the temp blanket, typing with figaro and a bulldog statue

i finally put my temperature blanket on the bed . . i began it about three to four years ago, and bound it off during the beginning of covid when we were in lockdown. i have to find my notebook with the color and temperature designations. the blues are the colder colors, moving then into the browns and then the greens, with yellow being the hottest, 90 to 100 degrees fahrenheit, i  believe. i do remember that the year i was knititng this, the temperature fluctuated greatly day to day.

someone made himself comfortable while i worked through my many emails from when i was away . .

a bulldog statue morgan passed during the day's walk . . one that had never been observed before . . surprisingly! i think i remember eva passing a bulldog statue during one of her london ramblings . .

a new day, a new book . . and morgana passes her test and goes snowboarding . .

yesterday i suddenly remembered that i had bought john leland's book, happiness is a choice you make, in order to take part in the new york time's big city book club online discussion with the author. i had tried to borrow it from the library, but there were 138 holds on 46 copies, and the online discussion will occur this coming monday at 6:30 pm. i'm not sure where this discussion will occur, the times' email about the event did not give a specific event link, and when i click on their "big city book club" link, it takes me to a discussion that occurred in 2015. i think they need to get their online act together. i hope they do so by monday.

i'm on chapter two of the book, and am really loving it. the author spends a year visiting with six new yorkers who are among the "oldest old," men and women eighty five years and older. he meets them with certain assumptions about what it is to be old, only to be confronted with their personal day to day reality that turns everything he assumed upside down. they truly live each moment. they do not look to the future, and their thoughts can teach us so much. spending days with my mom when i go up to connecticut has shown me how little we really spend with our elders . . and how our society separates us, not just by economic levels and race, but by age.

(oh, and that is my temperature blanket, growing larger and larger, day by day!)

----

yes!! morgana passed her ski test! she took it on monday around 9 or 10 am tirol time. her host sister accompanied her this time and took a few movies, so we can see a bit of her skiing! here she is on top of the mountain, trying not to look nervous before the test begins.

 what a beautiful place for an exam!

 the slope does look a bit daunting . .

(no, she's not that first person schussing down so fast--actually, that person is weaving down the mountain so i think a different term should be used--she's the second one, carefully executing what looks to me like a snowplow, but she may have another word for it).

of course she was incredibly ecstatic about the results (her sicilian friend passed too!), but she was also pleased that she passed all three parts. she needed to pass two parts to pass the exam, and she thought she might fail the free skiing section (the first two parts were technical maneuvers), but she managed to squeak through with all three. it's a wonderful accomplishment and now she can be a ski instructor.

the next day was spent snowboarding with her host family and friends, an event she was really looking forward to:

and that's the end of the ski/snowboard season! today she is on her way to london for . .  an open ended amount of time . .