E:\LETTERS\AugBan10.txt August 6, 2010 Spent most of today working on my new poncho shirt, and got it to the place where I can try it on and see what it's going to look like. I want to make another one as soon as this one is finished. But I don't have any more coarse white linen. Shoppity doo dah! I went to the dentist Monday, and got a clean bill of health. Not to mention clean incisors. My previous panoramic X-ray was on film; there's a lot more detail in the digital panorama. I got lost on my way home from the dentist. "But you can't get lost in Warsaw!" Dave said. Not really, but you can wander to the wrong side of the tracks. Finally found my way to the hot-dog stand -- to discover that they are closed on Mondays. So I had a bowl of bean soup at Zales. Monday night I put bleachables in to soak without checking the weather, and had to dry two tablecloths and a sheet indoors on Tuesday. That makes two king-sized muslin sheets with holes in -- at this rate I'm going to have to get around to making up the linen I bought to make sheets. The worn sheets are also cluttering up the rag bin, and I don't need any pillowcases. 10 August 2010 We went for a ride on the Dixie last Sunday. Lovely time; I was as interested in the Amish children as in the scenery! Their clothing fit perfectly, and was very well made. Also a different style than the clothing that I see at Aldi's. We had to go downtown and walk back to find a parking place, and were afraid that the cruise would be sold out, but a lot of the cars in the lot belonged to the people who were on the boat when it docked. We thought we'd come for the first cruise of the day; I don't know whether the Web site needs updating or they had done a charter cruise. Afterward, we went to the Chi-Am, which is now the Canton House, and may no longer be around. When serving dishes that had a different assortment of vegetables than what was listed on the menu, the waitress said that it was because "this is our last day". I really hope that she meant that they are closed on Monday, because I like the place. The food isn't as good as the Great Wall, but it's a very good place to eat if you happen to be in North Webster. Dave wasn't happy with his egg roll. I had a bite, and there seemed to be nothing in it but cabbage. I enjoyed my hot-and-sour soup. Not the best I've ever eaten, but not below average. We over-ate on the main dishes, and I've been nibbling on the left-overs ever since. Drat. I put frozen broccoli into both boxes (I'd picked out all the broccoli, as it's very good cold when soaked in sauce) intending to warm one of them up for lunch today, but had a fried cheese spamwich with tomato and onion instead. Arrgh! I was halfway to the church when I noticed red spots all over the front of my T-shirt. Thought and thought and remembered that there had been snow-cone syrup that color at the block party, and I'd been wearing that T-shirt. Which was a horrible conclusion, because I'm pretty sure I've worn that shirt in public since then. Pleasant Handwork Circle otherwise -- and nobody came to see my dirty shirt. I sewed all around one side of the ribbon on my new poncho shirt after I'd checked the fridges and re-filled the ice trays. Earlier in the day, I sorted the photos of said poncho shirt that I took while cutting it out last Friday, and copied the keepers to my own computer, but didn't start writing captions for them. 13 August 2010 Poncho shirt nearly completed. Just have to stitch down the seam allowances, put in three hems, and do a little handwork. But I didn't touch it today. Did ride to Aunt Millies and stock up on bread: a loaf, two packs of slimwiches, a package of english muffins, a bag of hamburger rolls, and two bags of bagels. We're out of cream cheese. Not much more than crumbs in the last bag of chips. One reason we ate the left-over chips so fast is that I've been eating corn chips and tortilla chips instead of crackers and bread. There's still half a bag of tostadas. I need to get some sort of tostada-size dish with a lid; it's very hard to avoid messing up the microwave when heating chili on a tostada. Well, a lid would do. Perhaps I can invert a soup plate over it. But I need something I can see through. I gathered a few onions out of the garden today. Didn't chop enough of them for the liver, though I thought I'd chopped way too much. When I fry them with liver, Dave eats onions too, and I keep forgetting that. But it's only our second batch of liver. Don't know why it's been so many decades since I fried some. Partly because they never have it in the meat case, and it took me a long time to decide to buy frozen liver. Even frozen, it hasn't been all that available. I think I'll get several little sealed packets at the Farmer's Market tomorrow, and stash them in the deep freeze. Which means that I have to come straight back, but Dave is planning blueberry pancakes, so I'll be in a hurry anyway. I got enough potatoes to have with cube steak yesterday, but just barely, and I dug up more of the row than remains to be dug. I'd better buy some new potatoes at the market tomorrow. 14 August 2010 There were at least two displays of potatoes at the market, but I was in a hurry to get home to the blueberry pancakes, so all I bought was two tomatoes, two small muskmelons, and a package each of pork and beef liver. I left in such a hurry that I forgot to take my wallet! But I keep a little cash in my first-aid kit for just such an emergency. Finished my new poncho shirt today, and wore it on our evening walk. I still have a little handwork to do under the arms, but want to save the handwork for Tuesday. I've selected fabric to make another one. Embroidered linen. I'll use the scraps from the first one for the bias tape and the facing, so as not to have to pick embroidery out. Picking out embroidery is so much trouble that I'd probably just leave the lumps in. 15 August 2010 Drew a thread to straighten the end of the embroidered linen this evening. Also picked out some embroidery that would interfere with hemming this edge later. I don't think that the embroidered patches can stretch enough to flatten the fabric without breaking the fine threads on the back. But the rumples from the shrinking form a pattern -- maybe I'll have a no-iron shirt. Banner Making is on again. I'm to bring two black banners on Wednesday. I was a bit worried: I bought ten yards of black broadcloth, and have used only four in banners, but what *else* have I cut off that piece? Turns out there are more than six yards left, so all is well. If we're going to keep up this goth theme in banner- making, perhaps I should order twenty yards instead of ten next time! I'm also contemplating the linen sheets. I need to sew bands on them to cover the fringed "selvages" and make them long enough, but solid colors are so plain, and I'd get sick of any print or plaid before the year was out. I finally settled on the pink linen-cotton blend I bought a roll of -- twenty or thirty yards, not a full hundred-yard roll! -- when it was in the dollar-a-yard sale. Now I have to decide whether to cut it crosswise or lengthwise. Morning, 16 August 2010 Oh, yeah, I've got to remember where I put all those scissors and things and put them back in the Trafalgar bag. I've decided on crosswise strips for the bands. I'll have to piece it, and the grain won't match as well, but I won't have to know how much it's going to shrink before I cut it off the roll. I calculate that I'm going to have a bunch of little square pieces left over. Today is wash day. I've already begun sorting clothes. 1:30, 16 August 2010 Two loads done, one still on the line. It's so windy that I'll take it down, with the possible exception of the fluffy bath mat, before napping. Tore two six-foot banners off the broadcloth; two yards and two feet left. My folding six-foot ruler was a big help! Also basted a name tag to my new jersey, and swept one corner of the garage. 18 August 2010 Sewed the tag on later in the day. I finished the poncho shirt Tuesday night, but haven't ironed it yet. Had a pleasant visit with Kathy and Josh on the way home. Josh has to go back to Florida Thursday morning -- just as we stop frying up here. I rode my bike to Aldi's this morning. Stopped hither and thither along the way -- I bought new riding gloves at Dunham's Sporting Goods, and may go back to buy a helmet. They have multi-sport helmets that don't have the dorky and dangerous projections that are fashionable on cycling helmets. They still have "parachute buckles"; I hope parachute buckles are less wattle-pinching and non- adjustable than they used to be. I didn't check to see whether I can use my old mirror on the new hats; current mirrors aren't particularly well designed either -- nor are they particularly available. I hope I still have a back-up mirror in the bike closet; the silvering on my current mirror is starting to fail. Took some doing to get everything I bought at Aldi into the baskets. I had only two bags of chips tied to the sides, but it's a good thing that I put back the can of chili. Two bits of bad news at Aldi: the re-appearance of sauerkraut was a fluke, and now canned salsa has vanished. I can't cook without Aldi's salsa! Perhaps Casa Mamita stuff was discontinued to make room for the real Mexican foods they are adding; salsa con queso (Cheese Whiz), also missing from the chips aisle, is now in the Mexican-food aisle. I had my mouth all set for a burrito with salsa for lunch, so I bought a container of refrigerated salsa -- without reading the label, alas. When I opened it: GAAHH! -- I've eaten jam that didn't have that much sugar in it. I'd picked up "Sweet Onion salsa". It was also sweet-onion salsa; not only couldn't I detect any onion in it, neither could Dave. The ingredients list said "vidalia", which seems rather a waste of an expensive onion. There's a new style of chip: "baked potato crisps", which are potato-flour crackers rather like flat Pringles. I think I like them better than Pringles, but it's hard to say, since I've been eschewing Pringles for ten or twenty years -- maybe thirty -- on account of their extremely- offensive commercials. I bought "barbecue" flavor, forgetting that in chip-speak, "barbecue" means "coated with sugar". They are a good match for the salsa! Fortunately, Dave likes sweet chips and sugary salsa. I got home so late that I just barely got up from my nap in time for supper; I warmed up left-over bean soup instead of making rice-and-lentil casserole. I had found the missing saltines while putting the frozen foods away -- for some reason they were in the fruit basket -- but Dave ate baked barbecue crisps instead. We were all pretty limp at the banner-making meeting. It was the second day of school for Martha, and not everything went according to schedule; I forget what Cora had been up to, aside from car trouble, but I don't think that was today. But the banners are developing nicely. 19 August 2010 For years I've been trying to get my garlic chives to thrive, and wondering when they'd get on with the noxious- weeding. A few days ago I spotted one growing in the lily bed, way out by the road on the opposite side of the house from all the others. I suppose a seed must have stuck to the lawn mower and lucked out. I hope I remember to pick the flowers off when it blooms. 20 August 2010 Meant to sew all day, started by opening _Rough Sewing_ to read the instructions for making a poncho shirt, spent the rest of the morning correcting flaws on my Web sites. Mostly deleting broken links, but there were two broken links that I could repair. I did separate the three linen sheets, cut off eight feet of pink cotton-and-linen to make hems on the sheets, put the linen-cotton in to soak overnight, and measure to cut a rectangle to make the poncho shirt out of. That's two feet of blend per sheet; there's one sheet already in service. After supper, I rode my bike to Owen's to pick up pills. Forgot to read the ad before going. It was so hot we skipped our walk. 23 August 2010 Hung up the wash -- what, no bras? When I got back from the tomato festival on Saturday, I'd been rained on, so I undressed into the washer -- and went through the hamper and threw all the bras in. Then I put on my pajamas and never changed out of them, and wore the same bra today as on Sunday. I've got enough bleachables to run a load, but I didn't think to put them in to soak last night, and we have enough pillow cases to hold out another week. Cut a rectangle of fabric for my new poncho shirt. Involved picking out some embroidery, but it's more-or-less couched, so it's more like picking off. Also pulled a row of onions, to be sure there are enough for liver and onions tonight. The weeds were surprisingly easy to pull; the soil is very sandy where I planted the onions. A few more cool days like this and I might be able to push the cultivator around. Unless I weed the herb beds instead. I didn't take Saturday's walk, not because I was tired, but because I'd missed my nap and didn't feel smart enough to change clothes. After church we were talking about the middle-eastern outfit worn by one of the missionaries who came to speak during the service, and I said "If I had one of those, I'd have gone on my walk yesterday." (I was thinking of a novel in which a similar garment was kept by the door and thrown on over whatever you were slopping around the house in before going out.) But I'd still have had to put on shoes, which is the most intellectually-demanding part of getting dressed, and my pajamas are too warm to wear outdoors -- having removed them, it would be as easy to put on pants and shirt as to put on a gown. 25 August 2010 A couple of days ago I dumped Al's nearly-dead wheat, re-filled the pot with sand from the pile on the point, scattered wheat on it, and watered it with my laundry sprayer. This morning I noticed roots on the seeds -- sticking up into the air. I guess covering the pot with plastic wrap was a mistake. The sprouts will die without it at this stage, so I laid it back loosely. Yesterday evening I sliced the left-over liver as thin as I could, chopped and chopped it, mixed in the left-over onions and some corn oil I had fried "pork schnitzel" [breaded meatloaf] in, it was still a tad dry so I added a dash of olive oil. Not bad on a cracker. I also included a couple of tablespoons of liver salad I'd made with mayo at noon. 26 August 2010 Pushed the cultivator around from the edge of the garden almost to the row on the other side of the row where the onions had been. This one is garlic. Almost time to plant garlic, so I think I'll leave most of it in the ground. The next row is where the potatoes were, and that is all I planted this year. I'm getting a big pile of weeds on the compost heap. The ground where I pushed the cultivator isn't clean, but clean enough that it will take only a few minutes to re- cultivate it before tackling the next strip. Weeds still pulling up fairly easy. 31 August 2010 Washing clothes today because I spent all of yesterday chasing vehicles. (I think I also pulled a weed out of one of the herb beds.) I was much baffled while rubbing a bar of Ivory on the shoe-polish stains on my white jeans. I haven't worn those pants with shoes since May, and my plastic sandals wouldn't leave such stains. They are still in the washer at this writing, so I don't know how well the soap worked. I remembered to put the bleachables in to soak last night. Upon discovering that I had enough pillowcases to fill the washer, I put them in with a scoop of Oxyclean and didn't bleach them. Didn't help the sweat stains any; perhaps I'll save up another washerload of pillowcases and try two scoops of Oxyclean. The sweat stains did come out around the bloodstains that I rubbed with soap, but I don't feel like rubbing an entire pillowcase with soap. Let alone (goes to window and counts pillowcases on the line) fourteen entire pillowcases. The brakes on the Buick failed Saturday, so we had to take it to the dealer Monday and pick it up again. On Friday, the bearings in the back wheel of my bike failed in front of the Boathouse on my way back from Owens, and the back wheel I'd left for repair was ready, so I walked to the Trailhouse, left the bike for a wheel swap, and called Dave for a pick-up. (I had a gallon of milk and other stuff I didn't want to walk far with, not to mention cleaning out all the stuff I always carry, such as the cable lock and bungee cords.) Monday I finally tracked the mechanic down, and learned that I *could* have called Tarkio on Sunday, as he takes his day off some other day of the week. He was about to leave Tarkio for the Trailhouse, so he brought my bike along and at four Dave and I walked to the Traihouse to redeem it, which we counted as our evening walk because Dave nearly got fried and I was sweating a little, so we didn't feel like going out again. The pay phone being extinct, except in subsidized locations, I guess I have to bite the bullet and get a cell phone. I hated everything I saw at Wal-Mart the last time I went cell shopping, remembering to charge the thing and also remembering to put it back into my pocket will be a constant fret, and every pocket I've got is spoken for. Unless they make cell phones that will fit into a watch pocket, and have sturdy lanyards because my watch pockets aren't very deep. I guess I could carry one in a passport pocket, if I pinned it closed. Since I won't actually *use* the phone, having to pin and unpin it wouldn't be a lot of trouble. But it will be a dreadful lump on my leg; passport pockets are meant for flat things like credit cards and folding money. Ah, yes, a useful thing done Monday: in the evening I drew some of the threads to cut my pink linen-cotton muslin into bands for my linen sheets. I measured it first: when washed and dried hot, it shrank one inch in eight feet. Now I *really* wish I knew what it was and where I can get some more. (It came from fabric.com's "all for a dollar" bin, back when they had one.) 1 September 2010 The last time I was in Aldi, I saw something new in the way of plain clothing. The mother's dress was quite plain, but her two daughters had self-fabric bands at the hem, and a little shirring on the sleeves -- one trimmed the sleeves with a pin that echoed the flowers in the print; I didn't get that close to the girl in plaid. The plaid band was cut on the bias; the print was turned at right angles to the main part of the gown, and cut in just the right place to give the impression that there was a narrow band between this band and the skirt. We finally tried out Smokin' Joe's Barbecue yesterday. We split a half rack of St. Louis ribs, with sides of baked beans and fries, and got stuffed -- but when we said that to the waiter, he said that the strawberry cheesecake was *very* small, so we split one of those too. And then I had a root-beer float at the church after crochet class let out. I'd better take a *long* walk today!