Mardek

Telephonium is an element?

So, we have farriers and plumbers - are there any other "elemental" jobs?

All done now! In typical auntly fashion, she moved a package of cleaning cloths (at least 25 years old judging by the price tag) to hand me a quarter of a t-shirt, neatly ironed, to wipe my hands on.

Her friend phoned. "Yes, we're painting the shed. Well, I'm painting but she's helping with the high bits. The young people need to learn to maintain a house for if they ever buy one."

I'm 41. And was a lecturer in building conservation.

How to tell she's tired of painting: she dumped her tin and mine together to "consolidate them for storage", then decided there's not much she can do at the moment to help with no paint. Now she is deciding which plants I need to bring indoors for winter.

A woman in a blue sweater standing over a wooden shed door laid out on trestles in a garden, painting it the same blue as her sweater.

I simply sanded the doors first and set them up at comfortable working height "to paint later", and she walked right into my trap.

Heh. I'm helping my aunt paint her garden shed today - she's 84 and no longer safe on ladders.

But she is so impatient to finally get paint on something, she's sitting there stirring it while I insist on doing boring prep work like removing the moss, spiders, and flaking old paint. 😆

And funded through the taxpayer, too!

Probably shorthand for "Essential criteria: must be the mayor's future son-in-law".

How to tell that they already decided who's getting the post before they advertised it:

An ad for a job in the humanities that lists, in the desirable criteria, "being an active member of the volunteer fire department of [city]".

Well done him for realising what's happening, getting out, and communicating about it!

Warum sind derzeit eigentlich so viele Stellenangebote im öffentlichen Dienst so niedrig eingruppiert? Direktor einer Einrichtung mit Budget-, Personal- und Gesamtverantwortung, Promotion erwünscht für E10? 🤔

Ich dachte immer, für den #TvöD gibt es Bewertungskriterien, an die man sich halten muss?

Postillon, the German satire "newspaper", ran with the headline "immigration officers fail: felon with international warrant easily enters US".

Much appreciated! Our time will come again.

A close-up of the last mirabelles (small yellow plums) of the summer hiding in the drooping branches of a tree.

A photograph of eight recycled jars of different sizes, set on their lids on a wooden countertop. They contain fresh reddish-orange jam. A small porcelain bowl holds the last few spoonfuls to be eaten fresh.

We live in a land of such food security that nobody had harvested the mirabelles, and even asked what in the world I was doing as I was picking the last few left in the tree that hadn't just rotted on the ground.

Combined with some slightly shriveled peaches, I turned them into 8 jars of jam.

My PhD is in methods for documenting knowledge provenance, authenticity and reproducibility in historical research.

I feel like Cassandra shouting into the void here.

Especially when people tell me I can work faster with the lying & making shit up machine.

I find their relationship super creepy. In many ways, he's grooming her. She may be physically an adult but starts out with the naiveté of a child and he exploits that. He puts her in the skintight catsuit, keeps commenting on her body and crosses so many professional boundaries...

I usually make myself a breakfast concoction of coffee, cocoa and cinnamon.

Yesterday I had to take the spice rack down to pull out the fridge, and thought I put everything back properly.

In short, I don't recommend coffee with paprika.

I wasn't born yet, but just reaching the stage where I may have been hearing the news on the radio...

A sleepy-looking tortoiseshell cat slowly emerging from a nest in a tan and white fluffy blanket.

Echo is just waking up from a nap so epic she's still trying to remember what species she is. She seems quite pleased to discover she's a cat.

I have weird duck feet where I need the front width in men's shoes but then I slide around in the heel because it's too wide. But women's shoes tend to squish my toes.

Eine abfotografierte Zeitungsanzeige mit dem Text "Vorzeige-Unternehmer ohne Erben sich Geschäftsfrau für feste Beziehung (mit gutem Sohn wäre schön)."

Manchmal fragt man sich, in welchem Jahrhundert wir eigentlich leben.

My sister says my toddler niece is very disappointed that the neighbour's cat never waves back to her.

So, since I try to be a good auntie and I'm doing clicker training anyway with my small cat, we are now adding "wave" to our bag of tricks!

And extra heavy duty thread!

Majestic!

A sewing hat, or a hat to go with the new outfit?

Yes. Fitting it all under my sewing machine will be the tricky part!

But I plan to re-use an old tent for part of it to save some money and many, many seams.

Considering I'm currently looking for work, I have more time than money on my hands!

And it will teach me a new skill.

The reenactment pavilion of my dreams would cost about 1200€, or 150€ in fabric + 50€ in wood and 50€ in various hardware...

Sewing lists grow so fast!

I have just foolishly added a tent to mine 😬