Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The former facilities manager of my small Vermont bank had a bad 2023. When I met him, he had only just been promoted to this position, which was a job he did not seem to enjoy or even do well. He was an excellent handyman. He was not at all suited to managing other handy-people,… Continue reading The Daily: 9 August 2024
My co-workers are sports enthusiasts. One doesn't seem to understand that I don't have "a team" for every season. (Or, as is the case, any season.) Another talks golf. All day, every day. Except right now. Right now they're all talking Olympics. I just don't get it. I don't get watching sports on screens, or… Continue reading The Daily: 6 August 2024
Things to look forward to... clean laundry You might think me odd — well, additionally odd — but I like doing laundry. I love clean laundry, of course. Who doesn't? But I like the process as well, with one caveat: I don't much like the dryer. I've made my peace with owning the machine, but… Continue reading The Daily: 31 July 2024
The last two weeks have been an object lesson in the embarrassing subconscious bigotry of white men. First, I encountered an essayist that said he didn't read much written by women, even as he admitted that women write more than half of the printed words. He excused himself by claiming that most of the writing… Continue reading The Daily: 30 July 2024
Crom Dubh Sunday In many northern communities, July is a hungry month. The spring flush of greens and quick-growing roots like radishes and beets may still be trickling out of the garden, but most have bolted and run to seed. However, those that remain are long on fiber and short on calories, and little of… Continue reading The Daily: 28 July 2024
The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. ... This caretaking is our default mode and it's always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.— Ross Gay, The Book… Continue reading The Daily: 26 July 2024
Things to look forward to... someone to vote for Okay, this one was not in the book. Actually, this week was skinny dipping, which on further analysis is probably not something I can get behind. Not that I don't like the idea, it's just that how do you even do stuff like that anymore? At… Continue reading The Daily: 24 July 24
Lessons from the Hurricane Houston before and after Beryl (Images were acquired on July 5 and 9, 2024, by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument aboard the joint NASA/NOAA NOAA-20 satellite.) According to NASA EarthData, "2.3 million utility customers of CenterPoint Energy (out of 2.6 million total customers) lost power during the storm [Hurricane… Continue reading The Daily: 19 July 2024
Shortly after the Ides of July (Tacitus claims the date is July 18th), sometime around 390BCE (Plutarch says 387, Polybius says 393), a small (or medium, or large) force of the Gallic people known as the Senones (possibly intermingled with Etruscans), fought a battle at the River Allia where it flows into the Tiber and… Continue reading The Daily: 18 July 2024
I'm feeling whiney. Do we have to keep going off to jobs that, for the vast majority of us, are actively harming us in an existentially threatening manner even while we are dealing with those existential threats? Do we have to endure yet another round of weather that shouldn't be possible except for all these… Continue reading The Daily: 12 July 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 