Woke up in the night to the shriek of the carbon-monoxide monitor; stumbled to the computers, gotta shut down before the UPS runs out, power switch isn't working — oh yes, gotta hold it — NO NO NOT THE POWER SWITCH! Too late. I don't *think* 98 had any unsaved data, but it's going to complain bitterly when the power comes back on.
I shut down XP properly, but it took ages because it had to do half a dozen unidentified and unauthorized updates first, so I'm also unsure whether that computer will be usable. At least I refreshed my off-site updates yesterday.
I'm typing this on Dave's computer; his UPS is on the generator.
So this morning seemed like a good time to buy the chips.
We had a lot of limbs down, including a huge chunk of cottonwood that a neighbor kindly dragged out to the road for us, but I didn't see anything but leaves downtown — except for a patch of berries on the pavement that was about the size and shape of the crown of a small tree just upwind of it. [Later on I saw that it was something lighter than berries, which traffic had swept into the gutter.]
The light at the entrance was blinking red. The light at Jefferson had been replaced by a stop sign, and someone on a cherry picker was looking at it. The light at Center Street was normal, and there was no sign at all of the storm as far along 30 as I went. Might have been something I was too busy dealing with traffic to notice, of course.
I bought parsley and german thyme on clearance at Big R; I had german thyme once and it died out. Wish I could Wikipedia to find out how german thyme differs from common thyme. Had some in my lunch today, along with winter savory, hot oregano, and rosemary. Seems to taste the same, but it's easier to pick: no grass in among it!
Stopped at Aunt Millie on the way back from Aldi. Still no steak rolls, but I bought a package of English muffins.
Wooster road was clean except for leaves and a patch of sawdust; all limbs except for some in a small parking lot not too far from Fairlane Trailer Park had been piled up for pickup.
I went out on the Flatfoot a couple of times later in the day — perhaps that is why I slept well last night despite going to bed two hours early. Saw a tree, formerly in front of the bed-and-breakfast on Chestnut, that had fallen across the street very politely, not damaging anything on its own side, and barely brushing the hotel on the other. But it did hit some wires, which broke a pole. Wires *seem* intact, but I hope they have been turned off.
On Evangel Hill, a street light on a wooden pole was down, perhaps occasioned by a tree hitting its power cord. The last time I went out there, all wood in the street had been cleaned up except the branches on the downed line. The lamp was smashed, but the bulb seemed to be intact; near as I could tell (not being familiar with that sort of bulb) all the delicate stuff inside was undamaged. The temptation to touch the bulb was surprisingly strong even though I thought it rash to step close enough for a clear view.
I've been joking for years that I'm addicted to the keyboard, having forgotten how to use a pencil for anything longer than a shopping list. I didn't realize how addicted I've become to being able to write any time I feel like it. There are a surprising number of things I'm reluctant to do when I can't take notes.
Now that we have electricity, the cable is out, so I can't download the notes I e-mailed from Dave's computer, so I don't know where I left off.
It's about time to go to bed anyway.
Cable was repaired just before bedtime.
After a steaming June, July 3 dawns downright chilly. We've opened the windows and are enjoying it. We enjoyed moderate heat while the air conditioner was out of service. Both the screened windows are on the west side of the house; when they are open, the door into the garage slams every time we close it.
The generator burned about twenty-five dollars worth of gas.
In the steamy weather, my pants were dragging on my knees when I rode the flatfoot so I pulled a seldom-worn pair of linen shorts out of the back of the closet. I found twenty-eight dollars in the pocket.
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And then there's the moment of terror when I couldn't find the dry mustard. I was looking for a big yellow rectangular can and it was in a small round glass jar.
Still have some devilled eggs.
Today was a welcome holiday from the holiday.
I went out for a bag of salad greens by way of the farmers' markets and the reconstruction on Lake street. I passed the good-taco place, but not very long after a big breakfast (featuring devilled eggs and Big Dipper corn chips of left-over cheese gravy), so I didn't go in.
All the walls are up at the rebuilding. The new front wall extends across the operating laundromat, so someone painted "use side door" on the plywood covering the window.
And I *thought* that was an odd spot for a playground. It's a showroom — showplot? — for a lawn-building and playset seller. I don't think the signs were up on my previous visit, but they are small. The way it's laid out suggests that any children who happen along are welcome to demonstrate the equipment, but the playhouse is locked. I don't know what the open-on-one-side lawn building is for; it looks like a scale model of a horse-park one might see at a store that caters to non-electric people. There are blocks for displaying one more lawn building between the playhouse and the toy barn. When that is installed, I think the display will be complete.
I walked from there to the "flea market" in the former thrift shop. Didn't see anything except that there was a sign in the window exactly like the signs on the lawn-furniture display. It didn't point at the display.
I dropped in at the nursery on general principles, and got to see them feeding the goldfish. As I was getting back onto the road, three realizations struck simultaneously: I was getting hungry, Penguin Point was just beyond the roundabout, and I hadn't brought any ice.
But they have an ample selection of things I can eat in one sitting. I tried the Spanish Cheese Fries with Jalapeño peppers. I enjoyed the dish, but it wasn't "I gotta come here again" like their chicken. There was sugar in the spanish sauce, the peppers had little flavor, and compared to the cheese sauce I'd eaten for breakfast, the cheese on the fries was diluted Velveeta.
Some sweet meat dishes are good, but not one good sweet meat is based on tomato.
I was pretty beat when I got to Owen's, but I think I got most of that walking. And not drinking often enough. Google Maps says it was eleven and a half miles. Some of that was going all the way to the graveyard before I realized that I'd missed a turn. But it isn't very far from the graveyard to Poppy Street.
This evening, I washed the dust off a small cooler, then checked to see whether my salad bowl would fit into it — I don't *have* a salad bowl. Sigh. Back to the tried-and-true half-gallon semi-disposable container. But it fits the cooler nicely.
I have to be at the church by eight o'clock tomorrow, and I'm not at all looking forward to getting up that early.
We saw a yellow balloon crossing the lake. Hardly any boats — perhaps everyone else is also taking a holiday from the holiday.
Just before bedtime, the dispatcher dispatched an officer to take care of a fireworks complaint. She said that the complainer wanted her to inform the officer that the complainer was a friend of the mayor. The tone of the dispatcher's voice suggested that this information won't have quite the effect that the complainer wanted.
Not to mention that it was a good half hour before the time fireworks have to stop.
Today I hauled out to the road two wrecked chairs, a chair that has plastic arms like the chair that collapsed yesterday, and one I don't like because it keeps unfolding itself without permission.
Hauled out the still-usable chairs first, then reflected that someone might think the price Lewis Salvage pays for aluminum was worth the trouble of taking them apart, and hauled out the wrecked chairs. Besides, they emphasize that these chairs are up for grabs rather than awaiting a parade.
And all had been taken the next time I noticed.
I think the weekend is catching up with me today. I didn't want to get out of bed, and haven't done anything this morning except play with the computer.
After the picnic, Bill cleaned up the thawed-and-refrozen chest freezer all by himself. I tipped on out despite having had experience head-down in a dirty chest freezer.
Made hamburger soup yesterday. Intend to make the left-overs into lasagna tonight.
The lasagna was delicious — primarily because I put in way too much cheese. It was more than half of a pound-and-a-half package of shredded "cheddar marble" that I snitched out of the trash while Bill was cleaning the freezer. (Each shred was all one color, so I presume that they shredded white cheddar and dyed cheddar and mixed them.)
I make lasagna in a 9"x6" pan with three lasagne, so a pound is a *lot* of cheese.
Most of my sewing today has consisted of putting stuff away so I can get at the pieces I want to work on. I made a new pincushion for my pressing cloths — I use a T-pin to hang them from a pincushion nailed to the wall; now it's *two* pincushions so I can separate the short and wide from the long and narrow. When I was making the first one, I got frustrated because the finest brads made big holes in the paneling, and nails long enough to go through a pincushion were downright huge. Then I noticed a number of discarded sewing-machine needles stuck into my cone of basting thread; those work perfectly.
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How fortunate there was that thirty-second delay; I would have missed this call — probably from Dave. No, Comcast. "This is a very important call". I hung up.
Water haul, but a pleasant one. I rode to Aldi by way of Pierceton because we had put all the cotton swabs in the box into the dispenser. Got home, put the box of swabs into the drawer — underneath an identical box of cotton swabs that I'd forgotten about. At two swabs a week, two boxes are going to take a while to use up. Then I looked at the calendar I picked up at Aunt Millie's Outlet, and discovered that if I'd put the trip off until tomorrow, there would have been a farmer's market. And, I presume, more than two of the antique stores would have been open.
But I bought an 1886 arithmetic book at the first antique store. Haven't looked at it carefully, but it seems to cover everything. It has one feature current math books should copy: On each page of story problems, the last problem is "make up an original problem to illustrate this principle."
I meant to have lunch at one of the little cafés in Pierceton, but Dave had an eight o'clock appointment, so I got off early and it takes only fifty minutes to ride from Winona Lake to Pierceton. It wasn't time for lunch until I got to Aldi. So I had a protein bar and a starlight mint. And two tostadas with left-over cheese gravy when I got home.
Google Maps says I went 16.8 miles. Not unreasonably tired; in fact I couldn't sleep at nap time. Perhaps I overdid the bitter tea!
Having surplus lemons left over from the Fourth, I meant to add lemon juice to my tea, but put in left-over lemonade instead. It didn't add much sour, and the sugar made the drink unsatisfying. On the other hand, I think I drank more because it left me thirsty, and I didn't take a sucrose tablet until lunch.
Washday yesterday, did a little sewing today. Took a lap around the block on the Flatfoot.
Grumble, etc. Instead of rushing inside to change my pants and get the car keys, I should have asked Dave to look at the radar — if I'd ridden out into the rain, I'd have been just fine. It was barely sprinkling, and it quit before I got out of the village.
And it was sunny enough that I regretted forgetting to put on a hat.
But we do have milk, meat, marmalade, and stamps. Should have got a dozen eggs, too; we're down to four.
Lunch was delicious. I made a pancake out of a quarter cup of cornmeal, a quarter cup of whole-grain white-wheat flour, a half teaspoon of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of boullion powder, chopped basil blossom, and sufficient water, then used it to mop up half a serving of left-over hamburger soup.
I believe that we got the new range hood after my previous entry. We never liked the range hood much, and when the fan switch got erratic, that was the final straw. The new one looks better, is easier to clean, and exhausts to the outdoors.
Last Thursday, I went for a ride with the church key in my pocket and got the last of the ice off the bottom of the left-hand fridge's freezer compartment. It had seemed quite firm when I swiped at it on Sundays, but the ice in some grooves broke free, some grooves were filled with squishy ice cream, and the whole job was done in fifteen minutes.
But now I notice that the bottom of the right-hand fridge's freezer compartment needs work. At least it's smaller than the other because of the space taken by the ice bin, which got dumped while it was still molten, and nothing leaked. This is general "has this been cleaned this decade?" dirt.
I wish I knew the trick to removing the shelves of the left-hand fridge; they all need to be dunked in the sink.
I've walked to church two Sundays in a row now. Kinder takes the urgency off the linen-blend pedal pushers I'm making to wear under skirts. But I need some new slopping-around pants anyway. May not have the nerve to wear them in public — I've seen other old ladies in pedal pushers.
While I was hanging the whites, an alarmingly-sudden silence came from the park, where they are demolishing two of the cottages. The one that isn't in the way of the "Limitless Park" hadn't been touched when I last went out to look, but they threw the tenant out a long time ago, and paint and flags mark the underground utilities near it, so I expect that they will get at it in the afternoon.
I wonder if the proponents of the park have thought this through. A playground is nice to have — but it's going to attract visitors from all over this end of the state? And how do we profit from them when they arrive? I was taken to the park in Frankfort to play many times, but I don't recall once that we went shopping afterward. Not to mention that the Village at Winona is mostly living on start-up money; they are looking shops rather than buying shops.
Notable exceptions: we have five restaurants, if you count the deli in the yuppie grocery store; they do have a table outside, and I've seen people sitting at it at least once.
The Trailhouse was a going concern when it moved in.
I presume the beauty shop gets customers; there was one across the canal for a long time, and it doesn't seem to matter much where you put a beauty shop. On the other hand, you have to step in and smell the permanent-wave chemicals to know that that is what it is; the sign outside doesn't give a clue.
I get the impression that there are enough beadworkers in the neighborhood to keep the bead shop going. I rarely see anyone buying beads, but it could be something the worker stocks up on at intervals; after all, I rarely have to stand in line to check out at Lowery's, and they've been around for a long time. But I frequently see a crowd in Lowery's classroom, and the bead shop doesn't have one. And the bead shop doesn't also sell sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. Perhaps the finished items that are also for sale are the equivalent.
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I pulled the garlic today and laid it on the picnic table to bleach. Have yet to clean the dirt off the bulbs so that the sun can get at the skins to bleach them.
The loader appears to have stopped loading debris into roll-offs — both are full — and is digging a hole.
I've laid out hamburgers and slimwich buns to thaw for supper.
Well, that doesn't happen very often. I wondered how long a bike ride I'm thinking of taking is, opened Google Maps, plugged in three points, clicked "get directions" — and the precise route I had in mind popped up.
It's eleven miles even, by the way.
Pushed the cultivator around in the garden today. The flopping end of a winter onion got in my way, so I broke the stem where it was already damaged and planted the bulbils on the south side of the house. Most of them were bigger than the onion I pulled the other day; I've never seen such fat bulbils. If I'd been making soup, I'd have eaten them instead of planting them.
I fear that I've been planting the winter onions too close to the wall, because the dirt I dug up to plant this clump was dry and powdery. But if they are too far out, they'll get mowed off.
Last time I looked at the cottage-smashing, they were loading chunks of concrete into a roll-off. Appeared to be nearly finished.
Haven't gotten around to buying replacements for my lost tool kit — or even to looking at the pictures I took when making a new roll-pouch. First thing I've got to buy is a bag that can be firmly attached!
Supper tomorrow is to be bacon sandwiches with the first of Dave's tomatoes. He has picked two, both Italian. There are a lot of bright red cherry tomatoes; we should be inundated soon.
And Thursday's supper will be the beef shank I bought for tomorrow when I rode to Owen's this afternoon.
Just as well I stayed up late refurbishing my embroidery-gig supplies and overslept supper — Dave says he tried to cut the beef shank, then ate the chicken salad left over from his lunch at Wings. This was a tossed salad with strips of very good grilled chicken in it; I tasted it before lying down.
I had some shank and all of the potatoes cooked with it before changing out of my pajamas. It's excellent gristle. And Dave agrees that it imparted a lovely flavor to the broth.
The destruction of the third cottage went a lot faster than the first two. We heard noise this morning; when I walked over in the evening, the only sign of the cottage was a backhoe parked on a patch of raw dirt, and a yellow pipe they didn't dare touch. There were two cars, one with a trailer marked "Yoga Paddleboard — Like yoga only wetter" in the cottage's parking lot, but I think those were passers-by.
DuckDucked and discovered that Stand-Up Paddleboard is a big fad, and "SUP Yoga" is growing fast.
Was puzzled to see a presumption that yoga is done only in classes; I can see that you'd want to SUP yoga only in a group, so you don't drown if you knock yourself silly while falling off, but (in the only reference I read all the way through) it appears that taking "classes" never leads to being able to do it on your own.
Tucked the drafting board away so I can resume setting up the embroidery class tomorrow; I don't feel like tracing designs tonight. I retrofitted all my pre-stamped designs with dashed gathering circles, some by tracing with a water-removable pen with the cloth taped to a dotting guide taped to the window, some by overprinting with a gathering-guide iron-on. Also stamped one new design with my new six-petal iron-on.
When I've made some new iron-on patterns and cut a new strip of osnaburg, I think I'll be ready to put the backpack back together and put it on the shelf, ready in case I get a chance to teach embroidery.
For those wondering what I'm on about: when I get a chance to baby-sit children who are waiting for something, I put some supplies on a table and when a child shows up, I have him select a stamped design — these include some with only the gathering circle stamped, for free-form embroidery — and push a needle back and forth through it. When the child is satisfied with the design, he works running stitch around the gathering circle; this holds the embroidery on a cardboard circle; he writes on a backing paper and glues it on, then I hook a piece of eighth-inch ribbon to the medallion so that he can wear it around his neck.
There isn't time to teach much about sewing, but the most-important part gets through: sewing is *fun*!
I spent most of today cutting backing papers with pinking shears; I've *really* got to find some sort of die to do that job!
That's the old cheap pinking shears!!
I noticed the lemon-grass tea left over from the Fourth, reflected that it was time to throw it out, tasted it — this stuff is *good*! So I'm drinking it.
I *thought* it odd that the Legion could pull off a fish fry every Friday. Turned out that what the web site meant was that the bar next to the Legion hall serves fried fish every Friday.
All I got out of today's trip was the exercise. After my nap, I rode to Pierceton to go to the farmer's market and the fish fry, and found a place where somebody tried to start a farmer's market and a bar where I wouldn't even peek in through the window, let alone go inside without an escort.
I saw four or five four vendors and no other customers. I bought a bag of oatmeal cookies at one of the card tables scattered around the park, intending to eat one as an appetizer on the way to the fish fry. Failing to obtain a supper, I ate the other three on the way home.
Hardly any of my bottle of ice had melted, so I put it back into the freezer to use again tomorrow. I left my emergency food bars in my improvised cooler and pumped up my back tire, so the bike is ready for tomorrow's excursion.
Got the tracing paper and the iron-ons organized and in envelopes this morning. Still need to bring in the step-stool and get the osnaburg off the top shelf. I created a new twelve-petal pattern, but don't plan to offer it to beginners.
Discovered that I have eight window curtains and both of the old door curtains on the top shelf. Hope I remember that I have door curtains the next time I have people in the house.
I cut two five-inch strips off the bottom of one of the window curtains, and divided each into nine squares by making snips on one edge and starting to draw a thread at each one. When possible, I like to make the students draw a short, pre-loosened thread out of loosely-woven fabric so the concept won't be completely alien to them. If he picks a design from the middle of the strip, he gets to draw two!
Meant to iron designs on the new strips and start putting the backpack away between washloads this morning; instead I made corncakes out of the remaining ear of sweet corn for breakfast, and pulled the multipliers.
I have thirteen bulbs curing on a newspaper stuffed into the hanging basket (the rosemary that belongs in the basket is spending the summer in the herb bed) because I was afraid to leave them in the garden. That's less than double the eight I planted, but they are all fat bulbs and some already have multiple centers. And there is one more plant to pull. It looked as though it would get fatter if I left it a little longer.
My Saturday rides have settled into a routine: go to the fairgrounds, go to Center Street, check on the new building on Lake Street, lunch at Penguin Point, return to town by way of Heppler Street, take Fort Wayne to the Beyer Farm Trail, leave magazines at the emergency room, maybe stop at Owen's.
Routine was broken the Saturday before last because the surface I needed to get to Penguin Point was torn up. So I went back more-or-less the way I came, passed the taco place across from the Speedway station, bought a half-dozen tamales from the vendor sitting out front, and we ate four of them for lunch and the other two for supper.
The day before yesterday, there was nice new pavement on the part of the road I use to get to Penguin Point, but I'd eaten three-fourths of a ham-and-egg on a bagel at the Center Street farmers' market, so I went on by.
The ham and the home-grown egg were excellent (though the egg was rare and I like them well done), the bagel was so-so, and the cheese might as well have been Velveeta.
And I remembered to bring magazines to leave at the emergency room. One of them was an old National Geographic that I don't recall having acquired; perfect reading for someone distracted.
The previous Saturday, work on the interior of the rebuilding had begun, but not enough that I could tell what they were doing. On the latest Saturday, I couldn't see any changes at all inside or out, and was much puzzled until I realized that I could no longer see the inside of the roof. I looked carefully, but couldn't see where they had left access to the space between the corrugated-steel ceiling and the roof. Of course, with a SawZall firemen *always* have access, but I didn't see how they could tell they weren't cutting into a support beam, either. I suppose that up close one could see bolt heads.
With the end of the month approaching rapidly, I'm going through the notes on things I want to write about that I took during bike rides.
Been a while: the first bundle of slips is from June. An expense is marked that I never transferred into Quicken: "Eyes 1.50 + .11 tax". Puzzled a while, noticed that I'd spent it at the flea market, puzzled some more — remembered buying a sandwich bag of sewing notions because it included a card of bar-type eyes.
On the July 12th excursion to the construction site, I noted that the new front wall had four entrances. One for the laundromat (which is still using its side door), one for Avilla, one for the smoke shop — I hope the fourth means that Avilla will have a separate entrance for its lunch counter, rather than that we're getting three entirely-new businesses in there.
On one of these trips, I should talk to the people in the laundromat. (And it just now comes to me that I haven't counted the *back* doors.)
I also noted that the new walls were made of decorative concrete blocks, but there were patches of plain blocks such as one might see in a wall that got damaged after the blocks it was made of went out of production. I presume that those are places where they mean to attach something; what, I'm watching to see.
I rode around Pike Lake on Wednesday the 23rd, with a stop at Meijer.
Meijer has an honest, functional bike rack — but they don't have brass safety pins; just the same cheap Singer pins you can get at any grocery store. They still have the Rubbermaid square drink bottles I carry ice in. Probably won't when this set has worn out — Rubbermaid products usually last pretty well.
I went to the wheel-toy department to look at bags, and saw some black bikes with wheels that looked more robust than those on a Model T. I looked for a motor; all I found was pedals. With an old-style guard over the chain. I wonder how far a hefty male teenager can pedal one of those things?
All the baskets were cutesy sheet-steel lace like the one on my Flatfoot. I do hope functional wire hasn't gone out of style.
Notes taken on last Saturday's Tour d'Warsaw show nothing remarkable except "buy bleach" emphasized at the top. I was determined enough to buy 6% bleach when I was looking for 5.25% because it was my last chance to shop before washday. Then I forgot to put the bleachables in to soak Sunday night. Which was just as well, because it was too windy to hang a sheet outside.
Remains only notes taken during our trip to Michigan, which are now too stale to transcribe.
Fractals: I wanted to get my embroidery-gig backpack organized and put out of the way so I could get on with making my pedal pushers. But first I have to stamp some designs. But first I have to clear off the ironing board. On the board is a pants leg with a carefully-pressed crease that will come undone if I rumple it up somewhere else. So I sewed a seam in my pedal pushers to get them out of the way of the backpack that I wanted to get out of the way of the pedal pushers.
Then I stamped the designs and ironed my linen dress.
Which means that I'll have to carry a purse to church next Sunday, because that one has no pockets.
I hope I don't sweat on it, because ironing it was a pain.