Hats, Bunnies and Obligations

Happily, I've managed, if nothing else this week, to make a dent in the mountain of things needing to be done. The enormous pile of obligations and tasks have kept growing especially during those days I can do little more than flounder. By flounder, I mean that motionless lying down, immobilised except for the one eye kept on goings on, as best you can with a ragng headache, and no energy whatever. Some of the stress of having to fight for the barest of existence has let up a little lately. I can now afford to eat twice a day at least, and it is making some difference.

On a really good day, I think I might even get better one day. Polly-Anna optimism or knee-deep in denial, can't tell you which. I've learned to make a point of doing some actual living each and every day. It is very important to experience moments of joy, even if otherwise existence is painful or just plain dull. The human spirit craves experience and moments of feeling good about being alive can go a long way to bringing pain levels down and the spirit more willing to work up the desire to fight on and wake up the next day and the next.

In that spirit, other than getting caught up on some basic housekeeping and reading correspondence, I've managed to spend some time with my sister and with her little 3 year old daughter played with hats in a local boutique while my sister was trying on some clothes. I forgot what fun that can be, just the dressing up and playing it out depending on the hat you are wearing. I even laughed out loud with her. One hat she could not bear to part with and she was given that hat from the both of us. I should have brought a camera, darn. My sister bought me a rather extravagant pin for my bunny coat.

What is a bunny coat, well, political correctness aside for the moment, it is a coat made of the hides of wee bunnies. I bet they were tasty too. No, I'm not even a little vegan, though I was raised as one when I was a child. Broke nearly every bone in my body by age 16, started eating meat, not in great amounts but here and there, and haven't broken a bone since. I don't think that says anything about either life style but it does say a little something about fanaticism.

I came by the bunny coat via my daughter who presented me with it a couple of winters ago. she knows how miserably cold I get, and there is nothing warmer in the entire world than and animal pelt. Sorry folks but synthetics don't cut it even a little. Maybe that's why so many older women cling to their minks not wanting to give them up. Purely from a touchy feely perspective there are some animals I think are wrong to wear. The more sentient the animal the less I want to wear them, that incudes wolves, foxes and certainly cats and endangered species. Mind you mink is nothing more than a weasel (I can just hear ferret owners seething). Pet chinchillas are adorable but if I'm going to freeze to death or wear their pelts guess what, touchy feely don't keep you warm. I've had several pet bunnies and I was incredibly fond of all of them, and I loved each and every chicken my grandmother had running round in her back yard when I was little. It took a little getting used to you favourite hen becoming soup for the weekend.

The coat had previously been owned by another lady and was inherited by my daughter, I honour both her memory and that of the little bunnies whose pelts keep me so warm. I don't see a need in owning a second fur coat of any kind, it really is just terribly nice to be so warm for a change. I can't think it would honour the furry animals to be unappreciated. We do no favours to animal kind and the ecosystem by manufacturing synthetics either, never mind they are never going to be as warm and light. Manufacturing uses vile sludges of chemistry with effluent that is disposed of in some cases fairly indiscriminately here, but most especially in the third world where ethics and well-intended "rules" simply do not apply. So I'm fine and happy with the bunny coat.

Feeling better but not motivated to paint or be terribly creative I've spent more time crocheting hats than sketching, painting of sculpting. Rapid robot movement keeps my hands warm and does not require much thought, the brain needs some rest. This afternoon I was playing with two of my recently crocheted hats (both done in the last 48 hours) and my camera and put together the animated picture below. The backgrounds are from other photos taken other days, and I did not leave my chair to take any of them. Just a little fun with hats, and you can se the bunny coat and if you look the green coloured extravagant pin.


The pile of things undone is getting smaller day by day, as long as this level of functioning holds I just might be able to see over the top of it soon. I can make more hats, paint some, sculpt some and write a few stories..