The current version is usually posted at http://wlweather.net/Pcw/
On the advice of Weather Underground, I took my Saturday ride today. The streaks of pre-snowstorm goop on the streets were unsettling, but all the ice I encountered was where there had been puddles on our driveway, and they were puddles again when I got back. Not ice-free puddles, and they are re-freezing now.
Mary Anne's Place was open, and I dumped a pannier of stuff that's too nice to throw out. I saw two jars just like the two jars that I wasn't sure they would take, at a nickle each, so I'll take my jars next time. I didn't look very hard at the clothing; I didn't feel like taking off four pairs of tights to try something on.
I'm planning to go there every other Saturday until the outdoor markets open in May. (The best-laid plans . . . )
When I ordered silk tights and fabric samples from Dharma, I also bought a hat that is way too big for me. After I got back from the ride, I asked Dave to try it on. It must fit pretty well; when I got up from my nap, he was still wearing it and said that he'd forgotten that he had it on.
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Grumbly-gripely-snarly-snap. It's time to read my funnies. and BrightSpeed says that Internet service won't be restored before five tomorrow evening.
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After doing my nightly exercises (which made me feel much less tired), I went into the living room and saw Dave watching television, so I checked the router, it was green, so I started reading funnies. After a while he asked me whether what I was doing could be interrupted while he checked something -- and he learned that the Internet was back and I learned that he'd been connected through his phone.
Whatever it was that he wanted to do, it didn't need doing now that the Internet was back.
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I was sad that Asian Cajun went out of business before I could find out what they were. Today's Times-Union says that they have applied for a liquor license, and Google Maps says "temporarily closed".
Today was fiddling with the computers. Dave got my noises back. The pling-plong for "you have hit a do-nothing key" is the wrong tune, but when I've got higher-priority things done, I can fumble and cuss until I stumble upon the carefully-hidden way to change it.
Free Count-Down Timer makes the noises it is supposed to make
Dave discovered, a while back, that if you put the mouse pointer in the extreme lower-right corner of the monitor, a short fine line appears. This is the elusive "show destop" button. While looking for something else, I learned that pushing D while holding down the Windows key does the same thing.
I compared my 2025 calendar to all notes, including the partial recovery, the wall copy, the go-bag copy, and assorted appointment cards and sheets -- saving every few keystrokes -- backed it up, and attempted to print out page three. (One and two were already on the wall and in the go bag.)
I've forgotten all the convolutions, particularly how I stumbled upon the dialog where I cancelled three attempts to print. Libre Office insisted on saying that the printer was offline even though it worked with Dave's printer. Somewhere in there, we laid off for an hour or so and came back to find the completed print job in the printer.
So when it once again said the printer was off line, we tried turning it off, I paced up and down the hall a few times to give it time to notice that it was off, turned it back on. Nothing happened, but later on we once again found the completed print job on the printer.
Having two copies of page three, we knocked off.
Dave repaired my flashlight today. When I took part in the Tour d' Lakes, one item in the goodie bag was a tiny flashlight. I've been carrying it on my keychain ever since, but haven't found a use for it. A while back I noticed that the light was so feeble that I had to look straight at the bulb to see whether it's on. Today I showed it to Dave and asked him whether it was worth putting a new battery in. He took it apart, discovered that the contacts were dirty, cleaned them, put it back together, and now it works.
We spent Thursday making bread. (Today I got around to washing the mixing bowl and baking pans.)
I mixed one cup of "vital wheat gluten", four cups of stone-ground whole white-wheat flour, two tablespoons of yeast, a tablespoon and a half of salt, a glop of molasses, probably a teaspoon (all that was left) of granulated lecithin, and a pint of water. A pint of water wasn't enough and I added more a few times. When I got tired, Dave took over the kneading.
After it rose, we weighed out six two-ounce flatbuns, and divided the remainder into two loaves. This was difficult because the dough was very tough. It was imposible to pat out the dough to the diameter of a hamburger bun even though we resorted to the toy rolling pin and the pizza brayer, but they spread out while rising and came out perfect. We both like them better than Brownberry flatbuns, and I'm eager to try again. I calculate that five cups of flour will make only a little more than a dozen and a half two-ounce buns, and we do have three cookie sheets -- but the oven doesn't have three racks.
On Friday's ride, I stopped at the health-food store, but the only package of lecithin is enormous, and it's powdered rather than granulated.
My pull-down faucet has three openings in the head: An ordinary aereated stream, a spray that's good at blasting dirt off, and a "cup washer" that's *really* good at blasting dirt off.
The cup washer is a single jet only a bit thicker than the jets in the spray setting despite having almost as much water coming through as all of them, surrounded by a bell-shaped sheet of water. Today I found out what the bell was for when one side of it quit working and I got a facefull of spatter.
Dave is now soaking the head in lime remover.
I drove to Aldi today, and tried to stock up enough to last us until spring. Got a horrible shock when I put my hand in my pocket and realized that my debit card and cash were still in my wallet from Friday's ride. Fortunately, I keep my wallet in my go bag, and my go bag was in the car. Aldi has a protocol for just such an emergency! She sent me out to get my wallet, rang up a couple more customers while I was gone, then printed out my reciept after I'd paid.
I was much relieved when the wallet *was* in the go bag.
I didn't noticed until today that my lipstick and A&D were still on the dresser. (I carry a little ointment in a small pillbox.)
Church was cancelled on account of ice yesterday. The pastor, Eric Sass, was kind enough to call me on Saturday. I didn't recognize the name and was in full repell-spammer mode when I answered the phone.
I sorted the patterns on the wall with an eye to ordering hemp muslin to make a new bike jersey and some bras. I have yet to compare the pieces I found to the list I kept the last time I used this pattern. Dharma is out of linen, save for a cotton-and-linen blend that dosn't wick as well as the hemp. None of the samples wick along the threads as linen is supposed to do, but make round spots like cotton. As long as it doesn't bead up like my current jersey, it will do.
Computing again:
I printed insurance cards from Dave's computer today. The PDF told me that the printer was offline, but Dave found the job in the printer later, so I put them into an envelope and will mail them tomorrow.
Yesterday Dave saw Dr. King, today he got blood drawn for Dr. Nalamolu. Tomorrow Linda T. was to come from one to five, but there was some sort of hitch and and Miranda called to say Irma will come from 3:55 to 7:55 instead. That spans two of my meals; I wonder when she is supposed to eat? And on Friday Dave has Dr. Darr -- I think it's an annual. Saturday is supposed to be a tour of the winter markets, but Weather Underground says I'm not going anywhere.
Today, I sent off for five yards of hemp woven mediumweight to make a summer jersey. Price is about a quarter more than what I paid for a custom wool jersey half a century ago.
Just checked a web site. Wool jerseys are only fifty percent more than my first jersey, but these are small, medium, and large — no made-to-measure.
Cool! I absent-mindely turned on DoxBox without first changing to the landscape monitor -- and it worked!
But it's harder to read even though both monitors are twelve inches wide. DoxBox isn't using the full width.
And the black space above and below the page bugs me. I feel that what's scrolled off isn't there.
More silver lining to the disaster: the new DoxBox re-enables the self-updating directory files that the first version disabled. And it didn't re-disable the F8 directory that the first DoxBox re-enabled after 98 disabled it.
It's only two degrees outside, but when I opened the door to check, it felt quite comfortable -- there isn't any wind. I combed my hair in the garage anyway.
There must have been wind in the night; there's a drift over part of the walkway I shoveled yesterday, to gain access to the C clambs in the barn.
It's been a week since I toppled over while trying to pick up a bungee cord without getting off the bike, and my neck is still sore. I'll be really, really glad when I can cough!
Sue Cook drove me to church and back yesterday. The snow that we were supposed to get Sunday was over by the time I got up -- roads not too bad, but the driveway would have been a chore.
I forgot my cane I told Sue that I'd get it next Sunday. I should have left it at home when going by car.
I drove to Kroger Saturday because we were completely out of soda. Roads were clear and lightly-traveled, but it appeared that everybody was stocking up before the storm. Kroger was handling it; I couldn't get my groceries on the belt as fast as the clerk was checking them. The people bringing carts in from the corrals were a bit rushed.
I passed up mini-sweet peppers because we had some, then came home to learn that we had only two. But I bought some frozen pepper, so we'll have plenty for cooking.
I found chopped collard greens on the clearance shelf. I've never seen them in the canned-vegetable aisle. I'll have to hunt, because we both like them.
Laundry day: my clothes, then sheets.
On Saturday, I picked up a package of medium-size paper clips, then said "No, wait, it's medium-size safety pins that we are running low on."
Today, while doing the taxes, Dave told me that we are running out of paper clips.
I saw wind-up timers at Kroger, and picked the one that looked like a ladybug, thinking that I'd bought that timer before. And the hurry-hurry ticking sounds familiar. But the BRAAP! at the end is shorter and less loud than the timer I'd been using for my naps.
Carried out the garbage this afternoon. It had been so long that it was on three plates, two of them in the cold garage.
I shoveled a path to the shop yesterday, and it's above freezing today. Lovely day for a walk, but I deemed the Ninth-Street stairs unusable and walked in the street. While I was descending, two people ran up the steps.
I bought paper clips yesterday, together with other stuff we are running out of. Spent a surprising amount of money considering dhow recently I'd stocked up, and I didn't buy any meat.
We got a surprise visit from the home helper on Wednesday. She's to come every Wednesday from now until further notice. We had a scheduled visit with our case manager on Thursday morning, and in the afternoon I baked eighteen flat buns. Substituted an egg for the lecithin, and put in four extra tablespoons of water. Should have put in two; the dough was very sticky. Also didn't put in enough molasses.
My scheme of setting the first twelve to rise before starting on the last six, to give them a head start, and setting the last six in the garage to slow them down, worked beautifully. They weren't quite risen when I brought them in, but by the time the oven re-heated, they were ready to go in. (I start bread very hot and turn down to 350° immediately.)
Next time I'll make twelve buns that are fifty percent thicker. so I can bake them all in one go.
On Friday, I ironed a T-shirt that I washed weeks ago, and was about a quarter of the way through flattening five yards of newly-washed hemp when we got a call that our tax papers were ready to sign. I still haven't gotten back to ironing the fabric. I'd hoped to have the shirt cut out by now!
Saturday, I drove to Kroger and spent a lot of time walking around in the store. I bought half an apple pie. (Bad Baby!)
We still have a quarter of that pie. (half of the half)
The driveway is clear except for a little very hard snow where we packed down the bank the snowplow left. I went to the barn looking for the ice scraper, couldn't find it, started looking for a hoe to use instead, found the scraper. It's the one that looks like a hoe with no neck, so that the blade is in line with the handle.
I broke the ice up enough that tomorrow's warm weather should finish it off.
I stuck a dandelion digger into the garden -- or tried to. It hasn't been *that* warm!
The only thing that stopped me from digging scallions on New Year's Day was the three scallions in the fridge, but the garden has been socked in ever since.
I finished ironing five yards of hemp woven midweight yesterday, and today I cut out the back of my new summer cycling jersey. I hope to get another piece cut before the home helper arrives tomorrow.
Nora had issues and had to wait for a repairman. Except for having to wash an enormous pile of dishes myself, I'm pleased to put it off to next week.
Also, it's two-to-six, not two thirty-four to six thirty-four, which is much more convenient.
I got the front of the jersey cut out, and fabric dedicated for half the front yoke. It's going surprisingly slow because I have to rest for a while after every decision.
I think four yards would have been worlds aplenty.
I poked the garden with a dandelion digger today, and thnk I will be able to harvest scallions before March. Not *much* before.
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