We have a new front door! It took so long to get the parts that we had forgotten what we ordered.
Just in time to have a functioning storm door this winter — I groove on the screen that pulls down like a window shade, but I don't think we'll get to try it out any time soon.
Since the old latch couldn't be matched, we have new latches on the other two doors as well. The old ones were about due for replacement anyhow.
So I don't need to worry about the house key that was on the lost ring of tools. Not that I ever gave it a thought until just now — the ring *has* to be in the house somewhere. Perhaps Dave will find it while he is hunting for his favorite pocket knife.
I was having a hard time working up enthusiasm for this trip, then I suddenly needed to go to RP Home & Harvest for duplicate house keys, and that straw was enough.
It looks as though my all-day trip will start at noon or later. I slept late, and then there was a lot of stuff to do before putting on my outer layers.
⁂
Left at 12:08. It turned out to be less of an all-day trip than planned. it had gotten colder when I came out of Tractor Supply at almost four, so I pulled out my shopping list and decided that nothing I wanted at Aldi was urgent. We are almost out of breakfast sausage, but there is some "dry Italian salami", a nearly-full package of pre-cooked bacon, and plenty of ham.
Moral. if I'm going to be out after three o'clock, TAKE THE WINDBREAKER! (I *had* taken a pair of warm gloves to put on.)
I warmed right up on the first hill, of course, but it would have continued to get colder, my metabolism would have slowed down while I was in Aldi, and I'd have been likely to get sweaty if I stayed indoors any length of time; I wasn't wearing a zip-off jersey.
But I did get four keys made. One of them is now on my car-key ring; I put the original back on my depleted ring of tools. (It's now one over-fat pocket knife with a short long blade, one measuring tape, one bike-cable key, one house key, nail clippers, and a Kroger "drop in any mailbox" tag.)
Dave brought home a Mad Anthony shrimp taco for my supper. I didn't bring him anything at all from the Marathon station.
I'd planned to lunch at Wendy's, but they were drive-through only, Arby's didn't appeal to me, and I'm not sure they weren't also drive-through only, so I decided I could get something in Sprawl Three (Google Maps says that it's Woodland Plaza).
I paused before the awkward intersection of Commerce Drive, Commerce Drive, and Commerce Drive (one of those is really the other end of Orthopedic Drive) to survey the fast-food joints of Sprawl Three, which consisted entirely of McDonald's. (There was also a sit-down-and-wait-to-be-noticed restaurant.) Then I glanced to the left and saw the Marathon station. I decided to see whether they had a hot-dog roller. They did, there was food on it, and the food wasn't labeled "Not cooked yet".
So, many years after I first noticed the existence of these clever gadgets, I finally got to sample their wares. I chose the sole remaining "tornado" and something with chicken-cheddar in the name, also the last one. That left a hot dog and a couple of other things. I studied the layout for a while. there are the bags to put the food into, but where are the tongs to pick it up? I finally decided that I wasn't going to touch any food but mine, and if I held the tornado bag open and ready I wouldn't have hold of the food long enough to get burned, so I used my fingers.
Turned out that the food was only lukewarm. I should have expected that; if it was kept honestly hot for hours, it would burn.
The tornado turned out to be in dire need of sauce, but I had a packet of Taco Bell taco sauce among my emergency food bars. I imagine that I'd have seen packets of sauce if I'd hunted for them before checking out.
A hard freeze is predicted for tonight, so just before supper time, I walked my wheelchair bike up Chestnut street so that I'd have its basket to bring the produce home in, and picked all the tomatoes off Kathy & Dave's vines. I also found a green pepper.
I sorted the tomatoes today, but don't know when I'll have time to pickle them. I'll probably be too tired when I get back from tomorrow's all-day ride. But I should bring back some dill seed.
I spent most of today washing a load of towels and cleaning rags and drying them in the sun.
The one day in the year I wake up soon enough to get me to the church on time. Hope I don't lose track and type too long.
For years I've been saying "no, I haven't fallen" when filling out medical forms. Yesterday I had two hard falls in the same day!
The first was on my way out of Warsaw. I realized I'd gone past my turn, and veered onto the sidewalk, which is flush with the road in that section of Winona Avenue.
Only this particular section wasn't quite flush; there was an invisible one-inch curb. Striking a curb steers the bike out from under you, and you go down hard.
Not as hard as the time I touched wheels on the way from Albany to here back in the eighties — I was going slowly, so there wasn't a lot of kinetic energy to disperse. The potential energy was sufficient to bruise my elbow, and it was quite sore for a couple of hours.
When the bike stopped, a pannier filled with canned goods I'd bought at Carniceria San Jose didn't. The hanger was bent out of shape, and I found a neatly-snipped piece of wire cable-tied to a rack stay. Since I couldn't see the double-size hole in the basket, that puzzled me for quite a while.
[When I removed the wire from the rack stay, I found a hose clamp, not a cable tie, under the wad of tape.]
None of the contents of the pannier were disturbed in the slightest; I'm impressed with my packing skills, and I hadn't even been trying. After I re-assured the driver of a passing pick-up truck that I was not in need of help, the bungees across the top of the pannier made a convenient handle for carrying the basket to a quiet place where I could figure out how to re-attach it. I managed . . . 09:47 ... go!
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I came into the sanctuary after the service started anyway — I'd been wandering around the church.
In the SEED sales room after the service, I showed a little too much interest in a brown duck apron that, I was assured, was a perfect match to the flowers on my black two-part dress, and came home wearing it.
Before leaving, I checked that one of the many pockets on the apron was a good way to bring home the two green cherry tomatoes that I had noticed on my way to church — they could go into the snack bag with a doughnut that I'd snitched for Dave. Then I came home by Park Avenue and didn't give any thought to the tomatoes until I was entering our driveway.
I managed to secure the basket with three bungee cords — two cow-hitched over the top wire of the basket and the rail of the rack, then pulled tight, and one passed under the rack stay near the cable-tied piece of wire, then pulled tight and clipped to the outside of the basket. (Picture was taken after refining the set-up at home.)
When I packed the dill weed and English muffins I'd bought at Walmart, I moved all the heavy stuff to the undamaged pannier, leaving the damaged one with nothing but crumpled grocery bags, my windbreaker and gloves (I never put either on, and came home a bit sweaty), and my little bag of stuff. The little bag holds spare handkerchiefs, a back-up mask, food bars, and the like. I did eat two or three of the salty meat sticks.
Then when we were putting thyroid medicine on Al's ear that night, my chair rolled out from under me and knocked a knob off the stove. Dave was able to put the knob back on, but I bruised my other elbow, and just now I found a bruise on the back of the shoulder that was not involved when I fell onto the sidewalk. I suppose I bounced off the arm of the chair on my way down.
Al walked around on the table wondering what all the commotion was.
I had to dash out of Walmart at four o'clock to be sure of getting home before sunset. And I did get home in time to zap Marie Calendar lasagna for supper.
This may be my last wandering trip to Walmart this year; I'd have to dash at three o'clock, and I can't get all those layers on much before eleven. Maybe if I scrubbed my feet the day before and slept in my socks . . .
Today, Al made a pest of himself with escape attempts. After each escape, we came back into the house with me grinning and Al purring. The medicine is working!
This evening, I put up the green tomatoes in half-pint jars. Pint jars would have made more-efficient use of the vinegar brine.
I don't think any of the jars are going to seal. I asked Donny what spices he'd used when he pickled tomatoes, he sent the recipe, and I decided to use it even though it's "refrigerator pickles" and not meant to keep. One does pour in boiling brine, but the vegetables are cold and chill it right down; the jars aren't even hot enough to write on with a wax pencil.
I made a few changes — 5% vinegar will taste too strong, but diluted vinegar won't keep the pickles as long as it will take to eat them up.
All the black pepper in the house is in the pepper grinder, so I used mixed peppercorns. I still haven't bought any yellow mustard seed, so I used brown — the brown seeds are much smaller and don't plump up fit to eat the way yellow seeds do. Walmart didn't have any dill seed, so I used dill weed.
A change I meant to make and didn't: I intended to add some calcium chloride, but used the original recipe as my check list and forgot that there was an item not on it.
Well, there's a new one. After eating his Cosequin, Al went to sleep under Dave's dining chair, not in it. I'd think the kitchen floor would be a mite cold. The sewing-room floor definitely is — time for me to unpack my winter typing shoes.
The recipe says that the flavor will have developed two days before Thanksgiving. I'll decide then whether to bring some to the party.
⁂
When I went out to the kitchen to make tea for tomorrow, Al was in the chair he had been under, and unhappy with me for turning on the light.
Another new spot. when I came in from fiddling with my bike with a burrito in my hand, intending to zap it for breakfast, Dave was eating his Toaster Scramble in my chair, and Al was flopped on the table in the spot where Dave's plate belongs.
I don't think he'll be allowed to keep that one. He can't get up onto the table if we keep the chairs pushed in. Or pulled way out.
My burrito will stay in the zapper for a while before I turn it over and give it another zap — one of my tires flunked the thumb test, which means that I have to pump up both of them.
⁂
It was half-past eleven when I rolled out.
And then I learned that Wednesday is the day that Our Father's House is closed. I knew that I should have bought that office chair when I saw it Saturday, and called Dave to come and get it.
It might still be there, but I couldn't see it through the window, and it was a *very* nice chair at a very low price.
I continued on Smith to Grant street and came back on Jefferson for my Sprawlmart tour.
I had a Taco Bell chalupa for lunch. Taco Bell "chalupas" are tacos made on leavened tortillas, sort of like pita loaves a quarter inch thick, or bread-flour pancakes. They are just the right amount of food for someone who intends to exercise afterward.
I found plain cleaning sponges at Dollar General, and pickled quail eggs at RP Home & Harvest. They were still out —or out again— of the mild ones I wanted, so I bought a jar each of "spicy" and "jalapeño". The "spicy" has nothing visible in it but jalapeños and the "jalapeño" has lots of other seasonings.
Nothing of interest in Dollar Tree. I walked across Service Liquor's lawn because their driveway is level and the Commerce Drive exit is too steep to start my bike on; I'd probably sprain something. On my way through their parking lot, I noticed a connection to the trailer park next door that hadn't been there a few years ago, so I used it in order to see whether there was another connection on the other side; there wasn't. When I saw the driveway into the little housing development east of the trailer park, I was still in exploring mode, so I also went around their periphery. (Unlike the trailer park, periphery was all there was.) Dave texted while I was on my way out of the development, and I texted back that I was at 30 and 250 E, which must have made him wonder how I had leisure to text.
The intersection requires about a hundred and ten percent of my attention, so I followed the route I always take after making that turn, forgetting entirely that I'd meant to turn left at the driveway that leads to Restaurant Supply. I didn't remember that I wasn't going home until I was almost to Joe's house.
Ah, well, going back meant that it was a right turn into the driveway, and turning left at 250 E and Wooster is easy.
Things on that driveway are pretty much the way I left them, except that the Antique Mall is now an auction house, and the motorsports place now sells lawn buildings. Which made me wonder where "Everything Outdoors" went when it disappeared from Lake Street Plaza.
Pity I couldn't pick up a sandwich at Kelainey's on the way home. (They are closed for the winter.) We split a Hungry Man Backyard Barbecue frozen dinner.
I entirely forgot that it was Veteran's day. Aren't there supposed to be church bells at eleven?
I'm typing this in my new chair. Immediately after breakfast (about eleven) I drove to Our Father's House, the chair was still there, another customer stepped aside to let me give the clerk $21.40, and a young man loaded it into the car.
I continued on Winona Avenue, crossed the railroad on Bronson Street, and went to Kroger on Fort Wayne — forgetting that the school blocks Fort Wayne. I'm usually on a bike when I'm in that neighborhood, and Fort Wayne is unsafe for bicycles until you get to the east side of the school, so I don't get reminded of the missing segment very often.
I was chilly crossing the parking lot at Kroger, and I wished I'd worn a long-sleeved shirt. (It hadn't been windy when I went outside to comb my hair.) When I came out of Kroger with four bags of food, I was glad I hadn't — less fabric to get wet in the rain.
Since I'd had to put brown mustard seed into the pickles, I bought a can of yellow mustard seed — and when I put it into the row of spice cans, it was right next to another unopened can of yellow mustard seed.
I set the can I bought today aside for a donation to Our Father's House.
I've been curious about Quorn for some time, so I bought four mold-and-wheat patties. Turned out that they need to be fried in the oven — I think I'll try the technique on other kinds of patties. Heat oven and griddle to 450F, bake ten minutes per side. Came out perfect.
There's a faint mushroomy flavor if you snip out a bit of meat, but they taste mostly of breading.
I wonder when I can interest Dave in eating the other two patties?
I also bought a quart of vinegar to replace the bottle I used up making marinated tomatoes, and splurged on Heinz because it comes in a glass bottle and I didn't know when I'd want to use it.
While re-arranging the soda fridge today, I found a quart of Our Family vinegar that had been decanted into a Heinz bottle. Also a *very* stale half bottle of coconut water that had probably been delicious before it rotted. I fed it to the oregano plant.
Dave and I went out together this morning — to get our third Covid shot. Hurt going in, but it isn't sore now.
We woke up to snow all over the place yesterday. There are still traces of it this morning.
⁂
I'm planning to go through Warsaw tomorrow, so I packed up the books I need to return to the library — and found my missing coupons and shopping list, used as a bookmark.
The coupons have expired, but the list includes a couple of things I want to look for at Meijer, if I wake up in time to stop on the way back from PetSmart. I'd planned to wait for my new pannier, but there aren't that many days of canned food left, and I put the cat food in the right pannier anyway. That leaves little space for picking up other things, but I'm not going to have time to stop.
No time for the big-box stores, if you don't count a pit stop at Walmart, but I found a pair of sandals at the shoe store next to Petsmart. Same length and width as my feet, comfortable to walk in despite the skimpy strapping, and black so I can wear them to church with black stockings.
And they were only ten dollars — at this time of year, the only place you find sandals is the clearance aisle. I always check clearance aisles, but I think this is the first time I've found something.
I managed to bungee the box to the rack even though the green bungee turned out to be a rope when I tried to stretch it. I threw it into the landfill bin when I got home, and opened a package of two red bungees.
And I've just now remembered that my little bag of stuff includes a pair of hose for trying on Sunday sandals. But the stockings I had on were about as thick as hose with opaque socks under them.
I opened the last can of the old batch of cat food this morning. I haven't sorted the new batch into random order yet. (I make sure there aren't two cans of the same brand in the same stack, to enhance variety.)
I planned to sew in the morning and buy milk and eggs in the afternoon, but phone spammers made it take the whole afternoon to get an hour of rest. My first thought was going to Kroger after supper, but I don't like to drive after dark.
So tomorrow I'll shop in the morning, and hope that the spammers will allow me to finish copying my pattern in the afternoon.
It was after noon before I got my act together and rolled out. Somewhat to my surprise, the store wasn't crowded.
When I saw that if I bought fake milk, I'd have to put it into my damaged pannier, I reflected that I could stop at Kroger on my way back from tomorrow's ride, and didn't get it. I forgot that I mean to buy lunch for two at a fund raiser and hurry home before it gets cold.
But I'd already put two cartons of shelf-stable fake milk in the cart, to stash in case of emergency, and the jug hefts as though it were still half full.
I wish that fake milk, like dairy milk, came in translucent containers so that I could see how much is left.
I did draw a couple of lines on the posterboard pattern today. It's almost ready to cut out and draw around — now I need to figure out how to mark bias lines on the fabric. I *think* that I can do it if I put all the leaves in the dining table.
I bought maple-roasted walnuts at the farmer's market. I should have chosen the almonds.
At the fund raiser, two orders of chili came in a bag that was two bottles of water too wide to fit into my pannier. It went in without *too* much coaxing after I dropped the water between the bungees holding the other pannier on. I forget what all was in the bag with the chili: cornbread, slabs of fudge that had been advertised as brownies, shredded cheese, sour cream, handfulls of individually-wrapped saltines, chopped onion — one container green, the other white. Dave ate the white one and I ate the green.
Each serving of chili was a little more than would fit into an oatmeal dish, in a one-quart bowl with a handle and a Snapware-type lid. Really-nice bowls, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.
It came reasonably close to being a twenty-dollar meal. I presume that most of the stuff was contributed.
I got a yummy supper out of clearing the fridge.
Yesterday I noticed that we weren't likely to use up the left-over hamburger before it spoiled, and crumbled it up in a hot skillet, then put the skillet into the fridge.
A large baking potato has been around for so long that I've forgotten what it was left over from.
On my last trip to Kroger I took some queso dip from the cheese-clearance bin, and didn't notice until I got it home that it has to be served warm, it can't be heated in the container it was bought in, and when cold it's a solid chunk of glue very firmly attached to the container.
So I fried a minced stalk of celery, a tablespoon or two of minced very green pepper, and all the small pieces of onion in the fridge, minced, in the greasy hamburger.
Then I scooped a blob of queso dip out of the container with the spatula I was stirring with, and as it heated, most of it detached from the spatula.
I served it over a crisply-baked potato. Toasted, really: zapped, then kept hot in the toaster oven.
Dave scooped the flesh out of his half and I got both skins.
***
I have added another whole brand of cat food to my "Do not buy" list. Al is doing his part to keep me in shape: between the ever-shrinking list of acceptable food and his improving appetite, I will need to ride to Petsmart more often.
The weather is making me reserve more and more of my pannier space for clothes I've taken off and clothes I might want to put on.
Grumbly-gripe. I've got lovely new Sunday sandals, and I had to wear my oxfords to church because of rain.
I washed the loads in the wrong order — it's a lovely drying day, and yesterday I dried a king-size sheet on two card tables.
Of course, when I began the wash, I didn't know I wasn't going to finish. I went to bed as soon as the first load was hung on racks (and hangers and card tables), and as I was settling down, the phone rang — a real call! But fumbling around, I somehow hung up on him when I tried to put it on "speaker". I'm pretty sure that the landline has a callback feature, but I haven't the foggiest idea of how to invoke it, or even where the manual, if there is a manual, is. And I don't have the Trailhouse phone number.
But there could be only one message from "Trailhouse Vill". As soon as I woke up, I started dressing for outside, and rode the flatfoot because I was in a hurry (I thought they might close at five, but they close at six.) and because I'd been meaning for months to ask them to install my mirror on it.
The mechanic installed the mirror *and* inspected the bike while I was paying for my basket, because he thought I needed it to go home. And it was very convenient — I got home in time to open a can of soup and make Dave a honeymoon salad.
He didn't charge for the work; I'd specifically said that after reading the instructions, I wanted to pay somebody. When giving the bike back, he remarked that it would have taken me all day to install the mirror, but after you've installed fifty, it takes only a few minutes.
I didn't bring the clothes in until after dark — but that isn't all that late these days.
I spent most of Wednesday devilling eggs. Dave asked whether I was going to peel them Alton Brown's way — dumping them into ice water as soon as they are cooked. When I was finished, I told him that I had, but next time I'm going to do it Bill Smith's way — buy pre-peeled hard-boiled eggs.
I was surprised that we had very few ice cubes — I hadn't re-filled the bin after the last time I'd re-filled the ice trays, and that had been so long ago that more than half of the ice in the trays had evaporated. Luckily, I had a chunk of ice in a Snapware box.
For some reason, I had very little interest in my bedtime snack last night. I'm usually quite hungry at nine o'clock.
I just nibbled for supper — and never quite stopped.
When we got home, Al hadn't touched the painkiller-laced Fancy Feast I'd given him for breakfast, so I opened a can of Royal Canin Mother and Baby Cat and gave him another dose. He asked for seconds on that, and still liked it when it was time for his Cosequin.
The rain appears to have changed to snow during the night. It's sticking only to dry leaves and other places insulated from the ground.
I may have invented something. This morning I was helping Dave hunt for the White Castle that was left in the small-packages-of-meat basket right *there* (and I'm still sure it's in the freezer), and noticed the last three of the hot dogs left over from the Fall Festival, and asked whether he wanted one for supper. So I put two in the fridge to thaw and why put just one back into the freezer? I zapped the other and put it into the toaster oven for my lunch. What sort of bread should I thaw? I don't feel like bread, I'll mix up some mashed potatoes and bake them on top.
I put some queso dip into the mashed potatoes, and it was so good that I did it again for supper, in a more-organized manner, and called it shepherd's hot dogs.
It would have been better with a better sausage, and I should have set the oven for top element only for a few minutes to brown the tips of the potatoes. I cooked the hot dogs until done, then turned the brown side up (they brown on the bottom first, despite there being half as many elements and the mini cookie sheet being in the way), covered them with hot zapped potatoes, and baked a while longer.
I got to church so late that I decided to listen from the kitchen, rather than disturb the service.
For supper, I ruined the very nice steak I bought yesterday by overcooking it. I thought it too thick to pan broil, but it was just right for that and much to thin to bake. I think I'll mince the leftovers and warm them up in gravy.
I wore my new sandals yesterday — and noticed that the corners of shiny hardware that peek out between the straps are glaringly conspicuous when I wear black hose.
One load of wash today, by dint of putting back capris that I intend to put away for the winter when they have been washed, a bath towel (the linen closet is stuffed with towels), and an old curtain I got down for some reason that I've forgotten, and think ought to be washed before I put it back on the shelf.
For supper, I made "jerky soup" out of the overcooked steak, the last of the turkey breast, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of mushrooms, and assorted seasonings.
I'm still picking fresh thyme, oregano, marjoram, and parsley. I had to dig in the autumn leaves a bit to find the oregano.