Does the company that bought Osprey still honor the warranty?

Keen Newports have the finger loops on tongue and heel. I think Blundstone boots do, too? I’m sure someone with Blundstones can confirm or refute that.

Those loops are so handy, I agree.

Bicycle. No gas expenses, no tabs, no loan, free parking. I understand how it works and can mostly fix it myself for very little money. I can take quiet side streets and arrive in a much better mood, plus my fat lazy ass gets some exercise.

You can add pockets to the pants you buy, too. This video by Morgan Donner is adding several examples of types of pockets to skirts, but the process is the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pE_nrHKd58

And there’s this one by Bernadette Banner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thlzJj1EHiY

Thigh pockets are really great for phones. You can make visible patch pockets or subtle welt pockets and you can customize to the size of your phone.

Billy Connolly

For t shirts I always sing the praises of Gettees. Tiny “factory” of half a dozen people making extraordinarily high quality and durable shirts in Detroit. Most of the people doing the sewing are former auto upholstery stitchers from the car factories. The quality is truly the best I’ve ever encountered. https://gettees.us/

Side note about pockets: Duluth Trading women’s pants have multiple ginormous pockets, and about half have crotch gussets or anterior inseams to avoid chub-rub destroying the pants.

A good place to start on YouTube is Bernadette Banner’s channel. She is a clothing historian, so there’s a lot of historical and historical recreation stuff, but she also has a few basic repair and tailoring techniques videos. She wrote a mending book that I hear is much more in-depth than her videos (I haven’t read it). https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/make-sew-and-mend-bernadette-banner/1139915226

Patagonia Wornwear has a lot of repair instructions for outdoor gear (you don’t have to buy their repair materials). https://wornwear.patagonia.com/repairs

Reddit “visiblemending” and “invisiblemending” are also very good resources.

There is a generation of little old ladies who are passionate about sewing, but have no-one to sew for. Their kids are grown, and their grandkids don’t want handmade clothes. Ask at a senior center or at a local (not chain) fabric shop, seek out one of these ladies and hire her to sew for you. Or barter: help her around the house or garden or drive her to appointments or to get groceries, and in exchange she sews clothes from fabrics and patterns you choose. Or tailors used clothes to make them fit you better, or mends your worn clothes, etc.

Here’s an excellent place to start: https://tincanknits.com/collection/the-simple-collection

And “run” the heels and ball of the foot so they felt down and last longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fKKLOUNOHU

I did a deep-dive reading and watching videos learning about sturdy and long-lasting fabrics and materials. Learned a bit about tailoring for durability, too. (For example, Duluth Trading shifted the inseams on their Firehose pants forward. The forward seams don’t rub on each other when you walk, and so the inner thighs don’t self-destruct as quickly.)

There are also a ton of excellent resources on how to mend clothing and properly care for it. And it doesn’t take much effort, really.

So now I have a bunch of older clothes, with subtle repairs, still in good shape. Sure, I’d like some sexy new trendy disposable stuff so I can be one of the cool kids - but that’s how fast fashion gets its claws into you. Preying on our magpie-like desires for shiny new things makes somebody big bucks. (And creates huge waste and exploits desperate workers.)

Buy sturdy “classic” clothes. Keep them in good repair. Fight the system.

“The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.”

• Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

That makes it better, but I don’t want his normal cold, either. We all have a few masks lying around and tucked into pockets here and there these days. If one feels a cold coming on, toss a mask over your pie hole in public!

Yesterday while grocery shopping two men walked by as I was contemplating bread choices. One of them was saying, “yeah, it’s ok, I’ve got the sore throat but I don’t have the rest of the Covid symptoms yet.”

At that moment I really wished both he and I (and everyone else in the store) were wearing masks.

This reminds me of an article about journalism and the internet, from ages ago. A class was asked how they would research for a topic (it was some recent political event, I don’t remember). The class confidently answered “the internet.” The professor struggled to get them to understand that wasn’t enough. Yes, there is all kinds of stuff about this event on the internet, but how did it get there?. And more importantly, what is missing?

Sure, all the sexy AI stuff gives us goosebumps and sounds great. But how did it get there, and what is missing? Someone somewhere has to do the actual original work first, or it’s just making collages from the same library over and over and over again.

You can buy card stock that has local wildflower seeds embedded in it. The idea is when the person is done with the card, they plant the whole thing so the card decomposes and the seeds sprout.

I’ve been wanting to do this ever since someone gave me one that said “You make a difference.” I treasured that card for years.

I don’t even remember what I did to help her at this point, it was something that seemed minor at the time, but she thanked me and gave me the card.

Do it! It can have quite an impact!

And petting wildlife. Or trying to take selfies with wildlife. Or feeding wildlife.

No, no, and no.

Even a cute lil’ chipmunk is a no-no. Bison, moose, and their sweet huggable calves are serious no-nos.

If you run into a financial ditch and don’t have emergency funds, contact the electric, water, medical, phone, credit card, etc. billing departments right away. Don’t wait until after you’ve already missed a payment or two! Jump right to it and set up payment plans. I helped a friend through a financial crash and was impressed how much leeway billing departments will give you if you reach out before you miss a payment.