Beeson Banner for December 2024

 

Sunday, 1 December 2024

Neat! The clock dinged the beginning of my levothyroxin fast just as I put the last crumb of dark-chocolate granola into my mouth.

I slept poorly last night, and when I woke this morning I had less than half an hour to get dressed and out the door. I can't do that when I'm *not* dressing for sub-zero weather, and I have to take my with-food pills at least half an hour after taking Alendronate, so I stayed home.

Turned out to be wise; I developed a sore spot at the back of my right leg just when I'd have gone too far to limp back. Feels like a bruise or a sprain, but I don't recall any incidents.

 

Monday, 2 December 2024

Since there is a hard freeze and the volunteer pepper is no longer protected by radish leaves, I cut all the peppers off and put them into the freezer in a snack bag. I presume that they were already frozen.

So I'll never know what color they would turn when ripe.

There are still winter onion scallions in the garden, but it's too cold to go out and dig them. I'll think different when it's this temperature in the spring -- but we'll have needed a series of warm days to make the ground soft enough to dig them.

 

Thursday, 5 December 2024

Just back from a tooth cleaning. I wonder whether I can remember what all went on while I was too busy to write.

Windy and cold today. Our first serious snow is on the ground, but not very thick; the grass shows through. There are flakes in the air, but not thick enough to dim the view across the lake.

Yesterday I was looking for something on Dave's dresser and saw an outlet splitter of exactly the sort I'd been looking for. This morning I put it into the sewing-machine outlet and put the one I bought into the power-strip drawer of the file cabinet.

Well, this one is a white strip and I'd been looking for a brown cube, but they are functionally the same.

On Tuesday, our home helper called in sick. This was something of a relief, since getting ready to be helped can be somewhat strenuous, and the list of chores was getting makeworky. The only thing that I had to do because she didn't show was wipe the gaskets, gasket seats, and door handles on the fridges and freezers. Next week, most of the chores on the list will actually need doing.

Wednesday, I packed up a couple of hours of needlework and accompanied Dave to his PET scan.

On checking in, we discovered that he'd forgotten that he wasn't supposed to have any breakfast, and it's re-scheduled for next week. On the way home, we got flu shots and picked up my Lisinopril. I'm going to ask Dr. Darr to change Lisinopril from thirty days to ninety when I have my semi-annual exam the Wednesday after next.

After my nap that afternoon, I did a stock-up run to Kroger, and bought supper at Jimmy-John's before starting home. I forgot about the sore muscle in my right leg until I was almost to the check-out, and haven't noticed it today. I was quite worried on Monday and Tuesday. Pushing pedals on the exercise machine didn't hurt it, so I think it's safe to resume riding when we get clean streets and not-howling wind. Starting over from scratch for the continuousth time this year, of course.

 

Friday, 6 December 2024

My shoulder is still sore from the flu shot. We see our financial advisor today.

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A most productive session! Our Genworth claim has been approved, and he made a few phone calls on our behalf, so all is settled with the long-term care insurance.

We think. We need to check on the twentieth, and change Dave's premiums to monthly if they haven't started "waiver", which means that when they start paying out, he stops paying in.

Next week is quite busy: appointments every day but Thursday -- including Saturday.

 

Saturday, 7 December 2024

Infamy has kinder faded. We've been best buds with Japan for quite a long time.

For some time, I've been scraping one more dab out of the Sarna bottle, so when Dave wanted some this morning I decided it was time to open the back-up bottle in the soda fridge. (Sarna is camphor and menthol to make you feel cold, and the illusion is much more convincing when it really is cold.)

Turned out that this is Sarna Sensitive, a lotion related to Sarna Original only in having a very similar label.

So I've got a goal for today's ride: go to Zales and buy Sarna Original.

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While I was buying a bottle of Sarna Original (Sixteen dollars!), Dave went on line and discovered that Sarna Original is no longer available.

But I just checked and Amazon has it.

The winter market at Limitless Park was not in evidence -- I turned around and went back to look again. The address given for the winter market on Buffalo Street turned out to be the city hall, which was in its usual Saturday condition: locked up tighter than a drum. But, unexpected, the market at Pete Thorne Center was on (I'd thought I had the wrong date on my calendar), and I bought cookies.  But Jody was out of chocolate chip, and the peanut-butter cookies have little flavor.  (On the other hand, I just had one with a thin layer of Moose Tracks Extreme ice cream on it . . . )

I put my water bottle into the humidifier so that my water would be warm when I started riding, then forgot to put it on the bike when I left.  I found "Vitamin Water" bottles that would fit my cage at Dollar General, and chose Dragonfruit flavor because I've never tasted dragonfruit.  I still haven't; the only flavor it had was the off underflavor of artificial sweetener. There was no artificial sweetener in it: Just reverse-osmosis water, fructose, C, B5, B12, calcium and magnesium lactates, potassium phosphate, taurine, zinc gluconate, chromium polynicotinate, cane sugar, citric acid, natural flavors, and vegetable juices for color.

 

8 December 2024

I got off to church quite early, which was fortunate because the service at Grace is at ten.

Today's greeter was familiar with the Beesons. (Was that Sue or Mary?)

The church is much too huge; the sanctuary ("auditorium") is large, it was mobbed, and they have three services a day. WLFM at its peak had only two services! The sanctuary was too crowded for my taste, so I sat in the overflow room, the only person there except for the man posted there to guide the bewildered.

A wise choice: as I sat watching the opening of the sermon on the monitor and reflecting that this church didn't need me, I realized that I had time to get to the Church of the Good Shepherd before their service started, and was able to tip on out without disturbing anybody. Another Beeson- centric conversation with the greeter -- I think *this* one was Sue.

We spent a lot of time conversing around the cookie table after the service. (At WLCC, the cookies were before the service.) On leaving, I said "I'll see you next week."

I ran into the organist that Capstone borrowed for their first service, but I've forgotten at which church. (I think she was the greeter at Grace.)

 

9 December 2024

I woke up for my Levothyroxin half an hour early, so here's the stick-of-wood story:

Our parents were friends with Frank and Lena Cunningham. We referred to Frank 'n' Lena so often that the children called Frank Franken.

A story Mon told on me was that when we were eating dinner at Frank and Lena's, everyone but me was praising the beans, and Mom asked why I wasn't. I replied "You told me not to talk with my mouth full." Everyone thought that was hilariously funny.

(I'm not sure it was beans.)

The Cunningham chickens were free range, and their lawn was tufts of green on a black ground. I don't have any memory of seeing the chickens, but chickens were not memorable. The house had two staircases, which I thought very cool. I don't remember seeing the staircases, but I'm sure that Nancy and Alice went up and down both of them.

When we went to Frank and Lena's, we always went in by the kitchen door. If the children went outside to play, we always went out through the parlor door. When it was time to go home, I wouldn't go directly to the car, but would go in through the parlor door and come out through the kitchen, because I was convinced that if I didn't come out the door I went in by, I would end up in a different place. I don't recall feeling that way about any other house.

I remember winning a tiny toy bus playing bingo at the Cunningham's. Playing Bingo was unusual.

When we went to California to see Father's sisters, we brought back a cribbage board carved from a redwood burl as a souvenir. I wonder whether it still exists?

At the time of my story, Frank and Lena had a cribbage board and we didn't, so when Mom invited them to come to our house to play cribbage, she said "Bring your stick of wood."

Frank was a bit of a card, and turned up with a railroad tie on his shoulder.

And I just now realized that he must have been pretty strong -- I can't move a tie without using our railroad iron. (That's an enormous straight crowbar that we presume was once used to move railroad cars. It has been very useful.)

So they put one end of the tie into the fireplace and sat around the kitchen table to play cribbage. Lena was sitting with her back to the fire and complained all through the game that the fire was too hot.

A while after they got home, Lena called Mom to tell her that when she undressed, she found that sparks from the fire had burnt little holes all over the back of her dress.

 

Wednesday, 11 December 2024

Did I say that we had appointments every day this week except Thursday? While I was in the waiting room Firefly called and we have an appointment to have our case managed at eleven tomorrow.

I was sewing an eye onto my better black jeans when she called. I got all four eyes sewn while waiting for Dave's PET scan -- mostly, I gather, while waiting for the radioactive sugar to be taken up by the cells; Dave said that he slept through it.

Now I can wear the jeans again.  Not, I hope, before Wednesday of next week. Perhaps not then, but the internet is down and I can't check to see whether Wednesday will be a good day to ride my bike. Perhaps I'll drive anyway, so that it doesn't take half an hour to strip down far enough to get my blood pressure taken. I get my semi-annual exam in the morning, and Dave will pick up a pecan pie in the afternoon.

Today I remembered my cell phone and Dave forgot his; yesterday it was the other way around.

After I got my injection yesterday, we went to Martins.

 

Thursday, 12 December 2024

Dave no longer has an appointment for tomorrow. They forgot to tell him that he needs a blood test. Dave said the caller said that she had a lot of people to call.

I put my blue-glass pie plates into the mixing-bowl cupboard so they would be easier to get at -- it was a struggle to get them out from behind the casseroles in the canning-jar cupboard, and that cupboard has been overflowing.

I'm pretty sure that I bought those pie plates in the twentieth century, and I've never used them for anything but making devilled eggs. But this week, after I flattened a tenderloin, the dime dropped and I used them for the seasoned flour and for the egg-and-milk. Why have I been using dinky little soup plates all these years?

And what other useful things are forgotten at the back of a cupboard?

The leaves of the scallions are frozen rather thoroughly.  The parts under leaves and dirt are certainly still good, but it's going to be store-bought onions until February.

 

Saturday, 14 December 2024

I had something to say on Friday the Thirteenth, but I've forgotten what.

I'm surprised that none of my comic strips mentioned it. Perhaps Churchy La Fem wore the joke out.

The knobs on the stove sparkle. It took Linda T. a long time to scrub all the ancient grease off them.

Our next appointment with her is after New Year.

I had my first all-day ride while she was working. Skipped my nap, and the cornbread I made to go with the left-over soup showed it.

I went to Meijer, since I could put in about ten miles without crossing either 30 or 15. I stopped at the fairgrounds, where a consignment toy sale was going on, and bought in-the-shell peanuts and tomato sauce at Carniceria San José. And I spent a few minutes in Goodwill, but didn't take a serious look at the clothes. I did check for black dresses and glass candy dishes. So after I toured the grocery end of Meijer, it was time to go home. I got chocolate-coated Hobnobs, and dark-chocolate, milk-chocolate, and plain Digestive Biscuits. I wish Hobnobs came in plain. (They come, but do not come here.)

Also found the devilled beef that I've been looking for for ages, and bought two cans.

Since I didn't look at any of the inedible merchandise, I can go to Meijer again on my way home from the Winter Market at the Pete Thorne Center next Saturday.

 

15 December 2024

I need to go shopping tomorrow. We are out of apples and standard-size paper plates. I intend to go to Martin's for steak rolls to eat with our Omaha Steaks giant hot dogs, then stock up at Aldi. I don't like the left turn out of Martin's to get to Aldi, but Dave showed me a much better way when we went to Martin's last Tuesday: go out through Menard's parking lot, for a right turn onto Husky Trail, and thereafter it's as though I'd just come in on Parker.

Dave has been watching news about people fussing and feathering and running in circles because suddenly there are as many as six drones in a night over a heavily-populated area, and night-flying drones have been spotted all over the nation. I happened to be in earshot when someone listed all the possible sources, from Russian spies and American spies to little green men.

I noticed a glaring omission, and I didn't even know at the time that the FAA had just rescinded the rule against flying drones at night.

As Dave said, "Only six?"

I learned today that last Sunday's service with cookies was a special event. And I was taken into the former main entrance (the one used when everyone walked) to see the bell rope.

 

Tuesday, 17 December 2024

I wish now that when I was shopping yesterday, instead of saying "Nah, we've got mochi", I'd bought a box of each flavor.

On the other hand, my weight has been going up.

 

Thursday, 19 December 2024

Yesterday I had my semi-annual and my Medicare checkup, but we forgot to pick up the pie.  Heidi kept it for us, and I went in to pick it up this morning.

I thought I'd cancelled yesterday's visit from Linda T., but I'd forgotten that I needed to call on Monday to confirm it. I hastily modified and printed out last week's list of chores. It's quite definite that our next appointment is in January.

Today was spent getting ready to do a little sewing. I spent the whole morning picking out stitches, except for a few minutes of sewing the ends of a drawstring, as a warm-up for getting on with making my orange dress into a slopping-around shirt. Shortening it to shirt length will provide a strip wide enough to make pockets, if I skimp the hem allowance. I'm planning to use the existing hem for the pockets.

 

Saturday, 21 December 2024

An all-day ride on the solstice doesn't take very long, particularly when one oversleeps and doesn't get off before noon. I skipped lunch and didn't miss it.

The vendors at the Limitless Park market were still packing up when I passed, so I was able to ask where it had been hidden. I passed a sign advertising the market after I exited the roundabout on my way out of town, but didn't see any evidence (other than the vendors loading their vehicles) in the village or the park.

Since the Pete Thorne market closes at one, I skipped the stops I'd intended to make in town.  I did go to Warsaw Health Foods on the way home, intending to buy Rumford baking powder and steel-cut oats. They didn't have Rumford and the only steel-cut oats had a USDA mark that made them tref to people who believe in the separation of church and state. I bought chocolate-covered almonds and carob-coated malt balls, forgetting that we had some forgotten in the soda fridge, and some pumpkin seeds that we actually needed.

I bought two kinds of chocolate-chip cookies at the Pete Thorne Market, and ate one of each -- one on the spot, and one when I decided not to eat lunch.  Nothing at Goodwill, though I considered a french-fry basket. I lost interest in looking for black tights rather quickly when I realized what-all I'd have to take off before I could try them on.

Since it was flaking snow when I got to Meijer, I cut shopping there short after verifying that they don't have wringer mop buckets. I did buy eight #2 pencils and two dozen eraser caps.

It was getting close to curfew when I arrived at Kroger. My notes say that despite grabbing what I came for and getting out, I was in there over half an hour. Kroger *did* have Rumford baking powder.

Even picking up supper at Jimmy-John's took longer than usual; my debit card wouldn't work, so eventually I paid cash. Ought to pay cash when I'm buying only one sandwich anyway.

Every time I go there, I think that next time I'll say "Jimmy it up". Perhaps I should put it on my shopping list -- but I seldom go out planning to buy a submarine on the way home.

I got home at 16:56. Weather Underground says that the sun set at 17:18. Civil twilight lasted until 17:50, but when the sky is overcast, twilight doesn't count for much.

I hope I wake up earlier tomorrow -- I'm not yet sufficiently familiar with Good Shepherd to come late and listen from the kitchen.

 

Sunday, 22 December 2024

I forgot to put on my hat, and didn't miss it until I tried to put it back on after the service.

I did take my cane, and didn't need it a bit while walking up Sunday Lane.

I needed both the hat and the cane while walking home, into the sun on unplowed sidewalks.

I forgot to check whether the Heritage Trail had been plowed. I did notice that the former main entrance to the church was more convenient than going into the alley to the current entrance when one approaches the church on foot.

It's labeled 8th Street, but it's most definitely an alley.

Reading back, I see no mention of my trip to the library with Jeanie on Tuesday. Perhaps I didn't want to talk about it because it was an utter disaster. My student was the only one who didn't learn how to knit, and I may have vaccinated her against ever learning how. I've figured out what I did wrong, but I'll never see her again and don't even know her name.

 

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

I ran into Doug Vogel at Kroger's yesterday.

It was a poor day to go to a grocery store! But they handled the crowds well, and I didn't have to wait in the check-out line as long as usual.

I'd gone because I wanted a parsnip for today's baked vegetables, and they didn't have any. But when I checked the produce-clearance bin, there was a bag of three parsnips. I put them into a wide-mouthed quart jar of cold water in the fridge, and they plumped up.

Also found full-size paper towels, which I've been looking for for some time. There was only one choice, in half an aisle of paper towels. Everybody must prefer the half-size towels. I prefer halves for the napkin-dispenser on the table, but also need full size towels for wrapping lettuce and so forth, and Dave prefers full-size towels.

We've decided to have Christmas dinner at two o'clock. Which means that I have to put the scalloped potatoes into the oven at one-thirty.

I was puzzled because the tartlets and potatoes take different temperatures, then realized that the tartlets are desert -- I can put them in after the potatoes come out.

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It worked beautifully, the feast was elegant, and it made hardly any mess in the kitchen.

But I ate too much. More than half of my tartlet is waiting to become a late supper.

The "tartlets" are really apple dumplings. I suppose they call them tartlets so that people won't complain that they aren't *mom's* apple dumplings.  

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