E:\LETTERS\JUNBAN11.TXT 2 June 2011 Today I am a ham -- extra class, that is. Also joined the Hoosier Lakes Radio Club and attended the business part of the meeting. Tipped on out during the program, came home, and fed the cat. 3 June 2011 Part of the business meeting was planning Field Day, which will be on the fairgrounds south of the Farmer's Market on June 25 & 26, pitch-in dinner with club-supplied gas-grilled tenderloins at 6:00 Saturday. When they were asking who had generators, I was mischievously tempted to say I had one in my pocket. I wonder whether a dedicated QRP fan with a tremendous antenna could get a CW QSO out of my wind-up flashlight. It does have a battery or Really Big capacitor that I'd call wonderfully rugged and long-lasting if it died tomorrow. (And all for 98¢.) (I sure hope that the presence of a valid HTML entity doesn't mess up your readers the way angle brackets mess up Thunderbird.) I'm typing this in the fifteen minutes between getting dressed and time to roll out for the surprise party at the Brownstone in South Whitley. I guess it's late enough that it won't hurt to upload it, should I have time. 5 June 2011 Didn't have time to upload it. I'm hungry, but determined not to snack before 9:00; this may be a somewhat biased entry. It's been a frantic week. I've forgotten Monday and Tuesday, save that I forgot Handwork Circle; Wednesday I finished the banners and took them to the church. Then we escalated sharply: Thursday I took the Extra test. Fifty questions, and very few of them were laughers. (The one about the Beverage antenna being a *portable* direction finder wasn't on it.) Then a club meeting in a room full of strangers, which would have exhausted me all by itself. Friday was the surprise party for Lois's birthday, as mentioned in the previous entry. Saturday, I went to the Farmer's market: two hothouse tomatoes, not as good as on previous trips; the hothouse season must be winding down. Came back through the art show, then an early nap before the progressive dinner for Joe and Lois's sixtieth. Dave dropped out at Kathy's house; I walked home from Martha's. They got all the descendants together, and took pictures to prove it. Two full pews of Beesons in church this morning. I walked home through the art show, and picked up a teriaki- chicken wrap to share with Dave for lunch. Projection system was acting up, so we sang from the hymnals; I rather liked that. Dave is all packed up and ready to roll out at eight tomorrow for his trip to New York. He asked me what souvenirs I wanted; I told him that all my favorite shops were probably extinct. He's prepared to bring back a pizza. I'm planning to open out the dining table into a sewing table as soon as he's gone and leave it that way the whole week. Hope I do some sewing. Thursday morning, I thought I'd finish narrowing the neckband of my newest T-shirt so I could wear it for the exam, but when I got a close look at it in the process of measuring and marking, I realized that it was filthy, so I threw it into the laundry instead of trying it to see whether the neckband still needed elastic inside -- probably will -- and started work on my scarlet bra. Finished the hem (again, no elastic installed) and pinned bias to one of the armholes, then it froze at that stage and has been draped over the lamp (to keep it out of Al's reach) ever since. Saturday, I rejected the idea of wearing the black shell I'd worn the two previous evenings for a walk in the hot afternoon sun, and started pressing my white embroidered- linen poncho shirt with just enough time to finish and put it on. While ironing, I remembered that I have an embroidered-linen shell made by the same pattern as the black cotton one, and decided that when I finished ironing the poncho shirt I'd hang it up and put on the shell. But it turns out that I had quite sensibly washed the shell and put it away for the winter without ironing it. Ah, well, a looser shirt is better in the sun -- and it isn't as obvious that the linen is translucent. Seems to me that fabric used to be more opaque -- this translucent linen is thicker than your average cotton print. I think it must be the current spinning machines, which do a neater job and don't leave any fuzz on the thread. Tomorrow, I have a committee meeting at seven. Handwork Circle the next day, if I don't forget again. No banner meeting on Wednesday, but I may go to Wednesday Evening Supper. [Oops. No Wednesday Evening Supper until next fall.] Sunday there's a pitch-in after the service, and then I think my schedule is clear until the farewell dinner the second sunday after that. And a welcome dinner combined with the fourth-of-July picnic on the Sunday after that. I suspect that the fellowship committee meeting is about those two events. I've already committed to supplying a birthday cake for the picnic. I think I'll bake two batches of Chocolate Cake Cockaign in my nine-by-twelve pan, and arrange them as an eighteen-by-twelve cake. Melt some 45% chocolate over them while they are still hot, which should preserve them until they are cut. I may have to have Dave cut me a tray out of plywood, but I might find a tray at Indiana Restaurant Supply. And my fourth-of-July party will probably be the day before the picnic. Everybody I know is invited, and bring your guests with you. Chips and soda, and we have some chairs but if you want to be sure of a place to sit, bring your own. 6 June 2011 Another exception! It's safe to leave food on the counter, because Al regards all human food as disgusting, with a grudging exception for liverwurst. Today I learned that Havarti cheese at room temperature isn't totally unacceptable. I'm dithering over what to make for next Sunday's carry- in dinner. I was thinking of making pasta salad by my potato-salad recipe, because I wouldn't have to run out and buy anything, and it would save dicing potatoes. But I've never eaten pasta salad made with whole-grain pasta. It could turn out extra good -- or embarrassing. 7 June 2011 Yea, rah! The meeting was about the farewell dinner only, but we digressed now and then, and I found an opportunity to ask "Do any of you know how many candles to put on the new pastor's cake?" and was told that the cake was cancelled because no-one could verify that it was his birthday. Omeprazole fraud, part two. Last month I bought three bottles of Omeprazole and was infuriated to discover that it was really one bottle and four sheets of individually-sealed pills. This morning I'd used up all the sheets (which I used first because they take up more space) and tried to open the bottle. Doing so proved to be much more difficult than opening fourteen blister packs. It is not the standard push down and turn. Instead of instructions on the cap, there were two mysterious arrows and a meaningless ornament. First off, using mediaglyphs instead of writing is a GROSS violation of the principle that access is to be restricted to people who are old enough to read. Second off, the mediaglyphs didn't mean anything, denying access to the rightful user of the medication. (I just got one more idea as to what the mediaglyphs might mean, fished the bottle out of the wastebasket, and tried pressing down on the edge of the cap while turning. That worked.) Third, and in an even grosser violation of the child- proof principle, I got the lid off just by wrestling with it for a while. What use is a "child-proof" cap that flies off on its own when the bottle is played with? The inner seal came off easily and completely, but not without being destroyed. I was in no mood to give the package designer any credit for that. Now there was no way I was going to put that cap back onto the bottle. There was a regular cap inside the child- poisoning shell; all I needed to do was to pop that out. But I couldn't get any purchase with my clam knife. So I decided to break it off. Couldn't exert force on it with the clam knife, so I took it out to the shop and very carefully clamped just the top of the cap in the vise. I squeezed it hard enough to severely deform the inner cap, but caused only cosmetic damage. Brought it back in, had at it with needle-nose pliers -- which weren't quite needle- nose enough to get in between the shell and the inner cap. So I dumped the remaining eight pills into the Monday compartment of my pill stick. I can sort them out again when I have a compartment or two empty. (Today's compartment still contains my lunchtime pills.) What exciting adventures we old folks get into! Excitement for today: bring in the trash cans, open the dining table into a sewing table. It's 10:39 and I'm not dressed yet, so I'd better get outen this here chair. 11:03 Got my walk! Went out to the street, saw that the recycling bin hadn't been emptied, brought the trash container in, picked up two steel cans I'd opened after carrying the containers out last night, carried them out to the road and put them in the recycling bin, walked back to the house, just as I got there a truck stopped and the guys emptied the recycling bin, so I went out a third time. 21:27 I not only didn't forget Handwork Circle, I spent the whole day on it. I opined that putting elastic into my nearly-finished scarlet bra was exactly the sort of thing that would get put off if I didn't lock myself into the ramp room with it, so when I got outen this here chair, I thought that the first thing I should do was to assemble what I needed and put it into my Trafalgar bag. While cleaning out the bag, I saw a couple of pencils and remembered that some of the pencil holders in the sanctuary are empty and I have some pencils that I don't like. So I . . . ended up cleaning the entire neglected- for-ten-years kitchen drawer where we keep, among other things, writing tools. I found a mysterious electrical connector, a miniature steel measuring tape, and a pocket paring knife, which I put on Dave's desk for his inspection when he comes home. I may nab the pocket knife; it slides out of the handle instead of unfolding from it, so it's a featureless cylinder in one's pocket. Also found a tire-pressure gauge and a pair of valve caps -- probably Schraeder -- which I put into the bike cupboard. Several maps I'd been looking for a few days ago, and a map of Noble County that I'd forgotten obtaining. Many scratch pads, including two Post-It Note pads (though one of them was down to three sheets), and an utterly ridiculous number of markers and ball-point pens. And lots and lots of dirt. I gathered up a lot of lens-cleaning cloths and put them -- pinned together -- on the washing machine. When I find a real-linen lens cloth dirty, I *don't* put it into the laundry hamper, because one has to look closely to distinguish a priceless piece of lens cloth from a worthless pressing rag, but now that I've accumulated half a dozen, I can count them going in and coming out. Not very many pencils. Must be time to go to Staples and buy another dozen or two. I purely frittered away the afternoon, and was nearly caught off-guard when it was time to finish packing and get dressed. I did pick the asparagus, and inspect the garden, which is about as one would expect for something that hasn't been tended since I planted the potatoes. I pulled three or four of the biggest weeds, and got two clumps of multipliers with them, so I had to clean those and put them in the raw- veggie box. Which is nearly empty; it took only two days of not making salads for me to get way behind on cutting up carrots and whatnot. And the dinners for one are getting rather picked over. Yesterday I had a very nice mess of sausage hash, starting with raw potato and what's likely to be the last picking of winter onions -- the flavor is still good, but they are getting tough. On the way home from Handwork Circle, I went through The Village intending to buy an ice-cream cone, and got right up to the door of Kilaney's Sweet Dreams, but virtue triumphed and I went on home without one. 8 June 2011, 12:51 I am sweating. I may need to turn the air conditioner back on. 21:41 I was thrilled when I checked Dave's infra-red camera, just before going for my walk, and saw a bright-yellow picnic table. Everything had been over-exposed and white at noon. Made one sizzle just to look at it. Virtue lost: I went to Kilaney's for supper on the way back -- and bought a cone of lemon custard instead of a sandwich. Pitch-ins are bang, bang, bang. One for visiting missionaries next Sunday, one for Field day less than two weeks later, on the last Saturday in June -- I plan to make one batch of potato salad do for both that and the farewell party for Pastor Henry on the following day. Then the following weekend is my fireworks party and the church picnic/welcome the new pastor party. I have decided that tomorrow it's time for a shopping trip. The weather bureau predicts thunderstorms. 9 June 2011 Tonight seemed to be the right time to finish taking that on-line em.com course -- but now that I've *finally* succeeded in typing in the URL, I'm not at all sure that I have enough time, energy, and intelligence left to pass the exam. To make a long story short, Dave's copy of firefox has a search box that looks *exactly* like a URL box. Which explains why it kept saying it couldn't find the URL I'd typed in, so here's a page of penis-enlargement ads. 10 June 2011 Just noticed that it was warmer outside than in, and dashed around closing all the doors. I think I detected an accusing note in the weak and pitiful "mew" when I closed the crack Al was looking through. I got up and closed the patio doors about twenty minutes after lying down last night. A cat fight through plate glass is good clean fun and healthful exercise, but I was dubious about allowing one through a 2 1/2" gap. The NIMS test turned out to be quick and easy. There were four or so questions that expected you to know what meanings NIMS gives to such words as "logistics", but most of the twenty-five questions merely asked me to affirm that NIMS is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and top-down organization rocks. The exam site said I'd get an e-mail telling where to download my certificate after a few days, but it was there the next time I checked my e-mail. Downloaded the PDF, but didn't print it out. The last time I tried to print, our network was in one of its spells of telling me that Dave's printer isn't turned on. I started to check whether the connection had recovered spontaneously, but Adobe insisted on printing the landscape document portrait, and didn't appear to give me any choice in the matter, so I aborted. I can copy a document to Dave's desktop and print it from there, but it will be weeks before I need it -- and all I really need is an assertion that I've got it. I took a peek at the other course. Looks pretty much the same as the first. 22:40 on 10 June 2011 Taking a brief break from the second lesson of the second course. Man, it has a high word-to-concept ratio, and it keeps trying to read the textbook to me -- sometimes presenting the text one line at a time to be sure I don't get ahead of the narrator. At least they let you have the entire transcript at once when the speaker isn't a professional actor. I'm glad Dave showed me how to adjust the speaker volume with the keyboard, because I'm constantly fiddling with it, and not just to block out the ums and ers when I'm trying to read a transcript. I think this presentation was written by an advertising agency. 24:55 Ah, the gentle, quiet sounds of catfight through closed patio door. I've opened the kitchen windows, thinking a visitor would have to levitate to excite Al to unseemly behavior. Outdoor temperature is ten degrees cooler than in here; I wish we had the attic fan on line. Main priority for tomorrow is to make potato salad for the pitch-in after church. Was thinking of doing it first thing in the morning, but first I think I'll finish the sewing job I have spread out on the kitchen table. Or, rather, get it to the "stacked on the ironing board" stage. When I resume IS 700b, the next lesson is Communications. That should contain some information I can use, but probably won't. I expect it to say "Communication is important. Really, really important. You should have good communications." 11 June 2011 I keep absent-mindedly closing the door into the garage. I've opened the overhead door a couple of inches, and closed the screen door. For lunch, I had "pepperoni pizza" stuffed chicken breast with rib meat, baked with mixed vegetables. I meant to have a lot of left-over vegetables, but ate more than half. Supper was warm potato salad. Too much salt and not enough herbs, but the salt should get drawn out of the dressing into the potatoes overnight, and bland is all to the good in a pitch-in dish. I spent a lot of time wishing I could cut up the potatoes *before* cooking them. But if you boil cut potatoes, all the flavor will go into the broth, and zapping diced potatoes would glue them together. I've frozen some water in a half-gallon semi-disposable, with another sitting in it. I used a packet of "chocolate" coins as a weight, which was just right: the inner dish didn't get pushed up, and the outer dish isn't bulging down. Tomorrow I'll put a third dish on as insulation, and pack the potato salad into the inner dish. The sewing job, no further along, is still all over the dining table. I slept late both yesterday and today, though not so late today as yesterday. I sure hope I get up on time tomorrow. The neckband of my new T-shirt does need elastic, but not so badly that it will actually get it. It eased in enough when I ironed it. I'm wearing the scarlet bra, which I washed the day before yesterday. On a very rainy day, but I was completely out of underwear. Turned into a pretty nice evening. I rushed when I went to Owen's for potatoes and onions, but the rain on the radar must have gone north of us. Forgot to wash my white hat yet again. When I put in the blacks and reds, I set it on the dryer instead of adding it to the pile of white clothes. I did wash the blue hat, so I have something to wear. 12 June 2011 Rather light turnout at the pitch-in dinner. Scads of food left -- I took some of Pastor Bonnie's ham. Supper was a bowl of potato salad with chopped onion, ham, and havarti mixed in. Another bowl for my midnight snack tasted strongly of thyme, though the first bowl didn't, nor did I detect any thyme in samples taken before the event. (Supper yesterday was potato salad too.) About the fifth time I stirred the olive oil back into the salad, I did a double take: this salad is chilled well below the solidification point of olive oil: how come it's still liquid? When I left the havarti out to get warm, I put the lid of a casserole over it. I passed the exam for the second of the pre-requisites for the emergency communications course that starts next Saturday. I hope the on-line portions of the class aren't as ad-like as the pre-requisites. Or, at least, that the ads don't sound so much like propaganda from an agency with a name like "Homeland Security". 13 June 2011 Ah, the excitement of my life! This morning I filled my new pill stick for the first time. I bought it when I dashed out for potatoes and onions; they had only "too small" and "too large", so I bought too large, but it's not so huge as the old one. (Haven't thrown the old one out yet, as I had one omeprazole left over.) There's a trick to opening the compartments that I haven't quite caught onto yet. It involves pressing down on all the other compartments, which was a serious nuisance the first time I tried to open all of them. But I absent- mindedly closed the compartments before going into Dave's room to fetch glucosamine and cinnamon, and this time I thought of opening the open compartments all the way so that I could push down without pushing on the lids. Aaaaand the pushed-back lids *stay* pushed back! The lids of the old pill stick slowly ooze closed even though they won't stay closed. (I wonder why the latches fatigued with use, but the hinges didn't?) I was rather surprised to notice that there are no braille markings on the lids -- just big embossed letters and tiny embossed words. (The words are translucent on translucent, so the light has to be just right, but the letters are colored.) Perhaps it's because the big selling point on the package is that one can see the pills without opening the compartments. Yesterday Al decided that he'd been without lap so long that mine was acceptable, but bailed when I started to write Dave a letter about it. This morning he's trying out the shoulder. (Most of his weight is on the back of my chair.) Again, he bailed when I put down the comb and started typing. I'm just starting to move around -- still wearing my pajamas -- and Karen has a load of blacks (and one red) on the line. 14 June 2011 I went on a bike tour of Warsaw yesterday, and didn't get back until five. Probably started pretty late; it was noon when I left the hospital. I went straight from there to the Chinese place on Detroit, north of Penguin Point. Embarrassed myself. When the waiter asked whether I wanted chopsticks or a fork with my steamed dumplings, I said "chopsticks", forgetting three important points: I'm about ten years out of practice, I'd never before tried to use chopsticks to eat anything that hadn't been cut into bite- size pieces, and I never did get the hang of eating off a plate, only out of a bowl. You can break up a dumpling with chopsticks, but it was easier when I took my knife out of my pocket. But cut pieces of dumpling tend to separate into noodle and meatball. Then I tried putting one chopstick through a dumpling, and steadying it with the other -- which worked the first time, but the subsequent dumpling just rotated around the chopstick when I tried to grip it. So I gave up and ate them with my fingers. Dipping them into the sauce did complicate things. I rather suspect that dumplings are supposed to be finger food. Got lost in a book at the library, and came home so late that I skipped the side trip to Owen's to get the milk I'd gone after. I did dump three magazines at the hospital, and buy a two-week bottle of Omaprazole at Walgreen's. (That should hold me until I get to Walmart.) I pinched the box from all sides to be sure there was a bottle in it! This "childproof" cap is the standard push and turn, and has instructions in writing. Also bought a pack of four Christmas-tree bulbs at the distressed-merchandise store where the Salvation Army store used to be, even though I no longer need a red night light. I've long since learned to get around at night with no light at all, and use the nightlight in the morning when I want to close the bathroom door but my eyes aren't up to brilliant light yet, so I may take the red bulb out and put the clear one back in. Good thing I got up at four to write this -- I went to the kitchen to investigate alarming noises, and discovered that Al was locked in the garage. I'd put a chair against the inner door to keep me from absent-mindedly closing it, so I was able to hear him rattling the screen door. And I did remember to look for freezable salad bowls and covered raw-veggie plates, though I didn't go anywhere that I thought I might find one. Checked for omaprazole at CVS, but didn't speak to the pharmacist. 15 June 2011 After supper last night (Smitty's pizza!) I decided to ride my bike to Handwork Circle so I could buy milk on the way back. I then proceeded to ride directly to Owen's. Contemplated going back to inspect the fridges, but tonight will do fine, since Wednesday night supper is off for the summer. (*Much* easier to inspect a fridge that hasn't got food for a hundred people in it!) I did remember to wipe the gaskets on our fridge before I left. Mentioned it to Dave later, and he asked whether I'd remembered that we, too, have two fridges. Nope. One in the afternoon, and I'm not honestly out of bed yet. I think I'll put that load of wash on racks when it comes out of the washer, since I'll lie down for my nap soon after, and it might resume raining. I made asparagus shortcake for breakfast, with two freshly-boiled eggs. Served on plain bread, not toast. Dave went out for his allergy shot, and came back with an appointment for some kind of test. I bought a steak yesterday evening, and still have potatoes left over from the salad. I forgot to wash my white hat again. I can put it in with one of the two sheets I need to wash, but I have enough sheets that I can wait for a good drying day to wash sheets, and it looks as though I'll have plenty of time to forget about the hat before we get one of those. 16 June 2011 It's all gloomy and wet out there, and I feel like going back to bed. 12:36 Al is cutely and comfortably unconscious on the patch pockets I want to cut out and hem -- and if I wake him, he'll help me sew. So I'm putting elastic into the legs of a pair of briefs I mended not too long ago. 24:57 I forgot the Farmer's Market last Saturday, and I've just realized that I can't go this Saturday either, since the orientation for Emergency Communications covers exactly the same hours. I rode by the Farmer's Market site on Monday, but they have replaced the sign that told you what days they are open with a snazzy new sign that doesn't. Must be Tuesday and Wednesday, since nothing was going on on Monday. Or maybe I was late enough that they'd gone home, but they don't start until 2:00, and I was home by five. I've really got to get a watch or a cell phone or something. And finish reading the manual for my hand-held. (Not a complete left-field remark; it fits into the pocket where I used to carry my watch.) I may bail after orientation, if they still intend to hold the first all-day class on July the second. 17 June 2011 Dave went off to Ace, did I want anything? A few minutes after he left, I went out to put another coat of starch on the flowered jersey I intend to make a summer dress out of Real Soon Now. Oh, yes, my spray bottle is malfunctioning; I could use a new one. 19 June 2011 Looked myself up in the FCC database today and it says I'm still a General. I'd think it would have updated by now. Hope the paperwork didn't go astray. Planning a shopping trip tomorrow. We have a nearly- empty fridge. Also need to dump a projection clock at Goodwill, so I might as well go through the shoe stores while I'm out that way. I think I'll get celery and peppers for Saturday's potato salad, but go to Owen's for potatoes -- I don't think I've seen the little red ones at Aldi. Opened the Deusche Kaese Haus cheddar this week. It's good eating cheese; I was intending to buy cooking cheese. But with the sliced cheeses nearly gone, I was glad to have sandwich cheddar. Now I remember that Dave could have brought me some pickled meat from New York. I can probably find some in Fort Wayne, if I ever get around to exploring. 21 June 2011 Finally washed my white hat today! Also four pieces of lens cloth and two linen luncheon napkins, *and* the two sheets that have been waiting patiently for a good drying day. Yesterday I intended to go for a long bike ride, dump one of our projection clocks (neatly baggied with the instruction manual) at Goodwill, and buy some cheese at Aldi. When I got up and looked out the window, I put my car-driving clothes on instead. By the time I'd eaten breakfast, I didn't want to go by car either, and it was so dark and gloomy all day that I didn't do much else. I did sew patch pockets to my T-shirt in progress, Things were brighter after my nap, so I went to Aldi (skipping all other stops) and spent $94. Late in the day, I realized that I should have bought cottage cheese so Dave could breakfast on some of the ground sirloin I'd bought to make meatloaf, and dashed out to Owens -- by car since I wasn't sure I'd get back by dark. I did, but it was so damp out that I was glad I hadn't ridden. I also bought a pound of sour cream to put in Saturday's potato salad -- I'd bought redskin potatoes and celery at Aldi. And today I put some celery seed, thyme, and (marjoram? greek oregano?) into vinegar to marinate. Supper yesterday was chicken thighs poached all day in a rice cooker set on "keep warm". I think I outdid myself on the gravy. I used white-wheat flour to thicken it, and put in a pinch of curry powder, a dash of shoyu, and a teaspoon of Knorr chicken powder. After my nap today, I went into the kitchen, picked up my favorite knife, and asked Dave how he felt about meatloaf for supper. "Out of that nice fresh beef?" Since I was in no mood to light the oven, I was easily dissuaded and we had hamburgers on Slimwich buns. Gone have to make meatloaf tomorrow, though. Today was the day to take my curry linen to Handwork Circle and use four of the big tables in the Fellowship Hall to mark true-bias lines all over it. My plans escalated as I packed my Trafalgar bag . . . linen, check. Laser level, check. Wash-out marker, check. I'll need a ruler to connect the dots I make along the line of light, but a yardstick is awkward to carry and my foot ruler and my Japanese ruler are too short. There's a two-foot ruler in the bag that I keep my smaller cutting mat in . . . why not take the whole bag, then I can cut off some bias tape, and as long as I've got the fabric laid out nice and flat . . . yes, my bra pattern fits quite nicely between the cutting mat and the plywood Dave cut to protect the mat when I carry it in a bag pinned to my Trafalgar bag. After supper I stepped out onto the patio to comb my hair before leaving, and while combing I saw overcast sky, heard thunder, and felt drops of rain. Tomorrow will be a much nicer day to take a long walk. I did finish basting the turns for the shoulder seams and sleeve caps on the T-shirt I'm making. I was sad to see the stripes making beautiful neat chevrons as I pinned the shoulder seams, because that means that they aren't going to make neat chevrons anywhere it shows. The sun came out while I was basting, and we took a short walk. Later on there was some fairly spectacular weather and a tornado warning, and I was glad I was at home. 22 June 2011 By the time I finished making meatloaf, it was too late in the morning to finish the expanded version of the project before lunchtime, so I frittered the rest of the morning reading funnies on the Web. During the day, I remembered that I also needed straight pins and marking paper. 23 June 2011 Went to the church after supper, cleaned the fridges, marked my bias lines on the fabric, cut along one of them. Cutting on a double-wide table proved such a strain that I folded up the project and went home. I think I'll cut out today. In weather like this, six bras really aren't enough. 24 June 2011 Got 'em cut out and marked, set aside to wait for me to finish my new long-sleeved T-shirt. Only three; there wasn't quite enough fabric to make a fourth. I wanted to say that UPS had Dave's new UPS, but before I got around to it, they delivered. He's hoping to put two of his cameras on it and set it out by the lake during the fireworks. 25 June 2011 I do believe that that is a satisfactory batch of potato salad. What's been missing is celery seed. Also put in the bigger half of a pint of all-natural sour cream and most of a bottle of capers. And some vinegar in addition to the vinegar I'd been aging the celery seed in. And just a wee dash of olive oil. I dug the three garlic chives I've not been weeding out of the strawberry bed, saving them for this very occasion. Turned out to be three garlic bulbs. This was so startling -- I don't think garlic has been anywhere near the strawberry bed -- that I dug up another garlic chive (no bulb), then plugged in the data cable and looked up "garlic chives" in Wikipedia. They said nothing about the underground part of the plant, so I fed "allium tuberosum" (which I'd gotten from Wikipedia) into Google, and learned that garlic chives spread by tubers (hence "tuberosum"). I chopped one of the three bulbs for the salad, and it's definitely garlic. I picked a few more garlic chives and some chives -- not much; it was hard to find good leaves because the chives have gone to seed. Also cut another flowering stem off the parsley and minced that. I chose the tallest parsley plant when I bought it without noticing that it was tall because it was going to seed. The plant isn't flourishing, but as long as I keep cutting out the flower buds before they get too tough to eat, it should produce. I put cloths on a few tables this morning -- wearing my cycling suit -- then ran off to the Farmer's Market. Didn't think to check the time before I left, and was much puzzled to find that the comic-book store was still closed even though they open at eleven on Saturday -- it was only a little after eleven when I got home. I figured setting up the Fellowship Hall and seeing the Farmer's market would take longer than it did. Not to mention that I went to look at the Field Day before leaving the fairgrounds. I must attend the Friday evening set-up next year to find out how they anchored an antenna to the topmost twig of a tree. Stopped at Sherman & Lin's & bought two little chocolate bars -- 54% was the best they had -- and a Tabasco Slim Jim. While reading my Web comics tonight, I pinched the thigh of my pants to loosen the knee and put my finger right through the cloth. I knew they were shabby, but didn't think they were that shabby. I see now that I rest my elbows just there when I type. And lean my head on my left hand when I stop to think, which is why the left leg tore first. This leaves me with only one pair of everyday pants. I should have gone to Lowery's to look for pattern paper when I was out -- I hadn't been far from there when I went to the comix store. I've been plotting to hire someone to make pants for me, but to do that I need a nice clear pattern on paper that isn't as fragile as the newsprint that I use for designing. 26 June 2011 Grump. The salad isn't as good cold, and doesn't contain near enough salt. Well, I'll be making it again next Friday -- minus the jar of capers -- and can remember to put in *three* teaspoons of salt. ------------------- Dave calculated that I was at the farewell party six hours. No wonder I came home wasted. I plopped into Dave's chair and played computer card games for quite a while before I worked up enough energy to go to bed. When I woke up, Dave had supper underway -- Spam sandwiches with fresh tomato. He fetched a bag of chips, I got out yogurt and potato salad. We agreed that the salad wasn't good -- I thought it dry, and Dave thought it was sour. Perhaps adding some mayo will address both complaints. It's just as well that it was never put on the table! Tables the full length of the hallway weren't near enough, so we held duplicate dishes in reserve. I believe that all the devilled eggs were eaten, as I saw Lois taking home a clean plate, and her devilled eggs were the last to arrive. A cheese-and-potatoes dish was pretty well received. The texture was something like rice; I believe that I could make a similar dish with brown rice, and get around the ban on white potatoes. I came home with more food than I took. I snitched a piece of pie and a bag of brownies, and the person who brought the Milagro chips didn't want to take them home. I was about to say "not on my diet" when I remembered the party this coming Saturday. I don't like the looks of my semi-disposables on the display table, so I thought that I could set my square Corningware casserole in my square cake pan and freeze it. Alas, aluminum is a *lousy* insulator; the ice was nearly gone before I got to the church. But it stayed in the fridge for the whole party, and I put a few ice cubes in the bag for the walk home. The cloth bag got pretty soggy, but didn't drip. And there's another problem with using the casserole: it's blooming HEAVY. I was switching hands all the way home. Perhaps I should have put the casserole in my Trafalgar bag. Hard to keep stuff level in a -- there's a word for a one-strap backpack, but I've forgotten it -- but potato salad doesn't spill -- and I had the lid rubber-banded down good and tight. 27 June 2011 I couldn't find my muslin drawers while fumbling around in the dark yesterday morning, so I grabbed a pair of shirting work pants off the to-be-mended pile. Then I learned that I *really* prefer elastic waists on underwear. This morning, I found that I'd hung the drawers on the hook I'd thought I'd hung them on, then hung my cycling knickers on the same hook. So I threw the drawers and the dress I'd worn Sunday into the pile of warm whites that are waiting for the hot whites to come out of the washer. I've got more whites than will go in with the linen sheet, but not a full load. And the blacks and light colors add up to a load -- but I'm not yet sure that my new red bra doesn't bleed, and in this weather, I definitely don't want to postpone washing that. 28 June 2011 Planned to finish my striped long-sleeve (well, it wasn't *this* warm when I started it!) T-shirt today. Got to the place where I needed to hand-baste creases for the flat-felled side seam (you *can* press a crease in jersey, but it's easier to baste), started to move the rocking chair over to the window, realized that it was fit to work outside, picked up my tools planning to put them on the picnic table, saw that the sun on the table was too bright to work in, looked for a seat in the shade, rousted Dave, and we brought down the patio chairs and lawn chairs. After I selected a spot for one of the patio chairs and put a cushion in it, I realized that I was hungry. So I'm eating a bowl of potato salad with diced cheddar, canned ham, and chopped onion in it. By the way, scraping the mayo out of the almost-empty jar improved the salad some, then dumping in some left-over tartar sauce made it just right. My lunch was a tad salty, but that was because I poured some of the broth on the ham in. And now, having had lunch, I want my nap. Better plan supper first, in case I need to thaw something. 30 June 2011 I think I'll write July in hypertext, just to see whether it makes Thunderbird go bananas. It's quite as easy to write clean hypertext as to write plain text; PC-Write puts the tags in automatically when the filespec is *.htm. So if you can't read next month's issue, go to the back- up copy on Dave's Web site. The URL will be http://davebeeson.home.comcast.net/~davebeeson/LETTERS/JULBAN11.HTM On my last Tour'dWarsaw, I bought wasabi peas planning to put them into trail mix. Yesterday, inspecting the trail mixes, I recalled that I'd rejected dark chocolate trail mix because I didn't want candy in it, and chosen Walnut, Cranberry, and Pomegranate -- only to discover that the "pomegranate" was chunks of candy, and no-where near as good as the dark chocolate would have been. So I looked very carefully, and discovered that *all* Aldi's trail mixes contain chunks of candy. "Wild Wasabi" didn't, but that one was just passing through. Which was why I bought the wasabi peas. I'm eating the wasabi peas with toasted sunflower seeds that I bought by mistake. (I bought raw sun seeds the day I bought the wasabi peas.) The main objective of yesterday's trip was to buy chips. That included two bags of blue-corn chips, as they are the only whole-grain tortilla chips Aldi sells. Then I discovered, upon coming home, that we already had two bags of blue-corn chips. It's lucky that I like tortilla chips! On impulse, I bought a package each of tahini hummus and Monterey Jack salsa con queso. I just dug out my fondue trivet and a tea light, and discovered that my second- smallest stainless steel mixing bowl will do for a pot of hot water to warm the cheese dip in. I could use something lower and wider, but it will work. Dave suggested breaking a bamboo skewer to make a trivet to separate the glass jar from the bottom of the bowl. So that's all set. I haven't bought yogurt yet. I'm planning to set out one quart of plain yogurt in the original container, and also drain a quart to make garlic- chive dip. I *think* all I have left to do is to buy yogurt, make dip, and make potato salad for the family picnic. I'll take left-overs to the church picnic. Including left-over lemonade -- (Dashes off to add a lemon and frozen lemonade to the shopping list, and check the stock of soda). 1 July 2011 It looks like another gloomy day. Went to Owen's after supper last night and got a great long register tape, which I haven't entered into Quicken yet. I bought a twelve-pack of everything Dave drinks, except for ginger ale, which they were out of. And they were out of twelve-packs of Mountain Dew, so I bought a twenty-four pack -- the stuff keeps. Got my Extra ticket in the mail a few days ago. I couldn't frame it right then, so I filed it in the unabridged under "certificate". Egad, I haven't yet swapped out the wallet version for my General ticket. (Got up to do that, then realized that if I wait until Tuesday, I can use the Kiddy Kollege paper cutter to do a neat job of separating them.) Found a good spray bottle when I went to Big R on the way to buy chips. I haven't transferred the starch into it yet. Good thing I put all the parts of the fondue in the cupboard assembled -- it proved that my round-bottomed stainless bowl is too unstable on the trivet. But the flat- bottomed bowl from my rice cooker fits perfectly -- and I can keep it in the rice cooker set on "warm" until time to set stuff outside. Not to mention that the rice cooker comes with a wire rack to allow circulation under the jar of salsa.