been getting irritated more easily when I started wearing eye makeup again, even though I only had it on for a short time, and not even every day. There’s probably some hypo-allergenic makeup out there, but I don’t feel like going to stores to look for any. I can do without. No students of mine have quit lessons because their teacher — gasp — isn’t wearing makeup onscreen!
This morning I felt like wearing a skirt. It’s a soft and super-comfortable J.Jill piece. I don’t wear it in public anymore, though, because the elastic has stretched out too much to stay up on me and I have the waist tucked with a big safety pin so the skirt doesn’t fall down. There’s a funny-shaped clump of material where I pinned it that sticks out under all but the baggiest of tops. But excessively baggy tops look sloppy on me, IMO, thus my not wearing the skirt anywhere but at home and off-camera.
Works for me, and the skirt otherwise still looks quite nice, while being a practical color that doesn’t show dirt easily, given the multi-colored brown tones in it. I feel better going about my day when I’m not dressed in dumpy things.
LikeLiked by 2 people
In my inbox this morning I found a most lovely email. My sometimes-duet partner, my friend who organizes the local piano concerts, wrote me just to chat, see how it’s going, talk (music) shop, etc.
The subject line was “Schubert,” and she wrote that she was listening to the Schubert piano duet we had performed a couple of years ago, remembering with joyful tears in her eyes how much fun it had been to work on that together and play it. She mentioned also that she’d like to perform it again sometime, which I would also love to do.
I couldn’t believe the coincidence of the timing of that email. She sent it last night a little after 9pm, and just perhaps an hour before that, I was feeling in the mood to play something different on the piano than I’ve played in a while. So I had gone to one of my music shelves and pulled a copy of Schubert Impromptus and sat down to play the Op. 90, No. 1 piece.
Not long into the piece, I started thinking about my friend and I who played the Schubert Fantasie in F Minor duet — the same friend who emailed me less than an hour later, reminiscing about the same performance!
What fun to see her email this morning!
Our spring concert was canceled this year, so I haven’t seen her since the one in December. It was really lovely to chat with her via email today and catch up a little on what we’ve been doing during our stay-at-home days. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was a janitor in the business building of the university campus, I’d see girls come to their gen-ed 7:30 AM classes with wet hair and sweats. Later, they’d be all dressed up for their business classes. It was the only department to require business formal clothes to class.
Another time I was the janitor in a small girls dorm. A girl came out wearing nice clothes. Her usual was blue jeans and a t-shirt or sweater. I complimented her and she said “I have a speech today.” A week or so later I saw her dressed up again, so I asked if she had anoher speech. “No,” she replied. “This is the only clean clothing I have.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Now you can put a face to the man you joined me in praying for. 🙂
https://www.njtvonline.org/news/video/family-shares-story-of-miraculous-covid-19-recovery/?fbclid=IwAR0TLDR-p1xHvSsz89Hn5gBZcaYHdXE5zpHkLp0M01LvpB9efu0ayfWepe4
LikeLiked by 6 people
That article/video clip on Glenn is so moving, AJ. What a blessing to see this answer to prayer!
LikeLike
My parents and I were out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant, the kind we would dress up for, when we saw someone (maybe more than one person) wearing sweatpants and sweatshirt (or maybe it was a t-shirt). I think I was still in high school, so that would be 1979 or earlier. So dressing down is not something new that the younger folks invented, but they are continuing a trend started by their elders.
It would be interesting to know how some of the clothes that we would consider “dressing up” would have been considered when they first appeared.
LikeLike
I had friends in Nashville who had more money than I, and who sometimes went to nicer restaurants than I, and who invited me to join them for a few meals. One evening they called and invited me to a restaurant, and said they’d be by in five minutes. I told them I wasn’t wearing anything fancy, and they said that’s OK, they weren’t either. Well, we ended up going to a “nicer” restaurant than expected, and I felt awkward–until I looked around and realized no one was even close to dressed up, at a nice restaurant on a Friday night. To me it was rather weird–why would you go to a nice restaurant in your gardening clothes?
When my husband and I were getting ready for our first date, some friends took me shopping for clothes. The friend who was buying the clothes told me about one pair of pants that they’d be good for that date. I said no, I already had my outfit for that date, and that I was wearing a dress. She told me I didn’t “have to” wear a dress, and I said no, I wanted to. I’d waited many years for that date, and it was special. (So she bought me a new dress, too.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love Jjill. Someday I’ll go back there, when there’s money & open stores so shopping can happen again.
I never wear sweats out of the house or backyard, even to walk the dogs — I’ll switch into jeans at least lol.
I think the overly-casual dressing firmly took hold in the ’70s. But weren’t the ’80s kind of a return to dressiness? I remember wearing mostly skirts and blouses and dresses during that era. I wore more casual dresses and skirts came out in the ’90s, early 2000s.
Then, after 2010 or so, it all went somewhere in a hand basket.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Or maybe a laundry basket.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for sharing that clip AJ! We got all teary eyed watching it, knowing our Lord is so very gracious and merciful to us all ❤️
When I was a child our family always dressed up to dine out. Of course it was usually after church or after we had our family portrait taken at Olan Mills!! 😊
I don’t have sweat pants but I do have leggings. I always wear a long sweater or tunic top while wearing those 😊 When it is very cold outside I will wear jeans…nice jeans…to church but I always have on a really pretty tunic top and nice boots!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
All lof this talk about what clothes to wear is beyond me.
I wore a suit to church and to work.
Other than that, I never considered what I might someplace.
A wedding, etc. would get special attention.
But I didn’t think much about it.
LikeLike
I only wear skirts and tops in PNG. Of course over there the weather is perfect for skirts year round. Rather cold here.
LikeLike
Back to mask making
LikeLike
you know everytime I look at the header picture I like it better. The blend of colors and the focus of the bird. Aj, good shot, you can leave that one up for a while.
LikeLike
oh, someone recommended the Trailblazer books for kids. They are missionary tales, but told from the perspective of a child who meets the missionary. For 40 dollars you can get a cd that has all 40 books in different formats. So you can read them on a kindle, a nook, a computer, an ipad, etc. Maybe 3rd to 6th grade range. Of course you could also do read alouds. I gave them to my daughter for her kids. I believe you can have them on more than one device as a family. So if your grandkids need something to read, this is an option. They are written by Dave and Neta Jackson. So the web address is daveneta dot com.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The people in the know whom I know, think this is a sensible, well-thought-out plan.
Click to access WHReopeningDoc.pdf
LikeLike
Michelle, do you know how one opens what you have linked? I’m probably about in the middle in this crowd in terms of technological know-how, and nothing I’m clicking on is working. Of course it could be that I don’t have whatever I need, either.
LikeLike
Cheryl, I googled the title.
https : / / www . scribd . com / document / 456764821 / Guidelines # from _ embed
Copy and paste the above and remove the spaces.
LikeLike
Thanks, 6 Arrows. Having clicked on a couple of places on the page, I had most of the document covered up and couldn’t see anything anymore . . .
LikeLike
Not sure that did it . . . but I need to get off the computer anyway.
LikeLike
The difference between two local TV news tweets:
Station 1 – “Gov. JB Pritzker announced today he is suspending in-person learning at all Illinois schools for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.”
Later in the day – “IL Governor cancels remainder of school year, releases WiFi hotspot map for students”
Station 2 – “BREAKING: Illinois governor closes schools for the rest of the school year.”
Now, how do you interpret these? The first one is more accurate to me, as it’s clear that we’ll still be “teaching”, but won’t have classes. The second one makes me think we’re done for the year, with the Wifi part contradictory to that idea. The last one seems to me to say school is totally over.
The story: students still need lessons, they’ll just do them at home.
Care to comment on headline writing, DJ?
LikeLike
Headlines — they often have to “fit” (either in time or space), which makes them tricky. It’s an art. Broadcast news writing was especially hard for me in college, it is very restrictive.
My headlines (yes, now reporters have to write their own since nearly all copy editors are gone) are usually too long as I try to get as much in as I can 🙂 But that’s not necessarily considered a “good” headline which is designed to draw you into the full story.
LikeLike
And now we also have to know and use SEO techniques (Search Engine Optimization) — using words that will increase online traffic.
LikeLike
I worked yearbook for three years in college, and the second year we had a really creative design person. She had attended a high school that focused on art and design. The yearbook was divided into sections (sports, academics, assemblies, student life, portraits, etc.), and each section got its own “look” with a variation between the pages of that section. For instance, pages in the sports section might all have a small area of three photos joined by a “filmstrip” design, and the photographers had to look for a chance to get action shots to fill those.
Well, one thing she designed was headline styles for each section. So, for example, you might see “Women’s Volleyball Finishes a Winning Season.” “Volleyball” would be in a large font, with “Women’s” smaller above it, and the rest of the phrase would be in small type at the bottom. So every headline in that section had to follow that pattern. “Men’s Basketball . . . Focuses on Rebuilding” or whatever.
Sometimes the layout people came up with some really pretty fonts that worked together well, but made things extremely tricky for the writers! A particular “section” of the headline might have to be six to nine characters, for instance. We learned the hard way one year that “Women’s” didn’t fit the mold. In the first deadline, we’d sent two or three men’s sports, but the women played later in the season, or we didn’t have enough photos yet, or something, and women’s sports didn’t go into the first deadline. And alas, that big wide W took up about half the space allotted for where “Men’s” had fit (the capital M in that font wasn’t nearly as wide as the W, and men’s is two letters shorter). Nobody had thought to try it out! We couldn’t check such things by computer in those days, but manually. We were left with no good choice but to have men’s basketball and girls’ basketball and hope no one got upset! (This would have been 1991 or 1992.)
The writer who wrote the headlines got so annoyed with the restrictions that she took several pieces of the layout paper and handwrote “Gag Me with a Headline” in several of the headline styles and posted the sheets around the office computer. (The computer was used only for typing in articles and other text, not for layouts or anything requiring graphics.)
LikeLike
Well, we are going to have Green Chile Pork over rice with South Western salad for dinner.
LikeLike