The current version is usually posted at http://wlweather.net/LETTERS
Saturday I walked to Limitless Park, but didn't see anything to buy at the Winter Market — except stuff that I ought not to eat.
Sunday was a good day to walk to church, but I got distracted and came upstairs so late that I couldn't get into a pew without disrupting the service, so I sat at a table in the space between the sanctuary and the nursery. Pity we have no young couples, as that is a splendid nursery that gives the mothers a good view of the service.
I pretty much frittered Monday, but did get the last piece of the jersey cut, put into the folder I made from a large cardboard box, and shoved under the bed. I hope to mark bias lines on the remaining hemp and make cinnamon sugar today even though it's nearly noon and I've just finished breakfast.
I drove to Kroger yesterday for a few things we were out of, and picked up a delightful toasted roast beef and cheese sub at JimmyJohn's on the way back. As usual, I parked in Kroger's spot nearest to JimmyJohn and walked across the street.
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Cinnamon sugar made from grated pilloncillo has the mouthfeel of powdered sugar.
Grating got easier as I went down the cone. Partly because the percentage of soft middle got larger, partly because the soft middle got softer, but mostly because a larger area was against the grater.
Dave was shocked when I put the entire envelope of cinnamon in, but I can barely taste it — Mexican cinnamon is about half as strong as cassia. But I think it's mostly because cinnamon has to be wet to give up its flavor. I should make cinnamon toast for my bedtime snack.
Got a start at one bias line.
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When Dave called me in to correct some mistakes in Quicken, all the receipts in the envelope were in perfect order!
I read in today's paper that I will host a party on June 28.
I marked a back and a front on the hemp this afternoon.
Today's ride was to dump some unwanted condensed milk in the charity cupboard at Bomy Singh's. There was nothing there but the pallet it used to sit on. The last time I left something there, there was nothing in the cupboard but a couple of dispirited bags of beans or lentils or somesuch.
In compensation, the pork roast I bought at Kroger on the way home was (and the remainder still is) delicious. I pushed it to one side of my second-smallest skillet, filled the space with vegetables, baked at 450° five minutes, put on the lid and reduced the heat to 350°, baked for the rest of the hour. Our oven leaks, and doesn't take long to drop after being turned down.
I also pre-heated the lid before taking it out and putting the meat in.
On Thursday evening, we went to the emergency room instead of going to bed, and we kept a very early appointment with the eye doctor the next morning. I wasn't worth much on Friday, but after a good nap, I drove to Zales for the antibiotic the emergency-room doctor prescribed for the bleeding, then got groceries at Kroger.
Dave is interviewing a new accounting program that runs on Linux.
Bummer. I just read that one should not consume dairy products after taking levothyroxine. I was looking forward to a mug of hot milk before going back to bed.
We went to Dr. King yesterday morning. Today I expect Sandra M. at eight, and a trainee and a teacher at ten or eleven. I've laid out a flannel gown to answer the door in.
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Sorting papers, I came across an ad that summarizes current society perfectly: "Protect what's important: your home, your life, your automobile."
You don't appreciate how vital and sacred the automobile is until you try to leave the house without one.
Dave has a new sonic stud finder. He ordered it because he was short of pegs to hang his clothes on and wanted to install the peg board that I bought at a craft fair a long time ago.
I promptly commandeered the peg nearest the outlet so that I could resume storing my cell phone in my pants pocket.
I washed a load of dish towels and cleaning rags and hung them in the sun for the first time this year. I gave up cleaning the clothesline after fully dirtying both sides of a freshly-washed rag. The stains are kinda green, so I think it is something growing in the braided line. Surprisingly, I didn't need to tighten the line.
Also washed a pair of sheets, and dried them in the dryer.
There was just one extra worker yesterday, not a trainee, but, judging by overheard conversations, someone thinking of applying for a job.
I've a timer set to put a skillet of corned beef into the oven at 2:00. I'm ready for my nap now — one hour before time to start the oven.
I think that the "trainee" is now my regular helper — but the co-ordinator said it was spelled "Chelsea", and the trainee said it was "Chelsie". I'll ask when she gets here Thursday afternoon.
We must have done something Friday because my bras still aren't cut out, but I don't remember what.
I cancelled Saturday's bike ride and drove to Meijer — and it turned out to be a beautiful day for riding. But I'd have been nervous all the time that it might change, and it wasn't warm enough to be careless about getting wet. Also, my bags blew out of my cart three times while I was walking from the car to the store.
I was bummed, as I entered the village on the way home, to realize that I'd forgotten to give the checkout my ten-dollar coupon.
Also, I have discovered that even though we have two containers of ice cream, each is almost empty.
I slept late, but the Winter Market hadn't closed yet when I stopped on the way to Meijer. The chocolate-chip cookies were sold out, so I bought the last packet of oatmeal-raisin. Dave doesn't like them. I ate one with Moose Tracks ice cream on it.
On Sunday, the pastor mentioned during the announcements that he has an appointment for a follow-up in Cleveland this week. We complained bitterly about follow-ups in Fort Wayne!
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Something in the news reminded me of a story that I've probably told before.
When we were volunteer firemen, it was customary to hold an annual banquet: we would notify the surrounding companies that all our guys would be in somebody else's territory and they would have to cover for us.
The NSVFD held our banquet in the clubhouse of a golf course, but one year we had to find another venue because the clubhouse had burned to the ground.
The following year, after stepping into the entrance hall, I looked around and said "They must have used the original blueprints — you'd think that all they did was repaint." The fireman standing beside me looked up and said "I don't remember all these sprinklers."
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The corned beef was delicious, and there is a lot left. I dipped out some of the broth to cook cabbage in.
We do have a jar of kraut — I like Deutche Kueche canned kraut better than Kroger's refrigerated kraut. Probably because it's chopped, rather than shredded.
Fried swiss and corned-beef sandwiches for supper tonight. On sourdough bread.
Yesterday I wanted to put some scraps away, and thought the box Dave's new monitor came in would do — but it was filled with form-fitted foam, so that if I used it, I wouldn't be able to give it back.
So I showed it to Dave and asked whether he was quite sure that he wouldn't want it to send the monitor back. He said he was; I said "Good. I'll tear it up and use it for my hemp."
Dave, baffled: "You're going to tear it up and use it?"
Just as we got home after my eye injection, the van full of Mexicans in yellow vests parked at the B&B across the street. I said "Either they have gutted the place and are starting over, or those guys live there." I thought they were a cleaning-between-customers crew when I first saw them.
While I was picking up the paper, one of them started cleaning the picnic table and the next time I looked they were gone; perhaps they come there for lunch breaks.
The sign on the apartment doesn't say "breakfast", and now I'm wondering whether the Chestnut House mentions it.
A fridge and stove, or maybe an upright freezer and a washing machine are now being delivered to the middle apartment in the duplex.
I suspect that the third door, at the opposite end from the tourist accommodation, is a back door to the middle apartment.
Dave spent the morning searching the Web for hooks suitable for hanging the drying racks in the laundry room. When he found one, he realized that he had two in the shop.
Now both racks are off the floor. It wasn't easy, even before the screwdriver battery ran down
I moved some of the clutter in the parlor into the garage, intending to shove it up into the attic until I have time to sort it out.
My wind shirt is having its very first bath. Yesterday, I noticed a red stain on a sleeve when taking it off, then later found other stains elsewhere. I don't recall eating or passing near anything red while wearing it. And the stains came right off when rubbed with a wet rag. I don't know of *any* substances that come off that easily.
So, in case there were splashes that I hadn't noticed, I put it in the washer with no soap, set on "delicate".
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Fridge bins are one of the Aldi Finds this week, so I went there by way of Sprawlmart on Saturday. I got such a late start that I didn't do Sprawlmart, except for taking a lap around Ollie's, the new discount store. Little difference from Big Lots — even had the paper plates on the same wall — and nothing I wanted to buy. Since it is sandal-buying season, I meant to do Shoe Sensations too, but there was a sign on the door saying "come see us in Mishawaka", or maybe it was Goshen.
The stuff I bought at Aldi exactly filled my panniers, with a loaf of sourdough bread on top. I packed very carefully so that the ice cream was surrounded by other frozen food, and the fridge bins were wedged in with crumpled plastic bags so that they wouldn't be scratched by rubbing against my wire panniers or the other purchases.
Then I put on my hat and gloves, prepared to mount up and roll out, and noticed that my front tire was nearly flat.
The leak had to have begun while I was in Aldi, as it was soft enough to make a tangible difference in the handling, and the leak is fast enough that I could see the needle fall on the pressure gage after pumping it up to ten pounds.
It didn't take Dave long to come and get me. By good luck, I line the insulated pannier with a large plastic bag to keep condensation out of the insulation, so I was able to lift out the cold stuff in one package. I had to unpack the other pannier, but there wasn't a lot in it.
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To my surprise, the slightly-gray spot on the edge of my handkerchief pocket came out in the no-soap wash. The shirt is beautiful and bright.
Dave is dis-assembling our old microwave, which died on Monday. Or maybe it was yesterday. The new one will arrive tomorrow.
As will a "cold press" coffeemaker. I wanted to see what that was, so I DuckDucked "cold press coffee" — and got a string of pictorial links to recipes for chilli & ginger squash, chick-pea salad, bean salad, several cold-noodle dishes, and so forth. "Cold" I get, though how so specific as side dishes that could be entrees? And no sign of "coffee" or "press".
The links below that strip were mostly to coffeemakers for sale, with no instructions for use. One site said that it would tell me all about cold-press coffee and how to make it, but when I was a dozen fifteen-inch screens down and he was still yelling "Cold press coffee is great, it's wonderful, it has zillions of advantages, it's got all other ways to make coffee beat all hollow", I gave up.
On Monday, I walked to the Trailhouse and back. The mechanic showed me how the rubber had broken at the base of the valve stem. I was vaguely aware that it had been a long time since I got a puncture, but I was still startled that a tube had died of old age.
On Tuesday, I drove to Meijer, and this time I remembered to redeem the coupon.
Came home to discover that the four potatoes that weren't in the root-vegetable bin were all the potatoes we had, so I meant to ride to Kroger today to buy some to make colcannon with the kale I'd bought, and some big ones to make potato salad for the pitch-in the Sunday after next. But after hanging the sheets on the line, I didn't feel like putting on four pairs of tights for such a short trip.
The doorbell rang while I was cutting up one of the potatoes to skillet-roast: I'd forgotten that I'd promised Jeanie that I'd help with the knitting class on Tuesday. So I jumped back into the clothes I'd worn to Meijer and we weren't *very* late. Dave had herring on a flatbun for supper. I finished cooking the potato for mine.
This class went very well, and my student mastered casting on, garter stitch, yarn over, and knit two together. That's enough to make a scrubby, but I don't think I told her that you YO at the beginning of every row.
Time to take in the sheets and take a nap.
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Kroger stole my trademark: Today's "Private Selection/Spring's Best Bites" includes a recipe for making devilled eggs with cream cheese.
Another potato is in the oven — I'd napped too late to bake yesterday.
Since the helper is changing the bed tomorrow, I draped the sheets and pillowcases over my walker. The dime finally dropped: I can wash the sheets right after Chelsea changes the bed. I'm short of useful things to do when I've missed my nap and the house is being cleaned.
Chelsea was still here when the new microwave arrived. It is very heavy, and I don't think we could have managed without her.
I walked to the teller machine after church. I was out of twenties.
It was too wet to go anywhere yesterday, but warm enough that I could ride around the short block in my house clothes, just to make sure the repair was working. correctly. Good thing I did: I had forgotten to re-enable the front brake after opening the calipers to let the tire pass. But I could lean forward and flip the lever without dismounting.
Free Count Down Timer showed the message "iron pills wash bag". At first glance, I took "iron" for a verb, which made for a startling message.
"Iron linen dress" *is* on my list of things to do, but that's not on Count Down Timer.
Count Down Timer is a wonderful program for us old folks. When it's time for me to do something, it dings and pops a message on top of whatever I'm doing. Of course, if what I'm doing is pressing "enter", I don't get to read the message before I've erased it, but that doesn't happen very often, and I can open the program and read what I told it to tell me at this time.
We had taco fillings on tostadas for supper today.
I just read the Classics Illustrated version of Huckleberry Finn. It left out Huck's disgust at going to all of that trouble to rescue a free nigger — and didn't even mention that Tom had known all along that Jim didn't need rescuing. It did have the scene in which Huck doesn't pass for a girl — I remembered that scene as being part of _Tom Sawyer_, but it *has* been sixty or seventy years.
The ending seemed a bit rushed: "Holy Cow I've only got one more panel!".
I spend today washing a load of hot whites and a load of clothes, and picking at a low-priority job of sewing. All the dish towels etc. are folded and put away, but my socks and briefs weren't dry enough when I last checked.
Marie Calendar chicken-corn chowder pot pie for supper, which we both like very much.
Dave learned that Firefly doesn't have a clue about Genworth, and is going to have to make some phone calls.
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