I was too wound up to sleep at naptime Saturday, so I was too tired to sleep at bedtime even though the party was thunderstormed out. We saw a pretty good fireworks show anyway, and Donny and Alice report that they saw an even better one on the way home.
Much to my astonishment, our fireworks party was re-scheduled for Sunday night. Who ever heard of a fireworks team that didn't have a gig on July 3rd? My garlic-chive dip was well received, and I may end up giving out starts of garlic chives.
I've worlds aplenty of starts — I often harvest chives by digging up the plant and using the scallion-like bulb as well as the leaves.
Garlic chives are noxious weeds, but mostly because once they finally get established, you can't exterminate them; they seem to be rather poor at crowding out other plants. I suppose that it would be a major disaster to get them started in a dairy pasture. Garlic gets into the milk, I've been told, and garlic chives taste of garlic — though so mildly that one could include them as greenery in a tossed salad. On this property, they can't survive anywhere but in the flower beds, and they have pretty flowers, so I'm not too worried about getting all the seed heads. But I might get them all this year, having learned from Wikipedia that sautéed garlic-chive flowers are a tasty vegetable.
For those interested, here's the recipe:
You need a stainless-steel steamer that looks like a double boiler with a bunch of holes in the upper pan, and a quart of real yogurt. If the ingredients list anything other than cultured milk, it's yogurt pudding, and won't work.
Dump the yogurt into the upper pan, as near as possible in one chunk. I found it helpful to push a table knife down the edge to break the vacuum.
Chill a few hours or overnight. The longer it sets, the thicker the dip will be. The whey in the bottom pan is a good substitute for sour milk, if you still have a recipe that calls for sour milk. Alice says that her cats consider whey a treat. I drink it myself — but I don't look. It's too watery to look like milk and too milky to look like water and in general requires an opaque cup.
Harvest about as many garlic chives as you can hold in one hand. Cut near ground level and take the entire plant; the tubers underground will restore it quickly, and with fresher and crisper leaves than a plant that has never been harvested.
Take each plant and peel off the withered outside leaves. In some cases, you also need to peel off a good leaf, and pinch off the papery sheath. Some plants will have a leaf or two that needs to have the tip pinched off.
Make sure you have gotten all the papery sheath off the white stem, then wash the plant (and any detached good leaves) under running water and lay it on the cutting board. The plants are longer than my cutting board, so I cut them and make two piles, one of plants trimmed to a uniform length and one of trimmed-off leaves. This provides a second chance to check for withered leaf-tips. (I eat a lot of detached leaves during this process.)
Push the two piles together and slice the stems and leaves into pieces no longer than the width of the leaves. Transfer the drained yogurt to a serving dish, sprinkle with a quarter teaspoon of salt or less, stir in the chopped garlic chives.
I've always mixed it up the same day as the party, but it seemed to improve by being kept until the next day.
Thinking about copying this to the family cookbook made me notice that there was no link to the cookbook from my Web page, so I took care of that. There wasn't any honestly- suitable place to put the link — perhaps that is why I didn't do it before.
After ten years, I mentioned to Dave that I wanted a chain between the close pair of cottonwoods to dry stuff on hangers. Ten minutes later, my long dress was flapping in the breeze.
Ten minutes after that I saw it flap the hook out of the link and flop to the ground, so I took a twist-tie out and wired the hook of the hanger to the chain.
When I went out to bring the clothes in after supper, the dress had twisted free of the twist-tie, but hadn't managed to unbutton the hanger from the chain. Probably would have if it hadn't been one of the hangers with a loop on the end of the hook — I had to turn it sideways to put it through the link.
Much to my surprise, I put all of the left- over chips on the top shelf of the fridge, and didn't take anything but a summer sausage off to make room.
Well, three un-opened bags are still in the garage. If I get out and about tomorrow, I'll take them to Our Father's House.
Two shirts are giving the chain another test. I hope I remember to bring in the last half- load of clothes at sunset. My back bothered me some while I was hanging them up. It's been a little off since Friday; I should spend the rest of the evening reading in bed.
Right after I read my funnies on the Web and check my Usenet groups.
I spent most of yesterday reading in bed. This morning I have to pay attention to know my back is sore. Will report back after I pull the thistles out of the Lily of the Valley.
When I got up, I knew right off that my back was sore. Sitting at the computer is *not* good for it even though I have an ergonomic chair.
Pulling thistles, though, did at least as much good as harm — they were close enough together that I could bend over and stay bent for a while. But it didn't take long for me to get all I could stand of wearing thick flannel gloves in the hot sun. I did cut a swath through the thistles, and I think I got all that were actually in bloom. Also nabbed a few handfuls of creeping charlie, and broke off two trees. Must remember to put a knife in my pocket when I go out again. Perhaps in the cool of the evening.
Right now, I'm going to read another chapter of Kat Scratch Fever. Near as I can make out, the title writer (who may or may not be the author of the series) is running out of stuff to put after "Kat" in the titles; fever, cat-scratch or otherwise, has nothing to do with the plot or anybody in it. I'm slightly annoyed by the artificial delays to the inevitable marriage of Kat and Hank, but the puzzle is good enough to make me ignore the "gotta string this out because I don't know how to write a Mr. & Mrs. mystery" elements.
Not that I wasn't pretty sure Whodunnit at first sight of the villian; the characterization is *not* subtle.
Well, she did accept Hank's proposal on the last page. About time considering they'd been common-law married for a long time at the beginning of the novel. And there was a nicely complicated solution to the puzzle.
But I don't think I'll work hard at finding other volumes in the series.
It's a good thing I checked: Audrey's shower is tomorrow morning; I'd thought it was in the afternoon.
Pulled a few more weeds in the lily-of-the- valley bed — and didn't use the gloves. I found that if you reach down to the bottom — which is the best place to grab a plant you are pulling anyway — there are no stickers. Also found that there are a lot of thistles that you can't see until you wade in. Didn't get near all of them, and quite a few left their roots behind, but I think I got any that might bloom.
The creeping charlie/ground ivy/ground mint is really bad. I don't think it grew in there until we took the tree down. I also pulled out a lot of sweet clover, and as much blue grass as I could. It was *so* helpful of the road crew to sprinkle grass seed on the flower beds they dug up!
And there are more young tiger lily plants in the bed; I can't figure out how they got there. I've never seen a squirrel eating bulbils — and I appear to be the only entity that picks them off — so I can't blame wildlife stashing food and forgetting to dig it up. And I never let the plants develop seed.
I don't, of course, iron garments that are being put away for the season. Fortunately, I woke up earlier than usual and had time to press the villa-olive dress, which doesn't need to be dampened first.
Ironed my other two dresses later on. I tell you gang, the linen dress with the crinkle- cotton gauze underlining is going to get absolutely filthy before I wash it and have to go through this again!
Even though it doesn't have side-seam pockets like the "flower basket" print cotton dress.
The half pitcher of lemonade is almost gone. I pour a quarter inch of lemonade into a glass, then fill it up with seltzer.
I ran two half-loads of wash this morning. It's exaggerating a little to say that the light colors amounted to half a load, and the blacks were only three pairs of briefs, one pair of socks, a red pajama shirt, and my scarlet bra. Have we been awful clean, or awful dirty?
The lights were dry when I hung out the darks.
It wasn't much of a thunderstorm. A limb hit the roof, but we have two sycamores close to the house and this happens all the time. And my UPS said it got me over a glitch in the mains current, but this can happen out of a clear blue sky. And only half an inch of rain.
I got my ride in the evening, but skipped the lunch stop at Chinatown Express for fear of getting to the library after it closed for the day. (When I checked the Web site later, I learned that I had until 8:00 p.m.)
After getting my book (Huge! And I forgot about it when buying groceries, so packing was a puzzle.) I didn't feel like walking to Chinatown Express, and I never feel like riding on Detroit Street, even when it isn't all torn up, Domino's pizza is too carby (for someone on a bike tour, that's carby indeed). I'm tired of Subway. Kilaney's puts tomato-flavored pancake syrup on their coney dogs. And I've been wanting an excuse to have a real chocolate malt at Zale's lunch counter.
Helloooo — LUNCH counter. I didn't get my five O'clock feeding until nearly nine.
Perhaps that is why I didn't notice that my front tire was flat until I'd been riding on it for a while. Had to walk a mile or two. Not too far past the Village at Winona, my left foot got to hurting so bad that I stopped and took off my shoes, but it was the right foot that was sore afterward. ??
Most of the places I wanted to stop at were closed, and those that I did stop at, I was too hungry to appreciate.
And Owen's was out of head lettuce, of all things. But I did get eggs, which we were completely out of, and I bought a bag of pre- made salad to tide us over until my Aldi tour.
And I got three packages of frozen three- pepper-and-onion, even though we've eaten all the brats. Looked, as usual, for Cajun Mirapoix, but it continues to be discontinued.
It doesn't have enough celery in it to suit me anyway, said the fox. If I have to chop celery, I might as well use three-pepper and onion blend.
It keeps warning me that this course is strenuous, but so far it's been no-brainer stuff like "don't go around with a chip on your shoulder" and "when you are trying to help someone, ask him what he needs before jumping in with both feet."
I went on a bike tour of Sprawlmart this morning.
I meant to go to Aldi by way of Owens so that I could buy two jars of Kroger brand "natural" peanut butter, After getting the peanut butter, I realized that there is no good way for a bicycle to get from Owens to Aldi. I can handle the intersection of Center Street and Route 30, but I'd a heap ruther not. So I backtracked to Jefferson Street and went into Sprawlmart the back way. Toured both shoe stores and both dollar stores and ate lunch at Big Apple Bagels in Sprawl Two. Bought a package of clothespins at Big R, and a bag of teaspoons at Goodwill — it isn't often that I'm the first one to drop in after they get in a batch of spoons. I can drop them off in the church kitchen when I go to the Vacation Bible School Block Party on Saturday.
Yesterday's on-line lesson on "network theory" — no theory, just practical rules-of- thumb for selecting the best channel for a given message — included an unintended lesson. There were a few places where the "activity" was "go to this website and read this entire book", so I wanted to send the links to my own computer, which is in the adjacent room, back-to-back on the same wall with Dave's, and networked with all the other computers — after I edit a photo on Dave's computer, I can save the results on mine.
The easiest way to move the message was to e- mail it through the Internet!
From The Wind in the Willows: "After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working."
Washed whites and blacks together yesterday, such blacks as I had being colorfast and none of the whites linty. The wind was blowing so hard that I didn't dare leave the laundry on the line during my nap — but the wind was blowing so hard that the clothes were dry by naptime.
It's been oppressively hot for days. On Saturday, the block party for Vacation Bible School folded an hour early because everyone was fried.
I haven't done anything with the links I sent myself.
Yesterday I figured I'd make some progress on my new clothes in the intervals of washing, but fiddled with my Web pages instead. I did get the darts in the bras pinned while waiting for funny pages to download, and today I sewed one pair of darts after getting back from Handwork Circle and before the light faded.
Well, back from fridge cleaning; I blew off Handwork Circle entirely. And all I did for the fridges was wipe the handles and gaskets and re-fill the ice trays.
Didn't think to re-fill the trays when I stopped to drop off spoons on my way to buy milk and lettuce Monday night. Found the spoons I'd bought at Goodwill while getting my bike ready to go out after supper, decided to stop at the church, was halfway up a steep hill I wouldn't have had to climb if I'd gone straight to the store when I realized that I hadn't brought the church key.
But because VBS was in full swing, I had no trouble getting in. I let a young man in twice — on my way in, I waited for him because he was carrying a bucket of bricks, and on the way out, I met the same boy carrying a bag of sand.
I didn't ask what Bible School wanted with bricks and sand. Or how bricks fit with a Chinese Panda theme.
I spent the time I meant to spend sewing and ironing playing with my computer.
I have a list of things to buy at Aldi, and they are open until eight — but that would entail putting shoes on. Perhaps I'll go in the morning tomorrow.
I wonder whether the letters would be a little smaller if I booped the resolution up again. But it took me half an hour to re-arrange my icons after the last time.
I can read my Live Journal "Friends" page without scrolling sideways now. The new screen is bigger than the image I'm using for wallpaper, but it's the same shape, so I have a nice blue border around the ecru damask. Which border I used to corral all my seldom- used icons, those I keep because they won't remove on the left, those I keep for future reference on the right, those I might conceivably use across the bottom. I may move some of the frequently-used icons into the task bar, since there's a lot more room on it now.
Dave saw this monitor at O's and wanted an excuse to buy it, so he described it to me. Bigger than my old one, but the same shape — all the area is usable, you don't have these vast tracts you have to swivel your head to see. And I can tilt it up and down for the best viewing angle, and give it a quarter turn when one of my funnies is printed sideways.
And only $99.
My old monitor is now our back-up.
I did go to Aldi yesterday morning, by bike since it was a short list. I forgot to look for waxed paper in the first dollar store, and the one beside Big R has moved without a forwarding address. I know they've moved, rather than gone out of business, because I heard the clerks talking about it on my previous visit.
I went into Payless Shoes on general principles, knowing that they won't have gotten in any sandals that weren't there the last time — and found a nice pair of ugly sandals that I overlooked or rejected on previous trips. They are wide enough, don't have much excess hanging out at the toe and heel, and aren't very ugly.
I wore them when I went out to inspect the storm damage, walked to the village and back, and got on quite well with them.
I didn't see much of what was going on because it was well past sunset. I saw Clay — or one of his employees — put down a log and trundle off to put the Bobcat away, just after I was thinking "Hey! Knock off for the night! You might hurt yourself in the dark!" The guys working on the house itself were still hard at it when I passed again on the way home, presumably trying to get the place waterproof before the second storm hit — about midnight, so there's a chance they made it. At least they had lights. Not proper nightwork floods, but enough to see by — and they weren't using chain saws.
They were still working on the tree down across Evangel Hill when I walked past, but by the time I got back to the squashed house, the chainsaws had gone silent. I presume that they were just cutting it loose so they could winch it into the park, but I disapproved strongly of chain-sawing in the dark when we can do without Evangel hill nicely as long as Ninth Street and Chestnut Street are still working — morning would have been quite soon enough.
My laundry did me out of a storm-damage walk twice. In the afternoon, Dave invited me to go with him, and I jumped into clothes, then realized that my wash was just finishing the final spin, so he went alone while I hung half of it out. (He got back before I was finished.) First time in quite a while I've hung out wash while shod.
Much later, I looked up from the keyboard and realized that there was just barely enough light left in the day for me to go for a walk, so I went into the bedroom for something and saw that the clothesline had broken and the clothes were on the ground. And by the time I unpinned them, repaired the line, hung about half back up, and put the other half on a rack for easier taking-in, there was no light left at all, but I went for a walk anyway.
My cycling knickers were still damp when I put them on to go to the Farmer's Market this morning. I got three small tomatoes, a pint of cherry tomatoes, and a green pepper. Looks like the commercial breed of pepper; I hope pimentos start ripening soon.
I never got around to saying why I had a load of wash out. When I was in Big R, I heard thunder, so I rushed out and bought my stuff at Aldi. Big drops started hitting the pavement when I was on Route 30 getting ready to turn onto 250 E. Which made the rumble strip even more annoying than usual; I didn't feel like riding real slow — pushing with my foot the last few yards — while a storm was brewing!
I hadn't got far along Wooster before I was soaking wet, and worried about being blown off course. When the significance of the debris on the road got through my soggy skull, I beelined for a front porch.
The lady of the house was at the door checking the weather (and the huge limb that had just fallen), so I was able to ask permission like a civilized person. Took me a surprisingly long time to get my breath back.
After a while the wind steadied, and when I saw a boy on a mountain bike go past without being blown around, I got back on the road and got home with no further hassle than being wet. Hard to see until I realized I could push my glasses down and look over them. (Last time I rode in the rain, I took them off and put them in my pocket.)
I planned to undress into the washing machine when I got there — but when I pushed the button on the garage door, nothing happened. Parked on the porch and brought the groceries in through the living room, and draped my clothes hither and yon in the laundry room, thinking power would be back on real soon.
Some of the stuff I'd bought needed to be refrigerated. Dave thought of putting it in the fridge in the garage, which, being nearly full of canned soda, would hold the cold pretty well even though the door had been opened. I didn't think to take a few slices of cheese out for lunch first, but that didn't matter — all the bread is in the freezer, and we really didn't want to open that! I found a "chicken salad kit" I'd bought when I was still going on long bike rides, and ate the chicken salad on shredded- wheat crackers. The packet of generic white- flour crackers from the kit is still on the table; nobody wants it.
Power was still out when I got up from my nap. So I opened a can of tamales and a can of diced tomatoes and warmed them up together. Not bad, but I could have used some salad and raw veggies.
Then I resumed work on the neck-hems of my three new bras, which I'd intended to sew on the treadle anyway. The carbon-monoxide detector chirped when I was about two-thirds through, so I got up and put the wash in. Since I was using soap — I usually just rinse my clothes after a ride, so that sweat won't rot them, but I'd noticed spots on my jersey when dressing — I put in everything I could find, except for my scarlet bra, which might bleed.
I spent the whole day playing with my computer. I did bake a loaf of bread. Went pretty well for as out of practice as I am.
Just flour, water, salt, lecithin, and yeast. I know there are two bags of gluten in the freezer, but can't find either one. Came out of the bin triumphantly holding a bag in my hand — it was corn flour.
Department of well duh — after puzzling for days over how I could make my 80-column font smaller, I remembered that what "80- column" means is that the full width of the screen is divided into eighty columns, no matter what your resolution is.
Every year but one I've forgotten to go to the Duck Race, and that year the set-up was rained out and it didn't happen. Today is the last Duck Race ever — Cardinal Center is switching to a different fund raiser — and once again, I forgot all about it. But when I was in Sherman & Lin's, they were playing a radio show live from the duck race over their sound system, and the announcer was talking as though it were about to start, so I jumped back onto the bike and went to Canal Street, thinking that I'd at least see what the set-up was.
Turned out that it was still going on, and the fellow appeared to plan on reaching into the tube and pulling out ducks for hours. Some folks were still buying ducks, but near as I could make out, the only place one could put them into the canal was at the back of the pack where they didn't have a prayer. I wandered about, and watched a boy round up stuck ducks and put them in the current — there really is a current, though the ducks move very slowly to the hexagonal packing against the floating barrier. There was a motorboat going back and forth outside the barrier, apparently for the purpose of disturbing the ducks and causing more to enter the tube.
When I got bored, I went to the teller machine, waited in line behind two bikes and a car, and got a "fast fifty". Then I came home and put away the vegetables I'd bought at the Farmer's Market.
Where I had been stupid: I noticed that even though I'd slept very late, one of the booths still had a few ears of sweet corn. So I circled the whole market before going back to get it!
I did get tomatoes, wax peppers, and zucchini. The good zucchini were a quarter each, the overripe zucchini were fifty cents!
I wore Dave's black cotton do-rag instead of my scarf. Worked well enough that I'm thinking of duplicating it in white linen, even though it takes a lot longer to put on sunscreen when I can't cover part of my face.
I didn't undress into the washer, but I think I should have. I did rinse the do-rag in a bucket and hang it over a brake cable to dry.
Also got bread and milk at Owen's East on the way back, and washed a load of clothes after I got home — put them in to soak before my nap, and hung them out just before supper.
Which was hot dogs and kraut in a pita bread. I think I'll put something a bit looser in the remaining two "salad pockets".
There's only one bag of blue-corn chips and a few tostada chips left.
Having run out of lemonade, I put imitation basalmic vinegar in my seltzer. There's so much caramel color in the vinegar that it makes my seltzer look like cola.