E:\LETTERS\JanBan10.txt This file is posted at http://davebeeson.home.comcast.net/LETTERS/JANBAN10.TXT 2 January 2010 The banners are hung by the pulpit with care And this coming Wednesday we start a new pair. A valentine theme for February, Martha says. Woke up from my nap to find Al asleep under the piecrust table again. Can I sue a table for alienation of cat? When Dave was cleaning the parlor, we moved the table so that there would be a reading light beside the loveseat. Which, I discovered the next time I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary, means that there isn't a reading light next to the cedar chest. Today we put the coffee table in front of the loveseat and piled the dictionaries on it. Not sure of the light for reading the OED, but I can move the little lamp on the secretary. Now I have a reason for looking at the reading glasses whenever I see them: a dedicated pair of +4 glasses lying on the O.E.D. would be nice. 5 January 2010 I got a little sewing done yesterday. Dave has expressed a preference for terrycloth dish towels, and the white bath towels I bought the year we were married are frayed around the edges, so I cut one of the old bath towels into four dish towels. It worked out neatly: I drew cutting lines with my wash-out pen (what *ever* did we do before wash-out markers were invented?), zig-zagged with one side of the presser foot on the line, which left rather a lot of space between the rows of stitching, then sewed again with the line in the middle of one toe, which slightly overlapped the first row and left just the width of the line between the stitches. Then I cut it with my rotary cutter and my magnifying glasses. The edge is thin and perfectly flat, smooth, and straight. Also did three loads of wash. I've got a book I've given up on reading and a stack of old magazines; this would be a perfect time to ride my bike to the library by way of the emergency room -- were it not that the roads are so bad that I won't even go out in the Buick. I might suit up and brush the snow off it, though. 7 January 2010 Didn't. Just as well. Dave says that somebody on the scanner described the 9th-Street hill as "quite recreational". Snow is coming down pretty good at the moment. I have decided that we have plenty of milk and eggs on hand! Forgot my cane when I went to banner-making yesterday, but my boots had adequate traction. We have a stunning design worked out; hope it doesn't lose too much in the execution. I frittered away the entire morning yesterday, but sometime or the other I put the pillows I got down last July back on the shelf, and bundled up the waste paper to take to the recycling center. Also ironed a shirt and looked at one of the baby gowns. This morning, I sewed bias tape to the neck of said gown. When I get around to pressing it, stitching down the other edge, washing it, and ironing it, I'll have one gown finished! I think I'll put it into a zip-lock bag to keep it looking nice. We knew when we moved in that we'd never use the fireplace, but we are just now getting around to blocking it off to keep it from sucking heat out of the house. Inspiration: once blocked, the woodbox will be a capacious cupboard for seldom-used items. So far we've stashed three or four boxes of canning jars, a box of coffee mugs, and two boxes of souvenir mugs. Found some stuff we didn't want to keep in the process, of course. I had already started a Goodwill box. The fireplace will also be storage: for the grate and the fire tools. 10 January 2010 I accepted a ride home from church! The Bishops saw me on Ninth Street and stopped; the steps are a real mess -- and I had, in my wisdom, decided that it was time to carry home the box of maps I'd brought for the "Where Do We Go From Here" banners, so my balance was off. Last week I was wondering what to bring for "finger food" for the Society meeting tonight, then remembered that there's still an apricot cake and a spice cake in the freezer. Perfect! Cut up half of each cake, arrange on one of the plastic-foam plates, garnish with dried fruit, and it would make a very nice tray. Then after church I picked up such a detailed agenda that I didn't need to go. Didn't want to walk after dark anyway. Went to Owen's Friday, and to Big R (for cat food) and Aldi's yesterday. Forgot to stop at Aunt Millie's on the way home, but it was so late in the afternoon that that was just as well. I laughed right out loud when I entered Aldi's. On the way across the parking lot I'd been wondering whether they still had any of those lovely chocolate truffles, so I took care to look at the spot where the Christmas goodies had been on my previous visit. Those shelves are now occupied by a display of weight-loss foods. I didn't walk yesterday, but I did wander all over Big R -- and on the way to the check-out I remembered that I hadn't gotten litter and took another lap. I was startled to see a packet of spicy globe basil seed at Big R, and it was only fifty-nine cents. I planted a little spot in the rosemary pot, then when I put the left- over basil seed away, I found a packet of moss-curled parsley seed and planted another spot. Two toothpicks to mark the basil and three for the parsley. I wonder whether either will come up. I haven't had much luck planting seeds in flower pots. Packets say I should see basil in a week and parsley in fourteen days. I expect I should have scattered the seeds out more to make them easier to thin. I did finish the baby gown I mentioned above, and now have another one at that stage. I thought I'd have to make some white bias to piece the red quilt binding with, but when I looked in the bag the baby-gown parts came in, I found a scrap of white single-fold that was just the right length. There is also a package of quilt binding. I don't know whether to split it or to make another extravagantly- bound baby gown. Depends on how well the color goes with the pre-cut gowns I have. Perhaps I can finish the second gown in time to wash both of them tomorrow. Still haven't returned my book, and I have some magazines for the emergency room. Roads looked pretty good when I was driving yesterday, and the weather was decent. 12 January 2010 It was beautiful and sunny when I got up, but it was also 9:30, and I don't want to get back late because we are eating out tonight. And I've forgotten how to dress for cold weather. Maybe I should give up and return the book by Buick. All we've blocked is the woodbox, but Dave says that it is noticeably warmer at that end of the room. Didn't wash either gown. Will press the second when I heat up the iron to press a crease into the king-size sheet I cut off the bolt of linen yesterday. Yes, gang, the thick, durable scenery-muslin sheets that I made too many of are finally giving out. ----------------------------------------------------------- The lake perch was delicious, and we ate every speck even though one dinner would have been ample for both of us. Well, had we split a dinner, I'd have wanted a dish of the vinegarette cole slaw all to my self. I frittered away the morning, what there was of it, but ironed a blouse and pressed creases on the baby gown and the banners in the afternoon. I was about to start pressing the sheet when Dave suggested a walk, which we got back from just in time to dress for dinner. A little early, actually; there was hardly anybody in the dining room when we arrived. A first: while reading Usenet tonight I fished out of the trash and sent a post that I'd deleted yesterday because it was intemperate. 14 January 2010 Our new projector clock arrived today -- now we can see what time of night it is without sitting up and putting on glasses. Slept until ten today. Let the predictions of drizzle scare me out of riding. Did run out in the Buick, after supper, to stock up on bagels and buns. I finished picking the elastic out of my tights -- easier than I expected; there were only three threads in the overlocking, and only one had to be snipped and picked -- and basted in a quarter-inch fold to replace the overlocking. Got an objection to the intemperate post. I'm unrepentant. I finished the sheet and baby gown yesterday. The baby gown is in the laundry basket and the sheet is on the bed. 16 January 2010 I'm more pleased with the sheet than I expected. The linen is coarser than my scenery muslin, and scenery muslin is pushing it a tad. But the linen sheet is much less chilly than the muslin sheets when I first crawl into bed. Must be the coarse weave, since linen is supposed to be a cooler fiber than cotton. On the other hand, any "linen" that you don't pay an arm-and-a-leg for at some specialty supplier is really tow. Nobody ever says anything about tow except that it's cheap, but it makes sense that short staples would be warmer than long fibers. Finally got my bike ride yesterday. Overcast, but not too bad. I had three stops to drop stuff off and one stop to pick stuff up: Owen's to deposit plastic bags in the recycling, the hospital to drop off old magazines, the library to return my book, Warsaw Health Foods to buy pistachios. I picked up a bag of cranberries while I was at it. I checked out the Greenway after dropping off the magazines -- hey, it's been plowed! After all this warm weather, it's merely wet. So I hopped onto it: oops, the branch leading to the boardwalk *hasn't* been plowed, and is all trampled into lumps. Oh, well, I need a walk anyway and it's less than a mile. (The whole Beyer Trail, including the plowed asphalt at the hospital end, is 1.2 miles.) About a quarter of the way along the boardwalk, I realized how much energy it takes to plow a two-inch-wide path through four inches of heavy, wet snow. Not to mention that trampled slush isn't the best footing in the world, and I like to never got all the slush out of my brakes when I got onto Arthur Street. But ambient was above freezing, and the bike drained off while it was leaning on the library. I forgot my shopping list, so I thought I'd browse the shelves, but I started sampling a couple of books in the A section and used up more time than I thought sensible to spend there when I'd gotten started so late, so I reflected that I had a great big box of unread books in the garage and a grocery bag full in the house, and left. I wore the almost-black sweat pants I bought at Big R. The elastic at the ankles makes them blouse out, which is the opposite of what one wants in riding pants, but a couple of safety pins took care of that. There are only two pins in the house that are large enough; I'd best buy some more in case I mislay one. (Time out to take pins out of pin box and fasten them to my wallet.) I opened the new cat-food bag today. The projector clock set itself back an hour about three in the morning last night. I woke up at just the right time to get very confused, and padded out to check a third clock to make sure that the one that said it was the time I thought it was was correct. Dave has it in his room today, keeping an eye on it. We liked the tartar sauce at Mad Anthony's so well that I bought a jar of capers the next time I was in Owen's. Two dollars for a three-ounce jar; pretty cheap by spice standards. But I suspect that we have the "mature buds", rather than the more-expensive immature buds. Now I want a caper bush -- but Wiki says that they grow a yard tall and have to be taken inside in the winter. 21 January 2010 For two or three days, Al E. Cat has taken a liking to my feather pillow. Whenever I go to bed, I find him curled up on it. (I guess the piecrust table has lost its charms.) At naptime, I use one of Dave's pillows, but when I come to bed at night, Al has to move over. Last night he and Dave made identical "???" noises as I was crawling in. Neither woke up -- is Al *sure* he's a barn cat? (I'm pretty sure he was a dumped house cat. Surprisingly trusting for a cat brought up by dumpers.) Still no sign of the parsley. Basil seeds are still emerging, so I pulled the second tallest, which was nearest to the tallest. It tasted faintly of basil. The first seedling is still at the two-leaf stage. When we moved the banner to a table for storage last night, we discovered that we had glued it to the banner board. We were able to peel it off, but I've put a roll of waxed paper into my bag. I mended my worsted-wool mittens at Handwork Circle Tuesday. The reflective patches had been working loose. I washed three loads of clothes yesterday. I'd put detergent on the stains on my blue BOW T-shirt several days ago, and they came out of the wash faded enough to wear for slopping around. I'll do it again the next time I throw it into the wash. Not so much luck with the sweat stains on my hatband, which I pretreated just before throwing the hat into the washer; I should have worked the detergent in with a toothbrush. Dave's dingy undershorts got the ultimate in stain removal: I threw them into the trash. I've thrown a lot of my tattered old shirts into the rags, to the point that I'm running short of shirts to take a nap in. Very short joke with miles of back-story: A few years ago, I was invited to take part in the Back to the Days festival. I was vaguely aware that in period there was a shirt called a "bedgown", which rich women wore for lounging around the house and poor women wore for mucking out the stable, but I had no pattern and not even a clear description; I knew only that it came to mid-thigh, the sleeves were cut in one with the body, it had no shoulder seams, and you kept it closed by tying an apron over it. So I made a T-tunic: I tore off a piece of black cotton broadcloth twice the length from my shoulder to mid-thigh, and tore another piece a tad under two feet to tear in half for sleeves with the selvedges finishing the ends. (Jumping ahead, that made sleeves way too wide and too long to do housework in. But I was only to sit and yap in it, so I didn't notice.) Plus two square gussets under the sleeves; I never did figure out how to put a gusset into an intersection of flat-felled seams without fudging. I think it's geometrically impossible. I cut the neck wide enough to make the shoulders reasonable, then sewed tucks from the back of the neck to the waist until the neck was reasonable. This left plenty of overlap in the front. (I learned later that pleats at the back of the neck are correct, but the pleats weren't sewn down.) After the festival, I washed the "bedgown" and the muslin apron and hung them in the out-of-season closet. Fast forward to my purchase of flannel lounging pants. I quickly learned that although I'll wear shirts that are stained, dirty, and worn into holes for slopping around, I'll wear a "Twinkle Twinkle" print shirt with "indigo resist" print pants only when there isn't even a faint chance that I'll catch sight of myself in a mirror. Fortunately, the T-shirts I brought back from my two trips to B.O.W. look fine with loud pants, but one morning both of them were dirty, and I got the "bedgown" out of the closet and used the un-necessary drawstring of the pants to tie it closed. It makes a rather striking outfit. The first time Dave saw it, he said "Ah, you're a blue belt!" I wonder whether there is such a rank. 24 January 2010 Wikipedia says there is, but also says that belt ranks are more-or-less made up on the spot by each school. Black means only that you have mastered the basics and doesn't indicate expertise. I hid my pillow before bedtime last night -- and sorta missed Al. Except where it's been piled up, all the snow has been rained off. I didn't carry my cane to church this morning, but did need an umbrella. The pictorial directories are finally in. I was surprised at how few people had been photographed. There was quite a crowd the night I helped check them in. Tonight, I read Zeborah's Live Journal for the first time in a long time. She's still making her shoulder sore by bumping flimsy shelves in the hope of making a nerf-anvil fall on her shoulder to give her an excuse to cuss. I wouldn't post that to anyone who might conceivably understand what I meant by it because it's such a cruel way to put it, but it makes me sad to see someone so intelligent putting so much effort into being unhappy. Which is why it's been a long time since I read zeborahnz. I broke the handle off the pull of the zipper of my red jacket Wednesday night. Since I'd already been thinking that it was about time to buy a new walking coat, I set out Saturday morning on a tour: first to Tractor Supply, then to Big R: object, jacket, yellow or white, perhaps slime green, but red, navy, black, and brown need not apply; even international orange, which turns khaki at sunset, is too dull to suit me. After jacket hunting, on to Aldi and Aunt Millie. At Tractor Supply I found that all the jackets were "doesn't show dirt" in color, but they had two zip-front hoodies of a fluorescent slightly-greenish yellow. And they were big enough to wear over a sweater, so I bought one. Rather small for an Men's XL Regular, I thought. Then off to Big R, peering intently for landmarks through the misting rain: there's the Shell Station, get into the left-turn lane -- just in time for the light to turn red. Light changes, turn into 250 E -- oops! And, with most of my computing power devoted to driving, I'd turned onto Wooster before I remembered that there is a school on 250 E. First place to turn around on Wooster is the Capital Orthopedic Center, and if I've come that far, I might as well go to Kroger and come home, which I did. Winter clothes are already picked-over; I may regret this little postponement. Ah, well, the red coat will hang together until spring, and I can buy a jacket next August. If I think of it. 25 January 2010 Postponing again -- it's snowing out there. Could put one of the push brooms into the Buick and go anyway, I suppose. Roads look to be in good condition. Better than they will be any time between now and Thursday, anyway. When I watered the herb pot yesterday, the first basil seedling to come up was bent over and looked as though it might be damping off, so I pulled it to keep it from infecting the others. Still no sign of the parsley, and when I checked just now, all but one of the basil seedlings had vanished. That one, however, looks healthy. It is officially time to start worrying about the parsley. The baby gowns washed well. I haven't ironed them and packed them up yet. I was reading a how-to-declutter column a while back, and it said that if you have more than two sets of linens for each bed, trash the extras. How silly can you get? 26 January 2010 I just packed my bag for tonight's Handwork Circle, when I intend to put my silk tights back together. I put in a piece of white quarter-inch elastic 37 3/4 " long -- but, there being no pattern, where do I write that down for future reference? 30 January 2010 The February banner is coming along well. The theme for March is going to be "When Hard Things Melt". That's going to be *hard*! Got a good start on putting my tights back together, but I think the cold weather will be over before I get to wear them. I've resumed work on the sleeves of my silk gown, and if I don't fritter with the computer too much this morning, might have it to wear to church tomorrow. But that will require me to stitch the elastic channels with cotton thread, as I have only too coarse and too fine in black silk. Went to Big R and Aldi Thursday. Was too tired to stop at Aunt Millies. And we are on our last loaf of bread. Big R had one white warm coat left, but it was too small for me. I did buy another pair of flannel "lounging pants". Pity I haven't washed them and put the hem back in yet, as I just spilled egg yolk on my other pair. When putting groceries into the car at Aldi, I saw a split-ring key ring on the floor of the back seat, picked it up, and found that it was attached to my long-lost wind-up flashlight, the one I haven't seen since Halloween. The battery was still charged, which impresses me in a $2 flashlight. I should write a living-in-the-future post about it for rec.arts.sf.fandom. Hand-cranked generators and human- powered electronics have been around forever, but packing a generator, a battery charger, a battery, a switch, and a nasty-blue LED into a key fob, and doing it all for two dollars, shipping and distribution included -- that's living in the future. Gives me hope of finding a cell phone I can throw into my emergency kit and forget about. Trouble is, nobody else in the entire world wants one. I didn't get any living-in-the-future moments at the dentist for a change. (I wonder how long the spit sink had been missing before I noticed?) I'm still impressed with the instant X-rays, though. And, as usual, surprised at how much of my teeth is after-market -- I have only one tooth that I can tell is fake without looking at the X-rays, and I don't notice that one except when flossing. (Well, I do notice the capped front teeth -- I still miss the notches!) And, at sixty-eight, I have a complete set, if you don't count two wisdom teeth that came in defective and one that didn't come in at all. And the tooth that I notice when flossing is using borrowed roots. I've been looking at reading glasses, but haven't found anything higher than 3.50. I may have to pay more than a dollar to get 4.00! Upon checking the planter this morning, I found that the cotyledons of the last basil sprout had vanished. With magnifying glasses, I can see something that might be true leaves, so I haven't pulled out the stump. Probably time to plant more basil seed, though. Can there be something living in the pot that eats sprouts? One would think that I'd have seen bite marks in the rosemary if that were the case, since there haven't been enough sprouts for anything to live on. Dave regained access to his Web site as mysteriously as he lost it, so he's spent some time this month revamping it. < http://debeeson.home.comcast.net/ > 31 January 2010 He's also been playing with his web camera -- go to http://home.comcast.net/~debeeson/OfficeCam/ and you might see him watching television. He hopes, eventually, to set it up like Lake Cam < http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ > -- I suggested that he call it Creek Cam. Tonight he's trying out the motion detector, which will save a fifteen- second movie when it detects motion, by leaving it pointed at the garden. Of course, for this to work, the motion detector on the light pointed at the garden must also work. So right now, it's Deer Cam. I was planning to go to an SCA meeting at four in the Pizza Hut in Sprawl 2, but rather reluctant to walk into a roomful of strangers who are already a group. But I was looking forward to the pizza buffet, assuming Sunday is the day they have it. Question settled when I woke up from my nap at fifteen of four. So I rushed to get flour out of the freezer (like to never found the yeast!) and made a pizza. Came out good even though we didn't have any pepperoni. I've looked at pepperoni the last five times I was in a grocery, and said "no, we've already got a package." Either I was mistaken or the freezer is in even more disarray than I thought. I used one cup of white-wheat flour and half a cup of red-wheat flour. Really, really hard to roll it out to cover the pan (I used a mustard bottle for a rolling pin) so I think I'll go back to two cups of flour for a pizza crust. Dave thinks I should let it rise in the fridge for two days. I'd try it if the pizza pan would fit into the fridge. I don't think the garage is quite cold enough, and the patio would be *too* cold, even if I could keep critters out of the pizza. 1 February 2010 Al has switched allegiance -- he's asleep on Dave's pillow. Not enough clothes for a load, but I want my new gray- plaid flannels, and I don't want to hem them until they have been washed, so I'm washing blacks. Last basil sprout has vanished utterly. I sprinkled a few more seeds around, none precisely where the first crop failed. I tried the silk gown on after pinning the hem, and decided that I liked it the way it was, without elastic channels. So I'll hand-hem it (there being no gathers to hide machine stitches) and call it done. If I change my mind again, only four rows of machine stitching per sleeve will be all that's needed. I think I should mail-order a spool each of black and white sewing silk on general principles. The day I went to Big R to not buy a coat, I also bought two pairs of gloves. Looked around for a package that contained one black and one visible; the best I could do in "visible" was medium gray. I suppose the pink pair would have been more visible, but much hype and meaningfulness has ruined pink for me. I stashed the black gloves in the pocket of my Sunday coat and the gray gloves in the pocket of my hoodie, leaving the old gloves in the pocket of my old coat. Remember that I said that the hoodie I bought looked as though it ought to glow in the dark? The last time we walked after dark, I looked down and my gloves were bathed in yellow light. Reflections from a street lamp, but it sure looked as though that hoodie were glowing! Dave liked my hoodie so well that he went to Tractor Supply and bought one for himself. Yesterday I sewed one of his name tags into his. One of these days I'll get around to sewing one of my name tags into mine, but with his marked, it isn't really necessary. The day I didn't buy a coat at Big R, I found Carhart hoodies of the same color, marked down to about the same price. (The Carharts were marked down from $43 to $29, the Schmidt Workwear hoodies were marked down from $29 to $21.) I put cinnamon in the dried-beef gravy this morning. It sort of cancelled the dried-beef flavor without adding any cinnamon taste. I won't be trying that again.