I'm reading a book about how we use so much stuff and discard so much stuff and yet I spent the morning researching routers because it turns out the one here is an "End of Life" product. Dealing with the planned obsolescence part of being a modern consumer - how much are you going to add to and rely on a product that will no longer be supported by the manufacturer.

Dorothy, I agree, having a social life is a must in taking care of your health. I hope you made a couple of trips over to the river today. I'll get a big dose of that tomorrow with a trip to the museum for training and scanning. In the evening the artist whose installation is situated in a main corridor will speak about her work, and I will attend to hear her talk about all of the garments she dismantles to make her art. The scraps hanging from the ceiling like jersey stalactites are remnants of other work. I have baskets full of that still after all of the mask making. I plan to ask her about where to use or send it.

A note on household implements—for a couple of years I've been experimenting with using ceramic knives. The first one is still around but the tip is chipped and it's a bit dull. They apparently can be sharpened, but it isn't as easy as sharpening a high-carbon steel knife. I also have stainless knives and they just don't seem to need sharpening. When people are here I'm careful about who uses the ceramic ones; a friend was going to pry something open and I had to grab it out of her hand. My daughter was cutting carrots and thumping the knife on the board with each stroke. The last couple of weeks I've returned to using just the steel knives and have decided that the durability of steel is what I'll stick with. It's the same reason I'm no longer using the non-stick pans. They're more trouble than they're worth.