It wasn't any extra trouble to make it hypertext instead of plain text:
2. No spam.
3. No cross-posting.
4. No trolling: posting meant to entice a negative response.
5. No "flame wars".
6. Post a link and a sentence or two instead of an entire article.
7. No politics.
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9. If there is a problem or private matter take it off-list.
10. Please read your message and think it over before you hit the send key.
Harry
I added a couple of missing spaces and deleted a stray apostrophe. Wearing my W.E. official-nitpicker hat, I suggest that "NEFFERs" be changed to "Neffers", since "Neffer" is a nickname, not an acronym.
--
Joy Beeson
http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM
http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ -- Writers' Exchange
west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
If you are viewing
2 February 2012
I had a half-load of blacks in the washer before I
realized that it was a good day to dry the
king-size sheet outdoors. But if I cut down on
the soaking times, I could get a hot white load
out anyway.
So when it was time to pour the bleach in, I
poured in vinegar by mistake. There was nothing
to do but rinse the vinegar out and start over.
Still got the wash on the line, but it's a bit
late for my nap. The half-load of light-and-white
now in the washer will have *plenty* of soaking
time.
3 February 2012
Which didn't do anything for the stain on the old
shirt. I poured detergent on it, and let it soak
all the time the whites were in the washer, too.
There's a lot more sand bar out there than there
was a while ago.
There was frost on the grass when I woke up, and
there's a wrinkle in the lake that suggests that
the southern tip might be frozen over. (Wasn't
when we took our afternoon walk, but there were
skimmed-over patches and floating crystals.)
Today looks like a good day to return my book.
Since we already have chips and peanuts, and I
have no magazines to dispose of, I plan to ride
around the south end of the lake. I haven't done
that for a while.
Predicted high of 47°.
It was right nippy on the way to the library, but
before I got home, I'd taken off my windbreaker
and gloves and one of my scarves. Fog wasn't any
problem out in the country, because road that I
couldn't see was mostly around a curve anyway, but
Country Club in the fog was a pain. Stopped on
the bridge to look at the dam: creek running
briskly, but all from the bottom of the dam
4 February 2012
There was an inch of snow on the picnic table this
morning. None on the lake.
5 February 2012
Looked out when I got up and thought I wouldn't
know whether there was ice on the lake because I
couldn't see the lake, but the fog was thinner
every time I looked out, and the houses on the
other side were distinct before I finished
dressing. It's still hard to tell whether that's
ice or flat calm out there.
The hose is frozen, but I combed my hair outside,
wearing a cotton under-dress.
The lake was frozen, but thawed during the day.
I forgot my cane, and left it hanging on a coat
rack at the church.
6 February 2012
I can see houses on the other side of the lake
now. (11:04) When I got up at nine, I could
barely see the sandbar. There was a swan on it,
with its neck stretched up so like a goose sentry
that I was wondering whether a goose might have
snow on its back.
Substantial parts of the lake are skimmed over
with ice. Seems to be more open water than there
was when I could first see it.
It's washday: half a load of lights, half a load
of darks.
7 February 2012
The snow is all gone, and I doubt that the flat
areas on the lake are ice. Predicted high of
37°.
8 February 2012
I'm not sure whether the white area I saw when I
got up was ice or a reflection, but the whole lake
is blue now.
Pity I didn't time myself when I rode around the
south end of the lake — but it's nearly an
hour and twenty minutes until my appointment, so
I'm sure I can take the long way and still need a
book when I get there.
Hope I don't forget to tell him the space between
my two back teeth on the lower left gets sore. It
isn't, of course sore this morning — there
were no strings to wedge into it in my breakfast.
And now I have cracker crumbs on my squeaky-clean
teeth.
Hollar looked over my food trap, and said I could
replace the crown on the molar, have the wisdom
tooth pulled, or just keep picking and flossing.
I took door #3.
Another tooth needs filling, but it will hold
until summer, when he can be sure of whether or
not two others are defective, and get it all over
with in one go.
I paraded around the office in my undershirt.
Didn't realize until I got there that my wool
jersey is much too warm to wear indoors. Luckily,
I was wearing my new undershirt that looks like a
black T-shirt.
I passed the Methodist Church on my way back, but
couldn't see anything about how the community
kitchen was going without getting unduly nosy.
9 February 2012
My right arm is still a little sore from grinding
cabbage Tuesday afternoon. I hope the homeless
people liked the cole slaw!
The lake was all blue when I got up this morning.
Lunch today turned out to be a baked-bean Reuben
on dark rye. It was very, very good, too. I
grilled it for a long time on low heat and the
bread got crunchy.
The left-over sliced tenderloin I added to a fried
swiss-cheese sandwich was in a pot of beans, so I
added beans, then added a little sauerkraut. Had
I been thinking "reuben", I'd have put the kraut
on under the bean sauce.
Dave just turned the furnace off to install his
new thermostat. Perhaps I should throw an extra
blanket on the bed before I take my nap.
13 February 2012
The lake is frozen. I'm sure it won't stick.
Lovely day to hang clothes out; pity I didn't put
the dishtowels in to soak last night. I've a
quarter load each of black and white, and what
looks like a full load of light colors — my
long jersey underdress did a good bit to enlarge
the pile.
[The lights were only half a load.] [And I dried
everything indoors — which didn't take long;
it's dry in here.]
Saturday was below freezing, so we cleaned out our
new freezer for the first time. The drain was
draining only a trickle, but Dave remembered his
shop vac and made short work of cleaning up the
water. I carried most of the frost out in a
dustpan.
We not only didn't find my bottle of molasses
while cleaning the freezer, I discovered that the
jar of sorghum that I was planning to use instead
has vanished. There was nothing in the sugar bin
but starlight mints — rather a lot of
starlight mints; I must have forgotten they were
in there and bought a second bag.
I'm not riding far enough to use them up these
days. I think the mints in the pocket of my
jersey have been there since early fall.
Dave is still struggling to make his new
thermostat connect to his computer. He says the
company has a lot of useful information on line,
but all of the videos assume that when you press
the "connect" button it connects. He's making
some measurements requested by the folks on the
help forum.
I found the timer! It was stuck to the washing
machine, so I suppose it's been there ever since
last washday.
I *usually* stick it to the printer stand while
washing, so that I'll hear it while I'm playing
with the computer.
The new evening classes at church include one
called "creation science". This makes me very
sad, because "creation science" is a sinful waste
of time that plays into the devil's hands. The
Bible plainly states "now we see as in a glass,
darkly, but then we shall see clearly,
face-to-face". Getting all excited when
observation appears to contradict the word of God
betrays a lack of faith.
When I was studying Calculus, I never did grasp
how integration was the inverse of
differentiation, but people smarter than I was
said that it was so, and the two separate parts
made sense to me, so I just took that part on
faith, forged ahead, and did pretty well. Still
niggles at me a little, and if I still spoke
Calculus, I'd hope someday to understand the
connection between Integral Calculus and
Differential Calculus.
Can't people have as much faith in the word of God
as I had in a Calculus book?
Now that the freezer is all neat, it's way past
time for me to dump everything out of my dresser
drawers.
I avoid politics as much as I can, but I've caught
some of Obama vs. Catholics. I don't care WHAT
the Catholics think about Obama's scheme —
the folks who thought it up are moral delinquents
in dire need of supervision.
Dave asked what's for supper; I said "um, er, uh";
he said "I don't think I've had ummerah before".
Then we both realized he's eaten more ummerah than
anything else.
I remembered seeing meatballs and spaghetti when
cleaning the freezer. Only five ounces in the
box; we said "diabetic spaghetti" and didn't open
the other box. Ten meatballs, so there will be
plenty to eat.
It's lucky that I cleaned out one of the saucepans
making a zapped reuben out of the last of the
beans and the last of the dark rye for my lunch.
Both pans had been in the fridge for some time.
A book Dave has been reading says that both
spaghetti and cous-cous are acceptable on a
diabetic diet. I have my doubts about that, but
if there is any couscous left when I next go to
Aldi, I'll buy some to make porcupine loaf.
Whoop-whoop-whoop! That isn't four ounces per
*person*, that's four ounces for the two of us!
It's been a while since I cooked spaghetti.
Anyhow, there's my lunch for tomorrow taken care
of.
Lovely day, and I never set foot outside except to
empty the coffee grounds. Did that *barefoot*
— what sort of February is this?
There was a picture of a guy fishing through the
ice on Center Lake in today's paper. Front-page
news!
Since I hardly ever get to a store that sells cell
phones, and never find one when I get there, Dave
has threatened to buy me a Jitterbug. I don't
have a speck of trouble using cell phones —
in fact, I used a borrowed cell phone before Dave
ever heard of them (it was the size and weight of
a lead brick) and found it no different from any
other cordless phone.
(I wonder how the company that lent cell phones to
the John Marino Open got on when cell phones
became common — can't Google because I don't
remember their name. Pioneers often get trampled
by those who come later.)
My problem lies in trying to get a cell-phone
display to disclose teensy-weensy unimportant
details such as "what is this gadget?" and "how
many digits are in the price?"
Dave borrowed Martha's laptop for an hour or so,
and now his computer and thermostat recognize each
other.
Rather Victorian, really: We can't speak because
we haven't been introduced.
15 February 2012
Most of the snow that was on the ground when we
woke up yesterday is still there. Still no ice on
the lake.
I modified my undershirt pattern yesterday, and
fetched down some waffle-knit to make it up.
16 February 2012
Whatever Dave has, the doctor at MedStat has seen
about two hundred cases of it.
I sewed the shoulder seams, hemmed the neck, and
pinned the sleeves of the undershirt. Also
changed the sheets on the bed.
Went shopping in the afternoon, and came home with
a quart of chicken liver and a quart of sliced
mushrooms. Found Dave in bed (not only the
infection: his nose spray is sedative) and
hastily changed the menu to the stuffed
portabellas I'd planned to have for lunch
tomorrow. Also bought a huge pork roast. I think
I'll bake it tomorrow and have the livers the next
day.
I've been snitching chicken gizzards. These seem
more tender than the previous batch; perhaps I
brought the heat up more slowly. I've got a
really nice batch of chicken broth after poaching
two sets of gizzards in it. I suppose using used
broth also improved the gizzards.
Dave won't even fish out the hearts.
I suspect that I've got a mild case of there's a
lot of that going around.
18 February 2012
Dave is feeling much better — perhaps
because he's started a course of antibiotic.
I've learned that if you are going to get
furiously angry, don't do it when you are barefoot
in the kitchen. Vinyl does nothing at all to
soften concrete.
I was thinking about an opinion piece written by a
drug warrior, and all the years when I spent one
day a month in bed because Gary Gerard and his
like think that any amount of suffering is worth
it if it allows you to torture addicts.
[Insert standard rant about staking a drug warrior
out on an anthill with a bottle of ant-repellent
juuuuust out of reach.]
19 February 2012
Woke up early — so I'll probably be late for
church.
It's too cold to go outside barefoot this morning.
The hose is frozen, the lake isn't.
Went to Aldi yesterday; finished my new undershirt
the day before. Dave loaded Notepad++ on my new
computer, but the new monitor is so hard to read
that I haven't played with it any. ("Black" is
pale blue. I suppose I could poke around and see
whether there's a white-on-black option in
Notepad++.)
The power glitched this morning. Somebody on the
scanner said that it messed up the stop lights.
20 February 2012
Got to the church on time, but zoned out in the
library and was late to the service. Next time
that happens, I *won't* sit in the back row;
whoever balanced the loudspeaker over my head had
lost his upper registers of hearing, so the PA
system was doing its best to wreck mine.
According to my preee-cise calculations, the
fourth of July will be on the thirtieth of June
this year.
Haven't been able to verify this on any of the
official event calendars.
Frost on the ground, and that might be a film of
ice on the lake — I went out barefoot to
dump the coffee filter, but didn't even try the
hose. And I did put on my fuzzy slippers when I
hung out the sheet and pillowcase!
Perhaps I'll hang out the printed pillowcases too.
Finally remembered that my white hat is filthy
— when I went to put it on to hang out
whites. I'm putting it in with the printed
pillowcases. Also forgot that there was dirt on
the celery that I put on top of my pile of canvas
bags when I went to Aldi Saturday, but I want to
wash them in hot water and bleach anyway. And
with the king-size sheet, there wouldn't have been
room for them with the warm whites.
I should have scheduled a bike ride for a day like
this, but I have nowhere to go.
I distinctly remember composing this entry before,
but can't find it anywhere:
Last summer, I wrote that I'd flunked out of EmCom
because I couldn't do the homework. Last
Wednesday, I got an e-mail congratulating me on my
graduation, suggesting that I contact my Section
Manager or Section Emergency Co-ordinator, and
saying that I'd get a certificate four-to-eight
weeks after course completion. It's been a lot
more than four-to-eight weeks; perhaps I should
try going to the ARRL site to see whether I can
print out a copy.
Found a calendar entry: fireworks at 10:00 pm on
July 7. It's always been the Saturday before, but
I suppose that someone thought that celebrating in
June went too far. Rather a long Masterworks
festival — I thought that Masterworks had
been sacrificed to a budget cut.
21 February 2012
Snow on the ground this morning, none on the lake.
All gone by nap time. Hose worked fine when I
rinsed out the cat box.
Fiddled around with the computer and spent five
minutes mending a split seam in an old silk shirt
this morning.
I printed out my graduation certificate yesterday.
I soaked the sweatband with detergent and let it
set all the while the dark clothes were washing,
and my white hat came out of the washer white.
Had a liver-salad sandwich for lunch. I must
write up the recipe for chicken liver with
mushrooms and onions, because it's too rich a dish
to have again before I've forgotten how to do it.
23 February 2012
No snow on the ground this morning, and I can't
see the lake. The frost that was on the ground
when I woke up is gone — I shouldn't have
decided not to ride my bike this morning when I
saw the prediction of snow last night. NWS is
still predicting snow through Saturday night. Hmm
. . . I think it was through Friday night when I
checked yesterday. The system must have been a
little slow in getting here.
I split "Winona Lake" and "Warsaw" out of my
"Local" bookmark folder, and now I have to hit "w"
four times instead of twice when I want to read
weblogs. ("Blogs" to you young whippersnappers.)
This is taking some time to get used to,
particularly since I didn't bother to change the
copy of Firefox on Joy98, because I use that one
only for clicking links that come in through
Usenet or e-mail.
I may be stuck with two computers forever, since
I've gotten used to the better performance of the
Web on the faster computer, but I can't run my
text editor on the new one — Dave got me
DOSbox, but it's for games, and assumes that it's
no trouble to put all your DOS programs into one
directory. I have only one DOS program, but it
works on files in every directory on the disk.
Perhaps I could create a separate instance of
DOSbox for every directory, and copy PC-Write into
every one? It's not all that big a program.
And yes, I've got a copy of C++. It's a very nice
text editor — but it's not *my* text editor.
Which reminds me of helping to prepare a dinner
for the homeless in the church kitchen: everybody
on vegetable-chopping duty said "I wish I'd
thought to bring my own knife."
Weird, man. I couldn't find my little red
lambswool scarf a few days ago. I just left the
room to stir the poached chicken — and when
I came back, the scarf was lying on the ironing
board. I don't even remember rustling around in
any place where I might have found it.
I shopped at Martin's for the first time yesterday
evening. I've been there to look at it at least
twice, but hadn't gone there to buy groceries.
Like to never found my way out of the parking lot
afterward; in the dark, all the alleys looked like
exits.
The layout was confusing on my first pass, but
quite simple once one understands that it is a
circle: One comes in through the produce, and
goes out through the check-out lanes. Didn't look
like very many check-out lanes, but I've never
seen lines and I've never seen all of them open.
Perhaps that is because the check-out takes the
stuff out of your cart. The bed of the cart is
unusually high, so she didn't have to bend over to
do it — the big carts at Owen's require you
to stand on your head, which is one reason I
always take the little ones unless I mean to stock
up on soda.
I never did find the molasses, and I forgot the
graham crackers I'd come for. They were on the
list, but somehow I didn't notice. Which is why I
had considered riding to Owen's this morning.
I had a clerk show me where the wraps were, but I
declined to buy parchment paper because they only
had Reynolds, and I once made a promise to an
aluminum-siding salesman.
I never looked at the meats and other stuff along
the wall. Only a glance into the frozen goods,
but I found snap peas and bought a bag. I wish I
could remember what Martin calls its three-pepper
& onion blend, because it was so weird that I read
the list of ingredients to be sure of what I was
looking at. Didn't buy any because I'd recently
stocked up at Owen's.
24 February 2012
Hey, I think that the drizzling rain just changed
to snow! About time we got some February; it's
almost March.
The weather service says I'm going for a bike ride
on Monday.
Spent the whole morning fiddling with the
computer. Did look at the old jacket-style jersey
I'm resurrecting.
25 February 2012
There was snow on the ground when I went to bed,
none when I got up. (Well, if you knew it was
there you could see snow.)
When I went to Martins, a display of ramen-noodle
looked almost authentic, and it was five packages
for a dollar, so I bought one. Served it seasoned
with left-over pork roast not long after, and we
both said "Hey, this isn't bad!"
I went to Aldi this afternoon and noticed that
their twelve for two dollars ramen-noodle was the
same brand.
Sigh. I miss being able to indulge in cheap
starch any old time. And I really loved being on
a weight-gain diet.
Quoth the raven.
What a low-grade winter! I grumbled at
remembering that I'd left my coat in the car after
taking my shoes off, forgot that I have fuzzy
slippers for just such an occasion, went out
barefoot to fetch the coat — and didn't mind
a bit! The ground wasn't as cold as the garage
floor.
I was on my way back from Aunt Millie when I
stopped at Aldi. At lunch I got caught by
surprise that two fried-cheese sandwiches left us
with only three slices and two heels of bread.
The bread bin of the freezer was still a quarter
full, but all of it was cake!
Fortunately, I woke up from my nap so early that I
got back from the stores with an hour to spare
before supper.
Which was Tilipia in Frying Magic with Griff's
tartar sauce.
26 February 2012
The clock just struck time to get up, and I'm
already ready to go, except for shirt, skirt, and
shoes. I've even taken my pills and eaten a
muffin.
Bright & sunny, no snow, not much wind. I fear
this may be the weather we were promised for
Monday.
I got an e-mail suggesting that if Monday is a
good riding day, the library should be my
destination — Man Plus is due.
(Besides, we are almost out of tortilla chips.)
I was allowed back onto Facebook last night. They
have a new thing whereby you may designate some of
your "friends" as mere acquaintances, to be kept
at arm's length. I don't have a use for that, but
I do wish I'd thought to create a separate account
for Neffers, who never say anything that would
interest the rest of my connections. Too
complicated to do that now.
Supper tonight is Tai Sesame Noodles with
left-over pork roast. While shopping, I had an
idea for tomorrow, but can't remember what it was.
27 February 2012
Not only was there no ice in the hose when I
rinsed the coffee filter this morning, the water
got colder after it had been running a while.
Still no idea for tonight. Perhaps I can pick up
something when I stop at Owen's for vinegar on my
way back from the library.
Or we've still got that tartar sauce — one
has to make a lot when measuring the ingredients
— I could bake tilapia filets.
Now it's time to suit up and I'm feeling groggy.
The tone for Dave's alarm clock was very
ill-chosen: I couldn't locate it (my ears don't
match at high pitch) and Dave couldn't hear it.
Well, he set it so that he couldn't hear it on
purpose, intending only to check whether it would
turn his monitor on, but one of my ears heard it
just fine, and it sounded like the noise a gadget
makes when it's in dire need of attention —
he has a *lot* of gadgets on his desk. I spent
quite a while trying, in dim light with no
glasses, to find the button to make his scanner
resume scanning. Eventually I remembered that
that button is on the microphone. It wasn't until
after finally locating the source of the noise
that I remembered that to resume scanning, you
hold the button down; merely pushing makes it
stop. Eventually I discovered that turning the
volume knob on his speaker changed the sound, and
thought of turning his monitor on. A large button
marked "snooze" clued me in.
28 February 2012
A load of pillowcases and dishtowels soaking in
bleach — looks like a good day to hang them
out.
Late start for yesterday's ride, late getting
back, almost no nap — I went to bed early.
And slept pretty well. I did hear the alarm, a
split second before the other clock chimed eight
bells. This time it was set for Westminster, just
one bing bing bing bong. Dave heard it too,
despite setting it so quiet that he couldn't hear
it.
Speaking of mysterious noises: we heard a chk
chnk rumble as we were drifting off. Sounded like
the front and back trucks of a train car hitting a
joint, but there was no engine noise and no
whistle. For a while I thought it might be my own
heart — groggy enough to forget that Dave
heard it first — then it got louder owing, I
presume, to a change in the wind.
We figured they must be doing something over at
the foundry.
My body parts got confused yesterday. When I was
in Sherman & Lin's, my *good* leg got to hurting
so bad that I had to get back on the bike. My bad
leg was as happy as a clam. It's true that I
bashed my right knee attempting to mount the bike
— I emitted some very undignified yelps
— but it was the *hip* that hurt.
When the knee calmed down a bit, I thought
"tonight I'll be wondering where that blue mark
came from", but there is no bruise. Knee was a
bit sore in the night, however.
The tiny white dog at the gun shop remembered me
— after she sniffed my knuckles and all over
my helmet (which I'd set on the floor when I
squatted to speak to her) she put her front paws
on my chest, which I took as a request to scratch
her neck, but *that* was getting entirely too
fresh and she teleported back about four feet and
resumed barking. About that time I remembered
that neck scratches are for cats.
The plan was to drop off one pitiful magazine at
the emergency room, return Man Plus to the
library (I checked out a Bradley and a Bradbury
— the Bradbury primarily because it's in a
binding that the library loves to throw away),
Avila's, Penguin Point (chili cheese fries again,
but next time I want a chicken barbecue sandwich),
the gun shop and dollar store, then on around the
big loop. But as I was cranking toward the
Penguin Point, says I to me: "When you use the
small ring going downhill, it's time to turn
around and ride *with* the wind!"
So I rode east through the roundabout for the
first time. In this direction it isn't there at
all for straight-through vehicles, because no road
leaves to the right. I saw a new borrow pit I
hadn't noticed when going the other way —
considering how near the water in the pit was to
the top, I could see why they needed fill for the
roundabout.
It was warmer with the wind at my back, and
eventually I took my windbreaker off.
When I stopped at Owen's West for yogurt and
molasses, I checked the vinegar: ten cents a
gallon cheaper than what I'd bought at Dollar
General. And the jug of Dawn I bought at Dollar
General was not the jug I was looking for. The
big jugs aren't at any of the places I've ever
been; perhaps it was a special purchase.
29 February 2012
Three laundry disappointments, and if you squint
you can say that all three were related to running
out of baking powder.
While dressing to go to the store, I noticed that
while getting ready for bed the day before, I'd
drooled tooth cleaner on the shirt I meant to
wear. Ah, well, there's no such thing as an empty
laundry hamper.
While getting into the car, I realized that I'd
failed to get the grocery bags out of it when I
put the hot whites into the washer. (And it will
take weeks to accumulate another load.)
Then this morning I looked out and saw that the
bath mat that hadn't been quite dry when I hastily
brought the whites in before shopping was still on
the line.
I heard thunder in the night. This morning is
foggy with a light breeze.
Oops! According to the calendar I record the
cat's dry-food consumption on, this is March the
first. I printed a new one.
I brought the bath mat in, spun it out in the
washer, and hung it back out. The sun has cleared
most of the fog.