All-Day Rain

It started raining around 9 o'clock this morning and it rained all day.  A slow-moving Low hung out over us all day so the clouds had a chance to wring out every drop.  I doubt whether the lawn will be dry enough to mow tomorrow but that's okay, I'm not on a rigid mowing schedule.

I loaded up the box of books, etc. and the bag of clothes I culled out last week and took them to Goodwill this morning.  I got there just as they opened and there was a line at the donation door  I guess people are clearing out closets being stuck at home.  I still wish I had a magic wand to get rid of all my excess stuff.  I'm very stuff-rich.  (crap-rich, is more like it)

Instead of sitting around staring at the rain I went downstairs to sew up a couple of the dresses I have cut out.  As I predicted earlier, the first one I sewed up was the batik I bought in Sturgeon Bay last spring on my way to meet KS to knit the day away.  She asked me to stop and pick up some fabric she needed for a project and I fell prey to a dark blue-green and chartreuse batik print.  Now I have something new to wear to Zoom knitting tomorrow night.  That there is my original non-computerized Necchi sewing machine.  I won a drawing when I was 19 and used the money to buy this machine.  It isn't fancy, it only does straight, zigzag, and buttonholes, but it's coming up on its 50th anniversary (holy jeebus!) and it's still never failed me.



The second dress I sewed is a black gabardine LBD  (Little Black Dress) using the same Dress no. 1 pattern that I love to make and wear.  I got the fabric at a yarn shop in Two Rivers last fall and knew that's what I'd make with it.  I didn't have an LBD for times when I need to dress up a bit but now I do.  Can an LBD have pockets?  I put on pockets because... clothes need pockets.

28 May--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

          The trio of pale lavender shells pointed like toy tops sat on the silver wood of the crate that had washed on shore. Manning watched the three little mollusks bump together and jockey into position, the regular nubs of their shells sliding together to make a faint rasping sound. He laughed under his breath seeing the largest of the three, which was no bigger than a quarter, shove the others away from his chosen spot, even though Manning could see no difference from one place to the other. He was sure the bully snail was a male. He believed in the superiority, the supremacy of males, and the primordial imperative of the creature that made sperm. That’s what made Jack a perfect pigeon for him.

           

            Driving on the narrow road that traces the southern end of the island, there is not much to see. The Solar Salt works is just about the biggest thing on the horizon with its long conveyor to load the white salt into cargo ships. Beyond the salt mountains there are no more houses, only what look like fisherman's shacks made of old boat planks and billboard parts, and the slave huts. At each cluster of huts, red and white, is also an obelisk. The red and white obelisks aren't the only ones on the island, there are half a dozen of them ranged on the extreme southern shore.  Mariners used to use them, line them up in certain order to sail into the correct patch of shoreline to pick up or drop cargo.  Like a finger pointing the way, the red obelisk stands sentinel over a deserted stretch of shoreline. No longer do mariners use it as an aid to navigation when coming to pick up cargo. Now it stands as an oddity, a curiosity poked and examined by sun burnt tourists who lean against it or embrace it with a lascivious look on their foolish faces or pose beside it looking stiff and uncomfortable to have their picture taken. How many albums hold photos of the red obelisk? How many people remember the story of the hardships it represents?   

          Manning sat in the arrow of shade cast by the obelisk at Red Slave, a small pile of cigarette butts at his side. His eyes were slits as he squinted offshore straining to get a glimpse of the Santa Rosalia, one of the boats that came over every week from South America laden with fruits and vegetables for the island's tables. He had met Santiago at what some called the Venezuelan Fruit Temple, a twenty by thirty-foot area with a peaked cement roof supported by Doric columns at the pier in the center of town.

DS stopped over to use the miter saw this morning.  I have to keep that chop saw because it's my favorite and also DS doesn't have one so he has to use mine.  That way he comes for a quick visit every once in a while.  He's a busy business owner, husband, and father so I take my visits where I can get them.  He also brought a couple pairs of pants belonging to LC that needed waist-taking-in.  She's tall but very slender so stuff that's long enough falls off her.  I'm happy to be the one that can fix those problems.
--Barbara