I finally cleaned the multipliers, put them into a papier-maché box, put the box into the paper lunch bag that I use for a root cellar, and put the lunch bag at the back of the top shelf of a cupboard hung on an interior wall of the garage.
They seem to keep as well there as they did in braided strings in the basement of the New York place.
I'm planning, next spring, to plant enough to make whole pickled onions when they get to the stage where they are fully formed, but the leaves are still green enough to pull off as if they were scallions.
Next question: what do I do with a half gallon of pickled onions? I'd better start accumulating wide-mouth half-pint jars.
In case there's a pitch-in at the proper season, I should start looking for Mom's recipe for creamed onions. I can't even remember whether she served them hot or cold.
No more Roach motel! One can now get to Argonne Road from King's highway. It's probably been that way for days; the only way we can get news about the roundabout is to go down and look, which is far from easy in a car, and I haven't felt up to riding a bike or the flatfoot.
I'm hoping to buy a newspaper tomorrow; gas stations used to sell local papers. But that may have been only gas stations on U.S. routes. I intend to stop at Winona Lake Mercantile on my way to the gas station on Center Street.
Wahh! I wanna check the ten-day forecast before I decide how much clothes to put on. An arm out the window doesn't tell you whether temperature and wind speeds are going up or down.
18:41 — There's a newspaper box beside the post office. Haven't found anything about the roundabout. Top story is the puzzlement of several groups of people over how to get eastbound traffic on Center Street to stop when a westbound school bus stops to pick up children
I've been saying that my route out of Winona Lake is secure because they wouldn't have sodded along the sidewalk if they meant to tear it up. Today both sidewalk and sodding were gone, leaving nothing but rough dirt that looks as though one would sink into it ankle deep.
But! They made an asphalt ramp from the end of the sidewalk to the now-closed incoming lane of Park Avenue, and marked a lane with double-headed arrows all along the jersey barriers (I think that that is what portable walls are called) marking off the soon-to-be-open outgoing lane of Park Avenue, traffic cones mark a curve onto Winona Avenue, and a lane wide enough for two-way foot traffic continues all the way to McKinley. And, I was assured by a big-shovel operator, "They'll take care of you at the end." But, as it happened, nobody else wanted to turn onto McKinley when I did, so I didn't need help. It *was* a bit difficult to signal my turn on the rough pavement.
A whole bunch of *rational* thought went into this.
And a lot of work.
I've been too busy to write about important things — and had nothing to say. But it's trivial things that make amusing posts, and there are more-reliable sources for important news.
It's twoo, it's twoo! [Blazing Saddles]
Somewhere James Beard (I think; been decades) said "I have often lunched royally on nothing but a cold baked potato and a little salt."
We had left-overs that were good for loading a baked potato, so for supper tonight I zapped a potato for six minutes, then toasted it at 350° for a bit more than six minutes, cut it in half, put one half (cut side down) into my smallest skillet over low heat to keep warm, scooped the middle of the potato onto Dave's plate, then filled the skin with meatballs in pizza sauce and a dash of mozzarella cheese for me.
Having pigged out at the funeral dinner — I ate too much, then filled my plate a second time — we didn't want the other half potato, so I took it off the fire and covered it with a paper towel to keep the flies off.
A bit after eight, I thought it time to replace the towel with the skillet lid, and how about taking just a bit of skin off the end?
It was delicious! It didn't even need salt. I kept coming back for another slice and the potato didn't make it to nine-o'clock snack time, so I had a Captain's Wafer with my pills.
I think the key is "don't chill it". Cooked starch undergoes an unpleasant change when it is chilled.
Dave has been cleaning his shelves at one box a day. This morning he emptied two boxes before I'd finished breakfast, and decided that he might as well do the last one too. He's got a big box of stuff to take to the recycling center, and he found a lot of forgotten treasures. He has two phone-ringer generators, one missing the crank.
Saturday, we cleaned the top shelf in the laundry room. I had to dry it because Dave's balance isn't good enough. There's a lot more space up there, though all I remember throwing out was a roll of wallpaper. I did find some wooden box-dividers that Dave said belonged with his stuff, and that enabled me to fit all the curtain findings into one ammo box. Dave put the other one with his plastic ammo boxes.
There are three spare bottles of peroxide on the top shelf. I must have gotten carried away when the peroxide shortage ended. One spare bottle let us sit out the entire famine, with peroxide still left when it became available again. And I don't think I skimped on it.
Sunday I cleaned a shelf I'd half emptied looking for the spare Cosequin bottle. (Turned out that the bottle I'm using out of *is* the spare, so Dave ordered two more, which were delivered yesterday or the day before.)
In the process, I learned that we had eight cans of fruit canned in pear juice. Now there are six.
I spent this morning uncovering the old compost heap, and piling the leaves and bushes on it on the new compost heap. Someday I'm going to have to find out what weed can make a woody bush in a couple of months. It has lots and lots of flying seeds on it — smaller than dandelion seeds. I think it's in the composite family, like dandelions and umpty zillion other plants.
Then I put a wheelbarrow of sandy compost around the tarragon plant in the strawberry bed.
Since tarragon vinegar tastes awful, I never looked at tarragon plants when I saw them for sale until this summer. I tasted a leaf, it tasted pretty good, and I bought the plant.
I looked up how big tarragon gets *after* I planted it six inches from the lavender.
The roofers started work today, and got far enough along that I think that they can finish before it starts raining tomorrow — if they work on Saturdays. They are replacing the section of the house roof that the limb punctured, and the entire roof of the barn. The barn lost a lot of shingles in the same microburst that brought the limb down.
Dave said recently that we'd got a check from Nationwide. In cleaning up the account, they had discovered that we hadn't been reimbursed for removing the limb, and some other odds and ends.
The hammering on the roof didn't disturb my nap — except once when the noise stopped for a minute — but I didn't get much rest anyway. Just as I was drifting off, I remembered that I'd cleaned Al's dish, but hadn't put more food in it. (In his condition, a missed meal is dire.) When I got up to take care of that, I saw that the clothes on the line were whipping fit to be torn apart, so I had to bring them in.
Then when I'd gotten into it, some spammer wanted to sell me some fraudulent something or the other.
I still woke up soon enough to stuff a tiny acorn squash and bake it for supper. Dave surprised himself by liking it. I used shredded hash browns and a piece of carrot to keep his half from tipping in the petit pan, and propped mine up with frozen brussels sprouts.
There wasn't much room for corned-beef hash in the squash, and I'd mixed in about as much celery, onion, and corn as hash, so I put a meatball on top.
I warmed the stuffing in a skillet, and zapped the squash for three minutes. The props and the meatballs were still frozen when they went into the oven, and the carrot was raw. (One hour at 350°.)
I gave Al a piece of squash, which he regarded as a dirty trick, and later on gave him a piece of my meatball. I think I have trained him to stare at us big-eyed when we are eating. But anything we can get into the cat is all to the good.
When I checked the ten-day forecast this morning, I said "It isn't going to rain today after all — it's going to snow!
I didn't think that mattered since I thought that the precipitation was scheduled for the afternoon, but it mattered a whole bunch when I came out of Gabe's at 9:48 to find that the air was full of flakes. I'd have had to call for a ride if it had been rain, but I was easily able to shake the snow off my sleeves, and it didn't get the pavement wet until after I got home about ten. (Sprawl One is only two miles from here.)
It began to accumulate after I got home, and the view from the west windows was purty for a while, but it changed to rain sometime during my nap.
I find it frustrating that I never get off before ten despite laying out my clothes and readying the bike the night before, but for this ride (when it was urgent to get back before noon) I thought of also laying out my breakfast: Cinnamon Crunch cereal and all of the remaining pecan pieces in a box on the table, and frozen blueberries in a cereal bowl in the fridge.
We also woke up earlier than usual, so I rolled out at 8:53.
I hadn't *meant* to get home before the time I normally roll out, though.
This was my second tapering-up ride. On Thursday I rode to the urgent-care center to look over the gym where Dave did his rehab, since he's thinking of getting a family membership. The weather was *much* nicer! I got milk and cat food at Kroger on the way back, and a bag of translucent cups. I'd decided that they had discontinued them. This makes me hopeful for the natural peanut butter I can't get anywhere else, which there has been no sign of the last umpty-bump times I looked for it.
10:54 AM 11/14/2022
Got an e-mail notice that messages had been added to Lovelesses & Lecklitners, and even a field for a reply, but it proved impossible to type in that field, and it's still impossible to sign out. I'm surprised that the Facebook software isn't jumping up and down and turning pink because I never sign out after logging in.
I had a version of Windows that crashed frequently, and after every single crash it scolded me and told me to shut down properly. Note past tense.
In a sense, I'm not wasting this last sunny day. I've got a king-size sheet on the line.
I didn't feel up to planning a ride Sunday night, and also I have a five-minute patching job that I started in August. Haven't touched it yet, but it's in sight from my computer chair.
I think I'll put a clean sheet on the bed and get
into it.
/11:06 AM 11/14/2022
I did touch the mending job today: I positioned the patches, pinned them in place ready to baste and try on, selected a spool of thread, and threaded a needle.
I drove to the dentist today. The rain and snow didn't materialize until long after I was home, but I'm glad I drove. I'd have needed to arrive early enough to spend fifteen minutes peeling off layers, then I'd have needed to put them all back on again before I left.
And I don't think I'm in fit shape to exercise in the cold. Surprisingly, coughing wasn't a problem while I was in the chair — I spat my cough drop into my paper towel whenever they came back into the room. Hope the cough eases off before my next appointment on the twenty-ninth.
I made this appointment because a big chip out of a front tooth made me nervous about biting things. Now that I've seen my teeth with *their* equipment, I'm *really* nervous about biting things.
So I've got an appointment for two crowns and a filling.
Dave has nearly decided on Planet Fitness for continued rehab. It's lot cheaper and closer than the medical gym, and the things it doesn't have are mostly things he doesn't use. I was astounded to learn that a medical gym has tanning beds! I vaguely recall reading about a disease that is treated by exposure to ultraviolet light.
But I presume that at Planet Fitness, there won't be three coaches egging him on.
Dragged the rocking chair over by the window so I could baste the pinned patches. The cat was using the table I usually set next to the rocking chair, so I dusted off another, using the rag I use to wipe the gaskets — egad, I'm *way* overdue to wipe the gaskets and wash the doors of the fridges and freezer.
Then I had to come in here to delete a line from my to-do list. I shall baste those patches before lunch, I swear! (Usually in the %^&*$#@! sense.)
Basted 'em, did it wrong, in the evening I pulled the basting out and did it right. Basting correctly didn't take anywhere near as much time as floundering around did. I expect to machine sew as soon as I stop playing with my computer.
There is snow everywhere that it doesn't touch the ground directly.
I started drinking the second quart of tamarind extract this morning. It needs to be diluted four or five to one.
Quite a while back, I made a side trip into Greens & Spices while at the courthouse farmer's market. I spotted a block of dried tamarind and thought "Dried fruit! I'll buy it, break off a chunk for a snack, and take the rest home. Turned out the block was so hard that I couldn't get any off — and when I got home, I learned that tamarind is what you use when lemon isn't sour enough. A serving is one teaspoon.
I chipped off some with clam knives every time I made bitter tea, which improved the tea significantly.
And then I stopped drinking bitter tea, but the block of tamarind continued to clutter the top of the tea cannister.
Last Saturday, I got fed up with seeing it and dropped it into a saucepan, added a quart of water, brought it to a boil very slowly over the lowest flame, and turned off the fire but left the pot on the stove. It cooled very slowly there, and was still hot when I dipped half a cup into each of two "portion control" snack bags. Then I was bored with dipping small spoonfuls, so I dumped the mess into a half-gallon tea strainer and poured the extract into a large sandwich bag. (The bags were frozen flat, so that I can break off small pieces.)
Most of the quart of water had gone into rehydrating the tamarind pulp, so I dumped the pulp back into the saucepan and added another quart.
This time I got most of the quart back.
There's a shortage of quart jars in the container cupboard, but I found two.
The third boiling came out at the right strength to drink, so I dumped the pulp into the raised herb bed.
I should have dumped it on the rhubarb. Perhaps it was raining or something.
1:16 AM 11/20/2022
Today was our first freezing-cold day, so we cleaned the freezer, which was desperate — I think we forgot to clean it last winter. There was so much frost that the baskets couldn't be moved at all; we had to lift them out when we wanted something from the bins.
The job was much easier than I remember it. We just unplugged it, set a space heater on the shelf that conceals the working parts, knocked the frost down to the bottom, and scooped it out with a plastic dustpan. No wet vac, no watering pots of hot water.
Toweling it out was a bit strenuous, but I found that an old diaper gripped in the grabber that belongs on the lawnmower (for picking up sticks) dried the back wall quite easily.
And then I wiped the dividers with a clean rag instead of splashing about in the kitchen with them.
We were very concerned that it didn't make any noise when plugged in again, but the outside of the front wall got warm and a thermometer Dave put in kept dropping. Stopped dropping at ten above; we shall have to fiddle with the thermostat in the morning, when we are sure that it has stabilized.
Later on we were both in the kitchen when the refrigerator made its jet airplane taking off noise, and Dave commented on the contrast.
I'd thought we were out of white-wheat flour, but there was about twenty pounds of it under the cat food and white flour. I filled two of my half-gallon cannisters that fit on the working-guts shelf. Also found boxes of Zatarain dirty rice, jambalaya, etc. that I'd forgotten we had. Plus one Great Grains dirty-rice box of the same size. I was tempted to make dirty rice for supper, but we'd eaten a lot of fried rice recently, so we had leftover taco meat instead. There's enough meat and tostadas for at least one more meal.
We had meant to pile the food into the bed of the truck, then back the truck out into the cold, but the truck wouldn't start, so we piled the stuff on the bench and two folding tables. This proved much easier than reaching over the wall into the truck bed, made the only two large baskets we could find adequate, and made it possible to carry whole tables of stuff back into the house.
Dave charged the battery, and now the truck does start.
In the evening, I washed my underwear and a slopping-around shirt.
Later in the evening, Dave got a text inviting us to thanksgiving dinner at Linda's house.
6:37 PM 11/20/2022
I went into the church without a mask, sat in the sanctuary, and sang. The previous time I'd tried to sing, it set off a coughing fit.
I coughed a few times, but no fits. Did run through a lot of cough drops.
I'd formed the habit of holding a napkin in front of my face while singing long before I got sick. It's amazing how far one's breath goes while singing; I can actually feel it bouncing off the napkin.
We had Zatarain dirty rice with bratwurst in it for supper.
Al liked the bratwurst, to my surprise. I wished I'd taken out more before dumping the seasonings in. There was a bratwurst left over, and we have a package of four tomato basil pork sausages, each big enough to serve two. I hope I can buy more sausage from Hill 'n Dale Farms at the courthouse farmer's market in the spring.
8:35 PM 11/21/2022
Went to Aldi today. A major impetus for the trip was that we are running low on plain seltzer, but there was nothing but strawberry seltzer.
They were also out of shredded potatoes, but I have two baking potatoes and a grater — and no acorn squash to prop up! I learned recently that shredded potatoes are perfect for keeping a half squash from tipping in the baking pan. And a thin layer underneath keeps the skin from getting a weak spot in the middle of the bottom. (The potatoes are assisted by a chunk of carrot for Dave and some brussels sprouts for me.)
I wanted another package of 85% chocolate, but couldn't find the Moser-Roth chocolate. The three bars of 85% we have should last for months.
On reflection, I should have bought the size L insulated tights. Only one package of small and one of large remained, and the chart said that I take a medium, but I need tights that fit over other tights.
1:22 PM 11/22/2022
We woke to the sound of gutters being removed this morning. Since we were expecting the roofers, I was baffled for a while.
The roofers also showed up, and are working on the barn.
Dave and I went to Workout Anytime and signed up for a year.
Right after breakfast, I prepared to be on hold forever, called the number on the notice that I need a mammogram again —I tried yesterday, and hung up after a long, long recital of hold music— and got through almost immediately. Turned out they needed a note from Dr. Darr, and said they'd call back when they got it.
We got back from Workout Anytime to find a message on the phone that I should call Dr. Darr's office and ask for Jennifer. I did, and Jennifer was out. She called back later to tell me that I should call the hospital again. I did, and put the phone on speaker on the counter while I made cream of leftover-ham soup for lunch. A bit awkward to run out to the garage with the phone in one hand and forage for spices with the other.
The hold music has pauses in it that make me think that someone is about to speak, which was distracting. The actual appointment is going to be an anticlimax. But it went quickly once I was connected to a human.
Turns out that Medicare won't let me have the mammogram until after the fourteenth of December, so I'm signed up for 12:15 on Friday the sixteenth.
("Friday the Thirteenth done come on Tuesday this month!" — Churchy la Fem.)
Tomorrow is predicted to be the best biking day this week, so I intend to go back tomorrow, check out the upper-body machines, explore Big Lots, and have a taco salad for lunch.
Better check my tires and sort out my panniers.
8:55 PM 11/22/2022
Rats. Weather Underground says it's going to rain on my Tuesday dental appointment. Ever since Dr. Holler put in a bike rack just for me, I've felt kind of obligated. But tomorrow's ride to Sprawl One is still on.
2:58 PM 11/25/2022
It was a lovely day for a ride, but Taco Bell no longer makes taco salad. I had "a mexican pizza" with the cold sauerkraut I'd brought for the taco salad. (Sauerkraut sets off pickled jalapeños beautifully.)
We told everyone at the party that our repair work was all done, but the old furnace is still in the barn. The roofers promised to take it because somebody's nephew wanted it, but they are going to wait for a lousy day so they can save the good days for working outdoors.
They are definitely not going to take it today or tomorrow. Saturday's prediction is so good that I'm planning to ride to Meijer for cat food tomorrow. If it's a bit too much too soon, there's a bench at Lucerne Park where I can take a break going and coming.
After Thanksgiving dinner, I slept until after six. I thought that that would make for a restless night, but I didn't get my two-in-the-morning pill until I'd gotten up for the day.
6:22 PM 11/28/2022
If you count washing a load of clothes that included two items I plan to wear and the spare mask I carry in my little bag of stuff, I spent all of today getting ready to ride my bike to Dr. Hollar's office tomorrow.
Darning one of my yellow gloves was already on my to-do list, but it got moved to the top. Oops, I was supposed to sew a snap to the phone pocket in my short-sleeved wool jersey. I think it was the last one I bought from Grace Jones, after she came down with Alzheimer's — it's cut off grain. It's also covered with darns, but lightweight wool is not to be had for love or money.
I did iron a T-shirt after ironing my white veil. That reduced the entropy in the sewing room, but there was another shirt that needs to be ironed in the load of wash, so I'm holding even at best.
Lovely day for a ride. We did get the promised rain, but not until I was on the Heritage Trail bypass on Park Avenue. If it hadn't been for the train delay on Smith Street, I'd have gotten home unspeckled.
There was also a long string of traffic on Prairie waiting to cross Buffalo, but since I got to the cut glass factory before I had to get off and walk, I think that that had more to do with it being soon after three than with the train. I waited for all of the cars to pass, including late arrivals, before turning off Lake Street onto Prairie. I don't like to be overtaken.
At the end of Detroit Street, a parking lot of people were waiting for the train to pass before trying to leave, and of course more people were arriving all the time. And by the time the back-up cleared, I was on an upslope to an intersection, so I walked quite a way before getting off the sidewalk and back on the bike.
Meanwhile, back at the house, early in the morning, the plumber called when I was not even half dressed to say that his previous job took less time than expected and was it all right to come now instead of in the afternoon.
I keep a pull-over gown for just such an emergency, but getting everything off the toilet and counter and out from under the sink was a bit energetic. It's all piled up in the closet, except for what I'll need to clean my teeth tonight. I gave the counter a good scrubbing before putting anything back.
While I was clearing access to the toilet, Dave put everything under the kitchen sink (except the dishpan, which was catching the leak from the garbage disposal) into his little green wagon.
And before I left to go to the dentist, my toilet had stopped making alarming noises while taking ages to fill the tank, the garbage disposal had been disposed of, and all the kitchen drainpipes were new. And the drains are fitted with stoppers that turn to stop and unstop, so you can count on them to stay stopped if you stop them, and they refrain from stoppering without warning or notice while you are draining. Also they are very bright and shiny.
While I was getting my teeth ground to accept crowns — and I don't know how many molds were taken — he came back (or someone else; I wasn't there) and installed the new gas heater in the shop.
The old furnace is still in place.
Spent today sewing. Dave celebrated Winston Churchill's birthday.
We got a bunch of stuff out of the little green wagon — some went into the laundry room, a colander went onto the pile of dirty dishes to be washed before putting it into the strainer cupboard, and the scouring powder went back under the sink.
I got up to see what was left in the wagon, met Dave, we put all the spray bottles back under the sink, and the wagon is empty.
After that I looked at the clutter in the closet and disposed of the last of the stuff I got out from under the bathroom sink.
The clutter that had accumulated on the counter is truly cluttery clutter; I'm removing it from the closet floor as I need each item. All but one of the sunscreens can be put away for the winter. (I use only stick sunscreen when it's cold, because it also protects from wind.) But *where* is out of the way, and yet will be remembered next spring?
It was very windy today. Some shingles loosened on the barn and one blew off entirely. The roofer will be here in the morning.
⁂