I am still working on the Big Sneaky Project. You will all love it and want to, um, participate.

Next week is the grand unveiling (pun)!

Working two weeks on two separate temporary administrative assignments has taught me a valuable lesson:

I need a vocation where I can love people unreservedly.

I will let you all into an Aspie thing or a weird-is-me-theory. This whole treating people as casual goods in modern society bothers me deeply. Like disposable sporks that touch my lips a few times and then pitched away to never rot. If I stop to think about each checkout girl or medical assistant as an immortal soul, I cry. And crying continuously in public is embarrassing. I buck up like normal people in urban climes and ignore the soul. Just give me my sandwich exactly how I want it, er, please.

I believe an underlying spiritual dimension of this neurological spectrum gift is seeing each human as the unique creation of God. Whether or not the Aspie in question is a God-fearer, they cannot but take people one at a time because of our inability to read emotions or social cues. Everyone interacts, reacts, and acts differently. I have to study these people so I know how to speak with them, how to serve them, how to not get taken advantage of.

A logical way to handle this overwhelming “gift” is to shut out the flood human society and be happy with our particular interests. I can rightly do that and no one would blame me. I can have a Get Out of Socialness Free card.

Or…I can choose to interact with people in such a way that I “feel” their soul, as a wise priest once said. To describe the rush of emotions which make me cry is like being a castaway seeing a rescue boat. You would naturally want to hug every last blessed barnacle encrusted sailor who came to your aid. You will want to talk with them, listen to them, hear them sing. This relishing of human society, from what I understand, is not common.

I believe I have found (or had, its a long story) the right vocation which allows me serve professionally and charitably. Just need some time to get into the “loop” with the right crowd and then embark on a life-long lesson in loving.

Well, for the next week and a half, I am at a temp office job. Blech!! Its awful. I will probably post only once or twice during this time. BUT, hand onto your scarves, ladies! I have got a sneaky project underway!

What is news?

Waiting around, nervously to hear back for husband’s job offer. They said they would call one way or the other this afternoon. I will update as soon as I hear. This would be a PRIMO job for him in all ways. It would mean I wouldn’t need a full-time job; could do part-time as I wanted. It could also mean living in the downtown area, which is where we REALLY would like to live.

[Update: He didn't get it. I got a temp job offer today. Took it. Blech.]

I had a cold over the weekend, along with half the city from all the croaking and sniffling I have heard. Recovered now and catching up on housecleaning. Parents went to visit grandkids this past weekend. Yay, house-to-ourselves!

Been sewing a new autumnal print jumper. Last step is button holes and buttons! I will post pics when finished.

Reading heaps of stuff. The Noah Webster biography is a fascinating sweep of early American history. I highly recommend it.

Contemplating other projects, as time permits.

Bears. We has them. Or mebbe just one we nicknamed Yogi. I hope just one.

He (or she) has been enjoying our neighbors’ trash can contents the last couple of weeks. Trash scattered this morning. Our cans are the large municipal variety that racoons or stray dogs cannot knock over and disbowel.

The wildlife peoples in charge will do nothing. Its the autumn season when said bears are ravenous addicts and salmon skin in a can is crack. We live in suburbia, just 1.5 miles from Main Street. We just have to be careful after dark and before dawn when they go a digging.

Personally, I would have no issues whatsoever with a hunter who wanted a bear for his freezer, particularly, our bear.  I have a low tolerance for competition for top of the food chain. Come on, November!

I like compliments, both giving and receiving. I wasn’t always comfortable with the receiving part. Early on in my modesty journey, I had the nagging thought that people gave me compliments out of pity: “Let’s say something nice about her new skirt, even though we know she is a religious nut job.”

These days, since moving to Virginia, I am veritably surrounded by friends (with an s, as in, more than one!) who take modesty seriously. How is a compliment different between people who have different or similar values?

Let’s take the differing scenario first. Person A gives Religously dressed Person B a compliment on her dress. They may never choose to wear that style or even a dress at all (assuming Persons involved are women). They might like the print or the flattering cut or think its just “nice”. What Person A is admiring is the externalities of the dress. There is no shared bond between the Persons behind the choice of a dress over pants or a headscarf over nothing.

In the next scenario, both ladies are of the same value system, i.e., wearing modest feminine clothing and maybe a headcovering is a good thing. I give Sharon a compliment on her new headscarf. I notice the color is becoming to her. But this is not all. She and I know that I am also praising her willingness in wearing a scarf. We are bound together on more than sheer opinion.

Go, dear women, and compliment freely! It builds us up towards good works.

From Tea at Trianon:

I have worn a hat or mantilla to Mass most of my life and may have occasionally received strange looks from others. I do not really remember because I do not really care. If people have been bothered by my headcoverings then that was their problem, not mine. On the other hand, I have received many compliments over the years, often from women who said that they wished they had the courage to wear a hat or a veil at Mass. Courage? It requires courage to shed one’s blood for the faith, not to wear a little old beret or piece of lace on the head.

I meet up with Miss Maggie nearly every Tuesday at a local coffee shop. This establishment is the study/social place for the local liberal arts college. We see our share of scruffy, flip-flop style young adults hovering over laptops and twice-as-thick textbooks. Occasionally I get a people watcher’s treat of a well-dressed student or professor. One particular male student seems to have the 1940’s look down pat: well trimmed and combed hair, canvas ruck-sack, sturdy brown oxfords, collared shirts, and a blue stripped cover-all which is just oh so manly. He stands out among the fluffy-head-chuck-wearing-skinny jeaned, uh, boys.

I sigh here, dear readers, when your next thought, as well as mine, might be: he must be gay. HOW on earth did we get to the place where one must assume good clothing and grooming practices exclude the secure heterosexual? Its like men are not expected to care a modicum beyond whether they have a polo shirt and khakis that don’t stink (and neither are women, but that is a separate rant.)

[Insert thought here: My husband dresses well and to the occasion. I am in charge of his haircuts, so if he looks scraggy, its my duty to fix it.]

On my blog reader feed, I have the Aesthetic Traditionalist, who celebrates Masculine Fashion, both current and past. Another blog I like to take a look-see at every once and a while is Advanced Style. Men who know how to dress themselves! Politely and cleanly!

Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian

If you can catch this on tv or rent it, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) has some fabulous ladies’ costuming in the quasi-Medieval Hijab genre. The men in tights you will just have to snigger at.

I was inspired from Alana’s shoe expose to drag out my entire shoe collection. Here is the box I used to pack them all up when moving from Oklahoma to Virginia:

[Those are Jeff's shoes in front, as a scale item.]

And….here they all are:

Slippers count as shoes, though I never wear mine past the driveway. I have 4 pairs.  And 4 pairs of sneakers. The pink & white New Balance on the left are my new ones.

For a sense of balance (to bring you back from near-fainting at the sight of so many shoes), I have worn only the items to the front of the Eeyore slippers in the last four months. Those shoes to the rear of said slippers are mostly winter shoes or so dressy that I can hardly find an occasion to wear them or I can’t part with them.

So, have them out, ladies! Show me your shoes!