It’s a Small World

When I was eight years old my family spent eight months in the United States, and towards the end we all boarded a huge white station wagon, toured the Southwest, and ended up in Los Angeles. With three kids in tow who had been taken hiking the canyons, visiting pueblos and various National Parks, a visit to Disneyland was part of the program before we were scheduled to fly home. (It wasn’t as big then as it is now, from what I gather from the website.) 

 

And I LOVED the pavilion ‘It's a Small World’, 

 

and sang the song for years afterwards (we had bought the illustrated book with a blue plastic record). My parents must have suffered....

Just before this past Christmas I realized that I had never heard from SAQA during the Benefit Auction about my donated piece. I checked the SAQA store, and sure enough, there it was, my piece ‘Who Wins in the End?’ still waiting for a buyer.

 

I thought that 2022 might be the first time in all my years of SAQA membership and benefit auction donations that my piece might not find a new home. Kind of frustrating that was, indeed. But only a couple of days later I did receive the message that it had been sold after all – I wrote back to receive the contact information for the buyer – waited for a reply – then finally received the information and sent a thank-you message a few days later. I wrote in English although the first name looked to me like a German spelling.

I thanked her for buying it, and that I was happy it had found a new home in California, because I had spent time in Santa Barbara, and this gave me a new feeling of connection to the state. And a couple of minutes later I received an answer in German. She was thrilled to not only have a quilt of mine now, but a personal mail as well. And she told me that we were ‘connected’ in another way already - she had been told about me from the buyer of her parents’ house in northern Germany, for whom I had quilted a special quilt at some point (when I was still selling fabrics and trying to start being a commercial longarm quilter). That house, where he now lives, is not too far away from the town where my grandparents lived for many years and where I spent my childhood summers. It’s a small world after all.

And about time to think about the next Benefit Auction piece.There's a tradition to uphold by now.

On and on and on...

The numbers of infection are at an all-time high here now. And still rising. Last year we were talking about the 35/50 limits where severe measures would be put into place, in the spring it was 100, now we have surpassed the 1,000 and the incoming government with the newly elected parliament have put 'an end' to the 'pandemic situation' that used to be mentioned in the law. It makes you wonder whether they are completely out of their mind, or what is happening here? I am very grateful I received my third shot yesterday a week ago, because by now I have been transferred to working (helping out) on ICU, and believe me, that is absolutely no fun at all. Every single case who needs intensive care in our hospital has not been vaccinated. And I ask myself where did these people live for the past 2 years? Everybody could have been vaccinated by now, the predictions of what would come if this did not happen before this winter were out there - and still people think their 'right to decide' and their 'right to physical integrity' counted higher than their duty to contribute to the entire society's physical integrity by helping to break this virus' spread? I am so disappointed with my fellow Germans, it is beyond words. Especially now that I am working in the hospital, having to risk my physical integrity and health by taking care of these egotists and dealing with their stupidity. I am MAD. So so so so mad... And now there are reports about the yet again new and more infectious variant of the virus. That is completely disheartening.

Right now, I don't know whether it will be possible to go for my little four day vacation I had planned at the beginning of December, and for which I have booked a holiday apartment. We are supposedly facing a lockdown for unvaccinated persons, but I don't know yet how far restrictions will apply to people who have been vaccinated yet. Will they allow private tourist travel, or will that be forbidden? Will my 16-yr-old once again have to stay home, no basketball practice, but be forced to go to school? I think he is perfectly right when he says his 'social life' doesn't happen on school grounds, he wants to go to basketball practice. And why should professional soccer players be allowed to 'play', but the young people not? 

I woke up with a sore throat and a headache this morning and as we are supposed to stay at home from work with symptoms of a cold, I did that. A test was negative, which is a relief, after all I have been assigned to the ICU for the past two weeks and, althought the 'outside' relief personnel is usually the person who makes sure that personnel 'in' the cubicles with Covid patients has all the material and medication they need without having to leave the isolation room, of course that means that I am exposed to the overall environment, and in some cases I did have to dress up in all the protective gear and assist a colleague with handling of immobile, artificially respirated and/or sedated patients.

But as I got to stay home, I was able to make the most of my good intentions I had announced on my instagram account two days ago. I had planned to not spend money on the so-called 'Black Friday' on some supposedly sale item, but to dedicated my time to continue mending one of my mending projects, the light pair of pants. It had been sitting on my table, biding its time in a state of neglect since some time in the late summer.

So I took this mending project to bed and between sleeping a little and resting I got a heap of stitching done. 

The piece of fabric I am attaching here is an older piece of linen, not exactly the same quality as the pants, but I like the look of it. It is rather big, too, not only a small mend.

I went down the entire piece of linen, and then started circling around in one direction, then the other, to slightly secure the fraying edges.

And then, because I found myself in a kind of flow, I just went ahead and started on the next patch.

So Mending Friday instead of spending Friday was a good day for these pants. This is how they look from the front now.

And this is the back side.

I wouldn't exactly say they're beautiful. But they are a statement, and I will proudly wear them this coming summer, and many more.

And in the evening I went down into the basement and brought up our choir and orchestra of angels to start the Christmas decoration.

Unfortunately, no Christmas markets this year, again, so we won't be adding a new member. But it is reassuring to see these little fellows on our window sill. If I feel well again tomorrow, I will start on Christmas cookies tomorrow. Traditions are soothing, perhaps they will help tie me over this oncoming next wave of virus...