Oops! Dave told me this morning that I'm still sending the Banner to his obsolete Comcast address. If you got his address from the Banner, change it to debeeson@centurylink.net.
It was nice of Comcast to keep the addresses open until we'd found all the people we forgot to notify, but now we're trying to get them to remove the addresses entirely. I check mine every other week, but haven't found anything I didn't mark "junk" for quite a while.
Poor weather predicted for tomorrow, and Dave has to go to Elkhart for an excision. He called to cancel, and was told that they'd finish in time for him to get home before dark, so he's going. He had thought it was Mohs, like his previous cancer, but I think that they only do that on faces. This is his first time to get cancer on an arm.
This is one of those "elective surgeries" that the pointy-haired bosses thought we could do without when they were taking Covid-19 as an excuse to rampage.
I heard on the radio that the Ford Motor Company has created a transparent mask for teachers etc. Several weeks ago such a mask was featured in an arc on the Curtis comic strip. An astounding number of the commenters thought that Michele's father didn't deserve any reward for making the mask available to the general public, and castigated him for making a profit on it — and the comic didn't even say whether or not he *did* make a profit, only that Michele was proud of him for adding the mask to his line of products.
I imagine that those yahoos would have gotten even louder if Michele had said that her father sent free-sample packs to schoolteachers.
It's past time to pass the responsibility for winding Grandmother's watch every month to a younger woman. It was a gift from Grandfather Bailey to Jesse Bailey, together with a brooch to hang it on the front of her dress. When I inherited it, Dave gave me a gold-filled chain to wear it around my neck.
I'm nervous every time I wind it; I dropped it once, and the man who repaired it then is dead now. I forget where we had to ship it to; he was the only watch repairman in the country.
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Dave is driving home from Elkhart and I keep hearing talk about slide-offs on the scanner.
He called me from Milford, then followed a snow plow home.
I learned something from B.C today: there are full-grown, well-educated people who don't know that deer shed their antlers.
I fussed and feathered over getting the oven started at half-past two — and then went off about my sewing with never a thought given to remembering to put the ribs in at three.
But I was only fifteen minutes late.
It's starting to smell good.
It was supposed to be zero degrees when I walked to church this morning, but my regular coat did fine. I did wear two pairs of tights under my jeans.
I got frost on the inside of my niqab, enough to make it stiff. Since it mostly didn't touch my face, it didn't bother me much, but I was startled when I first noticed. Even with frost, a mask beats having the cold wind directly on my face. I'm planning to make my scrap of wool challis into a niqab for next winter. I need to find a silk ribbon for the tie. Or I could use china silk; I think I have some that co-ordinates with the challis.
A dark car parked in the sun near the church door had an ice pillar: an icicle had grown down to meet the ice on the pavement.
Church let out shortly after I got there, so I walked to the teller machine before I went upstairs.
We had ham-hock bean soup for supper, and I made half a recipe of Whole-grain Cornbread <http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/COOKBOOK/BREAD.HTM> with pork fat instead of corn oil and Quaker corn meal instead of corn flour. When I make more cornbread for the left-over soup, I'll render rib fat and leave cracklings on the griddle.
Dave bought a cast-iron griddle exactly the size of my iron skillets, and it's much handier when I want to flip what I'm baking.
When the bread is pancake thin, you can pre-heat the skillet — so I won't need to cool it after rendering the fat.
Left-over pork ribs, with baby limas simmered in pork broth.
I washed a load of clothes that I forgot yesterday, and darned a split seam in my heavy silk turtleneck.
Oops, it wasn't until Facebook started dragging that I realized that I had Thunderbird open. I managed to close Thunderbird in time, but couldn't log out of Facebook, and Task Manager took dozens of clicks to close Firefox.
Dave is off to Martin's curb service. According to the e-mail saying that it was ready, the only unavailable that wasn't a "just in case they have it" was sesame oil.
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The Spam came through at long last. Dave said the Spam company must be doing well if they are selling it as fast as they can make it; I reflected that it might be that they can't make it very fast. Probably a little of each.
Dave says that the CDC says that two weeks after I get my second shot on Wednesday of next week, I can go grocery shopping.
But I'm going to be very, very careful. Flu can kill you just as dead, and it's still the middle of the season.
I commented that I get my teeth cleaned on Thursday, the day after I get my shot, and Dave said he thought I just did that. This year has just zoomed by.
Dressing up today: I'm wearing shoes. Well, footgear. I wear sandals year round because my feet don't like closed shoes. I have one pair of sandals that don't fit unless I'm wearing three pairs of thick socks.
Dave gave up and called the dealer to come get the lawnmower, which mysteriously stopped while he was getting mail out of the box.
He thought he'd found a clue when he found a fuse socket with no fuse in it, but the manual says that that fuse is for the headlights. This mower doesn't have headlights.
I don't imagine that it will take long to repair the mower, since there can't be a line-up of mowers wanting attention at this time of year. On the other hand, the truck that picks up mowers probably isn't going out very often. [It will come on Tuesday.]
Dave uses the mower as a mobility scooter to make sure he doesn't slip on the ice. No ice today, just firmly-packed snow.
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Dave likes Ritz crackers, so he ordered a box of Ritz Crisp Thins expecting very thin Ritz Crackers. Instead, it's baked chips, and the primary ingredient is potato flour. They are more fragile than most potato chips. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are yummy, but they are disappearing at an unseemly rate.
So I made some Velveeta and pepper dip. Equal parts of mini-sweet and serrano. I think it needs more yogurt.
I finally got around to counting my pocket money. My unrecorded expenses were only seven dollars and change, pretty good for such a long interval — until I take into account that I haven't been anywhere to spend money and forget to write it down.
After counting my money (which took a while because $11.63 is in change) I absent-mindedly entered the total as an expense, which worked out fine because it made Quicken do the subtraction. I'll do that on purpose, if I still remember, the next time I count my cash.
Only one load of wash, and that one not full. I wonder what I forgot?
Dave suspects that the truck won't come for the mower on Tuesday. I hope we can get the drive plowed tomorrow; once out of the driveway, the way to Columbia City should be clear by Wednesday morning, if Weather Underground is accurate.
It is snowing, but nothing significant at 09:24. I hear that the west is getting hammered and the hammer is heading this way.
09:48 — the scenery on the other side of the lake is looking pale and fuzzy.
At six o'clock, there was no other side of the lake.
Not a lot of accumulation, but the end of the driveway is blocked by a snowplow ridge. The plow guy says he'll clear it by nine o'clock tomorrow.
Driveway cleared.
Moore is here. Dave was worried about how to get the mower out; The driver said "go back inside, I'll get 'er."
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Turned out he didn't; they had given him the wrong truck and the jumper cables on the winch on the trailer wouldn't reach, so he had to return to the shop and come back. But with the proper equipment, it didn't take long.
I'm all ready to go to the dentist at half-past ten. It's only two and a half miles and the appointment is at a quarter past eleven, but there's a train track in between, and there might still be stretches of pavement where I have to drive slowly.
And then, chirp twitter-twitter, the next time I have to take my body into the shop is April the twelfth.
Ow! I rubbed my shoulder while thinking what to say next, and it *hurt*. I don't think the first shot got this sore.
My shoulder is still sore and hot. I gather that I'm getting off lightly, and most people have a week of feeling like a bad cold or the flu.
I usually put on my "fuzzy slippers" (sheepskin boots) to carry out the garbage, but today I put on my insulated snow boots, and was glad of it: the snow came over the top of the boots several times. The slippers are not only lower, they fan out to funnel snow inside.
I'm making chili sauce to warm up some big hot dogs in: four ounces of hamburger, a minced celery stalk, a chopped chunk of serrano pepper, a chopped mini-sweet pepper, half an onion, a fifteen-ounce can of Red Gold tomato sauce, three pickled tabasco peppers, a teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of chili powder, and a quarter teaspoon of salt.
I was tempted to add half a teaspoon more chili powder, but reflected that I can add more at any stage of preparation, and there is no way one can add less.
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I'm glad I wrote those ingredients down — the sauce was superb.
And it's good warmed over on rye bread.
Covid has messed up my plastic-bag conservation program. We get a bagfull of bags every time we pick up a Martin's order, and I've got a lifetime supply of the re-usable bags Kroger puts their pick-up orders in even though I don't go to Kroger.
Next Tuesday's weather prediction says that the roads will be safe for bicycles; I think I'll start building up muscle to go to Duck, Down, and Above.
What's above the down on a duck?
For the out-of-towners, Duck, Down, and Above is a retail store in Maple Leaf Farms' headquarters building. It sells frozen duck and chicken products, duck-down bedding, and, if I recall correctly, tourist trinkets. If you know to ask, there are case lots and rejects in the back freezer. I hope there is something good in their e-mail the week the weather and I feel up to the trip.
Probably best not to go on a Saturday. Linda says that Aldi was crowded today, and lots of people were not wearing masks.
And I don't think that they are open on Saturdays.
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Now how did I get to be seventy-nine without figuring this out? As I was stumbling out to the line in my high boots, with a basket of wash in one hand and the table-frame I meant to put it on in the other, intermittently stabbing the table frame into the snow to catch my balance, I realized why I constantly feel in need of grabbing something while walking in snow: the only way I can keep my center of gravity over my feet is to move the center of gravity; my feet are not going to budge.
So one wading through snow is in a constant state of tripping.
I'm glad it will be well into March before I need to wash hot whites again.
One of those "whites" was black; I used that one to clean the line, then put it back into the lower bin of the laundry hamper.
I attended church today! I stayed in the narthex, but I heard the whole service.
I also spoke to people, though it isn't quite time yet.
I kept my eye out for ice stalagmites on the way home, and saw a few, but every last one had a twig or a bush inside: It was really an icicle. But a bench under the eave of Rhodheaver Auditorium was under a drip that built up flowstone ice on one end of the seat, and flowed over the front into a fringe of icicles.
Dave put gas in the truck, and when he went to enter it in his spread sheet, he discovered that the previous tank had lasted over a year. He thinks that he should drive the truck more often.
We can see parts of the driveway!
The trailer step outside the bedroom door is now doing its primary job: The melting snow has collected into a puddle, but I can go out and shake a carpet sample.
We could have had someone drill holes in the concrete and pump cement under it to raise it above water level, but a trailer step works at least as well, and it's a *lot* cheaper.
It looks as though the puddles will have time to drain before it freezes again. I hope it takes until March to melt all the snow off; the plants need the protection.
Not to mention that slower melting means that more of it soaks in.
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Tonight I tried a biscuit-type pizza dough recipe I clipped from The Amish Cook, and much to my surprise, we liked it. But I'm glad I halved the recipe.
I plan to make a double recipe of biscuit mix and keep it in the freezer.
I found my missing measuring tape — it had been in the pocket of my jeans all this time.
And that was the first place that I looked for it.
I'd thought I could get away with just two pairs of tights this morning, but my legs felt a bit cool while I was combing my hair outdoors, so I have to put the sweat pants on too.
I could have peeled down and put on another pair of tights, but that requires me to take off my shoes.
[I got a bit warm above the waist, and took off my gloves and opened my zipper. Trial run — buying cat food at Kroger — went well, and I plan to start increasing my miles on Saturday, and buy some peanut butter and frozen food on the way back.]
I noticed something red in the lunch-meat basket, thought that I hadn't used up the last of the "andoulle" sausage, and decided to make hot-dog chili sauce for supper tonight. I'd used up the last can of Red Gold Tomato sauce, but a can of tomato paste and a can of mushrooms should do fine.
I mentioned that to Dave and he said that he was going to Martin's for milk, and would get some. When I got up from my nap, two cans of Red Gold were on the counter, and I started frying hamburger and chopping vegetables. I got all organized and put the salt, cumin, and chili powder into a shot glass.
I've no idea how I came by an official bartender-style shot glass, but I heartily recommend buying one if you haven't got one; it comes in handy for all sorts of things, particularly soaking small plumbing parts in citric acid and keeping eye-drop bottles upside down.
While waiting for the celery to simmer, I picked up the receipt and opened Quicken. While checking that everything but the disposable cereal bowls was groceries, I noticed that the tomato sauce was "chili ready". Awk scrickle. Ran back to the kitchen, yes there is a tiny green banner on the can, otherwise identical to the label on regular sauce.
But the cumin in the sauce was pretty subtle, so I dumped in the contents of the shot glass anyway, and it isn't too much.
After stirring the spices in, I reached into the meat basket and pulled out — a package of sliced cheese with a red label. Fortunately, Dave was in the kitchen to hear the awk scrickle, and said that he'd bought a package of hot-dog style smoked sausage.
So it's all on the stove simmering slowly. When I cook hot dogs in chili sauce, I like for them to simmer long enough to get puffy.
But the wind has sort of gone out of the urge to write up the recipe for Cookbook.
It's about time to leave on my extend-my-range ride, and I still don't have a destination. I plan to go inside Kroger on the way back, and buy peanut butter and some frozen food. [Dave sent me a text, so I also bought cayenne and a lemon, and he made spice-rubbed roast chicken for supper.]
I'll probably zig-zag around inside Warsaw. Since I haven't been beyond the courthouse all season, it won't take much to be a longer ride.
No sweat pants today, and I'm wearing my linen jersey over my warm shirts instead of the wool-jacketing jersey. It's supposed to get up to nearly fifty.
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I settled for a loop around Rotary Park for extended mileage, but I did climb four flights of steps three times each.
And came back tired, so I guess I did the job.
Last Sunday everything was draped in icicles. This Sunday I didn't even wear a coat.
I wore a dress for the first time, but sneaked out before the service was over, and came home tired.
Before taking a nap, I stuffed one of the two big peppers I bought yesterday, and laid out everything for the sauce. It came out pretty good.
I think I'll slice up the other one for the relish plate.