On Saturday, I took the same route as on Wednesday, November 3rd, but this time I took the windbreaker and made it to Aldi. I put it on when I came out of Tractor Supply.
Tragically, I took my elaborately-concocted bottle of tea into R.P. Home and Harvest because it was time to start drinking it, but, engaged in looking around I didn't take a single sip — and when I wanted to take the bottle out before returning the cart, it wasn't in the cart or anywhere else. After a frantic search, I bought a bottle of Pure Leaf unsweetened green tea, but I really missed the oregano and bay leaf and honey and stuff I'd put into my boiled-black green gunpowder tea.
And that was the only translucent bicycle bottle I own. I really, really like being able to *see* that the stuff in the bottle isn't water.
The route home from Aldi passes near Jimmy-John's, so I bought a sixteen-inch sub to be supper that night and lunch on Sunday. I asked that the sub be cut in half, but neglected to say that I wanted the halves wrapped separately. By good luck I'd figured out how to pack a baguette at Aldi: Put one end of the loaf into a plastic grocery bag, arrange the loaf on top of the other stuff in the pannier, tie the handles of the bag through the wires to keep the loaf from sliding forward, then place another bag over the other end and tie the handles to keep it from slipping back. Then use not-too-tight bungees to keep it from moving sideways.
It got home in excellent condition, but with frozen food to put away and four layers of clothing to peel off, it was a while before I got some submarine.
The washing machine makes such alarming noises when it spins that today I packed up the wash and drove to Hayden's Laundry Center on Lake Street.
Next Monday, I'm going to sort the laundry on Sunday. But despite arriving at noon, the laundromat wasn't crowded.
Winona Avenue was closed at the entrance, but I'd intended to go up Argonne anyway. Of course, I had to get in line behind people who hadn't intended to go up Argonne.
All the lights on Market and one of the lights on Center were out. The one on Center was out deliberately; there was a stop sign in the middle of the intersection and machinery around. I debated zigging over to Fort Wayne, but before I could, I saw red lights in the distance and knew Center was safe the rest of the way to Kroger.
As far as I know, Winona is still closed from Argonne to McKinley.
We took Al to the vet this morning. She couldn't figure out was wrong with him, but said that he appears to be getting over it on his own.
His weight is still dropping.
In the afternoon, I gave him some bits of bacon and he ate them, so bacon-grease gravy might be a way to sneak some calories into him. I also need to look for foods high in Vitamin B.
This evening, Dave said that he sat in his lap and was almost normal.
After lunch, I took the bike in for an overhaul. I'm already feeling grounded.
There was a hard freeze last night, and I think the parsley is done until spring, but there might be other herbs under the leaves that have blown into the raised bed.
I keep three carpet samples for the cat litter, two under the boxes and one hanging on the line to get rained on. When rain is predicted after a few days of dry weather, I swap the one on the line for the stinkier of the two under the boxes.
With freezing weather moving in, that system isn't going to work very well.
A quiet day at home. I finally finished a small mending job that has been in progress for weeks; there has always been something higher in priority to do. Perhaps tomorrow I can mark fabric for cutting out some new bras.
On Friday and Tuesday, I have checkups scheduled. I hope I don't flunk any of the tests; I don't have *time* for more appointments.
The "Faith Kosciusko" column today is about the writer's experience ringing a bell for the Salvation Army, and includes the phrase "dropping coins and bills in the bucket". I didn't drop a bill into the kettle last Monday — I had to *push*. Isn't that cool!
I got a late start going to Petsmart because I had to pick up my newly-repaired bicycle first. I got off about noon, and was ready to come home without my intended visit to Meijer around two. I had taken a lap around a few of the stores near Petsmart. I wanted a food bar before leaving, and my bag of emergency food wasn't in my go bag. I had the bag completely disarranged before I remembered that I'd put the food into the console to make it easier to get at.
It was after three by the time I'd fed the cat, brought in stuff, and eaten lunch. I slept the rest of the afternoon and Dave ate a Banquet Mega bowl for supper. I ate some of his left-overs and put the rest in the fridge for my nine-o'clock snack.
At some point, I cut a thin slice each of Purrfect Bistro, Little Friskies, and Fancy Feast and put them on a plate. Al ate the Purrfect Bistro and the Fancy feast, so I gave him another slice of Fancy Feast and threw out the remaining serving of Little Friskies. That was a five-ounce can, so it had probably gotten a little stale.
On the way home from my semi-annual checkup on Friday, I bought a nice piece of steak. That evening I pan-broiled it, toasted four mini potatoes, and opened a can of spinach. It was very good.
Al agreed. I shaved off a few crumbs of steak, Al ate them up, I chipped off some more, he must have eaten a tablespoon of it. Pity the edge fat was gone before I thought of offering Al steak — he needs fat more than I do! I saved the last bite and gave him half for his eleven o'clock meal, and put his morning painkiller on the other half.
This evening, I thought Al wasn't going to eat his Cosequin. I primed it with a few snips of bacon, and he ate all of it and asked for the other half of the serving of Fancy Feast. He didn't eat all of that.
Cool! He's nagging me for his eleven o'clock. Time to sign off.
I meant to sort the laundry into loads this evening, but soon realized that I can't do that until I see how much space the sheets and pillowcases occupy. I did sort it into piles that go into the same machine, and do all the tedious stain removal. Except for the blood on Dave's pillowcase.
It must have been a while since we stopped using bar soap. I use worn-down chips to remove stains, and the current "chip" still has a readable logo.
I had a turn when I went to see whether I'd marked my blood draw on the calendar, and saw that I'd scheduled it for the same day as my mammogram. But the fasting blood draw is at 8:00 and the mammogram is in the afternoon.
Weather Underground says that Tuesday will be the best day this week to get some much-needed outdoor exercise, but I don't want to get up early enough to put on four layers of clothes before leaving at seven-thirty, and going for a mammogram with four or five shirts on messes up the system. (They are ready for me so fast that I would be still peeling off shirts when it's my turn.) Not to mention that the lockers are too small to put four shirts in.
But Friday, though cooler and cloudier, will have even less wind.
I probably would have gotten a nine-o'clock appointment for the blood draw if I'd had the wit to ask for it.
I distinctly remember noticing that the blood draw was the same day that Dave is supposed to pick up our pie — so how did I get it into my head that it was Tuesday, rather than Thursday?
Ah, well, I asked the clerk, and the phlebotomist had a slot at nine o'clock.
I think maybe I noticed that it was the same day as another appointment and switched "pie" for "mammogram".
On the way home from KCH, I stopped at Kroger and bought a small strip steak. Pan-broiled it and served it with toasted potatoes and warmed-over spinach. I thought there was a nice wide strip of fat on one edge, but after cooking I could find hardly any to slice off for the scrawny cat. But hardly any is rather a lot for a cat who can rarely get down all of a quarter of a three-ounce can.
This morning, I minced half of what remained of the bite I saved and dripped .18 ml of Metacam on it. It went right down.
I got back on my newly-overhauled bike for the first time today. Dave saw an orange sign down Boys City Drive, and I was wearing sweat pants that had been pegged for some forgotten reason, so I put on a coat — not really necessary — hopped on, and went to see what was going on. They appeared to be replacing a storm sewer.
Then I reflected that I hadn't checked out my shifters and went to the park's parking lot. The front shifter seems a bit reluctant to go onto the big ring, but I'd rather have that than an inclination to go over the big ring and get wedged in. (I have the outside rings of a triple crank on a double crankset, so there's a very big jump onto the big ring.) Also the adjustment seems to get looser as time goes by.
Just now realized that I should have tested the brakes.
A quiet day at home, once I got my blood drawn. I even combed and braided my hair. I combed it after I washed it on Monday morning, ran around with it flying loose until it dried, and ever since, I've been brushing over the surface and putting a rubber band around it.
For supper tonight, I opened the bag of frozen Kroger vegetable fried rice that I bought a while back, and we agreed that when it's gone, I should buy another one. It's loose in the bag, so that one can take exactly what's needed and warm it up in a hot skillet, and it could be put into other dishes — fried-rice cakes for breakfast, for example.
I opened a can of Grabil chunk chicken and chopped up almost half to mix with the rice. We ate exactly all of it, so one cup of rice per person is just right.
Al really grooved on the rich broth in spite of the added salt and pepper. It's just juice cooked out of the meat, no water added, so I think it's probably also nutritious. There's even a little fat in it. I think I'll give him his morning painkiller in some of the remaining broth. In the meanwhile, pouring a little on his cosequin-laden Tastefuls salmon paté got most of it down.
We sampled the cherry pie before supper. Now I'm using Grandmother's stovetop oven as a pie safe, so that we can keep it in the cool garage.
Once again, this chore and that delay got me off on my all-day ride after noon. But I didn't put my windbreaker on at three — at three o'clock, I was in Wings eating jalapeño poppers. (Cheese sauce with minced jalapeños in it, heavily breaded and french fried.)
Dave had had a dinerburger not too long before. (I saw the car parked in front of Wings and went in. Ordered poppers and stuck him with the bill.)
For supper, we had a slice of pie each. Dave also ate two sushi rolls, and I had a piece of Norwegian crispbread.
To Kroger, by way of the Pavilion in Central Park, where the Winter Farmer's Market was meeting. At the market, I passed on the frozen meat because I wasn't going straight home, and I slapped my hand as I was passing the maple-candy booth, so I didn't bring anything out that I didn't take in.
Near as I can make out, Kroger doesn't sell raisins — occurs to me now that I don't recall checking the canned-food aisle. I tried produce, baking supplies, and snacks. They were out of ginger snaps, fold-top sandwich bags, and translucent cups. I got most of the other stuff on my list, including marked-down beef chuck to make beef tea for the cat — it's on the stove in a wide-mouth pint jar in my six-quart stock pot full of 180° water. I think 160° would have been better, but at least it doesn't appear to be in any danger of boiling. [Dave checked it a few times during my nap and it was always close to 190°]
I'd have preferred stew beef; it seems wasteful to stew stir-fry beef.
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But that was a very good way to cook it.
Having got to bed late, I slept until suppertime — and found Dave asleep in front of the television, so soundly that I fetched our forehead thermometer to make sure he was still warm. Foraging around for something that I could cook quickly when he woke up, I remembered the fried rice, and sorted out corn, peas, and snap peas to put in it. Then when it was time to cook, I like to never found the rice. I remembered that it was in a bag, but forgot that the bag was in a box.
Before cooking the rice, I took the beef tea out of the bath, opened it, and stuck a fork in it. The meat was a tad more than half gone by the end of the meal. It was a tad less than a pound when I put it into the jar, so that was about right. I must remember what the trendy new term for cooking in a double boiler is, because I plan to do it again. The previous trendy term was "bain marie".
Much to my surprise, the parsley is still going strong. It's been too cold to check on the thyme, oregano, and marjoram.
It turns out that the cat won't even consider eating the beef tea. But I plan to look in R.P.'s cookware for a tall, narrow pot to do it again in. I think that they sell a corn pot that would do.
I just organized my shopping list — I plan to stop at Kroger on my way home from the laundromat tomorrow. Maybe this time I'll find the raisins.
Washing shouldn't take all day: It will all fit into a triple loader.
It was nearly noon when I got off — somehow laying my clothes out and putting everything into the car the day before wasn't enough. I timed the washer — a tad over half an hour. I probably spent more time than that looking for raisins. This time I tried candy and canned fruit and health food, I went through the baking supplies again, and was in various random aisles.
But the translucent cups are back in stock, and while we still have a comfortable quantity of the previous bag.
After putting the laundry on racks, I slept until suppertime, then fed Dave steak and potatoes, with vanilla ice cream and cherry pie for dessert. I'm saving my pie for a bedtime snack.
There was enough fat in Al's first serving that he ate only half of his second, mostly-lean serving. He came back for it later.
Dave's new cane arrived today. It converts into a grabber, which is really cool.
I added Whole Earth Kitten to Al's "don't buy" list.
Winona Avenue was open yesterday, but I suspected that it would be closed again soon.
Dave said that it's still open today, and that there are still heavy machines where the right-turn cutoff was.
Half an hour before bedtime: I just scored eight at Hexavirus.
Christmas at Steve & Martha's house.
I ate half a turtle before breakfast. The rest are in a nut cannister on top of the pie safe in the garage. (My pie safe is Grandmother Jesse Bailey's stovetop oven.)
I'll have the last slice of pie and the remaining ice cream for my bedtime snack. Dave is looking up the location of Dan's Pies on his phone.
My lunch was the last of the green tomatoes I picked off Dave and Kathy's vines, sliced and fried like green tomatoes. It was entirely red, but a picked tomato doesn't gain any juice.
That'll larn me to glory in having a clear calendar. I broke a tooth eating pizza at supper yesterday. Christmas Eve isn't the best possible time to try to get your dentist's attention. I left my name and phone number, but I doubt that anybody will listen to the tape before Monday.
Fortunately, it doesn't hurt, and I notice that it's sharp only when I poke it on purpose. But it makes me a bit nervous about chewing on that side.
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For supper tonight, I tried cooking a couple of frozen hamburger patties by the method printed on the Quorn box: pre-heat oven and griddle to 425°, bake ten minutes a side. If I try that again, I think I'll make it five minutes a side. It was pretty good overcooked, though. (Very fatty meat.)
It would also be a good idea to bread the patties.
Saturday is my usual day to take exercise, but if anything is open today I would, as a matter of principle, not go in.
I've opened out the eating table and moved the yellow linen onto it. My Christmas present to myself may be a new set of bras.
Dave had Godiva coffee and a Toaster Scramble for breakfast. I had two "baked cheese rolls", a devilled egg, and a butterscotch hard candy.
Now I'm yearning for another half turtle.
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I made a most excellent hamburger-and-diced tomato soup for supper. More of a stew or spanish hamburger, as there was very little broth.
And it was still good when we had some of the leftovers for supper on Monday night.
Al wasn't feeling good yesterday evening, and never even sniffed his nine-o'clock feeding. It was still there when I gave him his eleven o'clock, and he didn't move at all — he usually at least wakes up and sniffs when I mess with his food dishes.
Ditto for his two o'clock, but the eleven o'clock was gone. And when I got tired of lying awake at three, the two o'clock was gone, so I gave him another one, and when I got up at four, he was eating it. So I backed out of the kitchen quietly and put my nightshirt on, intending to sit up and write a bit, but when I started across the hall, by good luck I saw a white foot and didn't step on Al, who was drinking out of the water dish at the end of the hall. So I put another serving of food out and I'll see whether it's still there before I go back to bed.
And yes, I'm having a bad night, and just when I'd planned to get some long-postponed sewing done before I go to Dr. Hollar in the afternoon.
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I slept the rest of the night, waking only a little late. Al is feeling much better, and has been eating everything I give him. Looking for a sure-fire breakfast to give him his Metacam in, I opened an envelope of tuna-and-chicken "bisque", and he demanded seconds until he'd eaten the entire packet. (Except for a rim that I scraped into a pea-sized lump.)
Dave and I spent some time hunting for the spare light bulbs before I could start sewing. There is no overhead light in the parlor, so I have to turn on *all* the lamps to get a good view of something lying on a table. I did put two marks on the linen, to define a bias line, before it was time to take a nap so I'd be fit to drive.
I allowed time to drive at not over twenty, but not to clear over an inch of snow off the car while huge flakes messed up the windows as fast as I cleared them, so I didn't arrive before my appointed time, as I prefer to to do. (It hadn't started snowing when I went to bed.)
I was amazed at how heavy the traffic was in such nasty weather. While I was meditating in the chair, I realized that if everybody spends three times as much time in each mile, each mile is going to contain three times as many vehicles.
I was much too busy to notice the beauty of the scenery in both directions, but the wide window in front of the chair framed a beautiful postcard. But after an hour or so the snow got too thick on the trees, and looked more like a snow globe's obvious thick paint.
By the time my broken tooth was repaired, the snow had stopped, it had fallen off the street signs, and the snow plows were so busy that I could see the pavement markings in a lot of places, so the trip home was much easier.
In particular, at Detroit Street, I could see the signs saying which lane was which. On the way out, I got into the lane to the right of what I thought was the left-turn lane, and when I got to the front of the queue, saw that I was in the right-turn lane. In such poor visibility, turning right and then finding my way back to Winona wasn't an option, so when the light changed, I crept into the intersection, figuring that I could get out when the light stopped the vehicles to my left, but it turned out that there were only three vehicles in that line, so I was able to get through while the light was still green.
Good news: when I saw the photograph of the broken tooth, I resigned myself to another crown, and Dr. Hollar suggested it at first, then reflected that the filling that broke out had held for ten years, and filled it on the spot — which took enough time for the worst of the storm to pass. So I don't have to go back.
Then this evening I was sitting around gleefully reflecting that I didn't have anything to do before the year was out when I remembered that I had postponed the washing to Tuesday before the dentist's secretary woke me up Monday morning to make today's appointment — not as awake as I thought; when the hygenist started taking information, we discovered that I'd said lower right when it's upper left. I did get the "molar" right. So I had postponed laundry to tomorrow.
Dave had washed all his undershorts earlier today to see whether the washing machine was as dramatic as I'd said. It wasn't, partly because a small load puts less stress on the spinner, and partly because one can't hear it dancing and clanking from Dave's usual chair
When I moaned that I was too tired to sort laundry tonight, he also washed his socks, so I can sew tomorrow and wash on Thursday.
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Spent Monday spending $196.48 at Aldi. I got a pint of chocolate ice cream and a loaf of thirty-five calorie bread. The closest I could find to ginger snaps (which Kroger has been out of for weeks) was gingerbread cookies. Color was about all they have in common; you couldn't prove by me that ginger is among the spices in the gingerbread. I froze the cookies for when the holiday goodies run out.
Aldi had raisins, at long last, and they are better than the previous batch.
I didn't drink anything while at the dentist, so when I got back into the car I took a big swig from my bottle and sprayed water all over my shirt. Startled, but still thirsty, I took another swig and again didn't swallow a significant amount of it. Then the dime dropped, I mopped myself up, and took several tiny sips. I had to poke my lip to tell that it was still numb, but the motor nerves were still out of whack. Sipping from a glass still felt funny when I took my suppertime pills — which wasn't all that much later, since it was after four before I left.
The lasagna rolls I'd bought the day before made a good soft supper, but the next time I serve them I'll heat one each instead of two, and zap them before I put them into the oven. And I'll put some meat in the sauce, sausages if I have no cooked ground beef.
Laundry is all sorted and ready to go in the morning. I did make progress on my new bras.
On my last trip to Petsmart, I bought a packet of Back Country lumps in gravy, hoping that envelope lumps were tastier than canned lumps. Boy howdy are they! This morning I opened the packet to get a little fresh gravy to give Al his Metacam in. It was less gravy than I expected; most was stuck to the lumps. As usual, I gave him a serving of the main part after he'd licked up the gravy, and he ate every lump, chasing some onto the carpet sample I set his dishes on. Then I tried to shake out a second helping and the entire packet flooped into his dish. He made a sincere effort to eat all of it, and there wasn't a lot to scrape onto the garbage plate at his next feeding.
And he's been asking for seconds at every feeding all day. He ate half of the can of Fancy Feast that I opened to put his Cosequin in at nine. He usually eats a quarter can or less at a sitting. I'm going to have to go to Petsmart earlier than I planned.
Dave drove to Petsmart today and bought a bag of litter.
[change of topic]
We had a scare yesterday. We moved my flatfoot while searching for the spare light bulbs and I forgot to put it back. When Dave put the car into the garage that night, he knocked it over, and when he picked it up, neither wheel would turn. When I went to look at it — it *had* been put away by then, and fiddling with it was rather difficult — I picked up the back end and spun the back wheel, but the front wheel was well and truly jammed.
So this morning, Dave asked me to help him put it into the car so that he could take it to the Trailhouse to ask whether it could be repaired. I expected the answer to be "no" because the front fork isn't standard and I doubt that Trek sells replacement parts. (And Dave was wondering how he could have bent the front fork by driving into the back of the bike.)
In moving the bike out of the garage, he had discovered that the front wheel would turn if you turned it to the side. We kept trying to see what was broken, but all I could find was that the cables were a tangled mess. There was, in fact, no way loops that are secured at both ends could interloop that way.
Making a long story short because I've forgotten most of the details, the only thing wrong was that the handlebars had been rotated a full turn. Turn them back around, and the tangles magically untangle and nothing jams the wheel.
So nothing is wrong with the bike except that it needs a bath. I haven't been riding it because my sciatica has been in almost complete remission for a long time, so I hadn't noticed the accumulation of dirt.
I spent the whole day washing one load of clothes.
And there's a rack of underwear I haven't put away yet.
I also plan to iron the edges of a sheet when I clear the ironing board to press a seam.
I cut out a bra and a half today. I had to stop and sweep the cutting mat after each cut because the cheap linen leaves a thick thread of yellow dust when the knife passes by. I don't understand either the dust-size lint or the way it collects so neatly — until there is some slight disturbance.
I just checked Weather Underground, and I can stay out until half-past five now!
I can hardly believe it: the parsley is still green.
This was a pretty good year for us.: nothing dramatic to report, which is just the way we like it. We saw my family at Thanksgiving and Dave's at Christmas.
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