It wasn't raining when we got up, so I hastened to carry out the garbage, and check the cucumbers and asparagus.
I put the fifth bundle of papers into the recycling bin this morning — took three days.
The paper bin was overflowing, so I dragged it into the house in front of the rocking chair, sorted out two stacks, and left the bin sitting on them overnight. The next day I tied up the flattened papers and sorted out two more stacks. Yesterday I sorted the remaining paper into a stack, set the two bundles on it, and put the bin back into the garage.
So far, not being able to sit for a long time hasn't interfered in my life at all. It's a little embarrassing in church, though.
It didn't rain today, but it definitely wasn't dry. Sweat kept pouring out after I'd gotten into Dr. Rahn's air-conditioned waiting room, but it did finally stop before I saw him. I got some of the paperwork wet. And emptied the bottle I'd brought in with me.
I must throw out the two ballpoint pens in my attaché case. Luckily, I also carry #2 pencils.
Dr. Rahn thinks that an injection might do the job. If it doesn't, he has to put me through a nerve test. Might end up with surgery — the pictures of my insides show a mess.
I'd thought that I might make a side trip to Aldi on the way home, but it was just too muggy. And I needed to go by Owen's to pick up my prescription. I did stop in the shoe stores and Carson's on my way back through Sprawlmart — partly to make sure the prescription was ready when I got there. No hose at either shoe store, and no black dresses at Carson's. I did pause in awe in front of a dress that was made of a very ugly print that was even uglier on the wrong side, which was prominently displayed by a skirt that was long in back and short in front. To complete the ugh!, it had topless sleeves tacked onto the bottom of sleeveless armholes.
August is just jammed with medical appointments. I get my teeth cleaned next Monday, the final follow-up on my skin-cancer scar is the following Thursday, and my eye exam was moved up from September to the last day in August. And I have yet to make an appointment with the injection doctor — his staff will call me when he's read my records. Dave will have to take me to that one, as they won't let me drive afterward.
Dave has been sorting and organizing his funnybook collection for quite a while. Turned out that he has a lot more than he thought, and he's been back to buy more bags and boards at least twice. Now he wants to replace some beat-up old boxes.
He has a complete set of Planet Terry, which I must read soon. I read #6 today.
He washed the truck while I was gone. The canoe is nearly seaworthy, and isn't taking up much of his attention.
I typoed "while" as "hwile". That's the way it's pronounced, and that used to be the way we spelled it. I wonder why we changed.
Washday tomorrow; I must put some whites in a bucket to soak.
Yesterday the thunder was booming and the UPSs were chirping, so I clicked "shut down" on my fast computer, then turned to the slow computer and fumbled around a while before finding the "shut down" button. When I stood up to leave, the slow computer had finished and the fast computer was still at it.
My white bras have been getting dingy, so I soaked them in a bucket overnight, with enough detergent for a whole load. Seems to have helped, but the orange stains on my white linen do-rag didn't budge.
I want to take a nap now, but we are expecting a guy to inspect our heating ducts any minute. And he will need to inspect those in the bedroom.
Turned out all he needed to see was the furnace. But I still have clothes in the washer.
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After he left, Dave called up Terry Howe and made an appointment for the 22nd.
I left two buckets soaking last night. My orange jersey is too worn to wash, and it was too dirty to just rinse out the sweat again, so I left it in soapy water overnight, and rinsed it in two buckets of water this evening. I felt that I was using the drain-and-spin cycle a lot.
I have yellow linen to make a new jersey, but I don't see any ambitious sewing happening before it's cool enough to wear my cotton jerseys.
I'm childishly amused that the two non-medical entries on my August calendar are "ribs" and "ducts".
"Ribs" is on the eighth; we went to Ortho City Smokehouse to celebrate our anniversary. We each ate enough for two meals, and I rather regretted it for an hour or two.
That reminded me that I'd brought two ribs home. So I got up and took a nibble: yep, still yummy.
All week I've been searching the fridge for the bottle I carry my switchel concentrate in. Today, while getting ready for tomorrow's Farmers' Markets tour, I found it in my bike basket. I suspected that the switchel had gotten a little fizzy, so instead of boiling the left-over switchel with the new switchel, I poured it on the rose bush and blasted the bottle out with the hose. Then I scalded the bottle.
Three appointments this week. Got my teeth cleaned yesterday, he's repairing a hole and a cavity today, final inspection on the biopsy scar on Thursday. Then on Monday we have to drive to Fort Wayne.
A small repair job has been lying on my ironing board for days.
On Saturday, I bought a ginger root to grate into switchel. I don't foresee a day when I can use it.
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In the evening, Dave and I sliced up cucumbers and vegetables to make bread-and-butter pickles.
And this morning we pickled them, in a flailing and confused manner, because neither of us knew what we were doing. Despite many errors, I think that we have ended up with half a saucepan of pickles.
That's a year's supply, but I hope we get to do it again while we still remember how to do it. We plan to store this batch in the refrigerator; next time I should scald some jars and prepare to can them. Do we have that many half-pint jars?
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I tore three three-yard pieces off my bolt of muslin. Alas, I can't say "I'm going to sew the whole nine yards, nyuk-nyuk." It's a royal pain to get the bolt off the shelf, so while I had it open, I tore off two future projects.
Snivel. What with this, that, and the other I haven't been able to go out and ride all day for ages. My appointment tomorrow is so early that I'll be leaving Dr. Ashton's office about the time I usually start a ride, so I've been planning to come home by way of robinhood's barn.
Weather Underground says that if I do that I'll get soaking wet and might get blown off my bike.
So I un-bungeed my waiting-room bag from the bike, and laid out driving clothes.
At least my dental appointments on Monday and Tuesday didn't get rained out. I have my own personal parking space there, and Dr. Hollar would be disappointed if I didn't use it.
I packed the pickles in two half-pint jars and a pint jar, with a few in a refrigerator dish.
We both like the pickles very much, and are already well down in one of the half pints.
Dave is saving up cucumbers for another batch. Something is eating at least half of them before he can pick them. Not deer, because it doesn't touch the plant; the cucumbers are just gone.
Now he's talking about getting a crock and making fermented pickles. Those are very, very good, but I'm dragging my feet. It takes a long time to make fermented pickles, and it has to be done exactly right.
I was disappointed that the booth where I bought the green radish had only red ones yesterday. I guess that they were planted together and ripened together — but why was it that *nobody* had jalapeños?
Tomorrow we are getting up early to drive to Fort Wayne to get steroids shot into my back. I have my clothes laid out, the papers filled out, and my waiting-room bag packed.
When I got up in the night, I discovered that the bump on my back had fallen off on its own, exactly like the bump on my lip. So I get to call between nine and twelve tomorrow to cancel Friday's appointment to get it removed. Which is somewhat embarrassing, but leaves me free to do as I please until the last day of August, when I get my annual eye exam.
I'm glad the eye doctor's office goofed; before they discovered that they had double booked, I was scheduled for the first Wednesday in September, which is less convenient.
I should have read the weekend paper on the weekend. The tomato festival is this coming Saturday.
I don't think I can manage both the farmers' markets and the festival this year. Too much time off the bike — and there would be hardly any of the festival left if I went downtown and took a nap before going; it ends at four.
Weather Underground says I may end up attending neither.
Grump. The next page of the paper says that I will also miss a book sale at the library if I go to the festival.
Dave drove me to my appointment with Dr. Bojrab today. I didn't get happy gas, and walked out just fine after the injection, but when the anesthetic wore off, I could see why they didn't want me driving home. It didn't hurt much, but it was enough to take my mind off my driving. And distracted driving in Fort Wayne is a particularly bad idea. One could end up on the road to Cleveland or Detroit.
I think I feel better already, but I usually do feel reasonable at this time of day. Also, I put a rice bag (stale popcorn bag) on my knee while reading the Thursday and Friday PDFs before supper. Not to mention that Dr. Bojrab said that it would take up to seven days to see results.
It's noisy around here. Brent is pressure washing and Dave is mowing the lawn, but I can't hear either of them because Terry is cleaning our ducts.
When they were working in the bedroom (which is where they started) I was sitting here wondering how sucking air out could make the place stink. Duh, air sucked out has to be replaced, the only ventilation was through the garage, and a huge internal-combustion engine is running right in front of the garage — with the exhaust pointed this way, I just noticed. So I opened both sets of glass doors and the place smells much better. It helps that the wind is coming from that direction, so now air is going out through the garage.
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When the duct-cleaner finished, he vacuumed the place, so we are going to skip Roomba this week.
Except in the bedroom.
I dug up the volunteer potatoes today. I got one tiny potato from the smaller plant, and three small potatoes from the larger plant. I'm going to put all of them into the hot-and-sour soup tonight, using my mandoline to julienne them. If not overcooked, julienne potatoes are a fair substitute for bamboo shoots.
I hope I remember to put in a slice of one of the two jalapeños that I bought on my way home from Ace yesterday.
Somewhat to my surprise, it's pretty good soup. About half left over; the packet serves three and I added fresh vegetables and a can of chunk chicken .
I was surprised that Dave liked it, because I put in three stalks of rhubarb and should have used only two. (That was a stalk and a half of normal rhubarb; I haven't been pulling the other plants back from it as industriously as I should, and I mulched it with lake weed only once.)
It's after nine a.m., and I have to turn the light on to find the keyboard.
Today is farmers' market day, there's a festival of some sort in Central Park, there's a book sale at the library, and today is Pierceton's tomato festival, serving home-made ice cream.
So I checked the weather and went to bed wondering whether I'd put on my bicycle knickers or my driving jeans when I woke up today. Even before looking out the window, I'd settled on my clean-the-house clothes. Rain was three point nine when we got up and was 3.49 inches as of 10:21.
But I did select leave-the-house socks just in case I wanted to change.
I ordinarily go barefoot in the house, but I have a small wound on my left foot and don't want to get dirt in it. I wore a not-matched pair of deplorable white synthetic footies yesterday. I wonder how I acquired even one pair of such socks, let alone one sock from two different pairs. I don't recall picking up socks along the road — and when I do see clothing, I drape it over the nearest fence or sign so that the owner can see it when he drives past.
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Most of my useful time today was spent translating Mom's bread-and-butter pickle recipe into hypertext.
Could those of you who have access to the sisters who can remember mom's pickle-making find out whether she had some sort of slicing aid? I'm sure she didn't have a mandoline, as I'd never seen one before when I bought my first one.
I vaguely recall a four-sided grater with slicers on one side.
And when I see pictures of Japanese dried-fish slicers with a blade set into a plank, they look familiar.
I do remember the ring-shaped kraut cutter.
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When I do my evening exercises in the living room, Al comes and lies down near my head, then stays there when I get up and leave. Tonight he's snuggled up to one of the scratching posts; usually there's a brush arch in that space.
The dress I'm wearing badly needs ironing. It's not going to get it. Old wrinkles will make the new wrinkles less conspicuous — that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I hope I remember to put my hat in the wash tomorrow; it's getting disgusting. Perhaps I'll remember to put it into the laundry hamper instead of hanging it on the hook when I come home.
Weather Underground says thunderstorms Wednesday, but otherwise a pretty fair week for working and playing outside — until Saturday. And next Saturday is candy day at the courthouse farmers' market. No festivals that I know of, though.
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I shouldn't have been playing Hexavirus at this time of night — but I scored 10. That may be a new record.
It was *HOT* out there. And very humid; when I got home, my shirt was so wet that I needed help to get out of it.
So I wiped myself with a damp rag, changed into dry clothes, and rode the flatfoot to Kilainey's to buy a "smothered chicken" sandwich for supper. I'm not sure what's "smothered" about an inch-thick slab of chicken breast, but it made a good supper. We shared the green salad I'd brought home from McAllister's Deli in the chip box, and killed the guacamole that came with it. Most of the sour cream and the ranch dressing were left. If I'd known I'd bring all the dressing home, I'd have chosen blue cheese — we have a quarter of a jar of ranch.
I did a dump tour today, and was determined to eat at McAlister's Deli. Dave says I have to eat ate Moe's Southwest Grill the next time.
I was able to read the menu by getting up close to the counter, but they appear not to have any dishes for small children and old ladies. I fancied the reuben, but didn't fancy bringing half of it home. I finally settled on a taco salad. I figured that I'd order it to go, eat half, then close the container and put it into my cooler.
Turns out that when taco salad is to go, they expect you to take it home and serve it in the kitchen. Instead of a salad, you get a bunch of containers of components — and you don't get a fork or a napkin. Fortunately, I carry both on the bike, and I'd parked right next to my outdoor table.
I decided to leave the dressing, sour cream, and guacamole in the sealed containers — I seldom put dressing on my salads anyway — and eat the bowl of chili with tortilla chips and garnishes off the greens. The chili was the only component I finished, but I did eat the mixing bowl of greens down to where it would fit into the clamshell the chips came in. I put the chips into one of the sandwich bags I carry everywhere, and put them into the clamshell on top of the salad. There were enough garnished greens left to serve two amply as a side dish. We killed the chips as well as the guacamole.
McAlister's website says that they do have a kid's menu.
For some time, I've been looking for a nail clipper to carry on my key chain. I had seen several, but none that had a key-ring hole that wasn't blocked by the handle.
So today I went out of my way to stop at Walgreen's, where I knew there would be lots of nail clippers.
While searching my miscellaneous basket for findings to attach my new nail clipper to my key ring, I found a nail clipper suitable for carrying on a key ring.