Bored with my wardrobe

Bored bored bored. 90% of my wardrobe is several years old. That's the problem with making nice sturdy blouses. (The pants have a higher turnover, but they're also intentionally boring.) Not worn-out enough to move to the rag bag, but worn too often to still be exciting. I realized this problem when I went to pack my "nicest casual" items for Kalamazoo and realized that I'd packed essentially the same clothes the last three years in a row. I don't want a completely new paradigm, but I want something new. I just don't know what. I want something new and different that's exactly like what I already like. Except not. Yeah, right. (And I just don't do dresses for everyday. That's a non-starter.) Usually when I'm in a mood like this I make a new suit jacket, but I already have more suit jackets than days in the year when I wear suit jackets. Fabric, I've got; ideas, I don't.

That melted freeway thing

Ok, so I wouldn't be quite as interested in the repairs on the melted freeway if it weren't my nextdoor neighbor. But I'm being refreshingly impressed by how efficiently CalTrans and the repair contractor have gotten it back in operation. CalTrans offered a contract with a sizable bonus for every day they finished earlier than 50 days. They finished in 26 days. All week they've been promising that they'd have the roadway open in time for tomorrow's holiday-bound traffic. They opened it a few hours ago. You read the interviews with the people working on the repairs and there's this excitement and joy at meeting the challenge. (Ok, so there was quite a bit of profit too.) Why can't public projects work this way more often?