Even in Kyoto

I've decided that it should be an annual tradition for me to gather up all my research ducklings for an end-of-year lab celebration. Conveniently, we have a day dedicated to research presentations, so we're going to just use one of the hours for our celebration.

In an ideal world I would have the bandwidth to make the festive drinks and snacks myself. Looking at my calendar for this week, I had to unfortunately conclude that I would need to resign myself to going to a conventional grocery store to obtain premade festive drinks and snacks.

Dear reader, the sticker shock. My usual grocery shopping habits involve purchasing ingredients in bulk from the grocery co-op. The co-op actually works really hard to keep prices down, with an awareness that everybody needs to eat and not everybody is rolling in the dough. Also, bulk raw ingredients and locally-sourced produce are inherently going to be less expensive than anything created and marketed by a middleman.

Somehow I was most amazed by the prices for a bag of chips, easily pushing upwards of $5-6/bag now. All told I still went ahead with my purchase of festive snacks and drinks, but, wow. Guess I'd better not develop a chip-eating habit anytime soon. More than anything, the unevenness of the price hikes fascinates me.

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Right now I'm in the midst of a supply ordering frenzy at work, and a supply ordering frenzy for miscellanea for the rowing club. It's a hectic double-whammy. You might be surprised to learn that rowing our carbon-fiber and fiberglass rowing shells out on a river full of fishing boats and logs results in damage to said vessels. At present it seems the rate of damage is outpacing the rate at which we can carry out repairs, particularly in cases where we have to order specialty replacement parts, sigh.

The ordering frenzy at work is always stressful. I have to sort out which of the various expensive instruments I might possibly be able to afford to replace, then go through whatever rigamarole is involved in getting a quote, sending it to the right person, et cetera et cetera. Right now I'm at the stage of just replacing all the consumables in need of replacement, which I need to do before I will have a sense of what else I can afford.

I'm also going to need to do additional parts management for my Bicycling class fleet, as mentioned previously. For that aspect I don't yet know whether I will be able to pay for things through work, or whether I need to set up a side hustle. The parts aren't going to be insanely expensive, but on the other hand, just on principle I don't really want to join the legion of teachers who pay for supplies out-of-pocket.

Oh, and then there's thinking about what field supplies we might want and need for the summer.

Yeah. Whee.

I thought I had signed up to go rowing this morning, but then I had one of those mornings where I had insomnia through the night up until the hour before the alarm went off. When I went to check what the consequences would be of dropping out, I discovered I hadn't signed up after all! Whew, off the hook!

But was I able to fall asleep again after that? No, of course not.

So I got up to start working on the hundred things that were on my mind waking me up all night. Namely, dealing with all sorts of Stuff and Things and Projects.

In that regard, I did a bunch of work rearranging various bits of rowing stuff. Well, to begin with, I finally ordered and received another batch of rare earth magnets, so I could finish the project of gluing magnets onto rowing trophy plaques, as seen here, with George for scale (and for aesthetic reasons, naturally):



The plaques got loaded into the pictured yellow-lidded storage bin, carted over to the boathouse, and installed. I'm so DONE with the plaques that I didn't even take an updated photo of the trophy wall.

( more on the boathouse adventures... )

Well, first off, the cats woke me up super early. Thanks, cats. But on the other hand, I DID want extra time in the morning so I could zip over to the grocery co-op, so I managed as much.

The bonus vacuuming activity of the week involved vacuuming out our tatami mat futon bedframe. I'll spare you the details, but will say the end result was highly satisfactory. Along with that I changed out the flannel sheets for regular cotton bedsheets, just in time for another little cool spell.

I also managed to get the second coat of paint onto the current batch of oars on the front porch. That went very well, reinforcing my sense that I'm finally getting the hang of this whole oar painting business.

But then I ran out of time and energy to work on the sanding prep for the next two sets of oars in the basement.

Instead, I did some dishwashing and prepped a big batch of a pumpkin-cauliflower-coconut curry, and I ordered a couple of the items on the "to order" list for the rowing club.

These are all things that seemed to take far longer than they should have.

Oh, and graded some quizzes. I still have slightly more of a grading backlog than I'd like, but I'm whittling the pile down bit by bit.

I don't feel like I should feel this tired on a Monday, but on the other hand I could point to a half-dozen reasons why I AM this tired on a Monday (*glances at cats*).

But it would take time to dwell on that, and there's grading to finish.

Even though I won't let him go outside, George has been super snuggly. Martha has her moments, too.

On Friday we started a new strength workout at rowing practice, and between that and a rather spicy Saturday morning practice, it's a wonder I got as much done the rest of the day Saturday as I did (to wit, grocery shopping, then I don't remember what).

Thankfully by Sunday I felt rested enough I could continue chipping away at various projects. It also helped that the warmer daytime temperatures persisted, more or less (more like 40°F than 50, but we'll take it!!).

So, back to Oar Factory mode.

These are now up to their third coat of paint:


They look pretty good from a distance, but there are still some surface imperfections I'm not entirely happy about.

I have gotten several things sorted out, but have some additional refinements to make to my painting process. Among the things sorted out is my paintbrush cleaning/management technique, since stashing the brush in the freezer really didn't work for me (gaps are too long between painting sessions). I have a jar full of used mineral spirits, where the old paint gradually settles out. So when I'm finished painting, I pour the supernatant into a separate jar, then pour a fraction of that into a plastic tub. I work the paint out of the bristles over a series of 3-4 mineral spirits pours, then I use a brush spinner to spin the excess mineral spirits out of the brush. From there I head to the basement and clean out the mineral spirits with warm water and dish detergent, and hand-spin out the water. I wound up losing or misplacing the original packaging for the paintbrush I'm using, so instead I am wrapping it in brown paper to keep the bristles together as it dries. This all leads to a much better painting experience for each coat of paint.

For surface prep, I found that it's definitely a good idea for me to use rubbing alcohol and the right sort of rag to wipe off the sanding dust between coats, otherwise I get some terrible bits of grit in the paint.

I got some brush-on primer for this whole project, and this is the first set of oars where I've tried using it. For the next set, I think I need to apply two coats of the primer because just one coat was too thin and I can still see the underlying color irregularities on the blade surface. It turns out that the last person to paint oars used spray primer; my understanding is that it winds up being more expensive to do that. But if I don't get satisfactory results with the brush-on primer, I'll switch back because the spray primer is way easier (and fast) to use.

Meanwhile, in the Oar Repair Factory (aka basement)...

Most of my last round of epoxy work turned out pretty well! With a little bit of sanding, 3 of 5 blades are now ready to paint. There was one major exception, which was where I tried to rebuild some of the surface of blades where years of scraping against the dock wore the blades down through the carbon fiber. In those cases, my rebuilding attempts did add fresh surface, but there were small voids left behind as the epoxy settled onto the surface underneath the piece of polyethylene plastic. So in this case I figured heck, why not experiment, and basically just painted on a layer of epoxy to try and fill the voids.





This isn't going to be perfect, either, but hopefully it will give me enough surface material to sand things basically flat.

Really, this would be a great situation for some peel ply, but I don't have any at the moment, and it might be a while before I put in an order to a place that carries it.

In general the best news is that for the first 2 pairs of oars I finished painting a while ago, I also finally finished adjusting them to the correct length and inboard, so they are finally ready to go back to the boathouse! I am going to work on a series of driving errands on Tuesday to transport heavy and bulky things, so I'll be able to get them moved out and will pick up the next 2 sets soon.

I am also thinking I might be able to create a porch configuration that will let me work on 4 sets of oars at a time with overlapping painting cycles. Good stuff. It has been frustrating to have stalled out on this project for so long.

But for now, time to head in to the ant mines paper-grading mines...

Oh, one really random question: do any of you know of a good source of cotton terrycloth fabric, most ideally in orange? (I guess I could dye it, too). I want to use cotton terrycloth to make oar blade covers for when we go to regattas, but terrycloth seems like a tricky item to buy online.

My consolation prizes for failing to get the car started this morning include:

1. Fixing my umbrella (again). The little bits of wire I used to replace some of the popped rivets does seem to be working pretty well! It's just that yet another rivet had popped.

2. (not shown) Organizing the tea drawer. I am more likely to drink tea if the experience of selecting the tea is at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing. The result in this instance wasn't particularly photogenic, but at least I now have a better handle on what's in there.

3. Organizing my fabric stash. I wasn't sure how this project would go, but then I had a great idea: do like I did for the tshirts in my dresser drawer:



Now it's easy to see what I have! Amazing. All the little scraps are now loose in a bag, easy to toss around.

4. Carrying out a small clothes alteration project on a tank top acquired from a rowing lost and found bin a year or two ago:





Puff paint, working its magic. This had been sitting in the mending pile for far too long. The mending pile is actually getting physically smaller, at long last. Speaking of which,

5. Jeans mending.



I swear, I cannot get any of those fabric marking pencils to work nicely for me. The tailor's chalk works all right, but I was glad to find the washable fabric marker.

The challenge with this jeans mending project is that I don't have any scrap denim to match (having now organized my fabric and scraps), and my sashiko thread doesn't match, either. But technically, the jeans are now mended.



I'm not sure they look "professional" enough anymore (lol) to pass muster at work, though, unless I add all kinds of interesting stitching and patches all over them, to disguise what I did to the crotch. So...I think they might just be at-home jeans for the near future.

It's good to have a pair of jeans like this to experiment on. I did also wind up ordering a brand-new pair of jeans, but I need to take in the waistline on those due to the perpetual issue of people not manufacturing clothing for women with functional quadriceps muscles. I need to study up on how to do that. That's what the internet is supposed to be for!

I also ordered some coveralls, finally, to wear while sanding and painting.



6. Random items: vacuuming, baking of coffeecake for breakfasts for the week plus cornbread as a lunch and dinner item.

7. In case you don't go back to reread my previous post, I did go outside in the heat of the day (a whopping 10°F) to try starting up the car again, and it started. I also brought in the backup battery and put it on the charger, because it had run out of juice, too. I am sure there will be more thrilling updates on that whole project in the near future.

and...(drumroll, please)...

...

8. I filed my taxes!!!! With the demise of Free File Fillable Forms, I am going fully analog, and paper filing. I REFUSE to interact with any of the predatory tax software companies. That was making me nervous about the annual tax deadline, which I have lately been running up against, so I am very relieved to have that project DONE. Well, once I drop the envelopes in the mail.

George even helped. He got that pencil out of my purse all by himself, and as you can see he's sitting on the instructions for the state IT2 form. Good George.



Since I'm mailing things in, it seemed like a good idea to decorate the envelopes.



Hopefully the decorations give the poor sap with the job of opening the mail at least a little something to smile about.

I am really pleased with how this mending project turned out:



Close-up:



I worked on the section on the upper right about a year and change ago, while I was in Seattle. The orange, cream, and blue are freshly added. The orange made me think of kintsugi. But for clothing!

This is a pretty thin, lightweight merino wool shirt that has spent much of its life living in my pannier as a piece of backup clothing. Maybe now I'll get it into regular circulation more often

Just trying to remember how the day went, photos to follow later.

- Made a scale drawing of one of the oarlocks and sent it over so S can get steel backing plates fabricated by someone who knows what they're doing instead of me continuing to destroy drill bits and my sanity

- The usual Sunday morning chores (laundry, breakfast baking, litterboxes, vacuuming, bathroom)

- Finished mending the wool CRAP jersey, for now (not sure I've completely cleared out a moth infestation yet, sigh)

- Glued more rare earth magnets onto rowing award plaques, trying to figure out how many are needed per plaque. I am really looking forward to eventually having that project moved out of the house permanently.

- Put new elastic in one pannier cover. Restitched another pannier cover and modified it to remove an excess buckle and add a drain hole, apparently needed. Both of these pannier covers are imperfect, but they're what I have at the moment and will work better now.

- Replaced both sets of broken buckles on the backpack pannier - I also learned that it looks like my sewing machine can't quite handle 3+ layers of webbing at once, can't say I blame it!! Now I know.

- Keychain repair experiment.

- Another coat of paint on the oars on the porch.

- Trying a different epoxy approach on the oars in the basement: first, filler epoxy using wood flour; then a second surface coat. We'll see...


Things I didn't do (yet):

- Put fresh brake pads on Frodo - will tackle that tomorrow morning before I leave for work.

- Further mending - best to just pace myself anyway.

- Assorted bureaucratic nonsense. Will get to that shortly.



It felt pretty good to manage to get the sewing machine set up for a bit of sewing. It's kind of a production to get it all set up with the way my space is currently configured, but good to have a sense of what that entails.

I don't know that I have a coherent weekend report, but I did take some photos. ( so here we go... )

At some point after I met scrottie, he showed me his potato ricer and the special rolling pin he has for making lefse, that Norwegian specialty food. I'd heard a bit about lefse from another friend of mine with Norwegian heritage, but really didn't know much more than all that. Fast forward, and just about every year there's a period of eager anticipation for the arrival of a special package from his mother and sister, containing lefse.

Describing lefse is tricky.

( blah blah blah lefse lefse lefse )

The next item on the mending list after bike jerseys was bicycling gloves. I have a pair of relatively thin Smartwool gloves where the palms and fingertips have been wearing out, but I really like the gloves so I thought maybe I could reinforce the palms with some material similar to what's used on actual cycling gloves.

I spent a little while trying to figure out just what that material was, for the Specialized "Grail" gloves I've come to favor, but everything I found suggested that it's a synthetic material that isn't available to retail markets. Eventually I wound up talking with a rowing friend whose daughter is working on a degree in fashion, and she gave me a small piece of scrap goatskin leather of the appropriate sort to work with.

Of course, I don't have much experience with sewing leather. The full extent is the one time I sewed a piece of leather onto the bottom of a pannier, to reinforce it. So it seemed like a good idea to approach the project in stages.

I started out with the realization that I have a second pair of cycling gloves in need of repair. I had enough scrap leather that I could use some for the purpose, and learn a few things about stitching this particular thickness and type of leather (I think it's maybe?? goatskin??).

Here you can see George "helping" me with the first bit of stitching:



The end result certainly has a handmade look, but is far better than the worn-out material it's now covering!



One thing I discovered during the first repair was that it was tricky to hold the material together, just so, while stitching. After doing some poking around on the internet, I came to understand that it can be helpful to at least tack-glue pieces together first, before sewing down the edges. But I didn't have any contact cement or rubber cement on hand for the purpose. So for glove #2, I just grabbed some double-sided sticky tape, and it did indeed help the process go more smoothly.



But I noticed the double-sided sticky tape was a bit stiff, so my quest for rubber cement continued. Because of various constraints, I checked a couple of grocery stores and a CVS only for rubber cement, but came up empty-handed. I'd asked S if he happened to have any, and he didn't, so he instead suggested a small bottle of a type of Gorilla Glue he'd gotten not too long ago and had used to glue some leather.

Anyway, here I am last night, getting ready to glue:


And here I am this morning, learning that unfortunately this glue is way too stiff and won't work because it has ruined the inside texture of the gloves (I'd put in nitrile gloves in case of any seepage, and some of the nitrile is now glued on, too).


So now these gloves are ruined, argh.

The real trouble is that I don't think my ideal glove of this sort actually exists as a thing that a person can buy. What I want is a wool liner glove with a reinforced palm, so I can wear them on their own OR wear them inside my ski mittens when it's 4 degrees out. Smartwool was on the right track with the reinforcement of the palms of these gloves, they just aren't as durable as they should be.

And now I've used up all of the goatskin leather scrap and don't know whether/how I can get more (it was just BEAUTIFUL material, setting aside the point that it is leather).

And I'm pretty sure that this Gorilla Glue is permanent can't be removed with a solvent.

So anyway, hopefully your morning has gone better than this.