It takes one to know one

When TLM and I visited our dear friend in Taipei just over a year ago, we were baffled with her seemingly over the top hygiene habits.

For example, she had one "indoor" sofa and one "outdoor" sofa. Both sofas were in her living room - the difference was that you were only supposed to sit on the indoor sofa if you were wearing your "indoor" clothes. And you had to change into your "indoor" clothes after entering her apartment from the outside.

When she took us out for meals (wonderful meals, including great, great vegan meals), she never let us put our cutlery straight on the table. They had to go on a clean napkin or on the plates of food.

And she had ways of standing upright on buses without touching any of the support poles or handles.

There were also some pretty hardline bathroom rules too, but my mind must have blocked them out because I can't actually remember what they were now.

Our friend lived and worked in Taipei and Hong Kong through the SARS epidemic, and apparently that's when it all started.

And now. Now with New Zealand in an anti-Covid19 lock down, we wash our hands religiously, "avoid each other like the plague" (!) and spend a lot of time thinking about how long to wait before we can safely touch the package that the courier dropped off...now I understand.

Our dear friend passed away only a few months after we stayed with her, but wherever she is I hope she can see what's going on amongst the living and say "I TOLD you so!"

Colds in the time of Covid-19

Two Fridays ago I was joking about greeting people by tapping out elbows or feet with each other. The next day I was glad I'd already started doing it, because that's when my cold began.

For some reason (probably related to my asthma and my age) colds take me a long time to get over. I started feeling bad on the Saturday and I'm still not 100% 8 days on.

The good thing is that because of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no problem staying away from work all week. Normally I would take 3 or 4 days off and them drug myself up for the return to the office. This time around, I have not been to work (not even from home) since the Friday before last. And I might need to work from home this week.

Normally, if I'm at the tail end of a cold I will still go out to pick up my sewing machine, which was revived from it's mini-explosion about three weeks ago. This time, I asked the boy to do it for me and he didn't complain about it.

The bad thing is that our Internet service has been quite dodgy so that I haven't been able to Netflix myself out of boredom while home sick. Though "fortunately" I have been just sufficiently out of it that I haven't been too bored after all. Once I started to feel a bit better I got knitting and also made a new sign for my next Fridays for Future protest -

Prompted by news videos of panic-shoppers fighting over toilet paper, the boy went out and bought a jumbo 16-pack. Funnily enough, I would have thought that hand soap would be at least as high in demand...

On protests, sewing machines and going blonde

A couple of months ago I signed up to Instagram. It seems to be the best way for me to see what sewers are making these days, as the sewing bloggers I'd been following all seemed to have gone this way.

I have finally emerged from the Instagram black hole, after discovering the vast and varied creative expressions to be found there. Pet videos! Asian streetwear! Witty climate change protest signs!

And along the way I became motivated to contribute my own visual offerings (I'm at #kiwipeeks).

So what have I been up to?

A few weeks ago I started standing in a busy central city street in my lunch break, holding a sign and trying to drum up new protesters for our local the Fridays for Future vigils. It's only been once or twice a week, and I don't bother shouting at people or anything - I just stand and smile and hope they get the message.

Two weeks ago the boy and I were having a daughter-free weekend day, and instead of suggesting we go out on a daytime date he suggested I do some sewing (and leave him alone with his computer games). So I made a simple wrap top (pattern from the Simple Modern Sewing book, fabric from a fashion label's pop-up shop sale).

Right at the end of construction I was tidying up the loose threads, when I heard a "pop" and smelled burning plastic.

My sewing machine had died.

It is at the repairer's but apparently there's a backlog of machines for him to check so I still don't even know whether it's reparable.

I think I have a cold - but I'm pretty sure it's not covid-19 so even though I'm Chinese in ethnic  origin please don't launch any rockets toward my house!

I bought a new wig. And it's a shaggy blonde bob!

Apparently it's a shade of blonde that goes well with darker complexions because on me it looks daaaaaaamn good if I may say so myself.

The effect is less in the outside world than it was in front of the mirror in the wig lady's studio, but I swear that I look about 10 years younger in it. Very pleased. However wigs are still uncomfortable compared to beanies and bandanas.