I baked half a cake this morning, and in a few minutes we are going to the Great Wall for supper. We plan to open the ice cream after we get back.
Dave has mowed most of the lawn. He waters the new asparagus bed every day, but so far there is no sign of progress. I think that the rhubarb could spare a leaf or two to spice up a packet of hot-and-sour soup mix.
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But that will have to wait until we have forgotten eating the good stuff.
We haven't had time to forget the Great Wall food — there's a bit of chicken left — but I made hot-and-sour soup tonight. Since they are still small, I put in two stems of rhubarb. I sliced them very thin. The packet suggested julienne carrots and bamboo shoots. I cut a short piece of carrot and a one-bite potato very fine, and the potato filled in for bamboo shoot nicely. I also put in about a teaspoon of hot-and-sour paste and, at the last minute, a can of Kroger chunk chicken. Also an egg, in accordance with the instructions. The first time I reconstituted this soup, I was amazed at how easy it is to make egg drop.
It was delicious, and we didn't leave much.
Oh, yeah, I floated some sliced winter onion on top. That isn't as garnish-y in a saucepan as it is in a bowl.
Yesterday, I saw a duck escorting five ducklings across the lawn, presumably headed for the Smeltzers' bird feeder. This morning I saw two pairs of geese on the beach. I assume that the movement I saw was two batches of goslings.
Yesterday morning, I went to Aldi to buy a "spa bench" to use as a table beside the patio chairs.
On Monday, I had reflected that the little glass chairside table I use for a laundry-basket rack would be more useful if it were strong enough to sit on, and decided to keep my eye out for a three-leg stool with a flat seat. Then Dave reported that he had broken the three-cornered tray table we put beside the other patio chair. And right after that, Wednesday's Aldi ad showed a folding bamboo stool.
We'd also accumulated a short list of products available only at Aldi, so Friday morning, off I went.
Right next to the "spa bench" was a paper cat-scratching pad. I'd seen this before as replaceable filler for expensive cat toys: they make multi-ply corrugated cardboard ten inches thick, then slice off a piece eighteen inches wide and two inches long. It was very cheap, so I threw it into the cart on top of the spa bench.
When I got home, Dave unwrapped it and put it on the floor, I sprinkled it with dried catnip, and Al flopped down and said "what a wonderful new bed!"
Today was opening day for the farmers' markets, and there was a craft fair going on at the fair grounds. I was not much interested in any of those, and I forgot to go to Central Park to see what was going on there. On the way back, I stopped at Sherman & Lin's, where I bought a parsley plant, and at International Foods, where I bought two cans of corned beef.
I observed the empty panniers before leaving, and thought I ought to be carrying something besides the bag of bags. Oh, yeah, my emergency food, but I'm expecting to get back before lunch (and I did). When leaving the courthouse market, I thought to check which street I should cross the railroad on to pass by International Foods — oops, no map!
And also, no bungee cords. But the bag of bags sufficed to keep my purchases in line; I didn't even have to unwind the bungee that I use as a bumper on the pannier that I'm likely to lean against a polished surface.
Grumbly gripe. Comcast went off line when I'd read about half my funnies and hadn't even started on Usenet.
We had a very nice luncheon for about sixty people after church, and I stayed to help with the dishes, then rode home by way of Grace College and the Heritage Trail — which Google maps shows as a dirt trail even though it never was dirt; traffic wasn't allowed on it until after it was paved.
I spotted a redbud in full bloom along the trail, so I made a side trip to Mary Louise Miller's field. There were displays of redbud almost as spectacular both before and after. I was glad I was riding my pedal-powered wheelchair rather than my real bike, because I could push along very slowly in the redbud lane.
I startled a deer on my way in.
The cottonwoods are leafing out. Yesterday I went out barefoot to hang the wash, and came back in wearing sandals.
They were hard to peel off, but eventually I picked up enough dirt that I didn't stick to the substrate. This morning, I scrubbed my feet with a brush, then worked them over with a plastic pumice, and one foot still stuck to the bathmat. Perhaps the other would have, had I stood on it long enough to scrub a foot.
We had our first mess of asparagus yesterday, fried in ghee. I'll use regular butter next time, because it gives off more steam.
Dave is frying his egg in ghee this morning. I'm planning to fry mine in the skillet I used for yesterday's asparagus.
I spent all of today planting potatoes, onions, and multipliers.
In the afternoon, Dave said that all of his computers are working as intended. I thought I'd better report that before another capacitor swells up.
One of the computers had a dead clock battery.
My feet are cold, but they are too dirty to put into my fuzzy slippers. Hardly any bud covers stuck on them; I think the garden dirt displaced them. Maybe I should replace the door mat with a sand box.
At bedtime, I scrubbed with a brush, scoured with a plastic pumice, scrubbed with the brush again, and so forth. Eventually I said "at least it won't rub off on the covers" and went to bed. Whereupon I discovered that I had dishpan feet.
In the morning, I rubbed Eucerin on them and put on socks. Did the same this morning, as part of dressing to ride to Owen's for milk. I put on Spalding tights, went out to comb my hair, came back in and changed to silk tights, alpaca tights, and polyester wind pants. Couldn't put on gloves because I couldn't find them in the laundry bin where I'd thrown them on Tuesday, planning to wash them before putting them away for the summer.
I bought "truffle dust" from the Manager's Special display today. When I tried (in vain) to look up some information about it, I turned up an offer to sell me dust ruffles!
And lots and lots of offers to sell me truffle dust, of course. No page gave as much data as there is on the label.
The crab apple lost all its petals at once. Must have been a pretty good east wind in the night, as half of them are on the west side of the house.
The fall hike was pleasant and informative, but cut short by rain. Since hiking staffs have been hard to find in the woods, I carried my cane, which caused everyone to be unduly solicitous — even (or especially) Luke, who is a year older than me.
I was a bit damp when I got home, but in no hurry to change clothes.
I came home from church through Grace campus and the Heritage Trail, then took a side trip to look at the new Zagster bikes on Park Avenue. Then I looked up the news, and learned that if I'd gone to Grace by Rupe instead of Ninth, I'd have passed the Zagster station near the gym. When looking at the bikes, I was much puzzled by the orange tubes affixed to the bikes' permanently-attached rear racks. They looked like frame pumps with pull-out hoses, but at the end of the "hose" was a fixture obviously intended to be plugged into something.
The Zagster web site explained that the bike can be locked to sign posts and the like when you stop for a while. They posted pictures of Kryptonite locks hinged to the down tubes, but with that clue, I could see that the fixture on the "hose" could be plugged in where the bike-rack tether was plugged in, after passing it around some fixed object. And both ends of the cable were well above the ground, frustrating people who step on bolt cutters for extra force.
I went home from there by way of the Heritage Trail, and met two men on Zagster bikes. The news story said they weren't open for business until tomorrow.
I had gotten the impression from Ink Free that bike rental was very high — but $25 is per *year*, not per day. Actual rent is a dollar per half hour — just enough to guarantee that the bike is checked in instead of being thrown into the nearest creek — but you have to have an account with them.
Of course, if you keep the bike for twelve hours, that would come close to what I'd thought the daily fee was.
This scheme might actually work.
Grump. Weather Underground says I'm driving the car tomorrow. I groove on showing up for doctor appointments on a bicycle, but an inch of rain takes all the fun out of it.
Clean scar, don't come back. Slop the vitamin-E oil around as much as I please.
We are almost out of milk, so I stopped at Owen's on the way back, and stocked up on frozen meals while I was at it. I put milk into the cart, and milk is listed on my receipt, but when I unpacked the groceries, there was no milk in the car. The customer ahead of me had a large order that was difficult to pack; perhaps the bag boy got confused. At any rate, we are still almost out of milk.
I found something interesting on a clearance shelf: trail mix that is supposed to be microwaved before you eat it. Somebody is not clear on the concept. And it didn't get hot in the microwave even though I gave it an extra thirty seconds. Not bad cold, though — you can't go too far wrong with sugar-coated peanuts.
It had been raining hard just before I got to Owen's, and was still coming down when I walked from the far corner of the lot — the lot was packed, though the store wasn't — to the entrance. I picked my way through the puddles and streams muttering that Kroger really, really needs to do something about drainage in the parking lot, and finally and with great relief got to the walk in front of the store — and discovered that the puddles were even worse up there. The woman with the messy order was wearing shower clogs, and I was tempted to tell her "you're a lot smarter than I am!".
But when I left, the rain had stopped and the parking lot was mostly drained. Still had to wade a stream, but it was shallow.
Today was the Fat and Skinny Tire Festival, the Farmers' markets, and I think there was something going on at Central Park. When I got up, I looked out the window and decided to spend the day in the sewing room. I bound two more pieces of quilt for the animal shelter; that will make three in the Monday wash. But Weather Underground says I won't be hanging them out on the line.
I delivered six on my Thursday ride, and there are three more to be bound, so that makes twelve blankets. Eight cat, four dog.
When I got up from my nap, the sun had come out, so I took a shower and rode my pedal-powered wheelchair downtown to look at the festival. There was still a lot of activity. I thought about having fair food instead of supper, but I thought the prices bit high for the quality, and I don't like to eat standing up, so all I had was a free duck-breast meatball. Business must have been slow at the Maple Leaf Farms truck, because she suggested that I take both of those on the plate. Good meatball, but it didn't taste a bit like duck.
I went into some of the shops, including one that wasn't open. "Spotted Fawn" will open at Art Festival in June, but the owner was using a not-yet-furnished room to store his family's bikes until tomorrow, and invited me to look around while the door was open.
I came through the festival on the way home from church, then went back to buy a Kelainey BBQ sandwich that we shared for lunch. I was somewhat surprised that there was no line. The food vendors were closed; perhaps everybody brought lunch?
I checked out the Zagster dock. Only two bikes were missing, and I didn't meet any white bikes on the trail. But then, I avoided the trail because of the crowd.
Something queer happened yesterday. I'm accustomed to finding a snarl at the nape of my neck, where shed hairs accumulate at the top of my braid. It isn't uncommon for me to skip a day of combing my hair — and there have been several occasions when I neglected it for longer; most notably when we went camping on Horseshoe Pond a few decades ago, and when we stopped in a restaurant on the way home, I came back to the table with my hair down because I didn't have the patience to re-braid it.
But I have never in my entire life found a solid mass of tangle at the back of my neck, and I've never been unable to unbraid it before combing. It's lucky that I was about to take a shower, because I had to put castor oil on the tangle to get it out. When I finally unsnarled it, I threw out a puff of white hair nearly as big as my head; I rather expected what remained to be darker than before, but my hair, as always, looked silvery from the front when I pinned it up this morning.
It reminded my of the spring, about thirty years ago, when I shed like a cat for a few days, getting handfulls of hair every time I combed. It never did grow back.
I came through a cloud of cottonwood fluff on one of my returns from the festival, but I haven't seen any action out of our trees yet. There are still male blossoms all over everything. (At least those don't stick to my feet! Well, they wipe off on the doormat.)
I sorted the laundry onto the hallway floor. The pile of one dog blanket and two cat blankets has an unconscious cat on top. I've been postponing putting in the next load, but can't do so much longer. Perhaps I should put the pieces that haven't been bound yet on the hallway floor before I begin.
The larger of the two willow limbs in the park is still attached to the tree. It would be good to cut off the branches so that they can begin drying up fit to burn, but I don't think I'll do it. I picked up a couple of splinters and put them beside the fire place.
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I did put the unbound pieces into the hallway, but Al woke up just before I would have needed to disturb him.
Gone be three loads today. I have a sheet and three pillowcases on the line, but Weather Underground says that I should take them in before I take my nap. It also says that tomorrow would be a good day to redeem my coupon for free eggs, and that I have a pretty good chance of going to the farmers' markets and the Festival of Lakes on Saturday, but shouldn't dilly dally.
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By great good fortune, I was outside when it began to rain and got the sheet and pillowcases in before they got wetter. Next question was where do I dry a king-size sheet indoors? The edges get accordion-pleated if I dry something that big in the tumble dryer.
We left the shower-curtain rod in Dave's washroom for just such an emergency, but even when folded into quarters, it's in the way. Since I'm about to take a nap, I could take my work off the ironing board and drape it there.
Which I did, but I didn't get the sheet off the ironing board until yesterday.
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What a disappointment! Observing that today would be sunny and dry and hardly any wind, I spent the early part of the week wondering where I could go. We needed a few things from Aldi, but that's a very short trip. Finally inspiration struck — I could go to Aldi by way of Pierceton and have a bowl of that wonderful unsweetened tomato soup that the Odd Fellows Cafe sells.
Alas, they have gone over to the dark side. Not only did they put enough sugar in the soup that it was hard to tell it from ketchup, they made the croutons out of some sort of dessert bread. Some of them had caramelized when they were toasted!
Well, after all these decades of eating syrup because there is nothing else, I was not only able to eat it, but to enjoy it — but when I ride twenty miles to get a bowl of soup, I feel entitled to something better than what I could get out of a can.
The service was great, though, despite a sign saying that they were short a server and a cook.
Aside from that it was a lovely trip. I dipped down to Wilcox road and 350 South, thereby avoiding the unpleasant traffic on Pierceton Road. The weather was perfect, and hardly any hills. I did walk a long way at one place, but the hill I couldn't climb was very short — I was afraid I would sprain something if I tried to start the bike on an upslope. I think that the long walk was just after I turned onto 100 S, and on most of 100 S, I got up enough speed on the downslopes that I didn't need to shift down for the following hill, and once I climbed a hill without pedalling at all.
My notes mention only two garage sales, but I'm sure that I stopped at at least three. Also went into an antique store in Pierceton, but didn't see anything to interest me but books, and my eyes aren't that good. Not to mention that there is no space on my shelves.
I tried the door at James Townsend & Sons, but it was locked. They do most of their business by mail order, but I like to look around in there.
I saw a sign that said "Huge Tent Sale" as I was passing through Pierceton, but didn't see any tent and went on. When I read the E-Times Union in the middle of last night, I found the address in the garage-sale ads. But I had a pleasant ride without it, and got home just barely in time for supper, so it's just as well.
I'm limping on the other foot today. While undressing in the dark and piling my clothes on the walker, I shook my foot for a reason that never made it into long-term memory, and gave a wheel of the walker a good hard kick. One of my toes has a red streak with a blue streak through it this morning, but only on top, so I don't think I broke a bone. And it's already less sore than it was when I woke up.
We used to have a pan suitable for soaking feet — I wonder whether I can find it.
It was after three before I could get to sleep last night. Seems that I always have trouble sleeping when I have skipped my nap — I wonder whether I get kicked into a "they may be sneaking up on you" mode when I skip a sleeping time.
Two disappointments and one pleasant surprise.
I didn't mind when the Courthouse Farmers' Market wasn't there, but I am much puzzled. My first thought was that they were in the pavilion at the Lakes Festival, and wondered why they hadn't left a forwarding address on the sign that says that they are at the courthouse every Saturday, but the Pavilion was set up for some sort of dinner, and I didn't see anything I'd seen at the Farmers' Market anywhere at the festival.
The pleasant surprise: as I was fumbling my way toward Lakeview Plaza on my way home, I noticed that I'd come onto Winona close to Chimps, so I went in and took a lap, and a pro-forma peek at two or three of the titles in the fifty-cent boxes of comix; there was a time when one could find funnybooks there. Then when I came out, I was across the street from Carniciera San Jose, so I peeked in the window, saw grocery carts, and ventured in. (My Spanish isn't good enough to determine that the place isn't a restaurant — and there *is* a small restaurant at the back, but mostly it's a grocery.) Lo and behold, they sell the La Preferada Spanish Style tomato sauce that I've been looking for ever since I bought some at Marsh's closing sale. And it's quite cheap; I bought four cans. I also bought a can of Embassa Salsa Casera on impulse.
At suppertime I opened the salsa, thinking that we'd use a few drops on our tacos instead of Frank's Red Hot sauce, but we ate three-fourths of the seven-ounce can. I may go back for more.
Thence to International Foods, by way of Sherman & Lin's, intending to buy fresh ginger to make switchel, now that the weather is hot, and stock up on ramen.
The ginger didn't look as nice as it did a few weeks ago, but it was still good. I selected a root with a sprout on it, then cut off that lobe (thereby verifying that the ginger is still flavorful and juicy) and buried it in the raised herb bed with the sprout sticking out. I don't imagine that a tropical plant will do anything in this climate, and the sprouted asparagus is way behind those that stayed dormant until planted, but it will be interesting to see what happens. I put the rest in a container of water in the fridge.
Now the second disappointment: there weren't half as many ramen soups as there were on my last visit, and one of the missing soups is the Philippine marrow-bone soup I like so much. Worse, I couldn't find one soup that wasn't sweetened. But some of the soups had sugar well down on the ingredient list, and I bought half a dozen. I'd intended to fill up my pannier, as I did last time.
Back from the barbecue. We missed the men after a while, then realized that they were inside watching the race.
I've been reading a story in Friday's paper about the planned SR 30 bypass bypass. It says one person asked "what about farmland?" — no sweat, fellow; it will be exactly as it has always been. They will take whatever they want to take and pay whatever they feel like paying, and they won't pay one dime for land that is chopped up into unusable bits or otherwise spoiled without actually being taken.
Nobody mentioned that "limited access" means limited crossings, or that such crossings as exist are often not available to pedestrians and bike riders. But by the time I'm confined to one half of the county, I'll be too old to leave the house without an escort anyway.
The first line in the story at the bottom of the page made me flinch and turn away. Why do reporters find it impossible to report on the misuse of a gun without saying "opened fire"?
What's wrong with "Someone shot and injured one adult and one child at a suburban Indianapolis middle school before being taken into custody."?
Quite a lot, actually, but it's shorter and more clear than the paragraph actually printed, it conveys all the information in that paragraph, and it would be pointless for me to do a proper edit.
The ad in the bottom right corner of page 3A reminds me that I was near the corner of Fort Wayne and Buffalo at 11:00 on Saturday, but I hadn't put "eat chicken at the Legion Hall" on my itinerary. Probably wouldn't have bought chicken if I'd remembered; one order was too much to eat on the spot, and it was too hot to carry meat all over town.
Took a peek at the Ink-Free News before lying down, and the top story was a poll on the flame war over racing at the fairground. Ink Free says that ninety-two percent of the responders think racing should be allowed, and only eight percent are unaware that the fairground was there first.
Yesterday, I threw Al into the house and he took his frustration out by clawing his paper bed. It looks just the same, so that may not be the first time he's used it as intended.
I forget whether it was yesterday or the day before that it snowed cottonwood fluff.
I haven't seen any more evidence that the Zagster bikes are being used, but tourist season has barely begun. I can't think of anybody but a tourist who would want to rent a bike. There's a rack near the college, but those guys all have their own bikes.
The park department disposed of the willow limb for us. We'll have to call Beaver Dam to take down the hanger and neaten the stubs. The eastern trunk of the tree is so badly damaged from having that huge limb ripped off that it ought to be cut off at the base. That will probably be expensive. [$1800] But it should reduce the number of blown-off limbs.
YAAAYYY! Today's paper says that the eyesore Marsh left behind is going to be renovated and occupied.
On the other hand, the art-deco school in Silver Lake has been neglected until the only option is to tear it down.
At Big R, I didn't realize that the fountain where I was re-filling a bottle was sputtering onto my hand until my left glove was saturated. By the time I got to Wabash Electric, my gloves nearly matched — and the left one hadn't dried all that much. Aside from getting wet, I didn't notice the heat.
But I undressed into the washing machine and took a shower as soon as I got home. It's lucky that I bought a box of chicken salad at Aldi; it was time to eat when I got home, so Dave had a chicken-salad sandwich while I was cleaning myself up.
What with this, that, and the other it was nearly noon before I set off — eight minutes before twelve, to be exact — so I stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. I love taco salad, but thought it a bit much to eat before getting back on the bike, and I couldn't quite see the taco menu, so I ordered a nacho with an intriguing name. It turned out to be taco salad, hold the lettuce.
On the way home from Aldi, I dashed into Owen's for a quart of half-and-half, and decided that since I had only one item, I'd try the self-serve checkout. Everything went perfectly, and I wasn't confused by any cue — until it was time to print my receipt. The screen said "processing, please wait". I waited and waited and my taquitos thawed and thawed; eventually I grabbed my bottle of cream, told the attendant (who was busy with another customer) to throw my receipt out if it ever appeared, and left. I think I'll continue to insist on using the attended check-out lines. Those registers jam too, but they have buttons and people who know which ones to push.
Just checked the FedEx page. I was wrong, my four yards of linen from Earth City MO, which left Indianapolis yesterday, have not been sent to South Bend.
They are in Belleville, Michigan.
And this morning, FedEx says they gave it to the Warsaw post office at 12:13.
Um . . . Warsaw?
Whatever, it's too late for today's mail, which has probably been in the truck for hours.