Two loads of wash yesterday. It had been a short week, but I took a king-size sheet off the bed, and washed all the cases that had been on pillows in the closet.
Come sunset, everything was dry, folded, and put away, including the socks I usually forget in the dryer. And all the pillows were cased and back on the shelf — including one or two that belonged on the bed, but now that they are neatly stacked, it's easy to find and remove the desired pillow.
In the evening, I didn't have enough intellectual capacity to slice vegetables, so I did that this morning, and put a timer set for eight hours on the bowl. First, I went out to the garden and dug up a clump of giant garlic. I was surprised that the cloves weren't much bigger than the cloves of commercial garlic, then I remembered that it's been years since I had a use for giant garlic, and I'd dug up a *clump*. I must remember to thin them next spring.
I also learned, somewhat late in the procedure, that garlic is much easier to slice with a knife than with a mandoline. I included both jalapeños, three mini-sweet peppers, the two largest of the cucumbers Dave picked Sunday, and some token slices of carrot and onion. I plan to leave the sugar out, and cut back on the spices in the vinegar. Possibly just mustard seed and bay leaf. I may add some cracked black pepper.
Saved by the bell! Just as I was thinking that I had time to assemble an eggplant lasagna, Dave came home from getting the oil changed and plunked a bunch of grocery bags on the counter — one of which contained some fresh hamburger that he wants to eat with one of the tomatoes in the garden tonight.
Our appointments for September are all on Wednesdays. Tomorrow we see the tax man, Al goes to the vet next week, and Dave's preliminaries are the Wednesday after that. The rest of September and all of October are clear, so far.
There's a do in Central Park this Saturday; I hope I remember to go by the park on my way home from the farmers' markets.
I'll go to Rentown again when we've eaten all the nut butter. It would have been more fun with company, but the young folks all have to work on week days. There was a tour bus in the parking lot when I arrived, and I saw at least three smaller busses while I was there despite not spending much time in the parking lot — if it's like that on a Thursday, I don't want to go on a Saturday. I didn't notice the bus passengers while inside, and there was plenty of parking space.
I did notice that the store had noticed bus passengers when I saw that the free samples had a note that they were samples, please take only one. And a further note saying that you shouldn't open packages that you don't mean to buy, but get your samples from the containers marked "samples".
It was less than an hour each way, and not a peep out of my rotator cuff — possibly because our GPS tolled me off my plan to take US 30. I got to the entrance, and it said to turn left on Winona instead of going straight on Argonne; I shrugged and reflected that going out Old 30 was one of the routes I'd considered. It took me up Lake Street through the stoplightiest part of town. On the return trip, I was tempted to turn off at Zimmer Road, but reflected that Winona between Zimmer and Buffalo isn't all that great, stuck by the recommended route, and made most of the lights.
As I was approaching Atwood, the map on the GPS appeared to be planning to take me all the way to Bourbon the way Google had wanted to, so that I could go up on 331 and come back on 3b. So I turned off on 800 W. 800 W turned out to be a poor road, not in the best repair, and weeds made it impossible to tell whether there was a shoulder or a tire half off the pavement would roll you into the ditch. And I met at least three trucks that needed more than their half. So I was pleased to turn left the third or fourth time I was told, instead of continuing to 1350N/3b as I'd intended. I was less pleased to be guided onto a gravel road. On my way back, I was twice told to turn off County Line Road onto gravel, and twice I said "Nope, nope, nope. I'm going south and that's good enough." County Line is fairly decent, though definitely not meant for heavy traffic.
Eventually County Line T'd onto a paved road, and that took me to SR 19 just north of Etna Green.
There's a restaurant in Etna Green that's been reborn a couple of times since we've been there. I hope I remember that until our next special occasion.
There are a lot of places to gallivant around to near Rentown, but I finished shopping so early that I could get home in time for my nap, so I got into the car and said "voice command, go home". Didn't get much rest at nap time; when I saw that I wasn't going to need to sleep in the trunk, I drank half a bottle of very strong tea with my lunch.
Which was potato salad, crackers, and almond butter. When I put my purchases into the Wheelie Cool, I discovered that I'd bought potato salad twice.
I also bought some smoked Gouda, outside slices jumbled into a bag. We had some on sandwiches for supper. I'd also bought a loaf of unsliced bread and a package of sliced ham. The Gouda tastes more like ham than ham does.
Tomorrow is First Friday. I could walk that far now, but Dave's cold is four days younger. And I haven't the foggiest idea what this month's theme is.
We've already eaten most of the loaf of unsliced bread I bought yesterday, so I won't have to freeze it. After noting that, I remembered that we have a frozen-food knife, and emptied the knife drawer finding out that we still have it. Not quite what I'd remembered: it's a hacksaw set into a knife blade, not at all suitable for slicing bread. Also found a bread knife that I thought might make fewer crumbs than the one on the magnet, and left it out.
We still have the set of three stainless-steel kitchen knives with aluminum handles that we got as a wedding present. At the last minute we realized that we hadn't provided a knife to cut the cake with — organdy aprons for the servers, but no knife! Aunt Doris found that set of knives among the presents and taped a bow from one of the gifts to the butcher knife.
There are *two* filet knives, and we have no use for either. So if you're thinking of taking up fishing, drop in.
More steak knives than you can shake a stick at, and one Japanese butcher knife still in the box. I wish I'd bought an extra one of the short, wide knives; I've almost worn out the one I use all the time. The butcher knife I used in Hawaii is still going strong, though not quite so long and wide as the one in the box.
Two potato peelers, one with the back of the blades notched like a fish scaler, on a smaller scale. I wonder what *that* is for? Also a fish scaler that I will press upon the first guy who takes a filet knife. Two clam knives, both of them thinner than the ones on the magnet. Perhaps I should have kept one of them out.
I did keep out the mysterious knife, but Dave can't identify it either. It looks as though you are supposed to slice something, then serve the slices with the fork on the end, but it's too short to slice meat. It has a white plastic handle like a paring knife, and the blade is a rectangle of sheet steel a tad more than four and a half inches long and a bit more than half an inch wide. The end is notched, with half a notch on each side to make a two-pronged fork. One edge is sharpened on both sides between the fork and the handle. It's been used and re-sharpened.
Over-all length is almost nine inches.
The wavy knife did cut bread well, and at suppertime I found that it works even better on a ripe tomato. Then I noticed an etching on the blade: it's supposed to be a frozen-food knife.
I went to two farmer's markets —bought peppers at both— wandered around the "safety day" at Central Park, dropped magazines at the emergency room, browsed a rummage sale, bought an oval griddle at a garage sale, stopped at the grocery store, and forgot to check to see what was going on at today's festival. Something was going on in the park parking lot when I left. I didn't notice anything on the way back, but I sprinted through the village to keep up with the traffic. Also I'd bought a couple of frozen entrees and was in a hurry to get home and unpack.
Yesterday's paper has finally uploaded.
Dave commented a few weeks ago that most of the stories in the Times-Union are word-for-word the same as stories on News Now.
Yesterday I noticed a typo in a story on News Now. The Times-Union has the same typo.
Totally tasteless joke that was posted at the height of Dorian:
"Yes, we have no Bahamas"
I wonder how old you have to be to get the joke.
Google Maps says the Warsaw office of the Red Cross is permanently closed, so I don't know where to go to pay my fine for laughing. I guess I'll have to mail it.
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All the wash was off the line and put away before suppertime. Except Dave's socks, and they are folded now. And they were never on the line, since Dave likes them tumble dried.
I asked Dave to bring home corn for supper, then forgot to bake it. Just as well, since hamburgers with slices of the tomato Dave grew left us overstuffed. I might make corn cakes for breakfast. But we always eat too much when I make corn cakes.
I buried a squirrel today. It delayed my nap just enough that I was still up when Donny called. We visited a bit, and I told him that we were having the contract to sell the farm drawn up tomorrow.
This evening, I sliced up the last of the cucumbers, two jalapeños, a carrot, and four mini-sweets to make sweet-spice bread-and-butters in the morning. (The appointment with the lawyer is in the afternoon.)
I *think* it was two jalapeños; one of them looked more like the basket of un-named hot peppers I bought at the fairgrounds market.
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A story in Ink-Free News says that the one-way hill on 150 is called McElroy Hill. (The south slope provides a place for little old ladies to walk; the north slope doesn't.)
The pickles came out a little zingy. I suspect that one of the peppers wasn't a jalapeño.
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Probably won't be too long before the contract is signed. On the advice of a CPA, we are taking the money in five annual installments.
On the way home, we stopped at Owen's to pick up levothyroxin and fenofibrate.
Dave, noting that it was only a little after two, let me out and went to Wings. After a bit, I reflected that I was dressed for walking and had been wanting to go to the Spice Merchant. But I'd gotten only ten feet from the door when I realized that I didn't want to walk that far when I had a perfectly-good pedestrian accelerator in the garage, so I wheeled it out, started to mount, and didn't want the hems of my better jeans rubbing on the crankset, so I went back in for the safety pins in the pocket of my pajama-looking jeans, but it's just as easy to change pants, but the flowered shirt I had on looks just terrible with flowered pants, so I changed my shirt too. That time I made it all the way out of the driveway, but as I entered the park, I realized that I hadn't changed the stale water in my bottle, but what reminded me was the sight of the fancy three-button fountain: drinking, dog bowl, and bottle.
Had to empty the bottle into the drinking fountain; there's no sink under the bottle tap, only an inch-wide drain.
Wandered all over the village, and Spice Merchant did have whole coriander. After buying it I remembered that I won't want any coriander until next pickle season.
I saw a couple of neat tricycles at the Trail House. One of them was a recumbent-front tandem. It looked as though the stoker's handlebars could move. They must have been not yet screwed firmly; they certainly weren't connected to the steering gear.
Dave was on the porch when I got back, and amenable to having supper a bit early, so I parked my coriander, put a box and some bungee cords into my basket, and went back to Sweet Dreams for a turkey "swiss melt" for us to share.
It was really, really drippy and really, really good.
Al has arthritis in his lower back (caudal back?) and hasn't been drinking enough water. She also gave us a sample pack of kidney-disease foods; I opened a packet of dry food as soon as we got home. Al, who had sniffed his Perfect Weight and walked on while I was looking at the sample pack, gobbled it right up.
So I refilled the dish and gave him a saucer of water I flavored with a dab of canned food, and now he's having his after-lunch nap. I have eaten half of a peanut-butter sandwich (with sliced onion and sweet-spice with hot-pepper bread-and-butters) and plan to join him soon even though it's only 11:47.
A corny day. I finally had time to make corncakes for breakfast. I scraped two ears of corn, stirred in two eggs, and fried patties in altogether too much butter. Dave had a small piece of the excellent ham that I bought at Rentown; I had a pre-cooked link of sausage.
And this evening I remembered to bake an ear of corn to go with the Hungry Man dinner we are sharing.
That leaves three ears of the half dozen.
Finally had time to sew!
I worked a bar tack to replace one that had given way on a pocket.
Before supper, I went out to do some hand-basting on the porch, but before I could thread my needle the wind changed and I started getting wet, so I dumped the project on the rocking chair.
Yesterday I baked an ear of corn to have with an Atkins dinner we shared. I put the last caraway-seed bun into the toaster oven for the last few minutes, and it was good with the chicken margharita soup.
There is one ear of corn left. I think I'll bake it to go with the bacon-and-tomato sandwiches we are having for supper tonight.
I've learned that it takes an hour in the toaster oven to get an ear of corn hot. I start it at one-fifty and raise the thermostat every five minutes until it's four hundred. Surprisingly, only one layer of shucks gets scorched, usually only those that were loose, and the inner shucks are only steamed. I cut off the stem and some of the silk end to make it fit into the oven. And also snip off any sticky-out leaves at the ends of the shucks.
It was a relief to learn that Dave can eat supper. The rule is a perfectly-reasonable "nothing after midnight".
I'm too pooped to pontificate. We are all safe, and Dave probably doesn't need a new valve after all, at least not yet.
I forgot the ear of corn yesterday, but we were stuffed after eating the sandwiches. There was pre-cooked bacon left over, so we had pretty much the same thing tonight, except Dave had cole slaw instead of mayo and lettuce. I had a thicker slice of tomato than he did, and mopped the griddle I re-heated the bacon on with my bread.
Dave had half of an excellent fried-ham-and-swiss sandwich during his bed rest, and I ate the left overs, but we were both eager to get supper on the table when we got home at half-past five. During the day, I also had a sandwich at Tim Horton's, and a couple of the food bars in my purse.
When we got the water fountain after going to the new vet, I washed the stoneware water dish Al likes less intending to put it away or give it away.
It's a nice dish, but Al doesn't like to put his face in it. I thought it was because he can't see with his face in a deep dish, but a comment column on Breaking Cat News told me that it's because it bumps the ends of his whiskers and whiskers are sense organs — it would be like trying to eat while someone keeps flashing a bright light in your face, or randomly makes loud unpleasant noises.
I had boiled vinegar in the dish not too long ago, so the bottom was fairly clean, but the sides and rim were still limed up rather thoroughly. I sprayed the bowl with lime remover and left it on its side beside the sink, rotating it every time I passed to keep the sides wet. After a day or so, I scoured it with a scratcher (scratchers are called "stainless-steel sponges" on the box, and are a type of scouring pad) and repeated the treatment to little effect.
So I filled it level with water, put in a little vinegar, left it a couple of days, and scoured it with a scratcher again. The lime came off the rim and the parts that had already been blue, but the lower sides were still white. (The vinegar seems to have gotten all the rust out of the lime.) So I put in less water and more vinegar, just enough to cover the deposits, set it aside intending to bring the solution to a boil in the microwave after a while, and forgot about it for a couple of weeks.
Today I found Dave in the kitchen scraping off the last of the lime, so I washed it with an abrasive sponge and it looks quite new. Pity we haven't a use for it.
I can't take the other dish out of service that long because Al doesn't like the new fountain, but it isn't limed up much. I don't think it was very long ago that I boiled vinegar in it.
I can still stay out until eight o'clock, but the last quarter hour would be civil twilight. I'm not looking forward to switching from double daylight to daylight.
Dave is still tired, and I'm not all that ambitious.
Several things that should have been in the first load somehow made their way into the second. As a result, I have white lint on my best black T-shirt.
The high wind dried the clothes in a hurry, but made it very difficult to get them off the line. I grabbed the corner of the sheet at least half a dozen times before I managed to make it stay in my hand.
I ate only one taco for supper, but I'm overstuffed. Perhaps because I didn't get lunch until after one o'clock. It was a butterburger at Culver's, with a glass of tea.
I'm not fond of Culver's, but it's the only eating house between the animal shelter and Aldi.
The right-turn lane of Parker is torn up, but it didn't seem any harder than usual to cross 30.
I walked across Parker to get from Culver's to Aldi. In a vehicle, it's a bit of a tour. Luckily, the barrier down the middle of Parker is a walkway, and all four lanes of traffic stand still most of the time. But eastbound was moving fairly well when I came out of Aldi, despite that being where the digging is; perhaps because lunchtime was well over and it was still a couple hours before quitting time. For all I know, westbound was moving too. All my attention was on my side.
I felt dueless and dilatory today, so instead of doing anything useful, I baked two loaves of bread from a memorized recipe. Next time I'll put the whole batch of dough into one pan.
Or perhaps I'll have the energy to make half of it into flat buns. (I thought of it after the loaves were formed.)
It's been ages since I made bread, and even longer for Dave, so there was a lot of uncertainty and trepidation, but five cups of flour and one pint of water is a hard recipe to mess up. I added gluten, salt, lecithin, ascorbic acid, and yeast.
Extra gluten makes bread harder to mess up. I started baking at 550, and turned it down to 350 after five minutes.
I also cleaned up three of my Web pages.
And put away the last of Monday's laundry.
We split a Hungry Man for supper — and had hot bread for dessert.
And cold bread with canned gravy for breakfast. I put in too much ascorbic acid, but haven't mentioned it to Dave and he hasn't noticed. The bread isn't sour when toasted.
I suspect that the recipe calls for one eighth of what I put in.
The latest DNR newsletter says that it's sandhill crane season at Jasper-Pulaski from now through December. I'm not sure I want to go that far, particularly when the best viewing time is sunrise.
I wonder whether they would let you arrive at midnight and sleep in Goose Pasture? Be a good way to observe the sky, too; I'm pretty sure the state park doesn't see "light the night" as a virtue.
Well, not *in* the pasture; that's for the cranes.
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Today is dishwashing day, and it was my turn. There was a lot of silverware because Aldi switched to a cheaper source of "clear plastic cutlery", and other brands don't give me a clear enough look to see that they are any better. Those that I *can* see also have the objectionable ridges.
All of the plates were Al's. I wash his dish after he eats and put it over a pilot light to pasteurize, but now that we're trying to give him enough wet food that he doesn't eat much dry food, there isn't enough time between feedings to get by on one saucer.
When we started sneaking water into him, his condition improved immediately. I can usually get him to drink a teaspoon of water by crushing the left-over crumbs of his wet food into it.
I learned today that grinding lumpy cat food through a tea strainer does not render it edible.
I wasn't surprised to bring most of my corny corn bread home from the picnic — which was held in the Fellowship Hall on account of weather. When gathering the ingredients, I thought "Oh, red wheat is more flavorful than white wheat" and didn't reflect that mixing red wheat and yellow corn does not make an attractive color. And I also forgot that "butter pan generously" means "use the whole stick".
I *was* surprised that none of the PBL bread-and-butter pickles were taken.
For breakfast, I had a few slices of corn bread spread with Rentown peanut butter, a little butter on the peanut butter, and a slice of my sweet-spice pickles on top. I guess that was bread and butter-butter-bread-and-butter.
I picked a pepper off one of the volunteer peppers. It was yellow, a tad larger than a mini-sweet, had even fewer seeds, had thicker walls, and was delicious. There's another yellow pepper on that plant, one turning yellow on the other, and one or more green peppers on each.
Nearly four in the morning, and I'm too wound up to sleep, so I got up to write. I drove Dave to the emergency room at nine, and he drove us home about midnight. They have no clue as to what was causing the pain in his leg, but it's definitely *not* a blood clot, and that's all we needed to know.
Could be a random muscle spasm, or a belated protest against holding one position while the catheter was in. Dave wouldn't have gone in if his catherization were not so recent. One of the attendants was impressed that he had so little bruising.
I didn't realize I'd learned something cool until a few minutes ago. Upon hearing that Dave had aortic stenosis, one of the doctors grabbed the chance to listen to his heart — murmurs are exceedingly rare these days, he said, because they catch them young.
This is at least the second time I've put on socks in treatment room 20. I'm starting to feel territorial.
We're really glad that this was a wasted trip!
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I didn't wake up much later than usual. Beautiful day for drying clothes.
Dave said he doesn't need to fill his prescription for pain killer. I told him half of that comes of knowing that it isn't a blood clot; at least that's the way it worked when I learned that I had a broken clavicle when I'd thought it was my neck.
You *really* go to the head of the line when you come in on a scoop stretcher with sand bags around your head! And clavicles go clear to the back. I didn't even get fed or watered. (This was Albany Med.)
I regret to say that I'm very happy with the service at the KCH emergency room. They are prompt and accurate and considerate, but I'd a heap ruther that was hearsay!
The doctor who treated Dave's temporal arteritis several years ago said that the emergency-room doctor saved him from going blind.
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Dave just went off to get his carotids ultrasounded — possibly by the same woman who examined his leg last night. (Surely her shift has ended by now.) He said a while ago that whatever was going on in his leg has quit entirely. His description of the pain sounded like one of the pains I get from sciatica, but mine just plinks and stops before it begins. Seldom even startling.
Home again — took only half an hour. The woman who examined his leg was there, but somebody else examined his carotids.
I had started microwaving a Red Baron single pizza when he got home; he warmed up the other one.
Earlier:
Al: It's time for lunch, it's time for lunch, it's time for lunch.
I put down a wedge of Science Diet canned food.
Al sniffed the Science Diet.
Al: It's time for lunch.
Pouring a teaspoon of water on it didn't help.
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Al liked the venison food I gave him at nine. It's lumps in gravy, but the lumps are diced spam that doesn't hurt my finger when I crush them, and Al eats a lot of the lumps before I crush them. He got a very small serving because his cosequin was in it and I wanted to be sure he ate it all. I'll give him a bigger serving at ten.
Dave picked two more peppers today. I cut up one for the relish plate.
My pickled giant garlic isn't zingy at all. I should have stuck to the original plan to put in all the peppers. I think the only place I mentioned giant-garlic pickles is the Cookbook.
The high today was 89F. That must have been during my siesta. Al thought it a perfect day to take mama for a walk. Twice. The second time I had to go clear around the house. The first, we just zig-zagged back and forth on the patio.