Tag: Photography

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A freshly shellacked stool, sitting on the patio

Full disclosure: I am not handy at all.

Having said that…. Jackie bought this stool perhaps a decade ago, to use for sitting at her spinning wheel. Turned out, she really liked it, and has used it for all manner of sitting since then—any textile arts activity (weaving, etc.), but also just sitting at the dining table.

She shellacked it herself, having decided on shellac because it is so non-toxic, compared to pretty much any other wood finish.

Over the past ten years or so, the shellac wore along the front edge of the stool, and it got scuffed up in various places. She’s been complaining about this for a while now, and I bought a fresh can of shellac and some sandpaper, so she could fix it. Just lately she’s been complaining that the front edge was getting kind of splintery, where the wood had worn, after the shellac wore away.

It took a while, but I eventually understood that she was hoping that I would go ahead and refinish her stool for her. (I’d thought that, since she’d done it herself in the first place, she’d have a proprietary interest in doing it again herself. Turns out, no.)

Today she complained again about how the splinters were catching not only on her clothes, but also on her skin. So I said, “Right! I’ll fix it!”

It took a while to track down the sandpaper, but once I had that, the smoothing off of the splintery bits went very quickly. Then I opened the can of shellac and brushed it on.

The directions say to wait an hour, sand it again, and then give it another coat. I’m sure that would be a great idea, but I’m not at all sure that I’ll do so. It’s actually looking pretty good with just one more coat over the coat Jackie gave it 10 years ago.

So now I am feeling very handy. Handy enough to feel somewhat manly as well.

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An "I voted" sticker on the front of my hoodie

I’ve written before about my own take on verifying citizenship for voters (at registration time, not at voting time) and on how the right to vote should be treated like other rights (not abridged without due process).

Critics fear that states could use the system to purge large numbers of valid voters from their rolls ahead of the midterm elections.

Source: Supreme Court Allows Use of Trump Administration’s Expansive Database for Voter Screening – NYT

I was briefly worrying about this, but then I remembered that I have already voted. Phew.

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We took poor Ashley to the vet yesterday for her annual check-up. She got six vaccinations, including her next 3-year rabies shot and her 3-year distemper shot, along with all the other routine vaccinations that she needs to be able to be boarded when we go on trips. Neither the exam nor the shots seemed like a big deal, but the aftereffects of the vaccinations seem to be making Ashley feel terrible. She was so achy this morning, she couldn’t come down the stairs!

I gave her an aspirin (in some peanut butter), and that seemed to help. Then I took her out for very short versions of her usual two morning walks.

Unlike other dogs I’ve known, who seem to want to be left along when they don’t feel well, poor Ashley seems to want to be comforted. Despite my demonstrated inability to fix the weather, Ashley seems to have considerable confidence that I can fix it when she’s feeling poorly.

A black dog looking at the camera

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We wet dog staring at the camera with its ears back

It rained yesterday, but not all the time. I was able to get Ashley out in the gaps pretty well. After raining all night, it seemed it was going to rain all morning as well.

I offered Ashley a chance to go out on the patio, and she declined. A bit later, after she indicated that she really wanted to go out. I put on my raincoat and put the leash on her and tried to take her out the front door, but she wasn’t having it. Just a few minutes later, she came and told me she needed to go out, so I tried again, and this time I actually dragged out out the door, into the rain. But No. She went about three feet out the door, then solid turned around and headed right back.

It was a classic case of Ashley wanting to go outside, but not to the outside that actually existed. She wanted me to take her to some other outside.

So I went back to my laptop and my third coffee (twice set aside, but still warm enough) and waited for the rain to let up a little. And it did let up a little, and I got Ashley out then.

We saw an opossum! He was a Very Handsome fellow, with a white face, a naked pink tail, and sleek counter-shading on his body, (I think the sleekness may have come from being very wet.)

Ashley, of course, wanted to play with the possum, and we chased it back and forth (the possum going through the shrubs next to the building, and us going around the shrubs). At some point the possum managed to get out of sight long enough for me to drag Ashley away.

By then the rain had gotten hard again, so Ashley let me take her home, where I did my best to dry her off. But as you can see, my efforts were only partially successful.

A damp dog lying on a bed

There is a flood warning. I’m always a little amused by flood warnings in Central Illinois, because it is so, so flat here. Yes, it is flooding. The little creek is over its banks, sorta. But as soon as it gets over the top of its banks, the water just spreads out. Before it could get high enough to threaten my house (a few feet above creek level), the water would have to flood literally thousands of acres all around us.