The sun is out and the blue bells show their dainty heads. Supposed to get up into the 60’s today. Are we ever ready!
I am committed to making 24 more masks. I’ve made 20 and am getting faster but I was kinda done ten masks ago. Now a friend wants to buy 9. I don’t want to sell them to her, she’s a good friend, so now what? I’d refer her to another friend who IS selling them, but at $22 / mask?If that is the day’s top dilemma, I’ll count myself lucky.
Why are we not .. every mailbox in America getting protective masks. I know that there are not enough even for our medical and first responders. Again I have to ask WHY??? Could it be that we have a President that even if he got it he wouldn’t care 🤬😡😢😭
Oh yeah. I feel bad making masks for friends instead of hospice workers or for nurses to put over their N95s and It seems I should keep going. These daily Press briefings are so incredibly toxic — even if you don’t watch them, because then the clips and comments are fricking everywhere.
I dunno. It feels right to me to share with friends. to say “I have this skill and a lot of love for you so here’s what I did with both combined.”
We’re all being told we don’t actually matter – that we’re supposed to sacrifice our lives for the freakin’ stock market or simply more worthy humans. That it’s unpatriotic and wrong to protect ourselves. Mob mentality turned against citizens who apply critical thinking to how they live and make adjustments to the world around them.
It speaks volumes really. Am also wondering if your feelings of a triage nature have something to do with your privilege level? Perhaps your particular friends have more options and financial resources to take care of themselves by other means?
Thanks for your thoughtful input. It might just be a questions of pacing. I really don’t mind making four or five or six a day. Enjoy sharing what I can do with a real news of others. I’m not sure privilege comes into it. With one exception we are all kind of in the same boat.
Dee, you are doing work from your heart, the mask making and it is generous and important. We all do what we can in own way, with our own skill levels. You were one of the first that I saw making masks and it touched me deeply, your commitment to helping plus to lighten up the mood here, I swooned over the bright green tropical mask!!!
Today in New Mexico, it will be up in the 70’s. It’s garbage and recycle day and before it gets too hot, I was out weeding in front. As the garbage trucks rolled by I waved and they stopped and I thanked them for their hard work on behalf of all of us and the driver said in reply, “Lady, thank you for noticing us; it means so much…”
We are all in the same boat and some keep doing what they know to do, not just our heroic health care workers but our sanitation workers, our mail people, etc. who do their jobs, day in and day out. This morning I went to our mail receptacle, no one has private mailboxes here, and taped a thank you card to our mail person.
We are all in the same boat and WE ALL MATTER.
I think I’ll tip our sanitation guys this week, too.
In your HONOR, Marti, I just danced like a fool on the deck, ear buds in, volume set to LOUd, in full view of five houses full of neighbors and one yard crew. Gawd it felt Good! Quads are screaming and I’m gonna do it again. Maybe tomorrow!
Well I’m thrilled that you danced and that it felt good to do so…believe me, it does. Know that I’ll be joining you tomorrow…
Just now my nephew Paul from Los Angeles sent me an email with a clip of an episode many years ago from the program MASH about social isolation. The clip didn’t say why the isolation but it showed Radar behind a door with a glass window. The commander is asking him to bring the report and asks why the hell he’s behind the door. Radar replies, “No offense Sir but I’ve got this thing about living…” and then you hear a squeak and a thin string inches across the room with the report…” besides dancing, there are times when humor is such a welcome release.
Well I’m on a roll here about the importance of music, especially now. Today in The Guardian, an article attesting to this: Here is an excerpt and after, will be the link to the fascinating article:
“…“music was not a luxury in times of epidemic uncertainty – it was a necessity”. Now that we’re equipped with technology, science and a global identity, music may be more valuable – and more necessary – than ever.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/06/stayin-alive-how-music-fought-pandemics-2700-years-coronavirus
Great article. I’ve seen many of the recent balcony serenades but later I’ll go back and listen to a few more. They, and the health worker clapping, always make me want to cry.
Yay – dancing 🙂 🙂 my painting buddies are setting up a zoom-dance-party! $22 for a mask. It is tempting I have to say, but not. I had a friend ask me yesterday how much I was charging for masks. I said, “I am not charging. I’ll have one for you in a couple of days”. i was shocked, really. I’m telling friends and family, my priorities go like this: 1) health care workers at the local hospital, and I think I’m adding the great 24 hr Vet Hospital we discovered when our cat had a stroke, they put out a request for masks 2) family 3) friends and neighbors. When I run out of fabric and thread, I may have to start charging. $22 seems high. We Americans have a disturbed sense of values. I could stay a lot of mean stuff about our federal government but “we’re all in the same boat” does it for it now. I hope he drowns in his own you-know-what.
To be fair to my friend, she’s been in business making bow ties for years. This isn’t a volunteer effort for her and she knows how to price things.
I thought I was done with the masks too….made 20 something for a friend and her supermarket co-workers, then 50 for a local woman collecting for frontline health and home care workers, now a friend has asked for 12 for her brother and dad who have to go out to work, and her mum and brother’s family. I’ll make them because I can, but really want to sew other stuff. She wants to pay but I don’t know, don’t want her too. Since her brother’s out and about anyway, I might just ask him to get me some potting mix, that would make me happy. The supermarket workers did pay me….3 for $10…..I saw someone selling them for 15 and thought that was a bit much, so $22….yikes.
Like I said below, the high price comes from my friend’s years and years of working a cottage industry, making bow ties and suspenders. I don’t want to charge tho but at some point I also don’t want to make anymore and charging money doesn’t really change that dynamic.
If you don’t have the means or the tools to make your own mask imagine how hard it is to just ask for one? Better to suggest buying it. Someone is making me a mask. Because I was trying and failing at doing it myself. For once, Maine is a very good place to be living. Very self sustainable people. Tomorrow is the farm stand at the church. Root vegetables and greens. 10 am. I have to think what soup to make next.
The one you did make looks amazing.
My first thought: surely the road to hell must look like this
And music … saw a great video clip of a mariachi band playing at a Texas grocery store (HEB … here everything’s better) …
from me to you: asking for money is fully justified!
even though it feels weird, and I know it does because it felt weird for me having made them for the care-givers looking after our parents; but then my sister said: you spent many hours, materials, petrol etc making them and you have a tiny business and these days making money isn’t easy for you, so hey I went ahead and did charge which averaged out at €12 per mask ($13)
all above board incl. VAT
but choosing whether or not to charge is a personal decision and depends on what you need I guess
It’s a tough one. Maybe donations for thread? A sharp pair of scissors?