8 July 2008 Good thing Lynnette sent me a list of this week's activities at the church -- none of them are mine, but it reminded me that I need to cancel Handwork Circle the week after next! I'm going on a tour with Alice; aside from the dates (22-25) all I remember at the moment is that a train is involved. I'm fretting over my suitcase. The one I took to Girls Day Out is too big -- but the next smaller one is too small to carry a spare pair of jeans. Since the weather is bound to be warm and I don't expect to actually wear them, perhaps I could take shorts instead. But the big space occupier is that pair of size 9 oxfords! I'm planning to wear sandals, but if it rains I'll need closed shoes. And I do want everything in one bag. Dither, dither. 9 July 2008 The moral to this story is: check the weather report for *wind* before baking bread outdoors. I had this gorgeous rye loaf that I'd spent half an hour kneading an extra half cup of flour into, so that it wouldn't spread out in the kettle -- kettle baking sort of steams the bread, so you can get away with that. It rose up *huge*, and I wanted to cook it slowly so that it would get done in the middle. When I came back to check on it, the wind had blown every last coal out from under the kettle. So I fished some big coals out of the fire, wishing all the way that I'd been more diligent about searching for fire tongs this spring. (Dave saw some at Big R, in the heating department precisely where I'd looked for them. Haven't been back there since, though.) And the wind fanned the coals into flame and burnt the bread. Before it had had time to cook in the middle. And I dropped it twice getting it out of the kettle. Smells good, though. 10 July 2008 Cut it up to freeze three-fourths of it this morning, and discovered that it did cook in the middle. After cutting off the burned bits, it's pretty good. Had a peanut-butter sandwich for breakfast, being in a hurry to get Al to his appointment -- routine shots, but the vet found a sore spot that needs to be treated. Examination was all over, Al tried to hide under my arm, and pointed the base of his tail at the vet. It's in the crease that's hidden when his tail is up. Seems to have started healing on its own. Had another peanut-butter sandwich for lunch, this time with multipliers and slices of bell pepper. Still hungry. When I was walking down 9th Street last Tuesday, I thought of another reason to take the oxfords: sandals don't take at all well to walking on steeply-sloped pavement. Tried to mark the other bias line on my linen yesterday. It insists on wrinkling instead of folding neatly; I must have done something wrong at the beginning. This morning, after locking Al into the bedroom and fiddling some more, I concluded that the job simply can't be done. I'm going to pull out the basting and try another method. And it was so easy on the other end! I don't think it took more than a couple of hours. 12 July 2008 Got my itinerary for the tour yesterday. Seems all I'll do with my suitcase is hand it to the bus driver at the beginning of the trip, and set it out in the hallway at the hotel on our last morning, so I've half a notion to take my old, old hardside Lady Baltimore. Simple box, easy to use like a dresser drawer at the hotel. I desperately need a new purse: one I can wear as a shoulder bag or carry as a handbag. I think the solution to marking bias lines on my linen so I can get started making my new bras is to lower my standards of accuracy. Got two lines marked, and they are *not* a uniform distance apart. The second line was for cutting off yet another triangle scarf; I may move that line: While suiting up to leave Marsh Supermarket today, I decided that I want the new scarf one inch bigger than the green one I was putting on. It would help if I could lay the whole four yards out on a hard surface. None of our available floors is long enough, and the biggest free patch of floor has a plush carpet. I've got black linen canvas to make the purse, but no black mesh to make a water-bottle pocket. Another trip to Lowery's -- but I can't imagine that there is much call for black pocketing mesh, particularly when no customer is going to buy more than a quarter yard. 14 July 2008 Baked another loaf of rye bread, this time with caraway seeds in it. I managed the fire well, and got a nicely-browned loaf that's cooked all the way through. I forgot to put salt in the dough. Perhaps I should go back to keeping a container of salt in the "additives" box with the lecithin and gluten. Dave came back from the car dealer disgruntled. They kept him waiting for an hour and a half and didn't do either of the jobs he wanted done. He says that he's figured out how to fix the window switch himself. The piece of bread that I didn't freeze yesterday looks a tad dark in the middle, which usually corresponds to underdone. I had scrambled egg on seeded rye for breakfast. 18 July 2008 Been sewing industriously, and now my new purse lacks only a zipper. The broadcloth bottle pockets don't look as dorky as I feared they would. Thought about walking to Owens after supper, but my list was so long that I rode the bike instead. I bought five half-gallons of milk. Took a while to fit them all into the fridge; it's way past time I took everything out and put it back again. Dave took his point seven while I was at the grocery, so I walked by myself about sunset. Went along the creek, and saw a rectangular concrete pillar, still in heavy wooden forms and the forms held together by the biggest C clamps I've ever seen. That's where the naked grandmother is supposed to go, but I don't see how that pillar fits into the statue pictured in the brochure. I also scared a frog -- or *something* that jumped into the pond -- and a deer. I've spent a lot of time hypertexting one of the text files on one of my web sites. Went to the dentist last Tuesday. He said my teeth are beautiful. 20 July 2008 Power was out when I woke up at 7:30, so I unplugged the freezer and my computer. Was back when I got up at 8:30. Dave said that it had been out on the other side of the lake when he got up earlier in the night. No clue as to who was doing what. During the day, Dave got on the net and ordered three uninterruptable power supplies. This evening, we walked to the Boathouse parking lot to get cash for my trip -- teller machine showed no signs of life. I suppose it's designed not to reboot itself, and the bank was closed, so nobody who could reboot it noticed. Installed the zipper in my purse after the walk; now I need to do a little hand work to tidy up. Tomorrow's schedule: wash clothes, pack suitcase, help Dave take half the kitchen window down so he can take it in for repair. It's got fog between the double panes -- just like the other half about a year ago. When I went to the farmer's market Saturday, I continued to Lowery's for a box of pins, then crossed the railroad on Detroit so I could come back past the health-food store. (We have been out of dried cranberries more than a week.) The intersection of Winona and Detroit looked as though it's all over but the striping. All I found in the market was three sweet banana peppers. I should have gotten one of those huge onions, too. 21 July 2008 Yesterday wasn't my day to make a good impression. My hair wasn't quite fluffy enough when I checked it in the church ladies' room, so I re-combed it and made it worse. While verifying that in the mirror, I noticed that I'd forgotten to shave -- three or four days in a row, by the looks of it. And I'd put sunscreen on that chin! How could I have failed to see or feel the beard? And *then* I noticed a streak of dirt across the front of my white pants. At least that flaw was hidden under my shirt tail. We had a nice rainy day to do the wash. It's sunny out now, and I'm drying the last two loads on the line. I hope it dries fast -- those loads include a substantial part of what I want to pack for tomorrow. I've already put my tour papers into my brand-new purse, which I finished this morning. 30 July 2008 I'd caught up on sleep by Tuesday, but didn't feel up to the intellectual challenge of darning at Handwork Circle, and read _The Day the Rabbi Resigned_ instead. Amazing how much more clearly Kemmelman writes in the second half of the book;-) when reading in bed at the Holiday Inn, I desperately wanted a cast list; each chapter introduced a new character and characterized him in depth and at length, and I longed for lightweight cardboard characters in distinctive hats. First thing I did on getting back was to wash Dave's cell phone, then let it clunk around in the dryer while I was hanging up clothes. I do check the pockets of everything I put into the washer, but I checked the back pockets and side pockets of his shorts without realizing that he also had a cell-phone pocket. Luckily, it was a cheap cell phone, and he was able to transfer half his minutes to the new one. This was a brand-new tour, so the escort took an exit poll during the trip home. The consensus was "more Brandywine, less Larry." Larry was the step-on guide who showed us around Akron. One day of touring Akron was nice; another tour on the following day was altogether too much. Today I unmolded the gelatin I made yesterday. The mold I bought at the thrift shop in Frankfort before the trip is an unqualified failure. First, it isn't quite big enough to take an entire can of crushed pineapple; gelatin doctored up the way I usually do would require at least two of them. There *were* two at the thrift shop, but the other one had a hole punched in it for hanging on the wall. Which is all these molds are good for: the design doesn't show at all on the unmolded dessert, except for making the top look messy. So it's back to using my mixing bowls. This was the first time in months that I'd gelatined fruit anyway. The Itinerary, blow by blow: First stop, Harry London Chocolate Factory. Nice to get a behind-the-scenes peek, but Alice couldn't climb the stairs to look, and the chocolate was no better than you can get in the grocery store. Harry London was bought out by a conglomerate some years ago, and much of their current production is other peoples' own-brand stuff. When we went through, several boxes of Micky Mouse-shaped pretzels awaited shipping to Disneyland. I did get a packet of lemon jelly beans, which Dave pronounced excellent. Northfield Park. Good thing I was too far back in the bus to have to answer when the exit poll asked "would you go back?" I had a lovely time, but now I've been to a harness track. I'd want to do something else on another tour. Pity I didn't note that the buffet closed at nine -- but it's just as well that I didn't snag one more cookie before we went home. July 24: the train ride. Yes, I'd do that again -- twice. It's all through national park, except for the station in Akron, and the narrator told us everything without making a pest of himself. I was much intrigued by a sign on one of the coaches saying "Ride the Rail and Bike the Trail $2", but I couldn't find anything about it on Google. The $2 has to be miss-seen, or perhaps it means that it costs $2 extra if you bring your bike. Then a tour of the city with Larry; *lots* of history in Akron, with a nice lunch at the Spaghetti Factory (though there were crossed signals, and not enough waiters). But Larry tended to repeat emphatic mannerisms -- "But did we tear it down?!" and he cheered the decision to tear down *all* the schools just as enthusiastically as he cheered the effort to save the grain silos by making them into a hotel. Thence to the winery: Alice had more fun sitting in the tasting room looking at the scenery and getting waited on than I did traipsing up and down stairs looking at I don't remember what. Except that there were some real wooden barrels in the first room we went through. The public rooms have a splendid view of woods and lawn, and are available for weddings. The end of the day was to be three or four hours trapped in an outlet mall. About half the bus got off at the hotel, including us. I was pleasantly surprised by the hotel dining room. When we said that all the dishes on the menu were too heavy, the waitress brought us a bar menu. By the time we left, she was bringing all the old folks a bar menu to start with! I had an excellent quesadilla, and the prices weren't all that high. Last day: A guided tour of the park with Larry, who showed us pretty much what we'd seen from the train. Highlight here was a stop at Brandywine Falls, with a trip down the boardwalk. Alice stopped at the head of the stairs, I went on far enough to see that the boardwalk ended on a dirt lane we'd seen branching off the road to the falls just as we came in. The ruins of the power plant didn't make any sense: where did the water come in? -- until on the way back I saw that there were cinder blocks under the weeds over a considerable area. After that we had a totally disposable tour through a mansion development, with Larry trying altogether too hard to make it interesting. From there we went to the lakefront in Cleveland, boarded the Goodtime III for a buffet lunch *before* departing, then went up the Cuyahoga River and back down again. There are *more* bridges across the Cuyahoga! I'm not at all sure some of those streets and railroads didn't cross it twice or three times. Sometimes we could look across a neck of land to where we had been a while ago. Then a long, long, looooong ride back to Indianapolis, Lebanon, and Lafayette, with a ninety-minute stop at Cracker Barrel for supper. 1 July 2008 One more try at rye bread! I have three cups of rye flour, a heaping teaspoon of caraway seeds, *and* a teaspoon of salt rising in the oven. Thicker batter than that much wheat flour would make. Plan to put in white-wheat just before nap time. Yes, I remembered the yeast. -- 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.