A Quilt, Anyone?

First bid:  $100--11/28

Second bid: $150
Third bid:  $175--11/30

Yep, here's another quilt to be auctioned off to benefit the Berkeley Food Pantry.  It's a traditional pattern with a modern twist (no pun).  Blog readers have donated $1200 to the Pantry in the previous four auctions.  Thank you!  The Pantry feeds more than 2000 clients a month, and I see how needy and  appreciative they are when I volunteer there every Monday. 

This quilt is 36" x 50", so it will work as a wall hanging or as a lap quilt that covers you from waist to toes when you're sitting. 

 The back, showing the pattern of circles and squares

The fabrics are 100% cotton and pre-washed.  Angie Woolman did her magic with a machine-quilted pattern of alternating circles and squares.  The black fabric has a slight sateen finish, and the binding is black-and-white stripe.

The background gray-green is more green than this photo shows; it's the same pale green shown on the back of the quilt.

The winner will write a check directly to the Berkeley Food Pantry and get the tax deduction.  If you don't live in the East Bay, I can mail the quilt to you if you pay the postage.  It's compact when folded and weighs 15 ounces.

Bidding starts at $50.  If you're interested, leave a bid in the comment box, e-mail me, or post a bid on Facebook.  If there's competition, I'll post updates on the blog and on Facebook.Past winners may bid if they like.

Winner to be announced at noon on Tuesday, December 6

Good luck!

Freeing Up Cash for Hand Cream

Still plugging away

Four years ago, I had a maddening time trying to cancel a recurring donation to the Obama campaign.  I finally managed it online, but it took persistence.

This morning,  I went to the Clinton website to cancel a recurring donation, and again I couldn't figure out how to stop the flow of money.  ("Flow" is a misnomer--it was $25 a month.)  They would acknowledge that I had an account, but then tell me I'd made no donations.  Finally, I called the credit card company and stopped the payments that way.

I felt a little guilty, but I did it.  I mean, Hillary lost, and my money isn't going to make her or me feel any better.  Also, I did some math in bed last night and realized that the cost of the monthly donation would just about buy a tube of a new hand cream I've discovered that's really given me a lift.

Here it is:

 True to its promise, it "fortifie[s] les ongles"

Clarins  Hand and Nail Treatment Cream, which I bought on impulse at Boots when we were in England because I'd forgotten to bring some.  I liked the feel of the cream when I squeezed from the the tester, and any way I was on vacation, so I was entitled to be extravagant.  Also, I forgot to convert pounds to dollars.

I tried it, and, readers, I recommend it HIGHLY.   This stuff works!  My nails have greatly improved--glossy and stronger, and the dreaded ridges are much less evident.  My hands are smooth.   There's a reason the online reviews are so glowing.

You can find this stuff at Sephora  or  Nordstrom.  Do not blanch at the price!  You have put in your years with Neutrogena or Jergens, and it's your time to splurge.  Besides, you use very little of it.  When you look at your hands, you'll feel younger.  

Okay, maybe it's not that transformative (youth), but you'll enjoy it.  I recommended it to my friend Lin over the weekend when I was in San Jose, and she went directly to Sephora and bought it.  This after a lunch where we lamented Hillary's loss and tried and failed to understand how any woman could vote for that other person.

Onward.

Retreating to the Gentle Pursuits of Elitism

"We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear...Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers..."--Garrison Keillor, The Washington Post, November 9, 2016 

Since the election I've been feeling pretty guilty about being an elitist, which seems to include people who live on one of the coasts and have a college degree, although I know people in New Mexico and Montana who qualify, so the coast thing is not rigid. I also know very thoughtful, intelligent people who do not have a college degree and voted for Hillary.  Let's not lose our minds with generalities, pundits.

The narrative has been that we coastal-living, college-educated people who've been quietly going about our own lives, giving money to environmental causes, visiting museums, and reading books have been negligent for not picking up on the dilemmas of working-class Americans, who got even on Tuesday by electing That Near-Madman with Orange Skin and Surreal Hair.  It's all our fault.

I bought this for two days, beating myself up, wondering how I could have overlooked and underestimated this demographic; in fact, more than overlooked them,  actually felt disdain for them.   The tape in my head went like this:  Why don't they think more critically?  Can't they see the appalling contradictions and cruelty of what Trump says? Is their empathy on permanent vacation? Don't they have any respect for facts? 

Now I say to hell with guilt.  This morning  I read this piece by Garrison Keillor, published in yesterday's Washington Post, and I thought, fine.  I will retreat to quilting and gardening and listening to Mozart and reading Barbara Pym, all of which nourish my soul.  I'm not abandoning the working class, but I am saving my sanity and living my life according to my values. 

To that end, I'm not going to fly to the Rust Belt and listen to these people's stories, although I will read about them if they don't whine.  If they show up at the Berkeley Food Pantry, I'll listen and try to be kind and hand them off to a volunteer like my dear friend Anne, who went to Stanford and loves opera and manages a food donation program at her (very liberal) church that supplies a hell of a lot of poor people with cereal and canned tuna, which she lugs to the Pantry weekly.  She is not unaware, nor unkind, and she hails from the Midwest.

We'll go on doing our bit, and if in the meantime we're saving our sanity by collecting commemorative tea towels, making collages, watching PBS,  or even quilting, that's okay.

Still working on the election therapy quilt

I'm sorry working class people have felt left out, but as Keillor says, "resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity."

There I go again, being an elitist.  But I dunno, maybe I'm right?

Good luck to all of them.  I mean that sincerely, even if I don't understand them.

And thanks, Garrison, for the validating "us" and to my stepdaughter, Julia, for bringing this article to my attention.

"...by 'us,' I mean librarians, children's authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch."---Garrison Keillor

Stay Calm and Expect the Best

Fragment of  anti-Trump therapy quilt 

Tomorrow's The Day, and everyone I know is stressed and disbelieving and even tearful about the outcome of the election.

What if Trump wins? 

Jerry and I talked about it.  Canada's out for him (too cold) and Mexico is out for me (ongoing fear of Montezuma's Revenge).  Real political stalwarts here.

I started a quilt last night as therapy, and I'm trying not to listen to NPR while I work.  This morning I fished out a short article I clipped from the newspaper years ago, and this, plus deep breathing, has calmed me a bit.  Thank you, Mayo Clinic.


1.  Turn it off:  Stop listening, watching, or reading.  "Stop the ever-present stream of information flowing into our lives."  Is this possible for any length of time?

2.  Turn it around:  Do something positive to make the world better such as volunteering. (I'm going to the Berkeley Food Pantry this afternoon; I don't know if this makes the world better, but it certainly re-focuses my attention.)

3.  Go outside:  Experience nature.

4.  Exercise:  It helps relieve stress.

5. Be positive:  Remember that good news does happen.

I tell myself, "Expect the best," the take-away line from an anti-anxiety program I listened to on audiotape decades ago.  It's kept many planes in the air for me.  


I'm thinking that if Hillary wins the election I'll give away the quilt to someone else who supported her (do the colors work for you?).  If  she loses, I'm going to wrap myself in it and suck my thumb.