Garbage Truck: “Do not work on running organs”

I first spotted this sign on our local garbage trucks (in Maale Adumim) a few weeks ago, while traveling by minibus to work. We were moving too fast in the opposite direction for me to photograph it, so I made a mental note to watch out for garbage trucks. This morning I heard a garbage truck emptying the bin at the bottom of the drive. I ran down, dashed across the street, and fired off a few frames.

It’s interesting that the sign does not appear in Hebrew, only in English with a pictogram. I’m guessing that it means you’re not supposed to make adjustments to the internal mechanical parts while the motor is running. It reminds me of “ever min ha-chai,” the prohibition against eating part of animal while it’s still alive. 🙂

Someone pointed out that the second sign, “Do not open the machine while running,” is also open to creative interpretation! Does anyone know where these signs come from? Are they even Israeli?

Sign of Winter

Seen at work this morning.

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NaBloPoMo

NaBloPoMo = National Blog Posting Month.

Of course, every month has its NaBloPoMo and I’m sure that the “national” does not refer to Israel, but I saw it this morning and decided to give it a try. Yes, it’s November 3. Better late than never.

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Yoga Mat Bag

I’m on the home stretch of the yoga mat bag. These photos illustrate a happy accidental solution. Keep reading.

When I began the carrying strap, I worked a 9-stitch wide strip, in rows back and forth. I don’t like flat crocheted straps. The edges are ratty looking and uneven and the rows stretch a lot. So I crocheted the strap in a tube, working round and round in a spiral. It showed a slight tendency to twist, so I steamed it with a hot iron before sewing it to the bag.

Two problems appeared:

The strap stretched until it was much too long

The mat was so heavy that the side of the bag was badly distorted

I never thought about the fact that a yoga mat is fairly heavy!

Solution: I cut the stitches attaching the end of the strap to the top of the bag. I sewed the strap end into a loop around the strap itself, so that it formed a loose slip knot around the circumference of the bag. This shortened the strap appreciably, gave the bag considerably more support, and moved the end of the strap closer to the middle of the bag so that the bag length was more comfortable to handle.

I was pretty happy with this modification. When I did a couple trial runs putting the mat into the bag and taking it out again, I found the strap loop tended to slip. That realisation gave rise to the next development: a “belt loop for the strap.” I crocheted a longish chain, threaded it through two posts above and below, and tied the ends.

The last discovery was that they don’t call yoga mats “sticky mats” for nothing. It’s not easy getting a sticky yoga mat into a crocheted cover! The bottom corner tends to roll up and one has to squeeze the mat into the bag like a sausage into its casing. I grabbed a plastic bag, covered the end of the mat, and voilà! With a plastic bag (aka mat sock) covering the end, the mat slid easily into the bag cover.

If I were a serious over-achiever, I’d fit and sew a slippery lining into the bag to expedite the mat’s insertion, but I’m lazy. I did, however, sew some Irish crochet leaves and flowers onto the bag. More about that later.