So I have my passport pictures, and we have downloaded the forms to fill out, and we *finally* remembered where we put the expired passport that I need to send in with the request for renewal.
It's good until 2024.
Jicama slices about a quarter inch thick and half an inch wide are really, really good with blue-cheese dip.
Roomba day in the bedroom, a day late on account of stitch removal. The doctor said he's healing nicely, and come back next week to get another stitch out.
After we got everything off the floor, Dave brought in the wall brush to knock dirt down to where Roomba could get it, and I said that we ought to pull my chest of drawers out so Roomba could sweep behind it. With the chest of drawers out of the way, Dave took the mirror down so he could wall-brush behind it, and yukkers: I think that that is the first time that mirror has been off the wall since we moved in.
Then we had to put the blocks back under the chest, because Roomba gets stuck if the chest isn't raised up a little, and every time I straightened one block, the other three got out of line — once going so far as to fall off entirely. So Dave took all the drawers out and turned the chest upside down, planning to nail the blocks in place. He found a tiny little slick button in the middle of each leg — no help at all for sliding the chest on carpet, but ample to explain the skittering of the varnished blocks.
I'm not sure what happened next, but Dave just walked past with a drill in his hand and said "This job is getting complicated."
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The chest is back in place, the blocks slide easily on the carpet, and you wouldn't know the chest was up on blocks if I didn't tell you.
I hope sitting an eighth of an inch closer to the carpet doesn't make the Roomba get stuck under it.
And it's nearly time for lunch and I haven't cleared off the eating table to sew on yet.
The bike and I were doing a strip tease for a while. I would bring an item into the house to put it away, strip off a layer, go back to the garage, and take something else off the bike.
The shoes came off early in this procedure.
I unzipped my coat at Subway, but I still felt more comfortable eating outside.
Dave had the other half of my lunch for supper.
Considering I was only out for the exercise, there was a lot of stuff in my panniers. I stopped at Warsaw Health for baking powder and bought some candy and eleven dollars worth of nuts. Stopped at Lowery; all I bought there was the dustpaper that I'd come for. (They call it "tracing paper", but it's really carbon paper.) After lunch, I stopped at Owen's West and bought some produce.
Dustpaper isn't packaged as nicely as it was the last time I bought some, and the sheets are considerably smaller. I may keep the old envelope to store the new paper in, so that it can lie flat. But I'm grateful and slightly surprised that one can still buy it.
Walking past Rhodheaver Auditorium today gave me the impression that it is being reborn as Winona Heritage Room.
So I DuckDucked it, and the first hit was an advertisement saying that Winona Heritage Room is the perfect place to host your event, meeting, or wedding.
Whenever the steps on Ninth Street are icy, I wish that Grace still held classes in Rhody.
It snowed in the night, and a substantial part of the lake is white. I think it's frozen from here south — the south end seems to freeze faster. The open water that I can see from here is pretty far out and not too wide, but extends out of sight to the north.
I used my dustpaper yesterday afternoon, and was very unhappy with the quality. They also cheaped out and didn't give me a sheet of white. Dritz used to be a good brand; must have been bought out by some management experts.
I wonder whether Clover makes dustpaper.
No sooner said than Froogled. Clover Chacopy Tracing paper, 12" x 10" sheets, *five* to the package.
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At four o'clock, there's open water all along the beach and south out of sight, presumably where the creek flows.
I had the pizza roller out and was about to pick up the mixing bowl and dump the dough onto the cast-iron griddle when Dave came home. He was just barely in time! He'd changed his mind about going to Mardi Gras at Mad Anthony's.
So there's a bowl of bread dough in the soda fridge, and we'll have pizza tomorrow.
Cajun cooking isn't the best dining experience for someone who doesn't like fish, but if I recall correctly,the jambalaya is delicious.
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The jambalaya was good, but I'm pretty sure that last year it had more tomato, less capsaicin, and was above room temperature.
Dave mis-read the menu and ordered breaded crawdad shreds instead of steamed crawdads. Good, but not what he had in mind.
I acquired two strings of beads that look spectacular on the black shirt I was wearing. They look, alas, like what they are on the striped shirt I have on now.
This morning the part of the creek that I can see from the window was frozen over, and it's been cold all day, but the open water in the middle is much longer and wider this evening than it was in the morning, and I'm not at all sure there isn't a new patch of open water to the south. It's been very windy, but I thought that would prevent new ice, not melt ice that had already formed.
I just chickened out of riding tomorrow, so I'm pleased to see that tomorrow's forecast isn't as non-precipitationy as it was when I chose Thursday to go. Besides, the streets are far from clean enough for a brittle old lady to ride on.
The next possible day is the following Thursday, which doesn't look much better than tomorrow. Looks as though I'm going to have to start over from scratch again. When the ten- and fifteen-mile rides went so well, I had hopes of getting up to thirty while it's still cold enough to bring cheese home from Spring Creek.
Ah, well, this means I can cook corned beef tomorrow, and begin to assemble the lingerie that I cut out today.
I thought that that was a huge piece of corned beef — seemed as large as the one that lasted us for weeks — but we ate at least half of it.
Left-over pizza for lunch today. The last time I went to Aldi, I saw a display of jars of giardiniera labeled "hot and spicy pizza topping" and bought one. Hot it is, but not a trace of spice; the only flavor I can detect in it is olive. When I made the pizza, I fished a forkful of olives out of the oil and stirred them into the sauce. That was good, but I don't think I'll use up the jar any time soon.
I had no sauce, so I put two thirds of a can of tomato paste into the skillet with the crumbled sausage and thinned it with V-8, which cooled the skillet enough to add onion without frying it. I liked it enough that I think I'll stop buying runny tomato sauce.
It was hard to spread it to the edges of the pizza, so I think I should have used the entire can.
It's hard to see, but I think all the open water has frozen. The weather has been so cold that it's surprising that it took so long.
Weather Underground says that Sunday will be a good day for walking to church. It also says that tomorrow — um today — will be a very good day to stay home and sew.
I went to the dentist yesterday — I have to go back on Monday.
The day before, I sewed in the morning and helped make peanut-butter sandwiches for the homeless in the afternoon. I put on the peanut butter, and the other woman put on the jelly and the lids and packed them into hotel trays. I got a surprising amount of peanut butter on my hands, considering that I touched it only with tools, but I'd been forethoughty enough to dampen a small damask towel and put it where it was handy. I guess that was a wet-nap; I've seen bigger dinner napkins than that dish towel.
I did remember to exercise while I had stairs available. Someone was practicing his guitar in Club 56 — not a sixth grader, unless he was a teacher, and he looked rather young for that — so I used the prayer room instead.
The prayer-room steps are more exposed than the Club 56 steps, but there were very few people around.
Writing that reminded me to put my not-crippled-and-I-want-to-keep-it-that-way arm through its full range of motion. My arms hurt now, so I guess that it's been a while since I remembered that.
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I put a turkey into the oven at five past two. I didn't have an apple to stuff it with, so I put in a handful of snap peas. I'm not sure how that will work out.
Better than brussels sprouts, I'm sure. Turkey-flavored brussels sprouts would be delicious, but brussels-sprout flavored turkey wouldn't be very good.
In searching for the peas, I found three packs of three-pepper and onion. Now and again Kroger sends me a coupon for a free twelve-ounce package of Kroger frozen vegetables "excluding steamables". They have "improved" their frozen vegetables by putting everything into steamable bags except mirapoix, cajun-style mirapoix, and three-pepper and onion.
I was quite fond of cajun-style mirapoix before mini-sweet peppers made it so easy to keep fresh peppers in the house. Also, I always added more celery, so it seems pointless to buy my peppers and onions with celery already in.
I forgot to buy eggs and there are only two left, but I chickened out of making dressing today. I'll make giblet gravy and zap a potato, though.
I can make dressing and warm up left-over turkey under it tomorrow.
Gone be a long spell of left-over turkey, and there are still a leg and a thigh of fried chicken in the fridge. I was surprised that there was that little, but I served it for supper twice, and we've both been having it for lunch.
Now to see whether I can get the bicycle past all the stuff that has accumulated in front of it. Must remember to thumb-test the tires.
I keep thinking that there should be something in the right-rear pocket with my keychain and lipstick, but can't think what. Maybe I'm thinking of my pants pocket, which should also contain car keys and label-reading glasses. (Glasses go in the left rear pocket of a jersey.)
Sunscreen belongs in that pocket: I took my outer gloves off at one stop, put them into the bag with my windbreaker to be sure they wouldn't get lost, didn't think it was cold enough to bother getting them out again — and when washing my hands under the fluorescents this morning, I noticed faint but distinct brown patches where the holes in the backs of my riding gloves are.
I saw a dead critter in the street on the way home from church. I thought it was a weasel, but I've never seen a weasel. Pretty little thing with soft dark-brown fur and a white locket.
After reading everything Wikipedia has to say about weasels, I have concluded that my critter is a mink.
And today I noticed that the gloves I wore Saturday don't have holes in the backs. Must be permanent skin damage. At any rate, I've resumed carrying sunscreen. Speaking of which, I'm going to have another cancer taken off my nose the Wednesday after next.
Assuming Dr. Ashton doesn't get sick. Dave has been playing phone tag with Dr. Gilbert's office.
Another warm day — there's a lot of ice still left on the lake; when I walked to the shore before my appointment this morning, it was frozen from here all the way to the south end, except for the streak along the shore that the creek keeps open.
Nice day for a ride, but I'm looking forward to wearing fewer layers. According to my notes it took ten minutes to peel down to indoor clothing after I got to the dentist's office, and nine minutes to put them back on again. I looked at my watch before putting my gloves on, which may account for the one-minute difference.
I chose a turtleneck with big smock pockets because nothing else was clean and it turned out to be inspired. I thought that after I peeled off my wool jersey, I'd carry it for a purse, but my wallet, book, etc. went into the smock pockets and I left the jersey with my hat. I hope I remember that next February.
Dr. Hollar and his hygenist were both impressed that I'd ridden. Took, according to my notes, exactly thirty minutes. On the way back, it took a minute less to get to Marsh than it had taken to put my wraps on.
After I left Marsh, I met a policeman — or somebody in a yellow jacket — directing traffic at Prairie and SR 15, letting one lane go at a time, not allowing east and west to go together. The light appeared to be working fine, and I couldn't see anything unusual in any direction. But I couldn't see too much of 15 while I was waiting my turn, and I had other things to watch while I was crossing.
Dr. Hollar said the cavity was bigger than expected, and I've got an all-white filling instead of a new filling next to the old silver one. I can't see for myself.
Twenty-first Century dentistry rocks: I'm always shocked when I see my X-rays; I feel as though I had a mouthful of 100% natural teeth. I notice the bridge when I floss, but I'm rarely aware of it at other times.
We had creamed turkey with ham and parmesan in it over a zapped potato for supper. It was delicious. I made a roux with butter instead of shaking the flour with the milk as I usually do.
I plan to gnaw bones for bedtime snack tonight and for lunch tomorrow, now that I know where my tongue is. I stopped so many places on the way back that it took more than an hour and a half, so the anesthetic was pretty much gone, but I still regretted having eaten the last of the pre-cooked rice yesterday.
There's usually something interesting at Sherman & Lin's — today I saw "pastalaya": multi-colored shell macaroni to be cooked in a skillet with whatever meat comes to hand. Same principle as jambalaya; the package alleged that there were traces of vegetable in the pasta.
When the storm started, there were patches of white on the lake, but it looks entirely thawed now.
When I woke up in the night and listened to the traffic on the scanner, I reflected that it was a very good night to not belong to any emergency service. Last transmission I remember clearly was "There's another one." That pretty well sums it up.
I don't recall hearing KABS this morning; there was a flurry of "X isn't going, Y is closed, there are no staff to meet Z" yesterday morning.
Dave called a snowplow yesterday, and arranged for the driveway to be clear when he has to go to Fort Wayne tomorrow. If the appointment isn't postponed again.
The plowman probably came while I was napping yesterday; at any rate, the driveway is plowed. There were flakes of snow in the air this morning, but nothing to make me concerned about Dave's trip to Fort Wayne. Boy's City Drive is almost clean, so there shouldn't be any slick spots.
Still hearing falls and winch-outs on the scanner, but it's been quiet quite a while.
No wonder I'm hungry: it's lunch time. All I managed to do this morning was to press six seams and six pieces of bias tape. And I can't blame it on the piano tuner, because nothing on my schedule takes place in the parlor. Except for picking up stuff because the piano tuner was coming, and we did most of that when Dave Roomba'd the parlor yesterday.
Both the wind and the temperature are supposed to rise sharply today, which leaves me in doubt as to whether I'll need extra clothing on the trip back.
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Brought my gloves home in my pocket.
I made some very good cream of turkey soup for supper — winged it as a sort of cross between gravy and potato soup.
I melted an ounce of butter and let chopped celery simmer in it while I sliced up a carrot and put three slices in the soup. Then I let the carrot simmer while I scrubbed some fingerling potatoes and sliced them, and let those simmer while I fetched a coffee measure of stone-ground white wheat, shaken down and slightly rounded, poured a cup of milk into my pint measure, and cut up some turkey. Then I cut a slice of onion into quarters and fried that translucent, then dumped in the flour and stirred it around while I poured in the milk. When it looked like gravy, I added a small, thin slice of extra-sharp cheddar.
Then I scraped all the jellied "solution" that had oozed out of the turkey while it was baking into the soup, brought it back to simmering, and let it cook for half an hour. I put the cut-up turkey into the cup I'd measured the milk with, to be added at the last minute. I also emptied a bag of frozen peas into the cup. That was only about a tablespoon, so I also added two tablespoons of frozen corn.
In the process of collecting the jelly, I'd put all the meat into the refrigerator dish I'd used for the left-over dressing, so Dave and I washed dishes while the soup was cooking and now my cookie cutters and tart pans are back in the roaster.
There is also an old-style plunger-type cake decorator in the roaster. It was probably last used more than forty years ago. Upon discovering it, my first thought was to get it into the hands of someone who would put it to use, but the modern style, where all you buy is a few cheap tips and put them into the corner of a disposable bag, is easier to clean up.
I think Mom had a cake decorator that was an attachment to a cookie press — or maybe she had one decorator and one press. All I really remember is that I had a cookie press in my hands once.
I'm thinking that you put plates into the press to shape the cookies, and that some of the plates had decorator tips stamped in. Something like that would work, anyway. But did deep-drawing exist in the thirties? (I don't date back that far, but I suspect that the cookie press did.)
The lake has a big patch of ice. Dave thinks that the south wind we had a while back blew the ice at the south end of the lake north.
I'll be surprised if there's a lot of it left in the morning.
And the lake is ruffled all over. I should bring the clothes in before my nap; it's very windy.
I washed everything in one load today, and the washer wasn't crowded.
I forgot to climb stairs yesterday, but I did walk down Ninth Street.
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I fried hamburgers for supper, and afterward I made all of the remaining turkey into creamed turkey because I though it was time it was re-cooked. I put in the left-over turkey soup, the left-over turkey ala king, and the left-over turkey gravy.
I told Dave that if he wants some for lunch, he'd better season it up a little; it came out pretty bland. Most of the remaining meat was white.
Oops! I *meant* to put in the last packet of turkey "flavor enhancer" (bouillon).