4 August 2008 Low-fat turkey-sausage patties are pretty good when you fry them in bacon grease. Dave bought a pound of bacon while I was gone, and I saved the grease. But I poured some back into the container after frying chicken breast, so it's contaminated with broth. 5 August 2008 Lights went out last night about ten or eleven. I can find the candles and matches in the dark! Not the candle and not the match that I wanted, but I could have used it to find the others, had it not been so near bedtime. We can also find all the flashlights in the dark. The lights didn't come on again until after breakfast -- which was difficult to prepare when we didn't want to open either the freezer or the fridge. We seriously considered soup before discovering that the supply is down to three cans of chicken broth, one can of chicken noodle, and one can of tomato. None of those appealed, so we had cereal and hastily-snatched milk. There being very little milk left in the bottle, we put it into the Wheelie Cool instead of opening the fridge again. Had we known that the power would come back on so soon, we'd have had frozen blueberries on our cereal. 6 August 2008 Of course I wouldn't *dream* of spreading fabric out on the floor for any purpose other than entertaining the cat! What sort of mother do you think I am? Al may get locked into the bedroom. 7 August 2008 Today I locked Al into the bedroom and finished drawing bias lines on the white linen I mean to make into bias-cut bras. Went quick and easy, but afterward I cut a corner off to make a triangle scarf, then cut a four-inch strip to make bias tape from -- one inch would have been plenty, but I cut four to be sure. Then I found that I'd cut along the wrong bias line, making a triangle with sixty-inch legs where forty-three were wanted. Which means -- seventeen divided by the square root of two, where's the calculator -- twelve more inch-wide strips of bias tape. Each five feet times the square root of two long. Good thing it's white; one can always use white. Then I got the patterns down and decided that I'm going to have to make new copies, since I want more hem allowance than before, and I want the neckline from the version before last. 13 August 2008 Went to Aldi's this morning, and bought one can of each flavor of soup. Except clam chowder, which Dave noticed. Finally cut out my new bra. Maybe an hour's work to finish it, so I should be done in a couple of weeks. We went to Bogie's for our anniversary on 8/8/08. Dave had a steak, I had a filet salad. Forgot to go to Handwork Circle yesterday. It wasn't in the bulletin last Sunday -- would anybody buy that as an excuse? 14 August 2008 Finally sat down to sew my new bra together -- and broke the belt on the treadle. The leather seems to be too brittle to take a new hole, and it's definitely too short now, so I'm going to have to buy a new one. And I poked a hole in my finger trying to poke a new hole in the belt, so I had to wash the dishes tonight. Not enough of them to give my finger a nice long soak, though, since neither of us cooked anything today. I did dirty a skillet frying hamburger steaks for supper. I dug the last hill of potatoes to have with them, and got about as many potatoes as the rest of the hills put together. And only two of them were little marbles. So now I have a pint of potatoes in the crisper drawer; Dave said he'd make hash browns for breakfast. 16 August 2008 ARRRRRGH! This morning's paper says that as soon as 250E is opened, they are going to tear up Argonne. Stared at the name a while before I placed it: the only other way in or out of Winona Lake from the north side of the railroad. Yes, it needs work and needs it *bad*, but . . . ARRRRRGH! After the shock wore off, I realized that there is the interurban tunnel, which I nearly always use when I'm riding the bike because McKinley is a gentle climb where Argonne runs straight up, McKinley's pavement is brand new, and ... there's practically no traffic. Now everything Argonne can just barely handle will be added to a narrower road. And by the time Argonne is finished, the pavement will no longer be smooth and unbeaten. It can't get as bad as the tank-trap potholes on 350E -- I took the designated detour around 250E exactly *once*. GRRRRR: While typing the above, I burnt the *loveliest* pancake. Which leaves me nothing to eat for lunch. Start over, I guess. [Crispbread (rye cracker), covered with colby cheese, draped with red sweet pepper from a jar of artichoke salad, zapped until the cheese started to melt.] Today didn't start well. I went to Lowery's yesterday to buy a treadle belt -- they didn't have leather belts in stock because the Amish now prefer stretchy plastic tubing, so I bought stretchy plastic tubing. I'd planned that as long as I had to go clear downtown, I'd return my library books, then come back by way of the boardwalk to give the emergency room the funnybooks I bought at the Lincoln Highway garage sales (specifically, one of the courthouse-lawn sales); Dave already had all four, but it was only a dollar. Pity I didn't also sort the magazines, as the waiting room was clear out of reading matter. And get some milk at Owens. (They were out of Kroger carbonated water.) The Blackway south of the hospital is finished now, and comes out where I'd been ducking through, but I can no longer see where the long-overgrown dirt road went on past the end of Lincoln. Could try Google; I think most of the houses are old enough to show in the aerial pictures. [On a later trip, I saw that the nearest householder had planted a tree in the middle of the old dirt road, presumably to keep it from looking like a right-of-way.] Anyhoo, I returned my books and went upstairs for the Sharing Knife trilogy. Only two volumes were checked in, but they were the first two, so I took them, and peeked into the novella at the end of _Miles in Love_, an omnibus next to the Sharing Knife books. Next thing I knew it was an hour later, and I checked MiL out too so that I could finish "Winterfair Gifts" at home. So before going to bed last night I finished the novella and started _A Civil Campaign_, the second of the three works in the omnibus (I'd already read _Komar_ in a separate edition.) After a while, it got sleepy out, so I put in a bookmark and then . . . read a page closer to the end. I spoil more books by reading them at bedtime. After a while I noticed that it was getting light out. Didn't get to bed until after eight. But I didn't sleep all that much later than usual, and feel at least as rested as after a full night in bed. But I missed the Farmer's Market entirely. I did consider changing clothes and going before I went to bed, but figured that even though I didn't feel tired, I wouldn't be safe on the road. 19 August 2008 Dave's off on an all-day shopping trip today, and may stay overnight. There's a golf shop somewhere between here and Chicago. I baked a loaf of plain white-wheat bread yesterday, and it came out well. I'm getting the hang of controlling the fire. I shoveled coals and ash onto cold ground until I'd covered an area the size of the kettle bottom, swept the coals out into a ring, put one coal in the middle, set the kettle inside the ring, and piled coals on the lid. When the loaf was brown in the middle of the top, I lifted the loaf enough to see that the bottom was brown, then swept the ashes and single coal out into the ring, set the kettle back into the ring of merely-warm coals, and put small coals around the edge of the lid. Checked every five minutes until I was sure that it wasn't browning any more, then left it until suppertime. (Which was about fifteen minutes.) Nicely browned *and* done in the middle. Could have stood to put two coals in the middle of the ring, though. Then I forgot I had fresh bread and made oatmeal for breakfast. With cinnamon and raisins. 20 August 2008 Wasn't until it spread out into the characteristic sparkles that I realized I was having a visual migraine. I'm glad that it's been that long since I had one -- and even gladder that I don't have the other kind of migraine. It's migrated off the field of vision, now. Dave's home, with a new golf bag. When getting ready for bed yesterday, I suddenly realized that it was Tuesday. I'd thought about it when planning my expedition to the hospital, too. (I had sorted the scrap papers and had a pile of magazines.) That's twice in a row I've forgotten Handwork Circle. 21 August 2008 Al wouldn't touch human food with a ten-foot pole -- but he's willing to make an exception for liverwurst. When using McKinley the time before last, I noticed that traffic has been increasing ever since they paved it, and realized that after Argonne has been closed a few weeks, *everyone* will know that McKinley is there. I hope it's only a few weeks. Surely they won't close Argonne for a whole year, like 250E. 22 August 2008 Another visual migraine today. Both started while I was reading text on a flat-screen monitor -- I wonder whether that means anything? Perhaps only that I notice it sooner and more distinctly. 31 August 2008 The deer discovered one of the four-foot-square flower pots beside the patio last night. Whimper. I had a lovely little tomato plant, and for some time I've been picking the reddest cherry tomato to garnish Dave's salad every evening, and the plant was just *loaded* with green tomatoes as big as the ripe ones. I kettle-baked bread last week, three cups of red-wheat flour and three cups of white-wheat flour. Came out perfect, and exactly at supper time, when we ate it with chicken salad. And the two loaf-shaped pieces I froze are also very good; the middle parts of my all white-wheat loaves have been kinder blah and of poor texture. I made the salad of one of those Grabill cans, broth and all, and I'm going to do that again. I hope the next can isn't all white meat like this one -- Dave thought he was eating tuna salad at first, and I felt the need of a little extra mayo. I bought a can of Grabill turkey to replace the chicken on the emergency shelf. Having bought tomatoes at the farmer's market Saturday morning, I went to Marsh that afternoon to buy hamburger patties. Dave requested that I get brats as well; the first brats I saw in the meat case were Purnel; I thought "We like their whole-hog sausage, perhaps we'll like their brats." Hoo, boy, did we ever! Perhaps it helps that Dave cooked them in the smoker with mesquite chips. We had meant to grill the brats tomorrow, not today -- but we have two more Marsh hamburger patties and two more Kroger white-wheat hamburger buns, so we can cook out on Labor Day if we have a mind to. I'm planning to wash clothes. The new bra has been on the sewing machine waiting for the last row of stitching for a few days. I wound the bias tape on a spool to keep it from coming unpressed and set it on the bra, noticing, as I did so, that when seen out of the corner of my eye, it looked exactly like the ball of thread that had been on the spool. I didn't realize that that meant that it was equally attractive for batting and carrying around until the next day, when I noticed that it was missing. Found it today, under the Ethan Allen chest of drawers, far back where Al can't reach it. I decided to leave it there until I want it to finish the armholes. Friday morning, I went to some garage sales in the development behind the nursing home, and took a look at 250E on the way back. Doesn't look as though it's going to be open for business any time soon. I think I could walk my bike through on a Sunday, but I never want to go out that way on Sunday. I must have passed Linda's house, but was too busy wondering where I was to notice. Did stop and speak to Joe for a minute. Later on Friday I went to the library to pick up the last volume of the Sharing Knife. The conclusion was not as conclusive as I'd hoped. Things were just getting warmed up! Very good read, though. Characters I cared about, and a very novel universe, developed well enough that you feel that all the bits you don't see are there. Ran out of treat food one weekend, and discovered that Al also doesn't object to potted meat. Both of us like it too, so I bought another can. Last time I used McKinley there was enough traffic to get in my way, and they haven't closed Argonne yet! -- Joy Beeson http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.