Knitters and Crocheters - I am trying trying trying to get back into knitting and my brother is doing some fundraising Knit and crochet - alongs starting in a few weeks. If anyone is interested, I am rlboston on Ravelry. The group is End Aids KAL/CAL. I can get you linked up then to his Instagram that has videos explaining the plans.

Boo TMI issues and plan-canceling! But yay feeling better and the prospect of visiting with friends.

beekaytee, I've already voted for you, and also gotten regular jury duty calls. Usually twice a year, because I get one in my married name and another in my birth name (I'm still registered to vote as JZ, not JS, and I don't really want to change it because I like still having an excuse to sign that name every now and then). The most recent time was a few months ago, but I totally forgot it due to family stuff and never checked in even once (in SF, you call a potential juror hotline once a day for 5 days in a row to see if you're supposed to come in and sit in the call room, and if you get called in one day but don't get chosen or never get called in at all you're off the hook for the next year, or the next 6 months if you're me). I'm pretty sure that if they'd actually called me in and I'd failed to show I would've been pinged by now about failure to show, so I assume I'm free for another few months.

The weekend thus far: Visited my oldest friend for coffee and conversation, which ended in a lot of tears because her sprog, just about a year younger than Matilda, is not only brilliant and beautiful but neurodivergent with multiple other complicating factors and the entire family is stretched to the brink of snapping. I'm deeply angry at whatever roll of the cosmic/genetic dice landed them all here, because they're all such good people and deserve infinitely less struggle, but of course nothing on this stupid plane of existence has much of anything to do with what anyone deserves.

Then visited with my mom, who was in town for her 60th high school reunion, which was much less stressful and sad. She and Matilda enjoy each other so ridiculously much. And we got to hear the story of how she managed to graduate from high school with the help of her math tutor, a dreamy college boy from the neighborhood who on tutoring days would come roaring up to the parking lot of her Catholic girls' high school on his motorcycle, tell her chubby dorky self to wrap her arms tight around his waist, and then zoom off with her leaving all her classmates in a jealous swoon. Her social capital quadrupled that year!

Hec has requested that I report my workday faffing-around activities from earlier this week, when I was working remotely from the campus library. On Wednesday I was walking to one of the carrels on the third floor near the emergency medicine historical documents section, and passed the 1940 Selective Service recruitment standards handbook, Volume 6: Physical Standards. So, as one does (provided one is Plei or channeling her), I plucked it up and spent most of the afternoon skimming through it to see whether I could figure out where Steve Rogers might have been marked 4-F.

My conclusions: surely underweight, chest likely too narrow, possibly asthma, remotely possibly scurvy or some other dietary deficiency adversely affecting endurance and muscle development.

It was really a pretty interesting read, including not only the specific qualifiers and disqualifiers but, for some areas, long sections on how to catch malingerers--usually healthy dudes trying to avoid service would fake eye or ear problems, so the handbook offered specific tests relying on responses to stimuli that *will* happen with genuine deficits but seem totally counterintuitive so fakers would absolutely miss them. But there was also an appendix listing all the medications that could be taken off-license to fake everything from anemia to epilepsy, as well as anecdotes about people pouring condensed milk on their penises to fake STDs and the like.

Also also, there were counter-malingerers, people exactly like Steve Rogers who knew they were 4-F and lied about it, and how to spot when someone was lying about TB or asthma or COPD. Most of the counter-malingerers were assumed to be doing it "from patriotic motives," but the handbook also noted that some of them were doing it in hopes of getting someone to diagnose them during boot camp so they could get an honorable discharge and affordable medical care. Because that has clearly always been an issue in this stupid country.

There were also absolutely weird distinctions--you could still qualify for some kind of military service if you'd lost three fingers on one hand but not four, or if you'd lost one thumb but not both; you still qualified if you had any STD except syphilis; you still qualified if you wet your bed a little, but not a lot; you still qualified if you had mild or moderate scurvy, but not severe; Addison's disease was an automatic 4-F. Which made me run to Google, where I discovered that JFK wasn't diagnosed until 1947; what would've happened if some alert MD had put all the pieces together before he enlisted? No military career, no Profiles In Courage, no war-hero best-selling-author shine all over him; his dad certainly had the money and the influence to push one of his kids into national prominence no matter what, but would it always have been Jack? What other ways might it have gone if it had been another sib, or if it had still been him but later?

Also, being gay was a definite instant 4-F, but it was notable among all the other 4-Fs in having no explanatory note at all. Most of them had appendices explaining why this disqualified someone, why the recruiter would have to say no, but in 1940 being gay was not just taboo, but so taboo that it was listed only as "Sexual perversion," with no explanatory note at all. Not even a warning about malingerers. It was so taboo at the time that it never entered any recruiter's mind that anyone would claim it if it weren't so (a blind spot which the Vietnam generation would take full advantage of a quarter century later).

Anyhow, it was a totally unproductive but thoroughly satisfying work afternoon, and Hec insisted I share it here because of Steve Rogers.

and Hec insisted I share it here because of Steve Rogers.

It's a valid reason!

Skipped to the end to announce we both tested negative, so YAY VACCINES.

Steve Rogers is always a valid reason.

I had a pretty lazy Sat and plan an even more lazy Sun. So far only coffee, but I think biscuits and white gravy are in my future.

The plan for the afternoon is cleaning the front porch and sitting out there knitting and listening to an audiobook, then once it cools a bit, mowing the overgrown lawn.

Wonderful relief, Pix!! Thank you for sharing the good news.

Steve Rogers is always a valid reason.

This.

Chilling, literally, and hanging out today. Have soup in the slow pot. Sun is out, but still only 57F outside, which is better than the 43F when I got up this morning. Leaves are turning, but still a month or so away from heading south as it is still really warm there and I am enjoying my solitude. I'm a month into Duolingo learning Spanish. Partly for brain exercise, partly because there is a lot of Spanish spoken in South Florida.

Skipped to the end to announce we both tested negative, so YAY VACCINES.

Right on!

That was truly fascinating, JZ! Thanks for sharing!

First week back from vacation was quite busy, alas. Also rides got cancelled due to illness, others got priority-moved onto the schedule (a resident funeral -- one of my favorite ladies, alas), my phone auto-pay didn't and that day my phone suddenly wouldn't connect, so I was out of contact when I really needed to communicate.

Saturday I somewhat collapsed with fibro, but managed to push myself to walk to the library and back, then did some adulty things like finding my health insurance card and laundry. Today I have to go grocery shopping, catch up on bills and so on!

Skipped to the end to announce we both tested negative

Excellent negativity!

JZ and Matilda are slowly rousting themselves up to go to church. When they return I am tasked with trimming Matilda's bangs in advance of Picture Day this week, and also hanging out with new school friends Zane and Vanessa. Last night she was on a Facetime call with new school friend Carlin and they were laughing the whole time while they did homework together. Laughing like a drain, as Fay would say.

It was a source of some anxiety that Matilda was going to a school without her elementary or middle school friends, but she's just gone out and made new ones (while retaining most of the old ones). One Freshman girl, Chloe, said, "I don't know how to make friends," so Matilda said, "Then I guess you're sitting with us for lunch." Which is what Chloe does every day now.

It was a source of some anxiety that Matilda was going to a school without her elementary or middle school friends, but she's just gone out and made new ones (while retaining most of the old ones). One Freshman girl, Chloe, said, "I don't know how to make friends," so Matilda said, "Then I guess you're sitting with us for lunch." Which is what Chloe does every day now.

She is 100% your child in that regard. That's awesome.