Before walking to Kathy & Dave's place, I tied a knot in the strap of a shoulder bag so that it would ride in the middle of my back and the tomatoes wouldn't be jarred with every step I took. After picking them, I sat in a chair.
Twice.
There weren't a lot; we've already eaten all the visibly-squashed tomatoes.
As I expected, the ice bin at the church was empty. It felt odd to change the trays without wiping the gaskets first.
This time I wore grubbies under my dress instead of white linen pettipants. Picking tomatoes was easier, and changing clothes when I got home was quicker.
A slicing tomato was ripe, but not the one I've been watching.
When I sang hymns without the slightest difficulty, I thought my cold was over, but I had a sneezing fit in the afternoon. I guess I have to go masked a while longer.
Today's sermon was on the immensity of the universe. It reminded me of the most-succinct expression of the Big Bang theory: "Once there was nothing. Then it exploded."
I think it was Einstein who said "God does not play dice with the universe." The Big Bang suggests, however, that he's really, really good at billiards.
Al knows that I get up at two o'clock to take a pill. And he knows that two o'clock is four bells. He also knows that wet food is better for him than the dry food that I put out at night.
As long as it isn't rabbit! (Memories of Claude trying to eat an entire rabbit in one sitting, and leaving two back legs under the pool table. He ate only half of subsequent rabbits.)
I got the wash done in time to dress to go to our financial advisor to sign some papers, but just barely. Then I took a nap and woke up almost in time to put hot dogs in to bake for our supper.
We have come to prefer baking hot dogs in the toaster oven to boiling, frying, and zapping.
I just scratched "hedgeclip garden" off my list of "things to do last month". I haven't trimmed the tall grass around the railroad ties — I've decided that it's too late in the year to worry about it.
The inside of the garden looks reasonably neat (if you edit out the asparagus bed), but I should push the cultivator around at least once more.
And I'm going to have to clean and freeze mucho-nacho jalapeños Real Soon Now. The pepper Dave planted out front is a thin variety (the label got blown away) intended to be dried whole, so I can throw them into the freezer or just let them hang around. So far only one has ripened. I left it in the crisper drawer for a while, and just now got up and added it to the bag of jalapeños in the freezer. The tip had begun to dry, and retained its brilliant color.
I also added an item to the urgent list, but that still leaves only four, and I think all of them will actually get done reasonably soon. Except for "sort photos"; I no longer remember what I meant by that. Something to do with my Web book, _Rough Sewing_, I think.
It's been raining for a while, but today was predicted to be cloudy, so yesterday I mapped out a twenty-mile loop, freshened my shopping list, etc.
I forgot to make tea, which is just as well because I woke up this morning with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for the trip. I have errands all around the loop, but they are all "when I'm in the neighborhood" errands, nothing inspiring. Not even eating out — I'm tired of Walmart's excellent pizza, and the restaurants near Meijer are too late in the loop, so I had planned to make a sandwich (peanut butter with PBL pickles) and eat it in the Tippy Downs gazebo.
When Dave said there was a 57% chance of one or more showers somewhere in the forecast area sometime today, I grabbed the excuse. It is too cold to risk getting wet.
And it *had* rained when I got up from my nap.
So much for making up the missing exercise when the weather clears on Saturday: The Legion is selling pork-chop dinners. We LOVE the legion's pork chops, so I'll be making only one stop on the way home from the farmers' markets.
We had supper ten minutes early today. After my nap, I set out to pick the tomatoes, change the ice trays, and buy a "grilled panini" for our supper. (Isn't a panini grilled by definition?)
As I was walking out the lane, I felt that I'd forgotten something. It wasn't until I'd finished picking tomatoes and started toward the church that I remembered my keys to the church.
I think I'll start keeping them in the pocket of my jeans, like my cell phone. I'm currently keeping them in my jewel box, but on a chain that is pinned to my pocket should be just as secure.
There are three fine fat red-orange slicing tomatoes, including the one that I've been watching.
We went to the China Palace for supper. When we were done, Dave said "We should do this more often than every three years."
The place hadn't changed a bit, except for being a little short handed — like everybody else.
I cancelled the idea of taking advantage of today's pleasant weather to go for a long ride when I saw the Legion's ad for grilled pork chops, and planned to stop there to pick up one meal to serve as lunch and supper for two.
Got there at exactly noon, and no signs of life. I figured I'd mis-read the ad, but I just checked, and it definitely says "Saturday, October 9" and "corner Buffalo & Ft. Wayne Sts."
So I went to Zales and bought nail clippers to replace those that I lost with my bike key, and about ninety dollars worth of over-the-counter medicine.
I'm always a bit bemused that OTC medicine is sold from a shelf, and prescription medicine is always sold over a counter.
Then I spent an hour in Kroger.
On Tuesday, I decided that it was a good time to drive to the church, walk to Kathy & Dave's and pick the tomatoes, then go to Aldi.
So I scrubbed my feet and put shoes on, sorted stuff out of my wallet into my pants pockets, etc., and went out to the car to put my wallet with coupons into the glove box in case I went to Kroger.
At which point, I realized that the first step in getting ready to go should have been to say "Dave, I want the car."
Luckily, he hadn't gone far and it wasn't too late to go when he got back — but it was late enough that my lunch was two food bars and a container of Greek yogurt.
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Sometime this week I found that I couldn't get the toaster oven all the way onto the shelf because something from the candles-and-matches row had migrated.
So I fetched the step-stool and took everything out. At the very back was a glass pitcher the same dark brown as the two candle jugs, but with a more-transparent stripe around it. It is almost a cylinder, narrower at the top than at the bottom. I'm sure I used to know the name of this shape of vessel. Neither Dave nor I remember having seen it before. A tape with "Esther" written on it was stuck to the bottom.
If you recognize it, it's yours!
I went up to Club 56 halfway through the festival and had a little nap, so I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to the end of the cleanup, but when I got home, I crashed and Dave had to make his own supper.
Which was a left-over hot dog. I think he fried it.
Yesterday, Dave had my left-over lunch for supper; today, I had his left-over lunch for supper.
Monday, I washed clothes. Tuesday, I had an appointment with Dr. Darr at 11:30. When I saw that the weather was going to be dry, I reflected that when I left the appointment I would be halfway to Anchorage Road, and we were running low on canned cat food.
So I decided that after the appointment, I would ride to PetSmart. Which left me a puzzle: I thought that thin tights under my knickers would be right for the weather, but if I wore that, I'd have to strip to the skin to show him an ankle.
But it's only two-and-a-half miles to Provident Drive, and I can sprint up McKinley street to get warn. I put on what I wanted to have on in the office, then put knickers and jersey on over that, and carried tights and a silk turtleneck to put on for the rest of the trip.
The tights and turtleneck stayed in the bag for the whole trip, it turned out.
When searching for shorts to wear, I was surprised to find that I have *two* swimsuit bottoms, namely black synthetic bermuda shorts and black synthetic briefs to wear under them. The other pair was so thin and so tight fitting that I'd hesitate to wear them in neck-deep water, so I stuck with the polyester double-knit shorts I bought in the seventies.
Since I got a late start, and had to make a side trip to Zales to pick up a prescription, I didn't gawk around much on my way back from PetSmart. I just barely got back in time for supper.
My last stop was at Walmart, where I bought a four-slice pizza from the pretzel stand. Having eaten a few food bars at various times, I wanted only a slice and a half. Having not yet replaced my lost pocket knife, I ate two slices. The other two were still warm when I got home. I made soup out of leftovers for my supper, and Dave ate the remaining pizza.
Today Dave bought a Mad Anthony tenderloin for lunch, but ate only half. I ate the french fries as soon as he got home about half-past four, because french fries undergo some sort of permanent change when chilled. I put them in the toaster oven for five minutes at 170F, then turned the heat up to toast for a minute, and they were very good. But these weren't regular french fries; they had been floured before frying, which helped them to crisp up again.
Dave had a single-serve pizza from the freezer, sized and shaped to fit a toaster-oven tray. He ate only half, so the saga continues.
I found the pocket knife that I replaced with the lost knife while I was hunting for something else today, but haven't put it on my key ring yet.
Facebook suggested that I invite Darryl to go to the bicycle-club meeting with me. I consider it too far to go for too little from *here*.
Dave deleted his Facebook account.
Dr. Darr's best guess as to what was ailing me was an infestation of mites, so before I went to bed last night, Dave rubbed vanishing cream all over me, from head to the soles of the feet — I did the face and hands and hairline — and I'm going to be washing bedding all day. [It took four loads, and should have taken five, as putting both sheets in at once crowded the washer a bit.]
I figured that if the bedding should be washed, I should also wash the clothes I'd been wearing, so I'm emptying the laundry hamper, except for Dave's socks, which need to be tumble-dried and that works better with seven pairs.
The wind is blowing so hard that there weren't many clothespins left in the bag after I hung up two sheets — and I have a *lot* of clothespins!
I happened to set the timer for ten minutes just before hanging up the second sheet, and there were thirty-one seconds left on it when I finished. I chanted, toward the end, "Struggle, struggle, fight fight fight!"
And when I came in, my fingers were so cold I couldn't type.
I'm not going to dry anything else outside!
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Third load in the machine, blanket from the second load in the dryer, blanket and assorted clothing on the floor in front of the washing machine.
These three blankets are the old ratty synthetic blankets that I use for a mattress pad, since a king-size pad won't fit into a washing machine. I've sealed up the fleece comforter in a garbage bag, and intend to take it to a big-boy at some laundromat.
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Google Maps says that there are only three laundromats in town, and I already knew about all of them. I keep forgetting the one on SR 15 because I hate SR 15. The one on Winona Avenue doesn't have much of a parking lot. So there's a goal for my Saturday ride: after visiting the farmers' markets, I can check whether the one on Lake Street has a Big Boy.
When Dave bought the fleece bedspread, the two plaid blankets I made from a piece of flannel that was too loud to make into a suit were on the bed, and when I sealed up the bedspread, I figured that I'd put them back. One was in the old pillow-carrying case where I keep army-style blankets, but I never did find the other.
I could use some space in my blanket box — I think there is a *mattress pad* down there at the bottom. Probably not a king size, so it isn't one that I have used. Might be for a single bed. Or it might be something else entirely; all I saw was a corner. I took everything out once, but didn't think of making a list of what was in it.
I did find two pairs of wool tights that I'll be wanting to patch up before the snow flies. Pity I can't just go out and buy replacements — to get a fit online, I'd have to buy three pairs and throw away two, and though we are rich, we aren't *that* rich. Sending real wool to the landfill would be an outrage. (Giving it to Goodwill would be the same as trashing it myself, since nobody knows how to wash real wool.)
Not to mention that I once bought three pairs of very cheap packaged tights planning to open them carefully and re-pack two pairs for Goodwill. Turned out that Goodwill got all three. Of course wool would be less likely than polyester to be totally useless, but I'm very nervous of buying clothing that I can't even see, let alone hold up to myself.
I'm sorting my lace collection into a fresh box, which I plan to line with an old linen pillowcase. There are a whole bunch of crocheted coasters; we used a lot of those when we lived in New York. I also have Erica's tablecloth — I was looking for that when I was feeding Al on the foot locker. After we got Fred and Frieda, I fed Erica on the scarf-and-glove chest so that they wouldn't steal her food, and crocheted a doily so that the dish wouldn't scratch the finish. (Said finish is wrecked after twenty years of being used as a dresser.)
Some three-sided doilies meant for the corner cupboard we had then — most are shrunk up too small to fit that one, let alone the corner cupboard in the parlor. All of them could be blocked larger.
There's a cross-stitch "Home Sweet Home" sampler that could do with a conservator's flat wash, which it's unlikely to get because it has lost its provenance. An Irish Crochet doily, pink roses with green leaves on white diamond mesh. I think Mother might have made that. It would need to be blocked before it could be displayed; the petals of the roses have gotten mussed in storage. I once made one irish-crochet rose, part of a bracelet pattern that I sold to Crochet World. They kept the model.
It's lucky that I decided to wash the filet-crochet panel of a sunbonnet baby sweeping. The water in the bucket is gray. That's the panel I crocheted, then decided not to make the bedspread. The panel I copied isn't in the lace box. It might be in the pattern trunk. I later found the pattern that had been used to make the panel that I copied, pages from a magazine if I recall correctly, and I may still have it.
There's a rather nice doily of my own design, knitted from carpet warp. The fine needles I used to make it vanished somewhere along the way.
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Landmark: Our landline's memory is full. From now on, whenever we block a number, the oldest number will be unblocked.
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Headline news:
Al never lies on my lap, never. Once when Dave was away and Al was getting severely deprived of television time, I sat in Dave's television chair and Al jumped into my lap. He fidgeted, tried to get comfortable, and finally gave up and left. It just wasn't the right lap.
Tonight when Dave was getting into bed, Al was determined to stay on the bed with him and Dave didn't want him there, so I picked up Al, walked into the sewing room, and sat down at the computer. He stayed on my lap until the clock chimed six bells: eleven p.m. He didn't even roll over, but stayed where I'd put him when I sat down. Which was awkward because my left hand was supporting his head. He's longer than the width of my lap, and my chair doesn't have a padded arm like Dave's computer chair.
He didn't follow me into the kitchen when I prepared his eleven o'clock feeding. When I finished brushing my teeth, Dave complained that he was back on the bed, so I carried one of the cat beds that belong in the closet in here, carried Al in, and sat down at the computer again. He jumped off my lap after the usual fidgetting, but instead of pawing the door open, he lay down on the cat bed and went to sleep.
Which means that I can't shut the door to keep the whine of JOY98 in. Ajar stops the glare of the monitors, but a crack big enough for a cat doesn't even slow up sound.
All went back to sleeping on the bed before I went to bed, so I could shut in the whine.
I think I got my exercise getting dressed this morning, trotting back and forth with things in the house that belong on the bike and things on the bike that I wanted in the house. I'd never taken the tights I'm wearing out of my bag of things I might want to put on, for example.
I think I've mentioned the difficulty of picking tomatoes while wearing a long dress and white knickers. Try a long dress, white knickers, and an umbrella! I went up on the porch to arrange things in my bag, so I could put my umbrella down and use both hands. It's lucky that I brought three sandwich bags; I don't think I'd picked since last Sunday, and there were rather a lot.
The sermon today was on Cain and Able.
Supper tonight was the steak I'd bought at Kroger on the way back from the farmers' markets yesterday. It was well marbled and quite thick and we ate more than half of a two-pound steak.
I zapped a piece of potato and browned it on the griddle beside the steak, and put out the container of raw vegetables.
I ought to buy steak more often.
I found the plaid blanket! The pillowcase on the sewing machine has been an &#@!-in-my-way for so long that I'd forgotten that it's a bag of blankets. I'd planned to take advantage of the thorough disruption of the pillow pile to put it on the shelf today, but I kept finding chores that were more urgent.
I suspect that I'll be as tired as Al when we get back from the vet tomorrow.
I did put the quarantined pillows on the shelf.
The lake is about as full as it can get without flooding.
To the vet! Al objected strenuously, of course. She said his heart rate was three times what it ought to be, and prescribed a transdermal anti-thyroid medication to put into his ear. It's almost as good as swallowing a pill, and *much* more likely to actually happen. He also has an arthritis medication to be dripped on his food. This doesn't taste bad and some cats will take it out of the syringe. I plan to let him sniff the syringe before I serve his nine o'clock tonight. I hope I can get away with putting Cosequin and Metacam in the same serving of food.
He's lost weight, so I've got to pay more attention to pushing wet food.
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A front-page headline says that my eye center is going to move from its convenient location on Provident Drive to a spot on 200 N that can be reached by crossing US 30 at a bad spot or a worse one. But the story says that it isn't going to move any time soon; they got an opportunity to buy a good spot and decided to stash it away until they outgrow their current location.
Al turned his nose up at medicine in a newly-opened can of Authority tuna. Despair. But he also turned his nose up at a second, unmedicated serving at eleven. So I opened a can of Purina Adult 11+ at two, and he chowed down. I'll try medicating his breakfast.
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And it worked. Adding Authority Indoor Adult ages 1-7 Chicken Entrée Paté to my do-not-buy list.
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I spent the entire day washing the fleece comforter. I did stop at the library on the way to the laundromat, to turn in one book — exactly on the final due date — and check out two.
And on the way home I did a stock-up tour of Kroger. They were sold out of celery, which was one of the inspirations for the trip. When I selected cottage cheese, I couldn't resist trying the new "whipped spreadable" cottage cheese. It was more dunkable than spreadable. There was an inch of straight milk on top, and it wasn't particularly thick below. I suppose it had been beaten with a mixer, but the effect was as if it had been pushed through a very coarse sieve or a fine french-fry basket.
Dave and I agreed that it wasn't very good, but ate a quarter of the container establishing that, so we decided not to have supper. Dave ate a half bagel left over from breakfast, and I nibbled on half a dozen things, including sweet-potato chips and dry cereal. And chocolate-coated jelly beans labeled "superfruit".
We ate a lot of the cottage cheese by dropping pieces of fig bars in it and dipping them out with a spoon. I dripped milk on my jeans twice.
It was after one when I got to Kroger, so I bought a package of fig bars and made a considerable dent in one of the two little trays before starting to shop.
Giving the medicines separately will require me to open two cans of food a day. I don't think Al eats that much.
Hand-sewing today: finishing and repairs.
No travel even though the weather isn't all that bad for working outside. I'd planned to put slippers on before carrying out the garbage, but when Dave mentioned the sycamore limb that fell a few days ago, I stepped out for a better look, and the grass isn't cold.
So I dragged the limb out to the road —it's too big for the bonfire without cutting it up first— and then carried out the garbage.
Big Boys are "triple loaders" now.
The Lecklitners are already planning who will bring what to Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps I'll bring devilled eggs, perhaps potato salad, perhaps I'll get a better idea after seeing what others are bringing.
Jonah writes that they plan to come back to the States for Christmas. Perhaps we should accept the Beeson's Christmas invitation before it's issued.
My shingles shot is still sore when I poke it, but I don't think it's hot and swollen any more. We go back for Covid the Friday after next.
Joy98's clock thinks that Devil Satan Time has already ended. Instead of making it longer every few years, we should jump straight to year-round DST, and save the extra traffic deaths.
Al has switched sleeping spots again. It was the footlocker for a while, then the lamp table beside the television, then the northwest corner of the bed. Now it's the dining chairs. He doesn't seem to care which; if one of us sits down, he moves to the other. When we both sit down, he's got a problem.
I've been getting his painkiller into him, but I don't see any difference. When his anti-thyroid medication gets here, that should have a tangible effect.
We both had a restless night and slept late, so it was after noon before I got the first load of wash in the machine. It didn't help that I had to scrub my hat and put it in with my bras to soak. (I put things that are apt to get dingy in a bucket with the soap for the entire load.)
It came out clean on the outside, and cleaner than it had been on the sweatband. The brush I scrubbed it with is considerably cleaner too.
Then some masked spammer decided that half an hour was *quite* enough rest for an old lady to take after lunch. It was one of those that don't respond when you answer the phone.
It was windy, so all I hung on the line was five pillowcases. Very nearly forgot to bring them in before dark.
Dave says Roomba didn't find much dirt in the living room. We've been sweeping more often since the vet diagnosed fleas. I put the top blanket into the wash and put an old cotton curtain on the corner where Al sleeps — just before he switched to the dining chairs.
I wasn't sure that pettipants was the right word, and Thunderbird's spell checker agrees that it wasn't. I was wearing antipasti under my dress!