Beeson Banner for January 2016

2 January 2016

I'm about to delete six hundred and forty-nine messages from my junk folder.  I think I'll refrain from deleting any of the new ones until this time next year.  The oldest spam is dated late January, so I have most of this year's.

It's a confounding factor that I file the reports I've sent in the junk folder too, and I can't just divide by two because I usually report more than one spam with each message.

Oh!  I can sort by attachment status, and delete the reports first.

Four hundred and twenty spams in the folder, and two of them came in this year, so that's four hundred and eighteen for 2015.  Not much more than one a day; Comcast's spam filters are fairly decent.

But I sometimes find legitimate messages in Comcast's spam filter, so I try to check it every day — they don't keep filtered messages very long.

Just read the town council minutes.  Thousands for gates, not one red cent for telling children what the rules of the road are!

 

4 January 2016

Yuk.  The forecast still says that the snow will change into rain at noon.  But there's also a pretty good chance that it will stop precipitating about then, and the temperature will stay below freezing until Wednesday.

One load of wash, on two racks, today.  I tumble-dried Dave's shirts clear dry, except for the collars.

After I was sure all the socks were in, I started the dryer intending to take Dave's shirts out after I put a half-dozen sweat rags on the rack.

One of the sweat rags was torn, and I began to tear it into skillet wipes.  A piece of onion skin had fallen onto the spot where I wanted to put the skillet wipes, and in trying brush the garbage off, I bumped the wire rack, which dumped the plate of garbage on the rack all over the floor and disarranged the pile of hot mats under the rack.  With that big a start on clearing off the top of the microwave, I should wipe the whole top, not just the corner where I meant to put the skillet wipes.

After removing the wire rack, the hot mats, the corn-filled ricebags, and the little footed tile of waxed-paper squares — I didn't need to remove the skillet wipes because I'd used the last one this morning — I discovered that the top of the microwave had many patches of dusty-grease varnish in dire need of being rubbed with baking soda.  The vertical parts of the outside could use a scrub too.  And in opening the door to get at the soda that had fallen into the crack, I saw that I needed to scour the inside of the window and the trough under the rotating plate.

After putting the stuff back on the microwave, I fetched our stand-up dustpan — if you haven't got one of those dustpans with a broom handle and a pocket for the dust to fall into when you pick it up, get one at once.  They are absolutely essential.

And swept up the garbage.  Then I returned to the sweat rags, and it wasn't until I went into the laundry closet to get a rack for the pillowcases that I remembered the shirts.

I still haven't emptied the dustpan of garbage — I don't want to traipse through the new-fallen snow.

If you are scratching your head over "waxed-paper squares":  Dave used to flatten his sausage patties, and used squares of waxed paper to keep them from sticking to his spatula.  I found squares of waxed paper so handy for this and that that I continued cutting waxed paper into squares after Dave stopped squashing his sausage.

I cut with a butcher knife, not scissors, so the biggest part of making squares is making a clean surface to work on.

Our New York house had a board you could pull out and lay on the counter when you wanted a washed-under-the-faucet place to work, but people who didn't clean pull-out boards after use shoved crumbs back behind the drawers and got roaches, so pull-out boards were deprecated.  Pity; it was very convenient to pull it only partway out when I needed a bit of extra counter space.

 

5 January 2016

My rosemary plant didn't like being brought into the house this fall, and it's been completely dead for days now, but I haven't gotten around to traipsing through the snow to dump it.  Seems to be some sort of disease, so I'm going to landfill the pot after I empty it.

The pot was supposed to be a container of three herbs, but everything I put in with the rosemary died.  I wonder if the pot has been infected all these years?

I suspect that I could make a lace bobbin out of the stem of the rosemary, if I unburied Dave's microlathe.

 

7 January 2016

Today I dumped the rosemary — right after Dave Roomba'd the living room, but most of the needles fell onto the carpet sample we keep on the floor under the pot in case it drips — and emptied the dustpan I had swept the garbage into.

Also got Dave's hand-made soap that he turned out to be allergic to ready to take to the church, and made the linen closet neater by removing nine bars of Ivory and a couple of other packages of soap that I had bought before we found out that Dave can't use soap.

I was thinking that I'd done a lot of work on my cycling jacket today, but all I did was cut out the collar and sew the line separating the pencil pocket from the notebook pocket.  That did involve tucking in four ends of thread by hand, making three bar tacks in the process — one at one end of the stitching and two at the other.

But if I quit fooling around with the computer and go sew two darts, the fronts will be ready to sew to the back before supper.

 

8 January 2016

Sewed the darts, then remembered that I need to install the zipper before sewing the fronts to the back.

I didn't install it this morning:  I went shopping, the first time I've been anywhere but church since New Year's Day.  Corned beef was half price, so I bought a big chunk of meat and a head of cabbage.  I'd already picked up a bag of baking potatoes from the dented-produce rack, so didn't realize that I should go back and get some boiling potatoes.

Also got two grapefruit from the dented-produce rack.  I forgot to check the non-perishable clearance shelf.

 

9 January 2016

I made half a cup of baking soda into tooth powder today.  I remember making a note the last time I did that so that I'd know how long a batch of tooth powder lasts — but to find the note, I'd have to know how long a batch of tooth powder lasts.

It lasts long enough that I wasn't sure whether to grind up a teaspoon of salt or half a teaspoon.  I put in half a teaspoon, reasoning that if I was wrong, I could grind up some more and sift the powder again.

While looking for a can of black beans to put into the hamburger soup for supper, I took all the canned meat, soup, etc. out of the cupboard and scoured the shelf.  Now I know what I've got!

Which includes five cans of chicken broth and I *never* make chicken soup.

I was thinking "Awk, scrickle, I don't remember putting back any mushrooms!", then remembered that even though I use them only in soup, I keep them on the vegetable shelf.

Which is much neater because I prefer frozen vegetables, except for mushrooms, tomatoes, and pickles.

And which contains only one can of mushrooms.  And three cans of tomato paste, one can of diced tomatoes, and one can of crushed tomatoes.  To the shopping list!

Ugh.  All the predicted snowfalls are preceded and followed by rain, and one has rain in the middle.  And precipitation is pretty much continuous for the whole ten-day forecast, save for the first part of Monday and (maybe) the daylight hours of Wednesday.

Temperature is supposed to drop all day tomorrow; I must remember to over dress for the walk to church.

Supposed to be a brisk wind all day too.

 

10 January 2016

The wind was brisk, as advertised, but the snow remained fluffy and didn't get thick enough that I regretted forgetting to wear snow boots.  But the side door to the garage was frozen shut when I got back — presumably because it rained before it froze.

I took a thick pair of wool socks and an extra scarf to wear on the trip back.

I made a neat hack of carrying the box of soap:  I don't have a backpack or shoulder bag I could have put it in, so I slid a plastic grocery bag over one end, then put a yellow nylon belt I found in the laundry room through the handles and over the upper end of the box, buckled the belt, and put my head and one arm through the belt.  The weight of the box tightened the sack, which held everything together, and it rode neatly on my back — scarcely noticed it on the way to church.

Except that wearing a backpack meant I had to wear my red coat, which isn't quite as warm as my alpaca shawl.

Then I was in the copy room looking around for the tank — it's been replaced by a box, so I didn't see it — when I realized that the service was starting and set it down on the nearest flat surface.

I did remember to go back for it after the service, and also remembered to check the proof sheets of the new directory, and I remembered to exercise on the steps up to Club 56 (which is always deserted immediately after the service).

But I didn't remember to go back to the kitchen and put away the things I'd left in the dish drainer.  Perhaps I'll remember to stop on the way home from the grocery tomorrow.

Bill told me that we had nothing to do but make coffee and supervise crock pots next Sunday, which reminded me that I need to pick up some Yukon Gold potatoes when I go to Owen's tomorrow, and typing this reminds me that I need to freeze the serving dish.  I think I'll do that right now.

I've already put a teaspoon — or was it two teaspoons? — of celery seed into vinegar.  I'm trying an experiment this time:  I also put in some cloves of garlic that I'd sliced in half, intending to pick them out before putting the vinegar into the dressing.  That should add a very subtle hint of garlic to the salad.

The notes I took when I made the particularly-good salad are still stuck to the fridge, so I don't have to remember when I copied them into the Banner.

 

12 January 2016

But I'm going to have to make it without peppers, if I don't shop again before Saturday.  Owen's didn't have either mini-sweet peppers or long sweet peppers, and there was no price on the three-pack peppers.  Which I don't like much anyway and some of them looked a bit shriveled.

I rode my bike for the first time this year yesterday, going three whole miles — 1.6 to Owen's and 1.6 back.

I spent most of the morning layering on clothes, but the weather, it turned out, was quite nice.  I didn't even notice the wind, except along the lake on Park Avenue on the way back, and the chill was pretty much lost in the wind I was stirring up myself.  I had no fear of carrying frozen foods!

I did find some patches of ice on the road, which surprised me; I figured that if our street was clean, all would be clean.  Perhaps I should have looked at Boy's City Drive.

And the mittens were a nuisance.  I had an idea for my weekly column (which is about to end because I'm scraping the bottom of the buffer), and forgot it before I got home because it was too much trouble to get the pencil out of my pocket and make a note.

I'm becoming downright enamored of the knives in our Premium Clear Cutlery.  Every time I mention that, Dave says "And you can actually cut food with them!"

Being narrow and stiff and easy to wipe clean, they are perfect for stirring things.  And my Christmas cakes never came out of the pans so easily:  a plastic knife is narrow enough to go around the corners, stiff enough to pry the cake loose, and there is absolutely no risk of scratching the non-stick coating.

Microwaved my lunch, and scraped off what had stuck to the waxed paper with the back of a plastic knife, quick, thorough, and easy.

Lunch was Stouffer's Cups "loaded cheddar potato bake" — I had a coupon for two packages yesterday and got one each of potato and lasagna, just to try them out.

It was more like potato soup than like a baked potato:  cubes of left-over potato in a runny white sauce with a little cheese in it.  Not bad after I put snap peas in it, but I should have cut the pods into pieces first.

 

13 January 2016

I'm accustomed to pushing the sewing machine to one side or the other on Wednesday so Roomba can clean in front of the window.  This morning, I thought "Hey!  This thing has wheels!", unplugged it, and rolled it into the bedroom.

The sewing room looks queer without it.

A little less queer after I set the ironing board up to press two pieces of silk binding for my new cycling jacket.

And no, I won't have to put it back to sew them on, because I'm using the treadle machine that belongs in the bedroom for straight stitching.

Sometimes I think it odd that I can use the electric machine after Dave has gone to bed, but not the treadle.

It gets too dark to sew before Dave goes to bed anyway.  Old eyes like natural light.  But the LEDs strapped to the sewing machines work pretty well; being battery powered, they don't flicker, and the light isn't glaryblue like early white LEDs.

We looked out this morning and said "It almost looks as though the lake were frozen."  I don't think it was, except in shallow places; there was mist rising all over it.

But before sunset, there was snow all over it.

 

14 January 2016

I doubt that the ice will make it to sunset today.  There are already patches of open water, and the temperature is almost up to freezing and going up.

In addition, it's predicted to stay just below forty through tomorrow, with a high probability of rain tomorrow afternoon.

Lovely weather for riding right now, and predicted to stay that way until nearly sunset, but I wanna sew!

 

15 January 2016

Much to my surprise, the geese on the lake are walking.  I think the patch of open water at the mouth of the creek is actually smaller.

I looked to see what was in the file for the 2015 Christmas letter before creating the 2016 file — and discovered that although I'd created the icon, there was no file.  I guess I started forgetting about this early!

I accidentally created this year's file while modifying the icon, so there may be a Christmas letter this year.  But there is no news to put in the file.

We like it that way.

If I quit playing with the computer and get to work, I can attach the collar to my new jacket today.

I'll take a picture of it when it's done.

 

16 January 2016

To my complete lack of surprise, the lake is thawed all over this morning.  There is still some white stuff around the edges, and on land there are patches of snow where-ever there were drifts.

Checked my spamtrap for false positives just now, and didn't find any — but there were two false negatives in the inboxes.  Appeared that both were from the same spammer; could have been the same spam, but I didn't look that close.

My new jacket does have a collar now, and I'm on the verge of cutting out the sleeves.  Chose not to do it tonight; by the time I'd made potato salad and laid out my clothes for tomorrow, I didn't trust myself to cut cloth.

So I'll go on Usenet and decide how the world should be run.

 

18 January 2016

The mist from the open water is drifting over the whole surface, so I can't be sure, but I think the lake is frozen over again.  And weather underground says the temperature won't rise above freezing until Sunday, and just barely then.

Tomorrow should be a great day to take a Sprawlmart tour.  I don't think I'll have my new jacket by then, but I *should* get the sleeves attached today.  Or at least cut out.

There isn't much wash.

I was surprised that I didn't want much of a nap after the party at the church — swilling tea most of the morning might have something to do with that.  I felt guilty because I didn't pay much attention to the society meeting; another worker felt guilty because she did.  I was embarrassed when I realized that I'd failed to notice that they were praying.

Oops, no Sprawlmart tour.  I need fish oil, but I *must* get my passport picture taken.  And I can buy a piece of ribbon to be the belt of my new jacket while I'm out that way.  I hope there is polyester ribbon; rayon is absorbent.

 

19 January 2016

Dave pointed out that I have two years to get the passport.  I want it off my plate, but I want fish oil more.

The portrait can wait until the weather allows me to be comfortable indoors.  The new jacket, which I'll be able to peel off when I come inside, will hurry up that date.

Weather Underground says the wind is dropping, the temperature is rising, and there is zero chance of precipitation — but it's time to start piling on the layers and I don't want to go.  That's a sign that I need the exercise:  this will be only my second bike ride this year, and my blood pressure shows it.

Some time after I wrote that Dave is impressed by how well the plastic knives I'm going to buy at Aldi today cut, I wanted something quick and easy for supper and bought a small, tough steak.  We ate it with those plastic knives!

The lake is definitely frozen this morning.  I think the creek is frozen too.  I hope I remember to look at it when I cross the bridge, but the last time I saw that bridge there was a slick spot on it, and that is likely to make me forget everything else:  I can't afford to fall.

The second pair of wool tights doesn't zip.  Perhaps it should be the second layer instead of the third next time.  Now, do I need one pair of sweat pants or two?

Not cold at all, as long as I could stay out of the wind, and there wasn't much wind.  But I didn't like going inside much.  I peeled off three scarves and my helmet in Aldi.

I didn't take my thick socks because I didn't want to go, and thought I wouldn't have the energy to stop in shoe stores, but once I got moving I got more ambitious.  I did buy some glue sticks at Dollar General, and dash into Big R to see whether they still have fine-ground corncob bedding.  There is such a high percentage of fine-ground in the stack that I think I don't have to be in an all-fired hurry to stock up before they sell it all.  I also bought a loaf of bread at Aunt Millie, but didn't continue to the restaurant supply place.

This morning, Dave bought minute steaks on his way back from getting a shot, and I fried them for supper.  After trying to eat his with a plastic knife, he got up and fetched a steak knife.  My, those steaks were gristly.

He also brought home a tray of mashed potatoes, and we warmed up a can of sausage gravy to eat on them.  I was pleasantly surprised by the potatoes.

My blood pressure was significantly down tonight, and was also down after my first ride of the year.

The creek is frozen over.  On my way out, there was water flowing over the ice east of the bridge, but when I came back, that had frozen too.  There was a small streak of open water by the storm drain.  If I recall correctly, it extended upstream farther than downstream.  I figured that the water that had been flowing over the ice welled up there.

 

23 January 2016

It was a gorgeous day, and the only time I set foot outside it was to carry a plate of garbage to the compost heap.

Made some progress on my new jacket, though.

I didn't remember to make cake out of the fruit syrup I boiled up yesterday, and don't feel like doing it now.  It will keep.

 

24 January 2016

I didn't make one single note on my bulletin.  I must not have been paying attention.

Did my quad exercises on the stairs to the prayer room, just for variety.  Checked the pew cushions while I was up there:  no repairs required.

I brought home some of the stale crackers that I promised to get rid of.  I thought it would be tedious to get them out of the wrappers, but just one snip and the crackers fall out.  But getting them out will be worse than tedious:  I can't let go of the wrappers.

Maybe if I mist the air before setting to work, they won't cling to my fingers.

I hope I remember to make the cakes this afternoon.

Made them in the evening, and they are delicious.  I was afraid at first that the molasses had fooled me into taking them out of the oven too soon, but they are perfect.

I wanted to wear my off-white suit this morning, but the pants need a press, so I went to the back of the closet and got out my old charcoal-gray suit.  Lo and behold, when I put my hand into my pocket, there was my long-lost plastic notebook.

And I *can* still understand the notes in it, but I'm not going to transcribe them.  They say that on Saturday, the tenth of September, 2015, I spent eight dollars and thirty cents at the farmers' markets.  I'm sure that that has long since been written off as "unrecorded expenses".

Time to reconcile again:  Quicken says I have a negative amount of pocket money, and I have a twenty and a lot of smaller bills.  There must be an unrecorded "fast fifty" somewhere.  [It was recorded, but said the cash went into Dave's pocket.]

 

25 January 2016

Dave went to Fort Wayne today to get something off his chest.  He says the doctor said that he got the whole cancer in the first slice.  But he has a couple of follow-ups, and at the end of February he's going to do Mohs again, this time on his face.  That's a lot of time on the road to Fort Wayne.

He's tempted to stop at Spring Creek on one of those trips.

I've just decided that my New Year's Resolution this year is to drive to Fort Wayne and just shop, no fair stopping at Gordon's on the way home from a medical appointment and calling it shopping.

I wore out the belt on my treadle machine today.  Or, rather, it broke at the connector.  It's simple to cut off the broken bit and re-plug the connector, but extremely difficult.  I was wishing I'd chosen the leather belt:  it costs more, doesn't grip as well, and doesn't last as long — but it's really *easy* to install.

I eventually got the belt back on and finished my seam.  But I left the other seam for tomorrow.

Once the side seams are finished, all I have to do is to sew a casing to each sleeve and hem the bottom.  I'm really, really pleased with the way the collar on this jacket turned out.  Pity it will be covered with a scarf when I wear it!

 

26 January 2016

After downloading my mail this morning, I made Thunderbird count the spams in my junk folder:  sixty-one.

Looks as though I'll easily exceed last year's count.

 

27 January 2016

This morning, I said "I can buy plates at Aldi.  Is that enough motivation to ride that far?"

No, but a diastolic of 85 is.  I enjoyed it once I got started, but flakes of snow in the air made me cut a few places off my itinerary in the interest of getting home before the temperature rose above freezing.  I don't think it ever did, though.  It wasn't predicted to cross the line much or for very long.

Lake is still solid, as near as I can see from here.  The ice should be thicker than it was the day we saw two ice fishermen on it.

 

28 January 2016

Dave, sitting on the bed after having glued a power strip to the wall with double-sticky squares, said "I don't know how long these Scotch things will ho" SCRITCHkerTHUMP! "ld."

I said "Oh yes you do!"

On the way back from the church, I noticed that the Sunday home needs a lot of maintenance — little warps and weatherings that will be big problems if not attended to.

Everybody at the viewing was pretty much in shock.  I didn't speak to anyone upstairs except Pat Redpath, and almost forgot to sign the book.

I didn't know Sharon Mitterling, but I think that we greeted one another on her last Sunday.

Weird:  I brought the newspaper in from the garage, where Dave had just finished with it.  (He uses the freezer as a reading desk.)  Sat down on the futon under the light, and while I was reading the second section, a needle threaded with silk fell out of it.  Heavily-waxed heavy silk, which I haven't used in I can't remember when.  I'm pretty sure all the silk handwork on the jacket was done with 100+, an invisibly-fine thread.

Or maybe the thread is that nylon that I bought a box of bobbins of.  I do vaguely remember using that in December or maybe even this year.

On the front page of the paper was an article saying that repairs on the exterior of the Sunday Home began last summer.  I haven't caught them at it, but I pass the Sunday Home only on Sundays.  I clipped the article because it gives the schedule and starting point for the tours.

On the one hand, walking to the Westminster Hotel would give me some much-needed exercise.  On the other, the tours take place precisely at the time I usually spend taking a nap and preparing supper.

[I noticed signs of maintenance in progress the next time I walked past the Sunday home.]

I forgot to put the stew beef in the rice cooker this morning, so we had a can of broccoli-cheese soup for supper.  It wasn't bad; I must buy a few cans of Chef's Cupboard soups the next time I go to Aldi.

 

30 January 2016

Going to bed after midnight yet again.

We had stewed beef for supper.  It wasn't as good as I'd expected, but not bad.  I think that I'll warm up the left-overs in gravy with some vegetables.

I spent today sewing, but the jacket still lacks a hem and elastic in the wrists.  But it's supposed to be warm tomorrow later today.  I'm thinking of riding to Lowery's to buy a yard and seven-eighths of ribbon.

I bought two yards instead.  I had a passport picture taken on the way, and had lunch at Subway afterward.

And stopped at Owen's to buy eggs on the way home.  We don't like pre-seasoned meat much, but when I saw a highly-seasoned 0.96-pound cube steak WooHooed at $3.01, I bought it for supper.  I floured it and fried it six minutes a side in corn oil.  Much to our surprise, it was delicious, and there is enough left for another meal.

But we ate our next-to-the-last potato with it; I should have bought a bag while I was in the produce department.

Dave got the laser pointer working again tonight.  It had not been working for a long time, but Al remembered it.

I suspect that he will also never forget that before we got the living room all lit up with monitors, I used a red flashlight when I went into the kitchen in the middle of the night.

I can still find it in the dark.

 

1 February 2016

The lake still looks frozen, but I'm pretty sure that that is because the mist hides the details.

By the time I got my jacket hemmed last night, I'd forgotten it was time to wrap up the January Banner.

I warmed up the stew beef with a tub of Knorr jellied stock, vegetables I'd fried in corn oil, and a zapped carrot.  Served a zapped potato on the side — it turned out to be our next-to-the-last instead of our last, but I've put "potatoes" on my shopping list.

Which is otherwise blank, which is less cheerful on a rare fit day to take exercise than it was last Saturday when I bought everything on it.  I'm planning to go to Goodwill, then lunch at Panda Express.  Figure it for ten miles — now where do I go for fifteen?  The local bike club has no on-line communication, and the meetings are after dark, so I can't ask them for suggestions.

Pike Lake is still frozen, but not even the ducks were walking on it.  A substantial part of Winona Lake has thawed.  I didn't see much of Center Lake, though I think I caught a glimpse from Sunset Drive.

I didn't try on any dresses at Goodwill, but I saw a black sleeveless dress that would have been lovely over my red silk under-dress, had it not been about a foot smaller around than I am.

I chickened out of wearing the jacket without elastic in the sleeves.  I'd have worn one more shirt if I'd known I was going to wear the nylon overjersey instead of the wool one, but I didn't get cold, not even while eating outside at Panda Express.  My food did, though.  It's not very hot to start with because they don't want it cooking on the steam table, and rice has very little heat capacity.

I didn't bring back anything but the mail and a cookie that was left over from my "kid's meal".

Oops, I forgot a bottle of "golden basalmic-style vinegar of modena" (white-wine vinegar mixed with grape must) that I picked up at Sherman & Lin's.

When I ripped off Wednesday's notes and tucked them into the back of the notebook, I discovered two more sheets already there.  We shall never know what I meant by "Bnnnel rr Brake".  It could be "Barrel for Brake" or "Buy wheel for brake".  "Burnel fr Brake"?