Mental Sampler 25
Last week, I was wearing very old jeans while cleaning animal enclosures. I bent down to give a cavy’s head a scratch, and the cavy trotted away. I stood up, and as I was turning, the ChickieNob commented that the cavy changed his mind and wanted the head scratch afterall. I quickly squatted back down, cooing at the cavy, when I heard the soft swoosh of ripping material. I split open the thigh of my jeans.
I had to finish cleaning the enclosures with a gaping hole in my jeans, just south of my crotch. The silver lining of animals being unable to speak (and no humans besides the twins around) is that I didn’t need to hear all about my pasty thigh.
Unfortunately, the material is too thin to repair easily. Goodbye, jeans, you served me well. I mean, up until that last trip into the world.
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Josh and I are small town connoisseurs. I introduced him years ago to my favourite activity of driving around and exploring random towns—the smaller the better.
We found a great one a few years ago with a population under 600 people. It’s right on the water, with a more populated town across the river. It has three restaurants, a bookstore, a museum, and a few tchotchke shops. Plus, it has a fantastic public park with benches overlooking a rocky boat launch.
We’ve gone twice this fall to read outside, and it’s great because we only see a handful of people as we drive in and out. We call ahead to the bookstores and have them set aside books to pick up so we don’t have to spend a lot of time indoors, or get prepackaged ice cream containers to go from the ice cream shop. It’s getting too cold to do this many more times, but it’s nice to be able to go out a bit after a summer in the house.
Turning down random roads and finding tiny towns sometimes pays off.
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The school made us choose whether we’re sending the twins back if they test out a hybrid method in January. I wish they sent the survey to the twins—they’re affected by the choice just as much as we are—so we sat down with each kid to fill it out together.
It’s all a moot point. The case numbers aren’t low enough to start the hybrid option, and if the case numbers truly drop and stay low, they’ll likely reopen school for everyone. But, right now, we’re staying home.
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Most cookbooks have a handful of recipes I want, so it is an awesome thing when I find a cookbook where I want to try 70 – 80% of the recipes. I checked José Andrés’s Vegetables Unleashed from the library, and promptly purchased a copy the next day. (Okay, I sent Josh to Politics and Prose to pick it up, but you know what I mean.) I haven’t been this excited about a cookbook in a long time. It’s mostly vegetarian (though not exclusively) and sometimes even vegan. And everything looks so good.
6 comments
I lost a pair of my favorite jeans this year – I think I was at home when they went. :/
I don’t much care for small towns, probably because my mom’s family lived in one that we would visit. There was nothing to do in town – we had all our fun at the farm.
Our school district goes back to full remote next week until after Christmas break. We’ll see what happens once the Thanksgiving and Christmas infection spikes happen.
I’m intrigued by your love of small towns. I grew up in one (pop. 5,000-ish) and hated it, but I have visited others as an adult that I’ve liked. Not sure I would want to live in one, though.
Good luck with Vegetables Unleashed! And sorry to hear about your jeans. I hate shopping for clothes, and jeans are a particularly difficult item for me to find ones that I like and that fit.
Nope. Just reading about the small town adventures made me anxious. Maybe being not white I just feel I’ll stick out like a sore thumb, and yes, I may have some biased ideas about people’s beliefs in small towns. We’ve been camping a lot lately, and state parks tend to me near tiny little towns and we try to avoid stopping. (also because of COVID, obviously). Maybe rural PA is specific, but we saw lots and lots of MAGA signs and flags and whatnot.
RIP, ripped jeans 🙁 At least no one was there to see #pandemicplus
I love the idea of finding small towns, and that you found one last year that you can social distance in this year. Makes me want to do the same when we can move about freely again.
I think the small town idea is great. Or just finding a lovely spot that you can visit and read or picnic. I want to do that a lot more this summer. I like the idea of going just to read. My husband is an enthusiastic reader, but he doesn’t seem to like the idea of relaxing and reading outside so much, whereas I could spend an afternoon under a tree with a book. Even better with ice-cream!
It’s always sad when favourite comfy clothes or shoes finally give up the ghost!
Oh sadness, losing a favorite pair of jeans is the worst. And thank goodness only the cavy was there to see! The small towns search sounds fun, especially if you can find bookstores and a place to read. That cookbook sounds delicious! And I’m glad the twins will be home. The numbers are so bad.