Thanksgiving month, days 16-18
Nov. 21st, 2011 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unhappytriad(Crossposted from Google+)
Thanksgiving month, day 16:
I am (as I sit here under a tornado watch) thankful for the National Weather Service.
I appreciate knowing when hurricanes, thunderstorms, ice storms, snow, sleet, hail and tornadoes are coming, how severe they'll be and how long they'll last. I appreciate knowing what tomorrow's temperature is likely to be, and whether I'll need an umbrella or a parasol. I am particularly grateful that I can get this information for free, online or via weather radio, without having to listen to the sort of panicky blather that is all too characteristic of TV news. Furthermore, I am grateful that the people who grow my food can have some idea of when it will rain, freeze, warm up, cool down or dry out.
Weather forecasters take a lot of criticism for not being infallible. To which all I can say is, try doing without them, particularly in an area with weather as volatile as Georgia's. If you're my age or older, maybe you remember Hurricane Camille; if you're younger, Katrina or Rita will do. If you're a history buff, picture the Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1888, when the temperature dropped from just above freezing to 20 below zero in a single afternoon, followed by whiteout conditions and gale-force winds. Now imagine something like that hitting you without warning.
Thank you, NOAA, NWS, meteorologists, hurricane hunter pilots, mathematicians, computer modelers and announcers. Thank you, spotters. Thank you, taxpayers. And thank you, legislators who stand firm in the belief that accurate, non-commercial weather prediction is absolutely in the public interest.
Thanksgiving month, day 17 (a day late):
I am thankful for sleep.
After getting home from work yesterday too tired to cook, too tired to go out, too tired to eat, and definitely too tired to write, I went to bed. Today I feel much better.
Many of my patients can't sleep. Some can't sleep because of pain; some because their pain meds or steroids interfere with sleep; some say "I never have slept well; it's not pain, I just don't ever sleep through the night."
I am eternally, pitifully grateful for sleep. My heart goes out to those who can't have it.
Thanksgiving month, day 18:
I am thankful for crochet.
This is the time of year when my hands get cold if I sit still too long. Accordingly, I have learned to crochet so that I can keep my hands warm. Also I can make scarves and hats and things. I have way too much yarn (mostly cheap crappy yarn, suitable for a beginner). I have about 8 different sizes of crochet hooks, some of which were my mother's. And thanks to the internet, free fabric store brochures, the library, and Project Gutenberg, I have more crochet patterns than I will ever have time to try.
I like that there are still low-tech skills like this around. Theoretically I could make a blanket, starting with a flock of sheep. I can't spin with a drop spindle, but I know people who can, and I know how to take that yarn and turn it into fabric. (I do know how to spin with rubber balls and a coffee cup, but I'm bad at it. Also any yarn produced by that method in my house would end up 50% cat or dog hair and 20% dust bunny fiber.) I also know very directly and concretely how incredibly much work that would be, and for that matter, I have a pretty good notion how many decades the resulting blanket could last, if properly protected from moths. This is a nice antidote to the continual process of buying cheap crap, using it a few months until it's messed up, dumping it in a landfill and buying some more cheap crap.
There used to be a saying that the firewood you cut yourself warms you twice. I can personally testify that the same is true for the scarf you crochet yourself.
Thanks, writers of handicraft books, publishers of patterns, shepherds, sheep shearers, fiber and yarn mills, fabric and craft stores. Thanks, ancient craftsmen and women who invented the crochet hook and the dozens of different things you can do with it. And thanks, Margaret Wertheim, whose TED talk on the hyperbolic crochet coral reef (http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html) got me interested in crochet again.
Thanksgiving month, day 16:
I am (as I sit here under a tornado watch) thankful for the National Weather Service.
I appreciate knowing when hurricanes, thunderstorms, ice storms, snow, sleet, hail and tornadoes are coming, how severe they'll be and how long they'll last. I appreciate knowing what tomorrow's temperature is likely to be, and whether I'll need an umbrella or a parasol. I am particularly grateful that I can get this information for free, online or via weather radio, without having to listen to the sort of panicky blather that is all too characteristic of TV news. Furthermore, I am grateful that the people who grow my food can have some idea of when it will rain, freeze, warm up, cool down or dry out.
Weather forecasters take a lot of criticism for not being infallible. To which all I can say is, try doing without them, particularly in an area with weather as volatile as Georgia's. If you're my age or older, maybe you remember Hurricane Camille; if you're younger, Katrina or Rita will do. If you're a history buff, picture the Schoolchildren's Blizzard of 1888, when the temperature dropped from just above freezing to 20 below zero in a single afternoon, followed by whiteout conditions and gale-force winds. Now imagine something like that hitting you without warning.
Thank you, NOAA, NWS, meteorologists, hurricane hunter pilots, mathematicians, computer modelers and announcers. Thank you, spotters. Thank you, taxpayers. And thank you, legislators who stand firm in the belief that accurate, non-commercial weather prediction is absolutely in the public interest.
Thanksgiving month, day 17 (a day late):
I am thankful for sleep.
After getting home from work yesterday too tired to cook, too tired to go out, too tired to eat, and definitely too tired to write, I went to bed. Today I feel much better.
Many of my patients can't sleep. Some can't sleep because of pain; some because their pain meds or steroids interfere with sleep; some say "I never have slept well; it's not pain, I just don't ever sleep through the night."
I am eternally, pitifully grateful for sleep. My heart goes out to those who can't have it.
Thanksgiving month, day 18:
I am thankful for crochet.
This is the time of year when my hands get cold if I sit still too long. Accordingly, I have learned to crochet so that I can keep my hands warm. Also I can make scarves and hats and things. I have way too much yarn (mostly cheap crappy yarn, suitable for a beginner). I have about 8 different sizes of crochet hooks, some of which were my mother's. And thanks to the internet, free fabric store brochures, the library, and Project Gutenberg, I have more crochet patterns than I will ever have time to try.
I like that there are still low-tech skills like this around. Theoretically I could make a blanket, starting with a flock of sheep. I can't spin with a drop spindle, but I know people who can, and I know how to take that yarn and turn it into fabric. (I do know how to spin with rubber balls and a coffee cup, but I'm bad at it. Also any yarn produced by that method in my house would end up 50% cat or dog hair and 20% dust bunny fiber.) I also know very directly and concretely how incredibly much work that would be, and for that matter, I have a pretty good notion how many decades the resulting blanket could last, if properly protected from moths. This is a nice antidote to the continual process of buying cheap crap, using it a few months until it's messed up, dumping it in a landfill and buying some more cheap crap.
There used to be a saying that the firewood you cut yourself warms you twice. I can personally testify that the same is true for the scarf you crochet yourself.
Thanks, writers of handicraft books, publishers of patterns, shepherds, sheep shearers, fiber and yarn mills, fabric and craft stores. Thanks, ancient craftsmen and women who invented the crochet hook and the dozens of different things you can do with it. And thanks, Margaret Wertheim, whose TED talk on the hyperbolic crochet coral reef (http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html) got me interested in crochet again.
