I stuffed a poblano for supper, and declared that I'll buy another poblano the next time I go downtown.
I discovered at the last minute that we are out of potatoes, so I used a frozen potato patty as part of the bed of root vegetables. Dave liked it better than fresh potato, and I found it acceptable. Baking it under sauce revealed that it was mashed potatoes posing as shredded potatoes, but it soaked up a lot of flavor.
Carrot sticks and two cippolino onions completed the root-vegetable bed. I put brussel sprouts and snap peas around the edges.
I need to make an Aldi run soon. We are out or almost out of about every vegetable except frozen peas and fresh onions, and low on fizzwater and laundry soap. But we're well stocked on canned goods.
Yesterday I washed, today I shopped. I spent ten hours in bed last night and woke up feeling pretty good, but I hadn't been out of bed long at the time I'd meant to roll. This pushed shopping well into nap time, and when I did get down, I didn't sleep and felt stupid in the evening.
Spent over a hundred dollars at Aldi — and that doesn't include the fizzwater, which I bought before shopping so it would be on the bottom in the trunk.
Two bags of frozen stuff, including some breaded "stuffed jalapeños" that I served four of with a can of chicken corn chowder for supper. The toaster oven was dirty, so I baked them in my smallest skillet on the stovetop for twenty or thirty minutes, and I think I'll cook the remaining two that way too. (I'd had three for lunch, after eating a food bar in the car.)
The only frozen vegetable I bought was corn, but I did buy celery, carrots, an avocado, bite-size potatoes, and mini-sweet peppers. Perhaps I should have bought some frozen broccoli, but I had my heart set on brussels sprouts.
I had to make an emergency run for canned cat food yesterday. While had the car at Kroger, I picked up brussels sprouts and other frozen food.
I also bought two pork chops intending to simmer them in gravy tonight, but they not only didn't have enough fat to make gravy, I felt obliged to drape a slice of bacon over them when I baked them.
I dithered over putting the lid on the skillet before I put the chops into the oven — does that make them cook faster or slower? Faster, I think, because it keeps the steam in. After popping the uncovered skillet into the oven, I spent twenty minutes leafing through the Joy of Cooking and came out none the wiser.
Aside from the brussels sprouts, all the vegetables in the skillet came from the Aldi run. I forgot to put in mini-sweet peppers. But I did put in three slices of green jalapeño. Oops, that came from Carneceria San José. And I've no idea where I got the cippolinos. I made two trips around the produce section at Owen's, and didn't see any. I did see some shallots, which would be an acceptable substitute, but didn't buy any.
I meant to ride my bike to Walmart today, just to see how the roundabout is coming and because I'm almost as low on exercise as on cippolinos — the last two are in the oven.
But I looked out the window while dressing and didn't at all like the idea of walking up McElroy hill with snow on the ground, so I put an unwanted kit case into my pannier for the shorter ride to Goodwill, but Dave was so upset that I'd go out when snow was falling that I took the kit case out of the pannier, put in a can of sauce and a bottle of baking powder that I'd bought by mistake (on two separate occasions), and went to Our Father's House instead.
I rarely stop in Lakeview Plaza because I'm either on my way somewhere or tired when I pass it, so I looked into every shop window and went into the second-hand store where the tackle shop used to be. Lo and behold, the first thing I saw when I stepped inside was a very small apple-shaped dish with turned-up edges. I've been saying for weeks that we need a saucer with turned-up edges so Al could lick his food without licking it onto the floor.
There was no price tag; I decided to look at everything else before asking. I found a pressed-glass heart-shaped tray with even higher sides, but a sharp angle between the side and the bottom, but very heavy so it would be sure to stay put. When I showed them to Dave, he said both were ash trays. On closer inspection, the stem of the apple is a clear-cut cigarette holder. The heart-shaped piece *could* be an ash tray, but it could equally well be a candy dish. I hadn't asked.
There was a tag saying "$1" on the heart. I picked it up and returned to the apple dish, which was right beside the cash register, and waited for him to dispose of a couple of customers who had come in after I did.
When I asked how much the apple was, he said that there were two of them. So I picked up both and asked again, and he said "four dollars". He didn't seem much interested in making the sale: I had to calculate the sales tax myself, I had to tell him twice that I didn't need a bag, and I didn't get a receipt.
Al has now eaten out of all three dishes, and they seem to be a success. No crumbs all over that I have to sweep back together for him.
Now to see how the apple works for giving him his medicine. I don't think the heart would be good because the bottom is quite flat. I may put it on the Goodwill shelf.
And I may take the aid-kit case up to the attic and put it into the Buick bag with the dopp-kit bags. I wouldn't even have to change the list taped to the folding staircase.
According to the ten-day forecast, the next sunny dry day will be on Tuesday. Again. The day when I don't feel like riding because I've just done the wash.
What's all this with having low winds only at night?
I should have allowed longer than an hour for the chops to cook. They were very good when I finally took them out of the oven.
After prolonged Duck-Ducking, I have decided that if I buy such thick chops again, I will bake forty or fifty minutes with the lid on, and twenty or thirty after taking it off.
There is plenty for another meal left. The stuff stuck to the skillet looked so good that I made butter gravy to get it off. I left one slice of jalapeño, some celery slices, and maybe some other vegetables in. Since I didn't want to dye it yellow with Goya chicken boullion, I put in an entire tub of Knorr jellied stock, which made it salty but not too salty. Perhaps for lunch I'll slice some chop into it and have it on toast.
I used to like Knorr cubes and powder, but now they are based on MSG instead of salt, and I don't like being able to taste MSG in my food.
Just saw a poster saying "The first black woman to ever attend an integrated elementary school is now only 62 years old."
I missed the "only" at first glance, and thought the point would be "after all this time, why are we still segregated?"
Refusing to say "nigger" doesn't help if you are still thinking it. And it really, really doesn't help to be more conscious of skin color than nineteenth-century bigots were for fear of saying something that could be interpreted as "nigger".
It was only a few days ago that I realized that the image from the back-up camera in our car is reversed, so that it behaves the same way as a rear-view mirror.
Good design is design that you don't notice.
I went on a dump tour today, and found a cat dish in Goodwill. I'm pretty sure that it isn't an ash tray, and don't know what it is, but it's better than any of the dishes that I looked at in the cat-food department at Meijer after lunch at Panda Express.
I'd meant to eat at Wong's today, but was eating a "kids' meal" before I remembered.
Just as well: I'd have had to eat indoors at Wong's, and I was not dressed for that.
There was a bit of a breeze that chilled my noodles, but the shanghai beef was shielded by the lid of the box and at least stayed above ambient. I ate with my face down in the box — in full view of U.S. 30.
Cold food beats getting soaked in sweat and then going back into the cold.
While I was gallivanting around, Dave was getting Mohs surgery on his lip. They got it on the first pass, so he got home while I was still in Meijer.
He's been drinking through a straw to keep the bandage dry, but he can shower it off about eleven.
Since I'd been walking around in Goodwill and Meijer for two hours, I went home the straightest way, which took me past Fribley Field.
I'm aware of the name of that playground because I used to get a flat every time I went to the dollar store, and had to call Dave from the pay phone put up for the children.
I pulled off the road to look at the "parking lane" that had been mentioned in a newspaper story, and was standing exactly in front of the two posts left behind when they took the phone out when Dave sent me a text message.
I wondered what he'd think when I responded "Fribley Field", but he'd put his phone on charge and didn't get the message.
It's all white out there, and still coming down, but the radar and the weather service say that it's going to stop soon.
Like, before I finished writing.
We hadn't swept behind the blanket box in ages, so I pulled it out into the bedroom and took this opportunity to find out what's in it. (The lid doesn't open all the way when it's in the closet.)
We have a *lot* of bedding, all of it for beds smaller than ours. There also appears to be a linen tablecloth, at least a piece of white damask. If someone wants my collection of linespun-linen tablecloths, be sure to ask for that one.
And some Beeson should have his name on the back of the blanket box to guide our executor. I should ask Dave to write down the story of how Claude made it, and put it in the box.
I found the wool tights that I'd thought were in the mending basket, but not the alpaca tights I was looking for. Time to take the printer and stuff off my hope chest.
My cedar chest has no story with it; I bought it new, so it can go to either side of the family, or an antique store. Oddly, I don't remember having it or putting stuff in it when I was a teenager. Just having it around the house and remembering that it was my hope chest. I vaguely remember buying it.
It needs refinishing, but the way we use it covers it up so much that it would be a waste of time to do it. And the lock jams, so I took it off and put it into a pill pouch and left it in the tray.
Well, clearing off the chest wasn't as much trouble as I expected; the printer has a long cord and doesn't weigh much, and there were only two other items.
No alpaca tights, but I found a sunbonnet-girl needle book that belonged to Mother and photographed it for Rough Sewing.
I also found two of Dad's handkerchiefs. Mom made table napkins out of sacks during the depression, and embroidered an "L" in the corner of each one. They were nice and soft by the time we could afford paper napkins, so Dad wore them out as pocket handkerchiefs, and two survived long enough for me to nab them.
And the apron I made in first-year 4-H, which Alice found in the Scircleville house after she moved in. Nancy made me a dress to wear under it at the fashion show, and I took a prize — none of which she remembered fifty years later.
And a hostess apron that Mom made me and I never wore it because I never give parties. I bought a black skirt to show it off once, but as I was on the way out the door I remembered: "Wait a minute! One simply *does not* wear an apron to someone else's party!" and took it off.
Alice wore hers out. Perhaps I should give mine to one of her grandchildren.
Or buy another black skirt and give a party.
Hey! I could wear it next Fourth of July — when it's dark and nobody could see it. Well, the embroidery *is* white. But red is black after sunset.
Spent the whole morning adding a link to one of my Web pages, and didn't finish until evening. And I just now discovered three broken links to my own pages.
They still go to Xfinity, which no longer offers Web site storage. We have our own domain name on Peaky now. And "wlweather" will be obsolete when Dave takes down his weather pages a few years from now.
Perhaps I should say instead that the name will be "historical".
Dave energetically cleaned house all morning and is repairing the toilet.
I changed the sheets on the bed and marked the backs of the gloves that I bought at Stock and Field (Big R) on Saturday.
I dropped one of my white gloves on the way home from the theater a few weeks ago, and never found it. Such gloves are very cheap — I paid $0.78 for the replacement — but you can't just buy them. But on Saturday, I lucked into a pair. And they have wrists a half-inch longer than the wrist of the glove that I lost.
It's really hard to find yellow gloves of any style — except for work gloves that aren't intended to keep your hands warm. So I buy any that I see, and have three pairs — all of the cheap acrylic stretch-glove style, but they weren't $0.78.
And they've got conductive fingertips.
I made flat buns for the third time yesterday, and I think that I now have it figured out. I should write up the recipe so I don't forget it before the next time I bake.
I think that what I really need is a set of flatbun-size muffin tins.
I just did a Web search on the brand name of the slippers I bought at Goodwill on Saturday. They cost $79.99 new.
We were saying "Hey, this is stupid" all the way to Mad Anthony's, but we got home with no incident, except that I couldn't figure out how to get out of the car when there was a stream in the gutter, and when we started home, I couldn't find the handle to help me get back in. (When feeling around for it, I forgot that it folds flat when not in use.) It didn't help that I felt rushed both times because snow was blowing into the car.
We had a plate of jambalaya and a basket of fried seafood and two empty plates. And we each got a string of beads.
When I hung my beads on the hook, I wondered: I can't have been to Mardi-Gras six times before; I'm sure it was only three. Perhaps half the beads are Dave's.
Mardigras beads look good on my black raw-silk shirt.
This was an eventful day for Dave: in the morning, he went to Elkhart to see a physician's assistant for five minutes. He'd intended to stop at Chili's on the way back, but it was snowing enough by then that he thought it wiser to drive straight home.
It wasn't snowing much here when I walked to the bank to cash a check. I'm glad I did it early in the day.
A good day to stay home and sew. So far, I've taken the sheet that I washed on Monday and left out on the line a few minutes too long off the ironing board, folded it, and put it away.
And I've switched the ceiling fixture to an outlet that can handle having an iron plugged into it.
I think I'll take a nap.
Hey! That's *yesterday's* weather I see out the window!
Perhaps it's just as well that the driveway clearer can't get here until three o'clock. But there is little wind, and we can get out over an even layer of snow, so plowing the drifts sooner would have worked.
We still seem to be on track to have a dry day and clear roads on Saturday.
But today, I'm not mailing the letter I wrote yesterday and addressed, sealed, weighed, and stamped this morning.
I'm set up to sew the hem I pinned yesterday. Dave is in the shop making a screen to filter cat litter.
We have started using a bentonite litter that can be scooped out leaving the rest clean, but Al mostly sprays the side of the box, which glues the clumps on, so the only way to clean the box is to pour the loose litter into another box.
We're still using corncobs and pellet litter in the other box. I've cleaned that one and leaned it against the air filter, so it's ready for the bentonite.
Stock & Field didn't continue the corncob litter Big R sold, so we'll have to go all pellet if another source of corncobs doesn't show up. It's a pity that I can't remember the name of the *good* corncob litter Big R sold many years ago. It was Uncle Somebody's Critter Litter, but "Uncle" is far from being a good key word for a Web search. And "Critter Litter" doesn't do any better.
⁂
Tried again before my nap, and learned that, according to one "expert", cleaning the box once a month is sufficient, and throwing out a pellet that isn't filthy is wasteful.
Duh! When I resumed cleaning out the wet bentonite after my nap, I took the floor-scrubbing brush out with me. The job was *much* easier!
The screen Dave made works great.
The new sheet is hemmed, folded, and in the linen closet.
Only the wall the snowplows built across the end of the drive needed plowing, but the guy with the pickup cleaned the whole drive while he was at it.
Thirty years ago, the snowplow wall wouldn't have been a problem. But now we both have sciatica.
I've got a glass loaf pan of left-over baked beans in the oven, with two hot dogs and two partial strips of bacon. And three left-over fried slices of jalapeño.
⁂
I've been reading the letters to the editor, and having second thoughts about allowing the letters I wrote for publication to appear in such company.
I felt pretty good when I got home a little before six, but at seven, I think my double-strength tea is wearing off.
I refueled at Freedom Express in Leesburg, and again at the pretzel stand in Walmart. I bought pizza both times, and Dave had the leftovers for supper. They kept very well at ambient temperature.
The Black Ice I took along with the idea that I'd buy frozen duck confit meat didn't thaw a bit. Alas, I failed to read the e-mail that I printed out and took along: down at the bottom it says "closed on Saturday".
I finally found out where I got the "hoppin' John" that we liked so much: Walmart. I bought two cans.
And we ate one of them for supper tonight.