Mabry Rides to the Rescue and Other Thoughts

Cheerful, helpful, and without graph paper

After hitting the wall on my current quilt (no pun), I put in a call to Mabry, who makes beautiful, complicated quilts.   Could she come over and trouble-shoot?

"Sure," she said.  Pause.   "Do you have any graph paper?"

Aaargh!  For 15 years, I've avoided graph paper--don't own any, don't want to know.  This is how serious quilters, adventurous technicians in my eyes, work out constructing a quilt, making a plan, cutting out pieces to scale and working out how to sew them together.

Simple strips are my friend

I deal with triangles, squares, strips, and rectangles in simple patterns.  Let the fabric provide the interest and complexity is my motto.  I've never, ever made a quilt that required graph paper.

When Mabry showed up on Saturday morning, she'd forgotten the graph paper.  No problem, because after she took a look at the quilt, she confirmed what I'd already thought:  I'm going to have to wing it.  Choose some consistent points to line up when sewing squares together, and take it from there.

I'd been a bit too rigid trying to come up with a consistent MO.  Yes, "rigid" was the word that came up.

I proceeded.  Have now sewn one vertical row.

                                                                                 -2-

After we nailed own the quilt problem, Mabry and I talked about travel.  She's just come back from southwestern France, which she loves, and Paris.  Compared notes.  Told her about Switzerland. Scribbled things down.

After she left,  I turned on NPR to quilt by and listened to back-to-back programs on climate change, how Bill

Guilt-inducing oil burner

McKibben, the writer, charges his electric car from solar panels on his house, and I began to hang my head.  Cruise ships, like the one we're about to take to Alaska, burn a lot of oil.  So do planes.

 I strode into Jerry's study and announced that there'd no more travel.  We have to get solar panels and two electric cars.  He looked bemused.

Not to be, I think

I thought about living micro rather than macro. Do I really need to see the Norwegian fjords?  Cutting back travel may be one of the necessary limits of life in the 21st century.  There's plenty to see around the Bay Area.  We could take public transportation to the Oakland Museum that very afternoon to see the newly renovated Natural History Gallery.

But of course, we didn't. 

                                                                                   -3-

We loved the new Natural History Gallery.

Part of the exhibit about the Cordell Bank, a marine sanctuary off the California coast (more inspiration for current quilt project)

Even Jerry liked it, and  he was a good friend of the man who planned the first version of that gallery, in the 1960's.  The lay-out's been changed--it's an updated, less rigidly organized (that word again) format that focuses on seven areas of the state, including Oakland, and their habitats and the problems that humankind has caused in each.

It invites a friendly wander.  I especially liked the ersatz cabin in Yosemite--the actually room is full of landscape paintings of Yosemite, the porch furnished with rustic rocking chairs and tables with iPads full of information.

Some of the original display cases are still there, left from when they illustrated the transect of California from the earlier version of the Gallery, and so is one of the dioramas, of Ruby Lake, in the Sierra.  Jerry remembers when that location was a favorite lunch spot for entomologists doing fieldwork, among them Don MacNeill, his friend who hired by the OM to design the original Gallery.

Display cases from the former incarnation of the Gallery

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A few hours later when we happened to turn on the TV, I was shocked to hear the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case.    I expected at least a manslaughter verdict,  although given Florida's hunting-license-type stand-your-ground laws, maybe the jury had no choice.

It breaks my heart that Martin had Skittles and a soft drink with him; he'd just made a run to a convenience store for treats.   What's the future for some many of the adorable African American boy toddlers I see at the Berkeley Food Pantry?

                                                                                  -5-

On similar note:  The Supreme Court's decision on the Voting Rights Act.    Many people seem to think that it's reasonable to ask voters to show ID when they vote.  We all carry ID, right?  No big deal. 

But working at the check-in table at the Pantry has opened my eyes to how many people do not carry ID, or not one that reflects their current address.  So many of the clients have chaotic lives, pushed this way and that by personal emergencies, public policy, and just plain bad luck.  Many have their purses or wallets stolen.  Many move often, seeking safer, better, cheaper housing.

Changing the address on a California  driver's license or ID card costs $26.  Renewing a license costs $32.  That's a lot of money for people who stand in line at the Pantry because they can't afford to go to the grocery store.  I feel as though the Supreme Court has disenfranchised a slew of people, casually and misguidedly.

                                                                                 -6-
Okay, enough rants. (Haven't even touched on Texas .)  We're off on a hike near Nicasio, in Marin County, that Jerry spotted in the SF Chronicle this morning.  Gotta get outta Dodge.