Roomba day in the bedroom. Since Dave has trouble bending over, it's usually my duty to look under the bed. but we reversed that today. He lifted the dirtier cat box for me, then I dumped it, hosed it out, and left it in the garage to dry — airing it outdoors seemed a bit pointless even though it wasn't raining at the moment.
⁂
I should have reminded Dave that he had to look under the bed — I found Roomba pushing my napping bra around. I haven't been using it lately; I've been napping too often to bother with changing clothes.
Since I'm planning to ride the flatfoot today, I threw my worn-into-holes pants into the trash and nominated my navy sweatpants as the slopping-around pair. I need some new old pants before it gets too warm to wear sweatpants.
My cane no longer helps me walk, but I plan to take it with me whenever I leave the house. I need it to signal that I'm lame, handicap doors tend to assume that you have a cane to push the button with, and it does help with steps.
I didn't have to pick up much to clear the closet because the cat beds etc. were still piled on the treadle sewing machine from the previous cleaning. I plan to put everything back today.
That's ridiculous! It's *snowing*!
Yesterday, Dave and I celebrated First Friday by going to the Great Wall. That was fun; unless next month's theme is *really* interesting, I think I'll suggest that we go to the Japanese place.
It still hurts to walk, but when I cleared the papers off the futon today, I sorted them onto the floor with no fear of being unable to pick them up again. And when I went into the garage with old magazines for the emergency room in one hand and trash for the bin under the old desk in the other, throwing the wrong handful into the bin was only an annoyance.
Then I sorted the papers in the magazine rack and finally got around to reading Wednesday's grocery ads. Aldi is selling leggings for $10/pair, and they might be the kind I like for slopping around. Hope I find time to shop before Wednesday.
⁂
The terrific winds don't seem to have bothered the daffodils. Dave's antenna blew over, but kept on working in its new position. The cage around the Ohio Buckeye is leaning a bit. The willow is neglecting its duty: I don't see any chunks of it anywhere. I can't see the hanger that's been stuck in it for ages either. Both lacks of observation might be because I have no intention of stepping outside for a better look.
Sometimes one hears something nice on the scanner. The first thing I heard when I woke up from my nap was "A passerby had a couple of saws, we chopped it up, and now both lanes are open."
I was set back considerably this morning, and now I see that the barometric pressure was dropping like a rock until after I lay down. I must note whether the same thing happens starting at 11:00 tomorrow.
Weather Underground says the temperature will cross the freezing line just when I step off for church tomorrow, and continue to rise sharply until it hits 53F at six in the afternoon.
I'm planning to step off on my pedal-powered wheelchair. Oops, I haven't located my black pedal pushers for when I hike up my skirts.
Still predicting a drying day for Monday. The wind will be a bit breezy, but fairly steady. And a rising barometer, so it should be safe to commit to bringing it in again.
The ground was speckled with snow when I went outside to comb my hair, but I think it's all gone now. Dave's weather station says that the temperature is still below freezing. Temperature is still slated to rise sharply until evening. On the other hand, the chart says that the barometer is about to start dropping. I knew I forgot something in the morning routine: I'd better take a dose of aspirin before rolling off.
I got up in "somebody turned up the gravity" mode, but soon started feeling frisky. Hence the forgotten aspirin. (Perhaps I should consult the pharmacist about combining aspirin with fish oil.)
The end of my nose feels funny, but I can't be *sure* it feels funny — there isn't a lot of tissue to poke there — and I never poked it before the surgery, so this may not represent a change.
At any rate, I can't see the scar when I coat it with Vitamin E. Perhaps I should try the hand mirror for a closer look.
⁂
There was still some snow on the lawn north of the church when I came home.
I was afraid that sitting quietly through the sermon would be too much for me, but I stiffened very little — I've done a bunch worse when I didn't have any special problem. On the other hand, I paid more attention to fidgeting than usual.
I didn't stand up for the singing, except long enough to break up the sitting.
I took a five-minute lie-down before and after the service. Boring, but I might have regretted not doing it.
I stayed too long in the library again. Perhaps I should set my watch to sound an alarm. *Not* the boogie-woogie it plays at eight O'clock.
But it would be embarrassing if I ever go into the sanctuary ahead of time.
Woo hoo! Checked my pockets, combed my hair, I'm ready to pick up my cane, put on my hat, and go to the library — the cane isn't hanging on the walker.
I left it in the flatfoot's basket after riding home from church and didn't miss it until now.
I mean to stop by Owen's and stock up on frozen stuff on the way back.
⁂
I ran into Linda at the library, then met her again in the dairy aisle at Owen's. Before parting, we said, "Where are you going now?" "Home." "Home."
Linda was going to Joe and Lois' place, to help clean and air it before they get home. I'm going to bed.
⁂
On the way from the library to Owen's: "?? those shiny little things in front of the tires on that pickup truck are miniature railroad wheels! Oh, yeah, I'm crossing Hickory Street."
(For the out-of-towners, the Norfolk-Southern tracks run down the middle of Hickory Street. Dave once heard a new engineer say colorful things upon learning that.)
When I got to Owen's, I was annoyed to see that the two cart corrals near my car had recently been cleaned up, so that I'd have to walk halfway to the store before I could pick up a cart to use as a walker. Intent on getting to my rolling walker, I was surprised to realize that I was not only walking normally, I was doing it rather fast.
I looked over a Rollator walker while I was in Owen's. Owen's offers only two kinds: the Rollator, and one like the one I'm using now. I was surprised to see that there is only one place where you can grip the Rollator — no doubt deliberate, to make sure that you keep your hands on the brake levers. So I'll still need the old one for getting out of bed, if I buy the Rollator.
I sat in it, and pushed it around a little. Didn't think to try whether I could push it with my feet while seated; I'll have to go back. Also didn't think to directly compare the wheels to the wheels on my shopping cart, but I think that they are big enough that I could operate it in a parking lot. Shopping-cart wheels don't roll well on blind-man's bumps, but they don't get stopped dead. And I can usually steer my cart mostly around the bumps; the Rollator is more maneuverable.
I think the $89.99 would be a good investment. I hope there's room in the closet for two walkers — and that both *stay* in the closet for a good long time.
I didn't see a way to clamp a cane or a grabber to the walker so that it doesn't rattle.
The bag boy not only filled my bags clear up, he put the ripe bananas on top! Are they sending them to school now?
I pulled the sheet out from under Al this morning. He guarded the mattress pad until noon.
I feel pretty good this morning, but I'm proceeding with an abundance of caution: picking things up with the grabber whenever practical, squatting as if things were heavy when the grabber isn't practical, and when I pick up the laundry basket, I squat, lift it onto a chair, then stand up.
Also limited the hanging-outside to hot whites, a sheet, and three pillowcases. That pretty much filled up the lines anyway. A rather high percentage of the hot whites was washrags and dishrags; a peck of that takes a while to hang.
I didn't accomplish any of the things on my to-do list today, partly because I failed to allow that it might start raining during my nap. I left the cultivator out, and don't feel like going out into the rain to get it.
I haven't put my shoes back on yet; I think I should roll up my pants legs and do it now.
⁂
I skipped hosing the mud off. It should flake off the next time I use it. And the sand splashed onto the handle (I'd left it upside-down, intending to put the furrow hoe in) will brush off once it's dry.
I'm only a little damp.
My plans for today were plant the onions, make a pizza, cut out my new slippers, and go for a ride on the flatfoot. If it stops raining, I might yet get that last in.
Checked Weather Underground. There's a 100% chance that I won't.
Fiddle-faddled around until late in the morning, then went out to plant the onions. I pushed the cultivator around, then took off the five-tine hoe intending to put the furrow hoe on, then noticed that the pile of wood chips from grinding a stump a few years ago was ready to rake over to the low spot where I intend to plant the onions. The near side of the pile had been kept fairly clean, but it didn't take long to get into picking up weeds and shaking them.
About the time I'd raked the top layer of leaves and other loose stuff over to the end of the compost heap where I've been dumping garbage, I happened to remember that even without the recent events, it isn't too bright for a winter-soft person to do a big job all in one session. Came in and fiddle-faddled around until it was too late to mix up the pizza and past time I ate lunch and took a nap. Then it was raining when I got up, and not terribly long before time to start supper. So I played a few hands of 1-2-3 solitaire.
I have two half-pint boxes of multiplier sets. With any luck at all, I'll have to clear some stuff out of the cupboard where I store them over the winter. The cupboard is in the unheated garage, on a wall that's heated on the other side, so putting them at the back of the cupboard keeps the temperature reasonably even. I lined and covered the papier-maché boxes with paper towels, then put them into a paper bag to keep the bulbs dry-but-not-too-dry.
I forgot to pull scallions to have with our hamburger and cottage cheese for supper. I don't think I'd have gone out into the rain for them if I had remembered.
Yum, yum! Lunch was a tostada with a deli slice of "sharp" cheddar and a dab of salsa verde. I zapped it in installments, mixing the salsa into the parts of the cheese that had melted.
And then I made another one.
In the morning, I looked out and thought that though the garden was probably too wet to plant, the heap I wanted to rake over it wouldn't be muddy. Put sunscreen on my scar, put on a hat, stepped into the sandals I keep by the back door, stepped outside, realized that I should also have put on an overshirt, came back in for it, left my hat and shoes in the garage and did some indoor work.
I put the shirt on when I went out again to carry out the garbage; the wind blew eggshells all over the patio. I doubt that it will let up in the afternoon. [checks] It will get even windier, but it will be a little less cold.
Al slept in *his* part of the bed last night.
I did get a little raking done yesterday. Came in when my hands got cold.
⁂
I finished the raking and got half the onions planted. In the afternoon, when the snow was coming down fast and furious, I wondered whether I should have planted them deeper.
I think the half-pint of bulbs that I planted was less than half the sets, and it filled more than half the row, so I'm going to have to plant another row. I think that I'll pull the volunteer onions growing between the fall-planted stuff and the row of winter onions, and put the multipliers there.
We had winter-onion scallions with our supper a second time, and there are still several in the raw-veggie container.
⁂
For my bedtime snack, I intended to have an elaborate mushroom-and-onion sauce on a slice of home-baked bread. I began by chopping a whole stalk of celery fine, and putting it in a buttered skillet left from my morning egg over heat that wasn't quite as low as I thought it was.
When I came back, the celery had been reduced to a spoonful of crunchy brown bits. I hastily revised the menu to mashed avocado on a tostada — and found that crunchy browned-butter celery is *delicious* on avocado.
But it would be much too much trouble to make it on purpose.
There isn't *much* snow on the ground, but it's APRIL!
Bright and sunny, but I rather suspect that it's cold.
⁂
Yup, it was cold. Since it was sunny, I took a ride on the flatfoot first thing, lest it rain later on, and went out again after supper. I wanted to try out the new path, but an air-tight boardwalk isn't safe with snow on it, so I went to the teller machine after taking a loop out Boy's City and back along the creek. Took the same loop in the other direction after supper, without the side trip downtown.
Since tomorrow is probably the last day that it will be cold enough to wear my new dress, I worked all day to finish the gray wool slippers I'd cut out to go with it — and then decided that the dress looked much better with my black fleece slippers. Oh, well, it kept me from spending the whole day playing solitaire on Dave's computer, and gray slippers will look good with some of my summer dresses.
I tried on the dress, looked in the mirror, and said "Oh, yuk, what did I see in this, it's going back to Goodwill." But it looked less like a badly-stuffed sausage skin after I put a slip on under it.
While pressing it, I found a tag that says it's 55% silk and 45% cotton. Never found any care instructions — I'll assume that it will shrink three sizes when washed, and try not to get it dirty.
Then I got down a purse I haven't used in ages — nearly all my dresses have pockets — and found my long-lost pocket knife. The little purse is bulging with the contents of eight pockets, and I haven't even put my phone in yet. But the phone tweedled that it was charged a while ago, so I'd better do that now.
Oops! I left Dave's shirt in the dryer until it was nearly dry. Again. That sort of thing will wear it out; I usually take shirts out as soon as the wrinkles get steamed out.
Back to washing on Monday. Laundry has been postponed so many times in a row that I was beginning to think that Tuesday was the regular day.
I must get around to asking permission to do my embroidery gig at Day of Helping before all the tables are taken. And I need to freshen up my designs and stamp a dozen or so squares of osnaburg, and verify that the easy-to-thread needles I bought last summer aren't awkward to use, and . . .
I vaguely recall seeing the button-sewing kits we were giving out last year in a plastic box in the kitchen; must find out what happened to them.
Weather Underground says our next rainfall isn't due until next Monday. I'd better see whether I can plant the remaining onions before supper. I'm just warming up a can of soup, so I've got until five o'clock and it's now 4:05.
⁂
All multipliers are in the garden except for a few fat bulbs that I'm holding in reserve, and those are back in the cupboard.
I haven't covered them yet. I may haul rotten stump-chips to do that.
Hauled rotten stump chips with a shovel, then started raking rotted stump grindings onto the low spot where I plan to plant the onion sets and maybe a few potatoes. Last summer, I leveled railroad ties that had been sloping sharply toward the park, so there's a good deal of filling required to make the garden level with the ties again.
I didn't do anything to the ties on the west side of the garden. When I'm sure my back will let me use the railroad iron, I'll put a level on them and see whether I need to pry them up.
I also raked the un-rotted trash into a smaller area and greater height, which made it easier to get at the rotted stump-grindings. When I've got all the stump-grindings out, I'll rake the compost heap over where they were and see whether there is any finished compost at the bottom.
This morning, I finished the pillowcases I started making out of an old sheet yesterday. There are six new pillowcases in the linen closet now, but two of them are from the badly-worn middle of the sheet and may not survive their first trip through a washing machine.
I went to Owen's on the road bike yesterday, but discovered that my left arm isn't healed yet, so riding on the drops is contra-indicated for at least another week. Pout. I'm getting quite a backlog of places I wanna go.
I wanted to go to Taste of Ag yesterday, and it's perfectly reasonable to drive to the fairgrounds, but I was afraid there'd be no place to sit down and rest. Standing up too long is what got me into this mess in the first place, and I really, really, don't want to repeat it.
Today I took the flatfoot for a short ride to try out the new branch of the Heritage Trail.
There are pedestrian lights where the multi-user path crosses Pierceton Road! I'd think that college students are old enough to learn to look both ways and wait for the road to be clear. I'll have to try crossing Pierceton Road at five O'clock sometime — but I don't think I've *ever* seen traffic on it that clogs the four-way stop.
There is also a shallow ditch marked by traffic cones on each side, a very effective way to alert the careless that they need to stop and look, but I suspect that they mean to fill it with something before the ceremonial opening. The grind-out is about the right depth and width to install blind-man's dots in.
This evening, I went into the living room for something and sat down on the sofa to read yesterday's paper while Al circulated around my feet saying "it's almost nine. Haven't you noticed that it's almost nine!"
Then the nine-o'clock bird twitter sounded — and Al sprinted for the sewing room.
It's surprising how much simpler my life got after I realized that I'd mis-read my incision-care instructions. Putting oil on my scar twice a day for six months is a chore — putting oil on my nose every night blends in with brushing my teeth and washing my face.
⁂
Just edited Thunderbird's user dictionary, and found words I haven't used since Avilla burned down.
Raked a little more dirt today, and went downtown on the flatfoot. Stopped at Light Rail to verify that it's a breakfast-and-lunch place — we're going there for breakfast tomorrow, since they don't serve supper — and stopped at the Trailhouse. The mechanic, who had just seen off another customer, came over to ask whether I needed help parking — one does look clumsy parking a flatfoot, particularly when one's usual space is taken (and I had a cane in the basket) — and inspected it on the spot. Alas, the flatfoot is so designed that putting on a smaller chainwheel would require replacing the whole crankset, which would cost a hundred dollars. Replacing cogs would be easy — but I'm already wearing the biggest cog that will fit.
So I'm stuck with a two-speed bike, because the other five gears are useless. I have shifted into third on a downhill, but when the bike is so hard to steer that I nearly fell off the sidewalk in front of the church, I'd need a much wider road than I'm likely to operate a wheelchair on to pedal down a hill.
To avoid the long steep climb on Chestnut, I went on to the Hotel and came back through the parking lot. Still had to walk, but not as far. From that angle, I could hit the wheelchair ramp (which is one of those that comes out the corner to save making two sensible ramps). I'm usually dismounted when I use the walkway there, and coasting up the ramp left me moving much too fast for the conditions; I came so near to falling off the curb that I steered onto the lawn to save myself. From now on, I ride up Ninth Street, lift the bicycle-shaped object over the curb, and walk to the door as I've always done.
The button-sewing kits were not only in the kitchen, they were exactly where I first looked for them. I had intended to take them home and put them with the embroidery-gig backpack, then realized that they'd been perfectly safe there for nearly a year, and it would be silly to take them home, keep track of them until June, and then carry them right back to where they are now.
I e-mailed Rick Swaim that button-sewing was taken care of. All we do with the kits is put them on one corner of the embroidery table in case somebody wants one. We did give one away last year. And their presence inspired a man to ask me how to tie off after sewing on a button.
When putting stuff away later, I was puzzled when I found the abandoned embroidery that I'd grabbed to demonstrate with.
We always eat at a place where I've never been on my birthday, and when wondering where in Warsaw I've never been, I remembered that I last set foot in The Light Rail when it was The Clock Tower, and there's been at least one other incarnation in between.
It's an easy walk from here, but Dave is still soft from the bad weather and I'm still using the flatfoot whenever I leave the property, so we drove. My original thought was to go for lunch, since they aren't open for supper, but got to thinking about how that would break up the day, and I love omelets, so we went for breakfast.
It turns out that though they are open from seven until four, the kitchen doesn't open until eleven. Dave took a cup of coffee and a small cake doughnut completely buried in runny frosting, and I had hot chocolate — it really had chocolate in it — and a biscuit-based pastry that they called a "scone".
Dave says I'm still entitled to eat out. If we ever get hungry for lunch at the same time, we may go back for pizza.
I hoed and raked in the garden yesterday. I'm pretty close to finished with cleaning out the end of the compost heap where the stump-grindings were.
I didn't do anything useful today except look over the designs for the embroidery gig I'm going to do for the Day of Sharing in June. (I entertain some of the children by teaching them how to sew.) I laid out three designs to stamp more of, and created two sheriff-badge designs that I haven't traced with iron-on pencil yet. I need to inventory the needles — and try out the chenille needles I bought in Nappanee to make sure they aren't too coarse. They have nice big eyes, and most of the children need me to thread their needles, which they pull off the thread every other stitch.
While putting on sunscreen this morning, I noticed a purple mark on my right arm. It's sore and swollen, but I don't remember bumping into anything. Sometimes I'll get a bruise while trying to move something heavy, but I have been carefully avoiding that the last few weeks.
I put the walker back into the closet when we cleaned up to Roomba the bedroom last Thursday, and it had been staying beside the bed out of pure superstition for more than a week, but I still feel a little thrill when I want to get out of bed and just do it.
Still riding the flatfoot to church. Not sure how to dress now that it's too warm to wear sweatpants under my skirts.
⁂
Decided to wear my off-white suit and leave the jacket home. Got chain grease on the edge of my hem. It doesn't show much.
About sunset, I hoed the garden a little more. Won't take much more to get all the dirt from under the compost onto the potato bed. I wish I could ride to Open Air Nursery and buy a potato set. Arm still clicks when I raise it, but only on the way down, no longer on the way up — I wonder what that means.
I went for a flatfoot ride yesterday, through Stone Camp, up the Grace College branch of the Heritage Trail until I got bored with riding uphill in high gear, then downtown. I attempted to window shop in Winona Mercantile, but my back started hurting almost at once, so I got back on my "wheelchair", came home, and walked all over our rough lawn without the slightest discomfort. ??
Today I made a point of coming past Winona Mercantile, which is open on Sundays, on my way home. Walked around in there with no problem at all. Also without anything particularly interesting to look at.
I traced my new designs with iron-on pencil, but haven't stamped any squares of cloth yet. While getting something or the other off the shelf, I knocked my roll of pink linen/cotton blend off the rack, and found the scraps from putting pink hems on my linen sheets on the floor while picking it up. Looked at the scraps, thought "hey, this fabric is loosely-woven and soft", stuck a coarse needle through one — I think I've got a change of pace from all that osnaburg. But not a resource for when I run out of osnaburg, since a pink background is limiting.
AAAARRRRGGGHHH! It's cottonwood stickypod season. And before the leaf-bud covers wear off, the flower-bud covers will start to fall.
I stamped the designs yesterday. I had to re-color the transfers — it turned out that the reason the no-brand "heat transfer" pencil had a silver write-disable sticker on it was that it doesn't work. I stuck a second write-disable sticker on it and put it next to the vermilion pencil in Dave's drawer. It does mark as a red pencil.
I wish I could buy a heat-transfer pen to make sharper lines. There used to be ink that one could use with dip pens, but I've never seen any.
Now to check out the new needles, compare to the check list, and put everything back in the backpack. I'd like to add "dress rehearsal" to that list, but don't know where to get two children.
I'm in the middle of cutting some more tracing paper to make into transfers. I hope I can print the dashing guide directly on the tracing paper — it would be very helpful to have the center clearly marked. But I don't know whether our printer can handle 9" x 6" sheets — or whether the tracing paper is flat enough to feed; that pad of paper has been around for decades.
I know for sure that the printer won't take 9" x 12", which would be very convenient. There is something to be said for the old-style platen printers that one had to feed by hand. I could put 17" inch sheets into a 15" platen, if what hung over was all margin.
Grump. The printer refuses to notice that there is tracing paper in the drawer. I did discover that if I laid the tracing paper on top of a sheet of letter paper, the two would go through together. All right!
This printer prints on the bottom of the sheet.
Maybe if I put in *two* sheets of tracing paper . . .
⁂
and then Dave got involved, and was upset that I wanted to give up after only half an hour. But it took me about five minutes to do the job with a fifty-year-old compass.
I found that if I crease the tracing paper *hard*, it makes a clear white line. So folding the paper in half and rubbing the middle of the fold with my fingernail, then doing it again the other way, makes a clear white X; put on my magnifiers and stick the compass into the middle of the X, swoop: the center and extreme edge of the design are clearly marked.
So now my supply of blank tracing papers is ample.
And no confusing extra lines from printing the whole dashing guide onto the paper; it's exactly as easy to trace along a guide under the paper as to trace along a guide printed on the other side of the paper.
If I could buy a cartridge of iron-on ink for the printer, the paper it likes would do just fine; I wouldn't need to be able to see through it. And most of my designs come out of the computer in the first place — it's been a long time since one could buy books of clip art.
Which led me to feeding "Ed Sibbett" into Duck-Duck-Go, but when I tried to backspace in the search field I must have bumped that power button helpfully put in an easy-to-bump place on my special keyboard for half-blind old people. I wonder whether Dave has a keycap lifter?
Needle-nose pliers did the trick.
I hung the first two loads of wash on the line yesterday. The third went on three hangers and three bars of a rack.
Time to put the chain back up between the two close-spaced cottonwoods. The rope holding one end broke, and I was through hanging clothes out for the winter, so I left it dangling. There's plenty of extra clothesline wrapped around the birch tree, but I may have to buy a clamp to secure it with.
Today I finished cleaning up the west end of the compost heap, dumped a tub of cedar shavings on it, and began raking the unrotted parts of the east end over it. I knocked off pretty soon for fear of overdoing — I had found, yesterday, that it was unwise to hold the laundry basket in my left hand. (I have one of those kidney-shaped baskets that rest on your hip, so that only one hand is needed to carry it.)
It's soggy out today. The onions are up, all of them, not just the ones I planted before the previous rain.
Our microwave died today, and Dave went to Sears and bought a new one. The new features are going to take some getting used to, but the "stop" and "start" buttons are in the same place — I get confused when I use other people's microwaves and those are swapped.
I put all my embroidery-gig stuff back into the backpack and put it back on the shelf. I *think* I'm ready at short notice. But I must make sure the tins of needles made it back into the backpack.
I think it's safe to walk to church this Sunday. Perhaps I should ride the flatfoot one more time just to be sure — I really, really, don't want to re-live Good Friday.
Soggy morning, so I stayed in and sewed eyes and a hook onto my linen-cotton pedal pushers, so now they are ready to wear under my skirts instead of my old bike knickers next Sunday.
And I'm well enough to walk instead of riding the flatfoot.
I'm thinking seriously of making another trial run on the Fuji tomorrow.
Redbuds should be at their peak now, but I'm not going out into the rain to look at them. There was a pretty good show when Dave and I walked around the block yesterday.
⁂
In the evening, I walked to the park, where they were setting up for the community build tomorrow, then flatfooted to Miller's field and looked at the redbuds on the way out. Would have been better if the sun had been out, but it was fairly spectacular.
Once in a great while there is something good on Facebook. Today it's "If you don't do stupid things when you are young, you won't have funny things to talk about when you are old."
Chickened out of walking to church. Still can't stand through all of the songs.
Yesterday I had the clothes washed, dried, and put away by nap time. But I cheated a little by staying up until the clothes were dry.
I also cut off the surplus clothesline, tied it around the cottonwood tree, and put the chain back up. The hanger-hung stuff was dry by the time I finished, so the chain hasn't been used yet.
Not tied, clamped. Dave found an old cable clamp in his shop. Too big, but it did the job after we put lock washers under the nuts. He was looking for flat washers, but the spring washers he found are better, really. No extra diameter, and they served as torque indicators when I was tightening the nuts.
But I forgot to pick up the rope that broke and dropped the chain last fall. <brief pause> *Now* it's in the trash.
In the evening, Dave and I cleaned out the herb bed, and he ground up the trash with the lawnmower. The back yard looks a lot better.
But this morning I woke up with an irritated rotator cuff. Probably set it off by pumping up my tires on Saturday, then not allowing it to rest on Sunday and Monday — hanging clothes uses the rotator cuff a lot. The aspirin I took at half-past six must have worn off by now, and the pain isn't back.
The cottonwood stickypods aren't as sticky — or as numerous — as usual. I can actually shake them off the doormat. It's starting to make me nervous.
On Saturday morning, I took a redbud tour to Mary Louise Miller's field. The redbuds were spectacular; on the way out, the lane looks like a floral tunnel.
I also walked to the park to see the construction and found a rummage sale going on in the Senior Center. I bought a package of blackboard chalk and a pair of eyebrow tweezers. The tweezers were in a bag with a small pair of forceps, which I gave to Dave. I put the tweezers into the arm of the futon where I keep spare sewing supplies.
After remembering that three pages of my Betty Crocker Cookbook are loose, I wished that I'd bought the gummed reinforcements.
I don't think I did *anything* today.
My sewing diary may not make it to the end of June, when I plan to close out January-June and begin July-December. The last time I opened it, it took so long to load that I actually glimpsed PC-Write's "what file do you want to load" dialog.
I've been loading from icons for so long that I didn't recognize it.
That looks like crab-apple petals all over the walkway outside the bedroom door.
Retraction of yesterday's entry: yesterday evening, I noticed that my wool socks and nylon hose were on a rack in the closet, and this morning, Dave told me that all of his socks were still in the dryer.
I heard heavy-machinery noises in the park. I'm inclined to walk over and find out what's going on, but that would require footwear, and I'd have to scrub off stickypods before I could put socks on.
Did go walking yesterday. All the way to Evangel Hill, and up Evangel hill, with workouts on most of the steps in the playground, so I think it would be safe to walk to church now.
And scrubbing off the stickypods *was* a chore. I think I could have washed my feet in the sink, as I always do, but I thought it wiser to sit on the shower stool. The hose on the shower head is long enough to reach my feet, but I didn't like it spraying, and didn't like waiting for a change in temperature to propagate through the hose. I was wishing the shower stall had a low-set faucet when "Well, Duh!" — I *could* have set the shower stool in the bathtub.
And since I've been outside barefoot twice already today, I'm going to have to do it again real soon.
First time I looked out this morning, I realized that I'd missed two pot holders when I took the wash down Monday. Since it's supposed to be dry this afternoon, I just left them.
Perhaps I should turn them over to get the parts under the pins rained on.
I picked asparagus this morning. That's the second time, and we haven't had asparagus yet — though the morning after I picked the first batch, I made asparagus gravy with a crumbled sausage instead of a boiled egg. Good, though Dave would have liked more sausage and less asparagus. I used only stems for the gravy, except for two sub-par tips.
I told Dave that whatever we have for supper tonight, we'll have asparagus fried in butter with it.
Dave came home very disgruntled soon after I'd eaten left-over asparagus gravy on couscous for my breakfast. He drove all the way to Fort Wayne only to learn that his surgeon had called in sick. And getting there in time had required him to get up three hours sooner than usual.
And my stomach is asking whether the jambalaya I was putting together when he came home is ready. I started it right after breakfast because it takes brown rice a long time to cook.
Did walk, didn't hurt. I rested on the floor of Club 56 for five minutes before and after the service, just to be sure. It was boring.
I don't know whether to make chocolate cake out of 70% chocolate and pecans, or wait until tomorrow and buy baking chocolate and black walnuts.
I'm not sure Owen's has black walnuts.
Busy Day. I started the washer, paused it, and drove to Owen's for chocolate, black walnuts, and butter. Turned out that we weren't down to our last stick of butter, so I put the new pound in the freezer. I also got milk and some other things, but forgot yogurt. It was on the list and everything — all those chips in the house (I'd gone hog-wild at Aldi) and not a speck of yogurt to dip them in. But I haven't yet eaten all of the avocado that I bought at Aldi.
I did get sour cream and ice cream to eat with the cake. Which will be tomorrow; it's too close to bedtime to eat something that loaded with chocolate. I put in all of a four-ounce Baker's bar — in a half recipe — and then melted most of a Ghirardeli 60% bar on top. I'd wanted to put Ghirardeli in the cake too, but 60% was as strong as they had in the baking aisle. I did see stronger Ghirardeli chocolate in the candy aisle, but no 100%.
I'd have been utterly astounded if there were 100% chocolate candy! But I once bought some almonds thinly coated with pure chocolate, and they were delicious.
We went to the Great Wall for supper. I ordered roast pork, Dave ordered General Chicken. I thought the pork a bit dry, but the chicken was glorious.
Some cook should design Lieutenant Hog or Captain Beef.