Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Can I hold my tongue today?

Again, blurting out things has not been my problem for years. Wasn’t always the case, though. But with age has come wisdom about offering unsolicited comments of any kind, or being eager to get my digs in with a “funny” or “smart” comment.

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A little more cleaning in the office today. I tacked the backpack-style bag that was my primary purse before lockdown and hasn’t been used since. Unfortunately, yet more signs of moths. I’ve scrubbed it down, turned the lining inside out, and washed that out as well. Once it dries, it’ll be into the freezer for a spell to make sure I’ve gotten everything–because it’s a wonderful leather bag and I do intend to use it again in the future.

Continuing the cleaning, I’ve discovered the moths have been munching on the arrow fletching of the arrows in the corner. I’ve sorted through and removed those with obvious signs of moths and put them in the garage.

We’ve also ordered more cedar and some large plastic ziplock bags. Plan is to get just about everything textile related down here into a bag.

The scroll assignment I’ve had for over a year is now done. The idea I had for the central image has turned out beautifully. I hope the recipient likes it. Now, I just have a single new assignment to complete by the beginning of September.

Today’s birb watch:

They get bigger every day…

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Here is the first of a really neat series on North American accents. Parts 2 and 3 can be accessed from it as well.

And one of Dave’s favourite YouTube series has done a pretty decent job of a biography of Shostakovich right up until WW2. This show has been doing a week-by-week thing on WW2, as well as a show just on the human side of the war, and both are coming up on August 9, 1942, when the ‘Leningrad’ symphony was performed in the besieged city.

In the comments, someone mentioned a supposed niece of Shostakovich who married a US air ace, a story I’d never heard before. I did a little checking, and the woman was the daughter of someone by the name of Valerian (probably Valeri) Shostakovich and was born in Manchuria in 1925. Shostakovich did not have a brother, and this is too early for him to have perhaps been a great uncle. Given that his family did originally hail from Siberia, it’s not out of the question for the woman to have been a cousin or other more distant relative. She apparently wanted to make a go at Hollywood stardom, and I’m sure the Shostakovich name lent a bit of intrigue to her biography–and it was not like anyone in the West would likely question it.