I plan to put my wool split mittens into the second wash, then put them into the blanket box for the summer. Next fall, if I don't remember doing that, perhaps I'll remember writing this.
I had no idea how often I dribble on my chin when eating. Now that I put a dressing under the bandaid, to be sure that it doesn't stick to the tapes the doctor put on after taking the stitches out, I swear that that dressing reaches out and grabs food on its way into my mouth.
The walker has been a great help in this "no bending" time. I rest a foot on it while lacing up my shoes, and it moves back and forth if I bend or straighten my leg.
I was much pleased this morning to note that I not only have nails on all ten fingers, all ten of them needed clipping!
Dave has put the outside faucet on summer mode: a Y connector with levers to switch each side on and off. One can't leave anything attached to the faucet when it might freeze.
I wish I could remember exactly when we had the sycamore felled and the stump ground far below the surface. Despite being regularly mowed off, it's still trying to grow back.
Now I believe the story about the sycamore avenue springing up from logs used to make a corduroy road.
Forty minutes to roll-out. This time I remembered to put my water in a bike bottle so that I can sip while driving. I also remembered to make some tea to drink at nap time.
I packed a big lunch to eat after the appointment. No intention of eating it all, just providing a selection. A PBL-pickle and cheese sandwich, a fruit cake, a snack bag of cut apple, some food bars (both cookie and candy), and beef sticks in case I crave salt.
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I ate some of the sandwich, some of the apple, and a beef stick.
The prohibition against exerting myself goes on for two more weeks, but I CAN TAKE A SHOWER!!!!
All these eighty-mile drives are good for my character, but I don't want my character built up. I want my *legs* built up. Last Sunday, the third time of climbing the back staircase hurt.
I have to put a bandaid on my chin when I go outside — "sunscreen doesn't block wind" — but I don't have to wear it while I'm eating.
And just a bandaid on my nose *really* beats the great white blob that was peeled off yesterday. I get to take the bandaid off and wash my nose every day! Then I coat the graft with silvadene and cover it with a fresh band-aid.
Says in Wikipedia that I need to keep sun off the silvadene. The doctor just said to keep sun off the wounds.
Today was a beautiful overcast day, that is, dry and predicted to stay that way, so I washed a load in hot water with bleach and dried it on the line.
I had to put bleach in twice because my "smart" washing machine pumped the water out and made me start over.
That's one reason I won't buy a "smart" phone — my washing machine has taught me that a computer with no keyboard is nothing but bad news.
That, and nobody has ever mentioned anything "smart" phones do that I want done.
I should have saved that load of wash for today. Weather Underground says that it will be sunny through Tuesday, and from Thursday to the end of the forecast.
My chin has felt not-right when I greased it, and today I realized that a stitch that should have been removed was left in. Now that the chin isn't continuously covered with a bandaid, it's causing irritation. But I think I'll wait a few days before I ask Dave to take it out.
Perhaps I should put my bandaid back on before I take a nap.
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The chipmunk-size critter that bounced off our front window a while back is a red squirrel. I didn't see it today; I hope it continues to elude the black squirrels.
While we were eating baked pork ribs yesterday, Dave said "This is every bit as good as barbecued ribs, and it's a lot easier!"
Every time I bake meat, I ask myself why I don't do it more often.
I put the ribs that wouldn't fit into the roaster into the crock pot as soon as I got up this morning, and they have fallen to bits. I'd been thinking I'd have to take them out onto a plate to carve them.
The vegetables I put into the stew included two heads of winter-onion bulbils. I noticed them after I broke the last garlic in the herb bed and went to the garden for garlic scapes. Well, I went meaning to pull a bulb, but the scapes are developing and ought to be eaten.
I wonder whether the half bulb of garlic I left in the herb bed will regenerate?
Early last winter, I buried garlic that had started to spoil in the herb bed, and it's been convenient to have garlic plants close to the door and up where I don't have to bend over. If I have left-over garlic this winter, I'll scatter them out a bit when I bury them.
I weeded about half the multiplier onions today, wearing a bandanna that I sewed a casing for a shoe string into, because I'm not supposed to get sun on my face. I think I'll try again with a smaller handkerchief. Twenty-two inches is fine when walking around, but gets in the way when weeding.
Sitting on a garden stool, of course. I'm still not supposed to bend over. (Another reason to harvest scapes instead of digging up bulbs.)
I've got an appointment with Dr. Darr — what for, I'm not sure — this coming Thursday, and the weather is supposed to be fine, and I will have to drive the car. Pout. And I can't go anywhere on the way home, either.
The flowers on the snowball bush have turned brown, but the mock orange is in full glory.
It used to be that when two disposables were equally suitable, I'd ask myself which one was cheaper. Now It's "which one came from a store that has curb service?".
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When I clean the dryer's lint filter, I'm careful not to spoil the web of the spider who lives under the picnic table. The cottonwood fluff has not been as considerate.
The fluff appears to have all come down.
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Which doesn't mean that it doesn't get tracked in copiously.
I put in a third load of wash after my nap. Dave splashed Round Up on himself. Luckily, the shoes he had on are machine washable.
I put his clothes through a rinse cycle before washing them. Got them hung out about half past six.
He showered promptly, so I don't think any harm was done.
I just checked the Grace College Covid-19 page. In Indiana, the counts are trending down. In Kosciusko, they are trending up.
Still only two blips on our death chart, but there was at least one death that was probably Covid, but they couldn't prove it.
I rode my bicycle-shaped object to the end of the lane and back yesterday and again today. Today I brought back the mail.
And, this late in the game, I've learned that I need to cut a wedge off the left tape of my nose bandage as well as cutting a crescent off the right tape.
But I'll be wearing bandages whenever I work outside for the rest of the summer. "Sunscreen doesn't block wind."
But in little more than a week, I can stop putting silvadene and mupirocin under them.
I made more bread today. This time I weighed the dough and divided it into twelve equal lumps. The last division, when I was dividing by three, was the easiest.
Then I pattied the lumps like hamburgers before starting with the patting and flipping and pressing with the bacon press, and got much nicer flatbuns.
I made four of the lumps into hot-dog buns/fat breadsticks. I broke one of the bread sticks to sample, then (when cool) put them and one of the flat buns into a half-gallon container, and bagged and froze the rest.
There is one bun left from the previous batch.
To my pleased surprise, Our Family whole-wheat flour works very well. This time I didn't even add gluten. I did add ascorbic acid, lecithin, yeast, and salt.
And a glop of honey. Dave says that I should have put in more.
There's enough left to make another batch of bread, but I've put OF WW flour on my shopping list — it might take weeks to get it.
Luxury: To keep my appointment at 10:30 tomorrow, I must roll at ten! And I don't need to pack a lunch!
I'm slightly annoyed that my go bag is ready to go, with no effort beyond straightening up items that I disarranged on my previous trip.
But I must not forget to put my bandaids etc. into the bag after I brush my teeth, scrub my feet, and change my dressings this evening.
I washed my chin with a washrag today! Dr. Darr took out the lingering stitch, then hunted around with his strap-on microscope to make sure there were no more.
The nose still needs careful washing followed by silvadene under a band-aid, and both wounds need to be covered whenever I go outside. To avoid constantly putting on and taking off dressings, I've been tying on a niqab or two when I carry out the garbage, or look for garlic scapes and winter-onion sprouts for the hash I made out of a left-over bit of pork-rib meat for my lunch. A bandanna is a trifle thin, so I'm thinking of making another with the casing in the middle, that is, fold it in half, stitch half an inch from the fold, run a shoestring through.
But I'm out of stray shoestrings.
So I looked into the little drawer, and there right on top was the mate to the shoestring I used for the green bandanna!
Then I fetched a quilting-cotton furoshiki that had been left in the car for an emergency mask, and found it only an inch bigger than the green bandanna. The fabric is a tad thicker. Two layers should be enough, particularly now that I can put on sunscreen. (I'm going to let the stitch-hole heal a day or two before using anything but A&D and other wound dressing.)
I could make a niqab in just a few minutes; the Necchi is already set up with ecru thread.
Wouldn't take all that long even if I sewed by hand, since basting stitches are good enough.
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Double Take: I was paging through the sports section, stopped, clicked back two pages: Yes, he's selling advertising on his mask!
Closer look: The mask is part of a race-car driver's fire suit. There has been advertising on his face all along.
⁂
I've been to the Grace College Web site. Indiana still trending down, Kosciusko still trending up.
Now *there's* a disgusting headline: "Let Movie Or TV Sets Inspire Your Interior Designs". The inside of a house ain't just for looking at.
I got around to making my double-thick niqab this morning. That will make it more convenient to carry out the garbage etc.
I heard on the radio that my fourth-of-July party is on, but I'm not putting out chips and soda. I know the route to the emergency room too well to be comfortable with inviting people to snuggle up around the table.
I've half a notion to make my cheese dip anyway. Perhaps not on the day of the party.
And definitely after I get permission to go to the fairgrounds farmers' market for hot peppers to put into it. I'm hoping I'll get permission to ride when I see Dr. Danckaert this Wednesday.
I am *not* looking forward to driving to Fort Wayne again.
Yesterday I gave up hope of getting Great Northerns and put dry baby lima beans in a pot to soak, together with celery seed, mustard seed, and a tablespoon of brown rice.
Today I put in the frozen smoked pork necks I've been hoarding for so long, and the rest of the bean-soup seasonings. This included a handful of winter-onion bulbils. At this stage, they are so easy to peel that more than half break off the scape ready to throw into the pot.
I may make lima-bean soup again.
I washed a load and a half, which included a king-size scenery-muslin sheet and a bunch of big thick bath towels. Neither of us contributed a shirt.
The string supporting my double-thick niqab comes too close to the skin graft to make me feel easy about wearing it. I'll have to make a more-opaque version of the one that hangs from a band tied around my forehead. I wore the gauze one to hang up clothes, over a layer of 45 SPF lip balm on the chin and a band-aid on the nose.
Calloo, Callay, oh frabjous day! Resume normal activities and don't come back. I think I need to go to the Warsaw office in six months.
I'm really, really glad to see the last of the exit from US30 onto I69. The exit lane for people getting off is also the blending lane for people getting on, and it's about ten feet long. (At least it looks that short at Interstate speeds.) I'm surprised that we don't hear about that intersection on the scanner every ten minutes.
A "diverging diamond interchange", in which the road you are on crosses itself twice, has been proven to be very safe. I think it accomplishes this by scaring drivers spitless, causing them to be very, very careful.
It took me an hour and five minutes to drive to the office, and an hour and a half to drive home on Dupont Road. That isn't much extra time for driving farther, on narrow country roads where I have to drive slowly. I *think* that it wouldn't be all that difficult to get onto Dupont from the Columbia City end. I just have to turn left at the correct stoplight, then turn right onto Cider Mill Road.
I got a surprise when I parked at the doctor's office. At the last minute before leaving, I put some squares of chocolate into a square snack bag and put them on the passenger seat beside my go bag. After parking, I reached for one of those squares and realized that I'd put the bag in a spot that, in an eastbound car, was always in direct sun. I left the bag there, and the westering sun kept it warm on the way home. (Not to mention the noonday sun in a car parked facing south.)
After coming home, I wished several times that I'd put them into a regular snack bag, so we wouldn't get chocolate on our fingers while dipping graham crackers.
It has solidified now. It was better warm.
I got a more-unpleasant surprise Tuesday night, when changing the bandage on my nose.
The 3/4" bandaids I was running out of were wide enough to cover the graft, but just barely, so when we sent in our Martin's order, I hunted and hunted and hunted until I found one-inch bandages. This was not easy; it appears to be against the law to state what sort of bandage is in a box on the front; it must say "All one size. See side panel for size."
Web sites never show side panels. Even when there is more than one picture, they are all taken from the same exact angle. So I have to click up the description on every item that I want to eliminate from consideration. At least they *do* tell you in the description; not all products even have descriptions, let alone helpful descriptions.
When checking out, I reflected that I use bandaids on both my chin and my nose, so a box of twenty was only a ten-day supply, so I clicked up two boxes.
The order was available that day, as has become usual —we needn't be as frantic to order things before they are needed now— and I opened a box that night to change the bandage on my nose before going to bed. It turned out that the *tape* is one by three and a quarter inches, as advertised, but the dressing is only five-eighths of an inch wide. Which would work fine if I could put the bandaids on running up and down. Putting the nose bandage on vertically would cover my nostrils, and the chin bandage would seal my mouth.
I covered the tape beside the dressing with silvadene so it wouldn't stick to the graft, and after looking at the wound, the doctor said all I need bandages for now is to keep the sun and wind off. The tape alone will work for that, and since I put 45 SPF lip salve on first, it won't stick to the graft.
But I'm going to Walgreen's Real Soon Now.
I looked up "garlic", and discovered that I've been saying "spathe" where I meant "scape". I corrected it in this file, and hope I haven't mentioned garlic elsewhere. The two meanings both have to do with plant parts, and both are near flowers, but one is a stem and the other is a leaf.
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I took a lap around the block on my pedal-powered wheelchair to try out the refit job on my bicycle sandals. I still need thick socks, but only one pair. (Last winter, I absent mindedly tried them on while wearing three pairs of socks.)
I just checked the Grace College web page. Indiana is still trending down — and there's a slight dip at the end of the Kosciusko line! But Elkhart still soars alarmingly.
Kentucky is *very* worrying. An encouraging dip is followed by a turn for pretty close to straight up.
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This morning, Dave came home from a visit to the eye doctor with a fresnel prism on one lens of his eyeglasses. He said getting used to the prism was pretty quick, but getting used to light from the side glaring on the lines is going to take a while.
Later I was awakened from my nap — just in time to put ribs into the oven for supper — by a call that arranged an early-morning appointment at Midwest Eye Institute, Indianapolis, on July the second. At least it's in Carmel, on the north side. We plan to stay in Zionsville or Noblesville on the previous night. I have to go along because he's going to be dilated. Looking at the map, I think I'll turn out of the Institute onto 31 and stay on it.
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The beef ribs were very chewy. I said that we shouldn't order them again, and Dave reminded me that we hadn't ordered them this time — we'd ordered slightly-cheaper strips of boneless meat. (Same price and weight, more meat per pound.)
After supper, I put bandaids on my face and rode my real bike around the block. I had to unbury it, and put the potatoes I'd been storing in a pannier into the fridge. Also had to adjust my helmet strap; I was wearing multiple scarves the last time I rode.
I should pump up the front tire; otherwise it seems unchanged by the long idleness.
I rode to the fairgrounds and back yesterday. I didn't get sore, despite having been grounded for a month and twenty days. (I was surprised when I counted on the calendar; it felt more like three months.)
I did get sore pumping up the tires. But it only hurt while I was still pumping.
I solved the band-aid problem. I cut one in half lengthwise, put half over the bottom of an incision with the cut side up, then put another bandaid on overlapping the cut side. This makes the dressing about seven and a half eighths wide.
Of course, that means using three bandaids per day, but I need bandaids only on the road bike; a niqab works find on the flatfoot and when walking or sitting.
Church met in the shelter house in the park today. On my way back from my usual Sunday walk, I came through the park and waved. They were packing up to go home. I thought I saw Bonnie, but when I walked around to the other side, it was someone else. I presume that she is also still avoiding crowds.
I had to stop and rest while walking up Sunday Lane. I don't think I've *ever* done that, not even when I first arrived and had never done much walking. I tried out the advice to stand facing downhill while pausing to rest, and it does make a difference.
I've stopped on the bike often enough, but I always lean on the handlebars, or find a place to park the bike and sit on the ground. Or lie on the ground if there is a convenient graveyard; for some reason, people don't freak out when they see someone lying in a graveyard. I do see why they freak out when they see someone lying beside the road.
There's a downside to modern fertilizer — one can no longer hide in the corn; there is no room between the stalks.
We have a reservation at the Red Roof in for the night before Dave's eye appointment. Rather aggravating that we will pass through Kokomo twice, won't be in any hurry either time, and even if the museums are open, we can't go in.
I've figured out how Al won't miss his Cosequin dose, but he'll have to live on dry food for about thirty-six hours.
I just took a six-day supply of Dulcolax, and now I'm wondering what to do with the other nineteen tablets. Neither of us will ever want them.
This afternoon, I'll take a fourteen-day supply of Miralax. As instructed, I shook it up with three bottles of Gatorade yesterday.
I looked up Reglan. That's primarily used to prevent vomiting, but it also speeds up stomach emptying, and it causes diarrhea as a side effect.
Ordinarily, I don't mind putting a load of wash in before breakfast, but this morning I was distractingly hungry when I'd barely started.
I'm really, really glad that it will be ten years before I have to do this again.
At least one no longer has to drink a quart of something that tastes exactly like the saccharin tablet I once snitched when I was a small child.
It looks sunny out, but rain is predicted until Thursday, so I'll dry stuff on racks.
⁂
On the other hand, when I emptied the washer, I left the tongs in the hamper and just reached in and pulled stuff out.
I plan to try to retain the habit of bending my legs instead of my back whenever possible. Looking up while squatting down helps a lot, but it feels rather theatrical.
I'm also retaining the habit of sorting stuff as it comes out of the washer, instead of dumping it into a basket and sorting afterward. That works best when I sort directly onto the drying racks.
I was worried because levothyroxine requires to be taken with plenty of water, and it is due at a time when I should drink *no* water. I finally realized, well, duh, my stomach is going to be plenty empty at bedtime; I don't have to wait until two o'clock.
And there was nothing interesting in my colon.
Doing without food got easier when I gave up on trying to get some nutrition, and just drank plain water, not even carbonated. I'm well prepared to go into famine mode.
So now I've got a quart of chicken, celery, and daikon-top broth to dispose of.
I bought a bunch of daikon at the farmers' market on Saturday, and discovered that the leaves are a good substitute for mustard greens. I had one on the fried spam, cheese, and hot-dog bun sandwich I made after coming home from the hospital.
The hot dog buns are oversized — I'll make eighteen instead of twelve next time — so I sliced it into three layers, put the bottom layer cut-side-down on the spam while it fried, then put slices of cheese on the middle layer and topped it with sliced winter-onion bulbils and what was in the skillet, then fried the sandwich on the cut side until the cheese melted.
It was grrrr-ate! I ate the top layer with butter a while later, then had a few crackers with Branston pickle on them for supper. Dave zapped a beef-and-bean burrito.
Dave has been seeing a black squirrel with a rat tail. We theorized that a predator had stripped the fur off, but this morning he darted across the patio and looked in through the door. I didn't get a good look before he said "Ack! A human!", but the tail is a hundred percent natural, a thin tail with short fur, his face is rounder than a black squirrel's, and his fur is slightly grayer than the glossy fur of a black squirrel.
Weather Underground has started working again as mysteriously as it stopped. I now have to dismiss a "stop script" dialog box, which may be a clue.
I heard caterwauling about half past midnight and got up to check on Al. I couldn't hear it outside the bedroom, and Al was sound asleep on the table in the living room.
So I opened the outside door of the bedroom to verify that it was coming from outside. Seems to be two cats, fairly far away.
I appear to have recovered from the purging instantly. It took at least a week last time.
A nurse called to check on me today. She was delighted with what I told her.
You *can* make good bread-and-milk with perfectly-fresh bread — if it's *good* bread.
I got out three cookie sheets intending to make eighteen buns, but I found that a dozen hot-dog buns will fit onto a cookie sheet with room to spare. That's partly because I put them close enough together to touch after rising, to make them rise up instead of out.
I've figured out how to form the rolls — squeeze into final shape and only then roll them between your hands to make them round. I still need some practice, but these came out pretty well.
I also made a half-dozen flatbuns. These look much better than the oversized previous batch, but I haven't tried splitting one yet.
I didn't think to weigh the flour, but the dough weighed three pounds and I put in a pint of water, so a five-pound bag will make two and a half batches.
Each bun was a little over two ounces.
My handy-dandy solar calculator says that each bun should weigh 2.6 ounces. My scale is not that precise.
I also cut linen to make a niqab a bit better at keeping sun off than my white gauze niqab, but the nearest I got to working in the garden was to break off a milkweed I saw while taking out the garbage. I dumped it near a milkweed that I'm encouraging, in case there were eggs on it.
Broke off a couple more milkweeds, made a little progress on my sewing.
Department of "say what?": The web site said that only one flavor of Lil' Soup was in stock, so I ordered one of that flavor.
The receipt said that what I ordered was out of stock, so they were giving me a different flavor.
The only other thing we ordered and didn't get was El Monterey Breakfast Burritos.
We have a rack of ribs, which I plan to bake tomorrow.
The ribs were delicious. And probably still are; we ate only half.
Headline: "Indy 500 Will Run With 50% of Fans At Speedway". So instead of being shoulder-to-shoulder, they'll be a chair's width apart? Even if everybody wears masks —I haven't seen any sign of substantial numbers of people being that polite around here— I ain't going.
An easy decision when we would never have considered going anyway.
In other startling news, I'm hanging the wash out on the line today.
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We had left-over ribs for supper tonight. There were two ribs left.
Hot dogs on home-baked buns tonight.
In the morning, I rode my bike to the animal shelter and left a bag of canned cat food that Al doesn't like —including two five-ounce cans I bought by mistake on our latest order— and a poop scoop that we had replaced with a better one.
I had meant to come home the long way, but it was so hot that I sweated my bandaids off —they remained stuck in the sweat until I peeled them off on purpose, but the dressings were soaking wet— and the house pants I'd worn instead of bike knickers were sticking to the sweat on my knees.
So I came back exactly the way I went. Except that I went down Ninth Street instead of Chestnut. Chestnut isn't as steep as Ninth, but when going down, I'm on the same side as the parked cars.
I was slightly surprised that I climbed Chestnut without much strain.
We'll be leaving for the Red Roof Inn after noon tomorrow, so I haven't done anything about packing yet. I expect that I'll add my meds and a change of underwear to my go bag, and put a spare outfit on the back seat of the car.
We'll be heading back north directly from the Midwest Eye Institute. Since the appointment is so early, it's conceivable that we'll be back home before time for my nap.
EOF