all (well, many) things made new

One of my highlights of last week:
Watching as the planer in Matt's dad's garage took 80 years of paint and gunk off a piece wood that had been baseboard in our new house--and revealed the beautiful grain of wood underneath.

80 years ago, folks were cutting down some nice trees to build the houses in City Heights. I'm not celebrating that some fine, old-growth trees were felled to build our house, but... It's exciting to me to get to reclaim some of that wood--tired though it may have seemed--and uncover its beauty.

Good stuff.

institutional sexism

Matt's been on a search for work gloves for my sisters and me, to use in Julian. According to the tag on the "subcontractor" gloves that he finds so useful and wonderful, they come in women's sizes. No one, either in San Diego or on the internet, seems to carry them, though.

So, he was forced to buy us "gardening" gloves. Similar, and likely to be much more wonderful than the lame gloves we've been using, but nonetheless "gardening" gloves and not "subcontractor" gloves.

What gives?