My husband very kindly ordered and planted a bunch of dahlia bulbs to fill in a dead area in our front garden.
Unfortunately, the deer kept eating them and only a single one bloomed.
It’s such a great color though—the one bloom.
Fuschia?
Raspberry?
Magenta?
What would you call it?
I am not brand obsessed, but I’m not brand immune either. I think I like fashionable stuff about the same amount as other GenX women. (We are products of the Reagan era after all.)
I confess I once hopped into a windowless, unmarked van on Canal Street in NYC to buy a fake designer purse. Once.
Well, now that fall is here, I wanted a new silicone “solo loop sport” band for my Apple Watch in a fall color. The “moonglow” one that came with it is too light-colored for the season. The official Apple ones are very expensive and in limited colors.
This sent me sorting through the endless array of Apple Watch band knockoff websites.
I finally ordered one from god-knows-where that I thought was going to be $20, but ended up being $30 with the shipping.
The email address for the company literally came up “iMod Watches Knockoff Bands.”
It took forever to get here (from China, I presume) though the outer packaging says it came from “Shipping Department” in Jamaica, NY.
It feels very similar to an actual Apple Watch band. My only complaint is the color is a bit redder than I thought it would be. It was called “plum,” but I’d say it’s actually maroon.
I like it (so far). It feels just like the Apple one.
What about you? Do you ever go searching for “knockoff” products? Do you have any moral or economic objections to buying them?
I’ve already posted many Irish doors from my trip in June, but not this one:
This is the Dublin Unitarian Church, which I walked by many times before realizing what it was. The church was right near our hotel, but so “tucked in,” I didn’t notice it until the very end of my time there.
It’s clearly in the gothic style, similar to last week’s doors. I guess I like “recessed arches.” (Thanks to Suzette for naming them for me.) And look at those cool hinges.
What’s the difference between Unitarian Universalist and just Unitarian?
PerChatGPT:
American Unitarian Universalism (UU) emerged in 1961 from the merger of Unitarian and Universalist traditions, forming a non-creedal, pluralistic movement embracing humanists, theists, atheists, pagans, and others. It emphasizes individual freedom, social justice, and spiritual diversity without doctrinal boundaries.
European Unitarian churches, including Dublin’s, remain rooted in liberal Christian heritage, emphasizing reason, conscience, and the moral teachings of Jesus while rejecting the Trinity. They are typically more theistic and biblically grounded, though open and inclusive. In short: American UUism is multi-faith and post-Christian, while European Unitarianism is liberal Christian with freedom of belief.
For more Thursday Doors, see Dan’s blog No Facilities.
We have a woman in our church choir with dementia or Alzheimer’s (not sure of her official diagnosis). She has a lovely singing voice. In fact, she was a music teacher at one point.
But Susan (not her real name) is getting worse. She has an extremely difficult time keeping track of her sheet music and the folder it lives in. Last Sunday, as we began to warm-up before the congregation arrived, she turned to me and said, “I have no idea why I’m standing here, but I was a music teacher once.” She gets upset when she doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s never caused a scene or melted down, but her anxiety is a real issue. She needs constant reassurance. And she can get snippy with people who are trying to help her.
Her partner Jim is a nice man who has already lost both of his adult daughters to diseases. He’s doing his best, but this has got to be really tough on him.
The plan now is to make a formal schedule whereby her fellow sopranos will take turns supporting her each week, so that nobody gets stuck doing it all the time. It’s going to mean showing up early, sitting with her, making sure she has music, reassuring her throughout the rehearsal and performance, and then making sure she gets back to Jim.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not looking forward to it. I never knew this woman before she had dementia. She’s not a family member of mine. I have no special fondness for her.
But clearly, I need to step up. That’s the whole point of church, especially Unitarian Universalist churches, where belief in God is optional. “Community” is the goal. I know that if I get dementia (or cancer or anything else), these people will support me. They are GOOD PEOPLE. Most are better than me. (I’m not just saying that. They really are.)
Here’s something Susan said to me in one of her sweeter moments: “I have a trick for when I don’t know what’s going on. I smile more.”
I’m going to try to remember that. Smile more. If she’s annoying me with her inability to follow along and constant questions, I’ll smile at her. She has a lovely smile. And so do I.
Smiling in annoying or uncomfortable situations might not help. But it can’t hurt. I think this might be a uniquely American thing.
Today was a landscape demo and then we had to paint one of two photos in 10 minutes. I think the idea was to see what choices people make with little time to think.
I was the only person in the class who chose the stock photo of a sun with visible rays bursting through a dark forest. I thought…what the heck? I’ll give it a shot. (Everyone else chose a more natural image of a forest that the teacher had taken herself.)
This wasn’t the exact stock photo, but you get the idea:
The result isn’t great, but I learned about a few techniques in the process.
Some of the ladies bugged me today. The ones that already knew each other before the class started tend to chat constantly, even when the teacher is talking. Two of them speak so loudly to each other that everyone can hear their entire conversation. They lack self-awareness.
It’s great to see there was huge turnout out in the major cities, especially Boston (wow), but it was interesting to protest in a small town.
I’d say we had about 400 people on the town green where I waved my sign.
We were mostly middle-aged and older white people. I chatted with a teacher, a dental hygienist, a grocery store worker, and a lot of retired people I know from church.
We were in a high-traffic area where we actually waved our individual signs at passing cars and got lots of curious stares, many supportive honks, a few middle fingers, and 2 to 5 dudes yelling “Go Trump.”
There was a small counterprotest (2 to 4 people at one end of the town green in full MAGA regalia with a Trump 2024 banner), but they were peaceful.
Oh, and there were two Jesus freaks (sorry, that’s what GenX calls them) with “Jesus IS King” signs. They were fairly young skinny white guys with beards who were there to proselytize. I overheard one lady trying to find common ground with them on the immigrant issue (“but Jesus wanted us to welcome the stranger and help the poor”) and they were having none of it. They were much more aligned with the small MAGA counterprotest.
Oh, and thanks to the great city of Portland which started the trend, there were multiple inflatable costumes. We had a giraffe, several bees and a unicorn, YAY. The unicorn was adorable.
Onward.
And honestly, FUCK DONALD TRUMP and All Who Support Him. I kept the F word off my sign (both of them: Fuck and Fascism) and did not engage with any pro-Trumpers yesterday, but I need to be the real me on my blog and I really truly hate him.
Quick update since my last post.
I fit everything I planned onto my poster. It was a tight squeeze, but I did it.
Liberal churches like mine are ready to show up on Saturday – peacefully.
XOXOXO
Mary G,
Retired Grandma
😀 🌈 🦄
I went looking for a door photo for Dan’s Thursday Doors and found this:
If someone asked me yesterday if I’d ever been to Sacramento, the capital of California, I would’ve said no.
But I was wrong. My high school friend Susan and I took our 11-year old sons on an epic Northern California road trip in the summer of 2012 and stopped at the famous Squeeze Burger (formerly Squeeze Inn) in Sacramento. We were on our way to her house in Lake Tahoe from Oakland.
Upon further research, I found pictures of the famous cheese-skirted burgers online, which look familiar.
We were in the second Sacramento location (now closed), which featured the original tiny Sacramento storefront as a booth in the restaurant. Perfect for two boys traveling with their moms.
This is why pictures matter people. By the time you hit 60, you will not remember half the stuff you did in your life.
What’s everyone’s plan for Saturday?
Will you turnout for the largest (hopefully) pro-democracy peaceful protests in history?
I’m going to a poster-making event Wednesday, so I went searching in my basement for poster paint. I found some! Now I just need some normal size lettering brushes. My house painting brushes are too wide.
I’m debating what to put on my actual protest poster. Here’s what I’m thinking:
NO ABORTION BANS
NO Healthcare Hike$
NO Voter Suppression
NO Assault Weapons
NO Kings in America
What’s your sign going to say?
We now have three unused bedrooms upstairs, but we’re using our one and only dining room as a combo art studio, home office, and marijuana dispensary.
Because…stairs
I’m definitely seeing the benefits of living on one floor.
When your kids are home, it’s nice to have separate floors for various activities. Young kids can be sent “up to bed” and you can still watch your shows on whatever volume you want. Older kids and teens can go to the basement to roughhouse or just hang out adult-free. And everyone can have privacy and space when needed.
When it’s just the two of you, it’s different. Do I really want my other glasses enough to climb the stairs to get them? If I need a pain reliever in the middle of the night and the only bottle is in the kitchen, how bad is the pain really? Bad enough to go downstairs in a cold, dark house? Maybe I’d rather just try to sleep with the pain. A bee’s nest recently grew to massive proportions in our basement because nobody was down there to see them coming in. And how exactly are we going to deal, if my husband’s arthritis requires joint replacement?
Sometimes I decide to go upstairs to get something, get distracted by laundry sorting or some other upstairs activity, and return without what I went up there for. I’ve found that if I say my plan aloud (“I’m going to get a sweater”), there’s a better chance I’ll complete the mission. And if I forget, there’s a chance my husband heard me say it and can remind me.
So, convenience. That’s how empty-nesters repurpose space.
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