The microwave plate snapped in half while Dave was making popcorn the day before yesterday. Though microwave platters (called "turntables", for some reason, which leaves me wondering what they call the gadget that turns the plate) can be had for as little as ten dollars, the one that fits our microwave costs fifty plus shipping.
So yesterday Dave epoxied the old plate, and this morning it is set enough to take the bricks off, but he thinks we ought not to use it until tomorrow.
If this doesn't work, we'll get a new microwave. I told Dave to price replacement platters before he orders one!
I dashed out to buy groceries before it stopped raining. The rain is supposed to change to freezing rain, sleet, and snow.
The Roomba just pushed my door open. I pushed the robot out and latched the door properly.
I still haven't put the cane-bottom chair I inherited from cousin Blanche back into the parlor. When clearing the kitchen for supper, I piled my sewing on it and now I have to get on with the sewing before I can move the chair.
So we don't have to do anything but wash the serving spoons, eh?
It was a nice party. And we froze enough leftovers to put on a very good homeless dinner the week after next.
I had a bit of adventure on the way home: Bill was the last one out of the church, and he hadn't brought his key, so he picked me up when I was about halfway home -- I didn't have my key either, but we were a lot closer to my house than his. Then we got back to the church just in time to see the pastor coming out: He'd come back to lock up.
So Bill drove me home again. I missed a quarter of my Sunday walk, but that's just as well: I noticed *before* nap time that I'd overstressed my bad leg again. I took an aspirin before lying down, and it seems to have cleared up.
For those who are thinking "If it hurts, stop doing it!" -- an acute injury such as I suffered on the rotting leaves last November can be dealt with by lying down until it goes away. Managing a chronic injury, such as the one I accumulated from two phys-ed instructors, one puddle of oil, and a patch of ice, requires a delicate balance. Too much stress can aggravate the injury permanently, and so can too little. If you never step over your boundaries, those boundaries will contract.
On one of the occasions that Dave had been researching his new toy, he reported that some Roomba owners give them names, and said that he didn't intend to do that.
But I think he has. This morning he opened the drapes, looked out on a bright and windless day, and said "Where shall we let the Rhumba run today?"
Al watched it intently at first, but today, Dave said, Al started to go into the bedroom, found the Roomba running straight at him, and jumped over it.
Dave has been feeling better since we got the Roomba, so he plans to run it every day until it stops getting packed up with cat fur.
The wall of snow is still there. I wish I'd taken note the day it first appeared; this is astonishing longevity for a snowdrift. And it still blows a clear path next to the house, most of the time.
It's snowing again. It would be cool if we could get a seven-inch fall and then take a week off. I really, really need a long bike ride (about one mile in my present condition) and can't even go out for walks. I'm thinking seriously of snow-shoeing across the lake. Alternatively, do I remember how to ski? My ski boots crumbled in storage, but I can wear Dave's if I put on two pairs of socks.
Good day for baking, but I forgot the rule of rye: first make a batter of the rye flour, then mix in the wheat flour. That way you have comparatively non-sticky wheat flour on your hands while kneading.
But I got the pizza dough mixed up entirely with the spoon -- and the small rubber spatula cleaned off the spoon without accumulating a dough ball of its own.
Spent the morning darning Dave's mitten, then found another hole in the other mitten.
Still haven't found my mittens. But it's been warm enough for gloves every time I've gone out. There have been times I'd have needed mittens if the roads had been fit to ride on, though. (You need more hand protection on a bike because there's a head wind and you lead with your knuckles. Also, my walking coat is a man's coat, so I can pull my hands entirely inside the sleeves when I'm not using ski poles.)
I did find my mitten liners while looking for yarn to darn Dave's mittens. They are in the to-be-darned bag.
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While fooling around with Google Maps, I discovered that Potawatami Wildlife Park is about twenty miles west of Warsaw. I don't think I can work my way up to forty miles --particularly since it appears that I won't be able to start training before May-- but I could have Dave drop me off in Bourbon.
Dave's first chore today was putting the carpet that had been hung to dry on the bathtub curtain rod back into the garage (where it keeps my feet warm while I'm foraging in the freezer), and his next was to put his Stanley sawhorses back together. Much to his surprise, both still work even though one is missing a corner.
His evening yesterday was full of mini-disasters. He ran over his sawhorses with the truck, forgot to put the tube of corncob crumbs down to confine the water dripping off the truck, and then knocked a bucket of water over with his lawn mower. At that point he decided to spend the rest of the evening watching television with Al on his lap.
All I did yesterday was darn a pair of Dave's mittens. I hope to make a hat today.
I need to get out and use my debit card.
We had a mis-communication yesterday. I noticed that the pill bottle I was using for a darning egg in the thumb of a mitten was empty and said "Oh, I've got to pick up my prescriptions." What I meant was "Awk! I forgot that I have prescriptions waiting!" What Dave heard was "Awk! I'm almost out of pills!" and he nagged the snowplow operator. But it appears to have done no harm.
Perhaps he saw me noticing that the bottle was empty; I shook it. But my pill counter runs sixteen days, and I had refilled it just before ordering the pills.
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The Roomba goes beyond cleaning the floor -- when you have to move stuff, you notice that it needs dusting, and one tends to put stuff back in a more-appropriate place.
The power cables dragging on the floor at the head of the bed have been bugging me for ten or twelve years. This morning I grabbed a few cable ties and hung the power cords from the brackets supporting the shelf the clocks etc. are on.
It's unusual to use cable ties to tie cables!
Mem: check the bike to see whether the wire panniers need new cable ties.
Both are firm.
Dave celebrated the cable tying by turning the Roomba loose in the bedroom. It didn't take us near as long to pick up stuff as it did the first time -- partly because some of it never got put back under the bed.
I don't know what I did yesterday, but it didn't include making a hat. I *think* I glanced at the pattern lying on the ironingboard, from a distance. The pieces are on the kitchen table now, as are my cutting mat and cutter. When I pulled the cutter out of the pocket of the bag hanging in the laundry room, the old cutter (now dedicated to cutting paper) came with it and landed neatly blade first, sticking into the linoleum. Them thar "safety guards" arn't worth a nickel, even when rubber-banded into place.
We went to First Friday yesterday evening, and had an excellent supper at Mad Anthony's. I had a reuben and Dave had a tenderloin. Then we took a glance at the festival and rushed back to the nice warm car. I regretted wearing only two pairs of long johns and leaving my second scarf in the car; Dave wasn't even wearing his flannel-lined jeans.
On my may home from church, when I caught sight of Dave mowing the snow in the driveway, I thought "We've got to find that boy something to do." When I told him that later, he said "I just wanted to see whether it would work -- and it does!"
It does when the snow is light and fluffy. Doesn't appear that we'll have any other kind for a while.
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Found another bruise while getting ready for my nap, on my shin this time. It appears to be days old, so I've no chance of remembering what I did.
Vegemite grows on you. At twelve dollars for 222g, that's rather a pity. But 222 grams of Vegemite is a *lot* of Vegemite.
Washday -- I went shopping yesterday. I went to Big R, Aldi, Aunt Millie's Outlet, and Owens. I got down for my nap well after it was time to get up, and served canned soup for supper. (It was Campbell's Chipotle-Chicken Corn Chowder, and not half bad; the potatoes didn't taste canned.)
When I came into the house, once safely on the linoleum floor I stomped a foot to knock snow off my shoes, and sat down rather suddenly. It seems that I had snow stuck to my soles too. So I was careful to wipe my feet on subsequent trips. Took quite a few trips, since I had been so many places.
I didn't think I'd damaged my knee much, but I'm limping today, particularly right after getting up from a chair or bed.
After I put the blacks in to soak, Dave called from Dr. Ashton's office to say the Versa wouldn't start, and he was going to call me again after the tow truck got there. So I said I would get dressed so I'd be ready.
Now ordinarily dressing for such an errand means putting on shoes, pulling my jeans on over my slopping-around pants, and putting my raw-silk shirt on over my slopping-around shirt. But I had to put moleskins on before putting on shoes, and I hadn't scoured off the moleskin gunk from yesterday's shopping trip, and foot-scouring is a rather lengthy process. Then I collected socks and shoes, sat on the bed, opened the drawer where I keep the moleskins, and remembered that I'd used up the last three little squares on the shopping trip. So I dug out my cutting mat, cutter, and centering ruler, marked a sheet of moleskin (My next-to-the-last sheet, it seems; I'd better start a new shopping list.) (Nope, I have an un-opened package.) and cut it into one-inch squares. Left the tools on the table to put away later and put on my socks. Just as I'd gotten into my jeans and was looking around for the silk shirt (I'd left it in the kitchen after the shopping trip) I heard the door open: Dave had gone out to get the stuff out of the glove box, tried the motor one last time, and it started. The tow company has a branch on their voice-mail tree for exactly that situation. But he'd forgotten his cell phone and was borrowing Dr. Ashton's, so he didn't call me. It doesn't take a lot longer to drive the two miles than for me to find the phone anyway.
One thing Dave didn't find in the glove box was a pair of red gloves. They had fallen out of my shopping cart somewhere in Big R, and I didn't notice until I wanted to put them back on after checking out. I took another lap around the store, but didn't find them.
heel