Observables #63

on the mole, flowy pants and fair wages

What we’re watching:

The Mole because our family can’t always be together to watch Gilmore Girls (family rule that everyone needs to be present).

The Mole is a fun family friendly reality show that has a group of contestants competing for a pot of money, but the catch is there’s a “mole” among them who is secretly sabotaging the group’s efforts. Elsie and I enjoy analyzing and assessing people’s choices and reflecting on what people are like in general. Actually, I don’t know if she’s going to that next layer of reflection. But I am. I do. At night. Because things stay with me and then I dream about betrayal. It’s so fun in my brain :)

These pants from Reformation.

I bought them for this Reframeables photoshoot and then I wished I hadn’t because it’s a lot of fabric. And I’m afraid to shorten them for fear of shortening them too much. As happened with a recent pair of jeans. And two pairs of Elsie’s jeans, which caused tears for months. Speaking of betrayal, I felt like I had personally betrayed Elsie by getting her pants wrong (I might have been a little loose with the bobby pin, which was the only “pinning” tool I had on hand). Also, every time I talk to someone about having their pants hemmed, it comes out that “they’re too short now.” I feel pleased to have identified a major societal problem.

This Tim Ferris podcast with business guru Jim Collins. One thing I really liked, which perhaps applies mostly to entrepreneurs, is the idea of tracking your creative hours every day. By the end of 365 days, Collins says you should be at 1000 creative hours. I’m in for a spreadsheet!

Other sounds? The bath water filling in every household with school age children. The educational workers are the bath, and the strike is the bath water, and the parents are the toys that sink. Or maybe the workers are the sinking toys and the parents are the grout that’s coming loose and the kids are the half empty bottles of shampoo? Basically, it’s a bad bath for everyone.

But it has to be done because educational workers—mostly women—deserve a fair wage. Two of those women include Chris who greets Violet at her school every morning, making sure she gets from her bus to class, and Rahma, her bus driver who even makes special trips to deliver forgotten items. Yes, I think they should be making a living wage.

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This week on the pod, Nat and I talk kids lit with Jael Richardson, who reframes the importance of the stories and perspectives we share with our kids.

p.s. Have you checked out Nat’s newsletter? Last week she wrote about leaky grief. While my brain tends toward the wild and random, she is the one I turn to to make links and find some sense of cohesion.