Weekly update: convention, concert, the whole nine yards, new ideas, and reading

On Friday afternoon I walked along the fire lane at the northwestern edge of the state park, less than a mile from home.  I saw a beaver lodge (upper right) and several beaver-chewed trees.  Were the beavers trying to sabotage the fire lane?   

A brisk northeast wind brought whitecaps to the lake. It was chilly but clear.  There's a pair of bald eagles nesting in that part of the park. My quest this season is to see them one day.  

  Friday evening and a good part of Saturday were spend Zooming with AAUW-Illinois colleagues for the 96th annual state convention. Michelle Duster was Friday evening's speaker.   Her recently-published biography Ida B. The Queen is about her great-grandmother, the trailblazing Black woman journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett.  What a legacy! 

 At in-person state conventions we end Friday evening with a social gathering -- usually in the president's hotel suite,  where we consume too-salty snacks, indifferent red or white wine or not-diet soda.   We avoided all those  calories with Zoom breakouts -- nine people to a "room," three twenty-minute sessions. It was a nice way to catch up with one another and meet some new people, too.  

Saturday morning (Zoom webinar):  Gloria Blackwell, AAUW national executive vice president gave an update on AAUW initiatives that promote equity for women and girls.  

 The second speaker, Kimberly Stratton, is an aerospace engineer who works for Caterpillar in Peoria.  What? They make earth-moving equipment.  Yes -- and that "earth" may be on the moon or on Mars. Developing machinery light enough to transport on a rocket, then figuring out how the mechanics work in a no-oxygen atmosphere with different gravity -- definitely a challenge!  

The third speaker, Dr. Gretchen Goldman, is research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.  She spoke about the effect of the pandemic on women -- particularly on women with children -- not only on their employment but also family dynamics.  

Following a lunch break we reconvened for a short business meeting and installation of officers. I was reelected to a two-year term as co-v.p. of membership.  All finished at 2:00 -- and no long drive back home!  

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We enjoyed live music Saturday evening when the Lake County Symphony Orchestra performed a tribute to jazz legend Chick Corea followed by Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.  (It was going to be Brubeck and Beethoven--more alliterative--but Corea's death earlier this year prompted the change.)  The church where the concert was held uses chairs rather than pews. The chairs were grouped in 2's, 3's, and 4's.  

This is the second indoor live concert we've been to. We've gone out to eat at local restaurants several times. But we haven't yet been to a movie theater. What about you? 

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In the studio:  

I have an appointment with Barb-the-quilter in early May to quilt Grassy Creek.  While I listened to the AAUW speakers I pieced the back.  The flimsy is 94 x 94 so the back is 102 x 102. Were I buying fabric this would have been a great opportunity for a 3-yard 108-wide backing. But I'm not buying fabric. As you can see, I'm using it up.

Once that huge pieced back came off the design wall a few batiks leaped on.

This is a new batch of batik crumb blocks. I want to make 20 for the setting idea I have in mind.

I'm not sure what to call these 6" blocks other than quick-to-make. I'm now up to 42 of them.   

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Susan Allott's debut novel is an atmospheric and suspenseful story about long-suppressed family secrets and, in turn, about a national secret-in-plain-sight.  

1997: Isla is in London, in recovery from alcoholism and a broken-up relationship. Her father John calls from Sydney. "Please come home," he says. "The police are investigating me for murder."

1967: John drinks more and more to relieve the pressure from his pregnant wife Louise; a demanding job; not enough money; and wanting to do anything, everything for his ten-year-old daughter Isla. After a big fight Louise wipes out the savings account and takes Isla with her back to England. To assuage his feelings of abandonment John is grateful for next-door neighbor Mandy's friendship. Mandy is a housewife married to Steve, a policeman involved in forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their families in the government's cruel effort to improve the children's lives.  The job is terrible and it takes a toll on Steve and on Mandy. . . . And then Mandy disappears.

1997: Isla returns to Sydney, determined to discover what really happened that summer, thirty years before.  

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