E:\LETTERS\MARBAN11.TXT 1 March 2011 Meant to repair my newly-old jeans at handwork circle, then change into them and repair the newer pair. I unexpectedly encountered a Fellowship committee meeting in the kitchen, and got a late and distracted start, but it turned out that the old jeans required only a couple of hooks, so I did complete that repair. The newer ones are missing at least one hook and several eyes. Discovered how strong the magnet on my laser level is when I pulled a baggy containing a ball of thread and three steel hooks out of my bag and the level came with it. Cut the bands for my sheets apart, but didn't get any further with that project. Did get the February Banner sent -- on time for a change. 2 March 2011 That chocolate bar didn't last long. I didn't get chocolate when I was last at Aldi because I thought we had five or six bars, but we were nearly out, so I bought one Lindt and one Godiva at Kroger, thinking that would tide us over -- but the Lindt has lumps in it that need to be chewed, so I eat an entire square where I'd have sucked on a crumb of Moser Roth. Today's plan: finish the linen sheets. 4 March 2011 Still working on the linen sheets. Have the bands sewn to one sheet, and one of the seams pressed to one side and stitched down. May finish that sheet before starting on the other. I lost a day somewhere and spent all of today thinking it was Thursday. Maybe I really did do the wash yesterday instead of today. But I'm pretty sure the black bra was still wet when I put away the white ones. 5 March 2011 Began the morning by taking the Extra exam on aa9pw's website. Now I want to go back to bed. But I scored 70%, which isn't bad for someone who hasn't learned the General stuff yet. And I learned what a phase-locked loop was. Al is no longer nesting in my unfinished sheet. I suppose I'd better press the seam and stitch it. 6 March 2011 Coming down the steps on Ninth Street, I noticed that they had been melted entirely clean -- except for a stripe along the shadow of the handrail. Which set me up to notice that the parking lot of the auditorium had thawed up to the edge of the shadow of the building. 7 March 2011 I check my mail last thing every night. As a consequence, after I read my mail in the morning, I want to go back to bed. Need to go shopping, but I have a dental appointment tomorrow, so I'll postpone it and stop by Marsh on the way back. 8 March 2011 Nothing to the tooth filling, but I got home exhausted anyway, and blew off Handwork Circle. Plan to go clean the fridges and re-fill the ice trays first thing in the morning. Bought more stuff at Marsh than would honestly fit into my panniers, but forgot the loaf of bread. Let 'em eat sub rolls! Dave brought a Yarus home in the morning, and I unplugged the iron and went for a ride. He brought a Versa home just as I settled in for my nap; I declined to get up and look at it. Woke up exactly in time to get ready to go to the dentist, so it's as well that I didn't. The last of the four linen sheets is creeping toward completion; The bands are attached, and I was about to press the corners and stitch them when Dave came home in the three-door car. (We want a five-door, but three is all they had on the lot. I don't, of course, know how many doors were on the Versa.) 10 March 2011 Near as I can make out through the window, most of the lake is still iced over. Looks mighty thin, though. Dave brought the Versa home again yesterday, and I drove it to the church, where I got out and let Dave go on test- driving while I cleaned the fridges and walked home. So I got only half my walk yesterday. None at all today, so far. The Nissan dealer found a red Versa at another dealer, and we'll pick it up tomorrow. Whut started all this was that the Buick is getting loud, and Dave was looking around for a plain-steel muffler because there isn't enough wear left in the Buick to warrant investing in a stainless-steel muffler, and . . . The last sheet is in the linen closet, but it was a bit of a struggle. Leaving out some details to make a better story, I pressed the corners of the hems, then went into the bedroom and shut the door to reduce interference to the piano tuner -- who is still here, so that sentence made me remember to shut the door to the sewing room; keyboards are noisy. I trimmed the excess allowance on one corner, started to sew, and the White Family Rotary made *most* alarming noises. Bit of consternation -- this machine is too old and reliable to have mysterious failures. Then I bethought me that it's been a looong time since I oiled it, dug a downloaded instruction manual for a slightly-different model out from under a collection of wooden spools in the drawer, and oiled all the oiling points, with some difficulty in finding one of them. All of them were on the opposite end of the machine from the noise, so after I'd cleaned up, put the oil away, and taken the oily clean-up rag out to the garage, I took the sheets of paper back out of the drawer and took a closer look. I found three more oiling points, on the correct end of the machine. Fetched the oil and another rag and set to work again. (The second rag is still in my pocket; must get out to the garage before it stinks up my shirt.) Oiled those three points, but they were all in the top of the machine and the noise seemed to come from below. I took off the cover of the bobbin-case compartment and took out the bobbin; nothing here that looked like an oiling point. Took off the needle plate -- after fetching the Necchi's screwdrivers; the screwdriver in the drawer of the treadle serves to change needles, but attempting to use it on the needle plate proved most definitely that it isn't the one that came with the machine. (I vaguely remember buying it at a thrift shop or something.) It's rather odd that the White had lost its screwdrivers -- if you buy a sewing machine at an antique store, it's almost certain to be missing the screwdrivers because antique dealers have no idea what they are for, but this antique was a trade-in at the sewing-machine store where I worked, and has all its attachments. I found some lint under the needle plate -- not nearly as much as would accumulate in the Necchi in a much shorter time -- but no oiling points. (I hear music coming from the parlor; the tuning must be about over.) Cogitating, I noticed the post at the right end of the front edge of the machine, and remembered that it's a catch to let you lift the machine on the hinge at the back so you can look at the bottom. So I figured out how to release the catch, then figured out that I also had to unship the drive belt. I found some holes that looked exactly like the oiling points on the top of the machine and squirted oil into them. None seemed to serve the shuttle race, though. Every now and again one must take the shuttle race of the Necchi apart, oil one of the surfaces, wipe it clean (leaving an invisible film) and then put it all back together. This shuttle race didn't appear to be made to take apart for routine maintenance, and I was most reluctant to take a screwdriver to it. Eventually, I realized that I could see an edge of the shuttle race through a window in the machinery. This edge appeared to be a homologue of the edge that I oil in the Necchi. So I put a little oil on the end of my finger (which is how I oil the Necchi), put it on the edge, and turned the handwheel. Poking through a window didn't quite have the same effect as smoothing it on. At this point, I noticed oil running down from one of the oiling points, mopped it up, then pressed the oily rag against the edge and turned the wheel. Voila! Smooth turning! So I put the machine back down -- careful to hold the catch open instead of snapping it shut, as a jeweler once told me to do with old catches -- treadled briskly to see whether it was still noisy, put the belt back on, treadled again -- we are back in business! Sewing the remaining three corners -- I'd completed the first one during "details left out" -- was anticlimactic. 11 March 2011 All dressed up and a bag of essentials is in the Buick ready to transfer to the Versa. We pick it up at eleven. I'd better wear a coat, since my emergency ponchos and scarf are not among the essentials. We plan to stop at Martin's for milk on the way back. I'm not sure I've been to Martin's on my own yet. Easier to get to stores where I know my way around, and the ads haven't shown anything I can't get elsewhere. I'm wearing my newly-old jeans, because I'm fed up with the safety pin in the better pair. Not quite fed up enough to sit down and sew on hooks and eyes! Though that would be a good use of the half hour before time to leave. 13 March 2011 Just downloaded my worksheets for the general class and printed them out. When the instructor said, yesterday, "You are here to earn your General-Class licenses," I was thinking "Yup. I've *got* one, now I want to *earn* it." Made a date in the narthex this morning: 8:00 a.m. next Saturday, to help serve a breakfast. I'm thinking of wearing my new white poncho shirt -- but my black pants are tight in the waist. The banner committee also had a brief meeting. I'm to bring a piece of black broadcloth next Wednesday, and we will make letters out of the scraps of the other banner, which has black letters. I've got my call sign memorized already. Now I should start on my phone number. 14 March 2011 Washed three loads -- or, rather, one load and two half- loads -- and wrote a letter today. That's it. We had hot dogs and canned chili for supper. I'm hungry again already, but I'm holding out until after Al gets his treat. He isn't bugging me. 8:50 and he isn't bugging me. He must still be on Standard Time. So is my computer, despite having reset it twice. I'll try again and see whether it stick this time. 15 March 2011 Hah! I passed an Extra exam tonight, with a little bit of luck and a little bit of cheating. (Cheating in that I looked up stuff that I didn't quite understand and won't retain.) Went shopping today -- that's it. Fiddled around all morning and didn't get off until noon, then got back at 3:00 p.m., missing both lunch and nap. Too tired to go to Handwork Circle after supper. Napped from a little after seven until nine -- should have lain down sooner, but I thought I could hold out until bedtime. I ate a lot of potato chips and cottage cheese after getting home, and had a dried-meat snack stick and a handful of unwashed grape tomatoes while packing my groceries and putting them into the car. Meat stick and grape tomatoes are a great combination! One thing I'm going to have to get used to in the new car: in the Buick, you couldn't lock or unlock the trunk from inside the car. You can't lock or unlock the Versa's hatchback from outside the car. I learned this while holding an umbrella and two twelve- packs of toilet paper in the Big R parking lot. Dropped everything but the umbrella on the wet pavement. Cain't lock my purse in the trunk when I take only my wallet into a store, but my little bag of stuff fits into the glove box. I had decided, several weeks ago, that it makes more sense to carry the bag and the wallet separately than to carry a purse when those two things are all I want. While paying for the toilet paper, I found that the missing shopping list had been shoved into the credit-card pocket of my wallet. (I'd searched the wallet many times, and also searched the pockets of shirts I hadn't worn in weeks.) So I got everything, not just bread and the few things I could remember. Except pickled beets and a few other things I couldn't find at Aldi. And, of course, Aunt Millie -- Dave ate the last bagel for lunch while I was gone, and we'd already eaten up the loaf of Bunny bread we bought at Martin. So we were completely out of bread if you don't count a bin of whole-grain flour. Also a bag of white bread flour; I may never use that up, because I use white-wheat flour for everything -- even making gravy. Well, sometimes I use cornstarch. 16 March 2011 The eternal question of "what's for supper" was answered in an unusual way today. We had chili dogs for lunch, there was quite a lot of chopped onion left over, and neither of us touched the chopped pepper. So I made tartar sauce. I plan to bake two of the pre- breaded tilapia filets I bought yesterday. I went shopping this morning, in a way. Today's "Deal of the Day" at fabric.com was an all-cotton flowered jersey that's just right for the new T-shirts I need for this summer. Bought six yards planning to make one long-sleeved and one short-sleeved shirt. But it's 58" wide; I think I can make a summer dress and a T-shirt. I could use a new dress for church; I'm getting very tired of my current outfits. I ordered ten more yards of cheap black broadcloth while I was at it. Decided this evening that I'd better get on with doing my homework -- I can't remember what I did with the textbook. I thought I'd left it in the attache' case, but it isn't there or any of the other places I might leave a book. I got two walks in this lovely weather. I went to the church this morning to take care of the fridges before the Wednesday Supper team got there, and again for Banner Making. Which was cancelled because Martha isn't well. I left the piece of broadcloth draped over the banner board. Dave has pretty near flattened the dirt where the sewer line was buried. 17 March 2011 This "villa olive" print T-shirt I'm wearing is sorta green. The only significantly-green garment in the closet is a gardening shirt I made out of an old curtain. Found my General Class textbook this morning. It was between two issues of Threads in my to-be-read pile. Told Dave "I *have* a General license, now I want to *earn* it." I didn't tell him I'm taking the Extra practice tests. But I'll be e-mailing this to him before class starts. The way the class is organized, you pick up the book and your homework assignments, you have about a month to read the book and fill out the worksheets, then there are two days to hear lectures and ask questions, then a week after that we have an hour or so of review and take the exam. I was horrified to read a headline in yesterday's paper that a local organization was sending a delegation to Japan -- Japan doesn't need a mob of clueless outsiders getting in the way of people who know what they are doing -- but when I read the story, it turned out that they are sending just two people to deliver money and take notes. It's time to resume work on my linen suit, and I was getting much exercised because I couldn't remember what I'd done with the pattern and cut pieces when we cleared out the parlor for the piano tuner. It isn't on either of the two boxes I carried out of the parlor and plunked into the sewing room. Turns out that I rolled the project around a cardboard cylinder and put it on the shelf with the remaining fabric. It's lucky that the sleeves aren't among the pieces that I've already cut out, as I have a much-improved sleeve pattern now. And I'd better get with translating the improvements to my jersey-sleeve pattern, as the fabric I bought for new T- shirts will arrive in a few days. Haven't gotten the e-mail that it's been shipped yet, but sometimes I get that and the fabric on the same day. 20 March 2011 I drafted the sleeve pattern Friday morning, then in the evening I made a template of the seam line, "walked" it along the seam line of the armhole, and re-drafted the sleeve pattern. Yesterday I helped serve and clean up at the Ladies' Prayer Breakfast. After the centerpieces had been taken upstairs to decorate the narthex, someone found a flower that had fallen out of one of the bouquets & I said "drop it on my purse and I'll put it in the garbage bag." (I brought the garbage home, since the church doesn't have a compost bucket.) But it was too pretty to put into a bag of banana peels and grape stems. so I stuck it into my hat. Would you believe, this morning that flower is still pretty? Pity I have no intention of wearing that hat today. Went to Owen's for milk and yogurt after supper. Forgot to buy pickled beets, so I guess I'll have to go back tomorrow. Could take that excuse to go for a bike ride -- but my new fabric arrives tomorrow! Decisions, decisions. I have to make a villa-olive T-shirt to test the new sleeve pattern before I cut the Slub Cotton Flowers Yellow/Pink, though. On the third hand, I really, really need to run a load of wash. Either that or make some new bras, and I'm not nearly as fast at sewing as Aunt Pauline. I thought I'd forgotten to take the canvas bags with me. When I put the groceries in the car, I remembered: I keep bags in the trunk now. Still have the book of county maps on the floor in the back seat. Supper tonight was clean-the-fridge soup. I broke up and browned a couple of hamburgers, added the usual seasonings and, among others, two almost-empty cans of salsa, a can of diced tomatoes with most of the tomato chunks fished out, the rest of a box of Aldi's beef broth, half a serving of chili, and the broth I drained off a can of mushrooms when I made pizza. I was planning to put in chili powder and cumin, but it tasted good without it, so I refrained. So now we have a dish of left-over leftover soup in the fridge. 21 March 2011 Active day: I cut out my Villa Olive T-shirt in the morning and finished marking it after getting up from my nap. UPS delivered my fabric and I washed the flower-print jersey. It feels unsettlingly thin, but I can't see my hand through it. Have yet to zig-zag the ends of the black broadcloth so that I can wash it. Even before receiving the broadcloth, I had a great heap of blacks to wash, since my emergency ponchos had been in the Buick so long that I thought I should wash them before putting them into the Versa. And I didn't do blacks when I washed a load Sunday night. Then after supper I rode my bike to Owen's for carrots and pickled beets. And when I got back, I baked Mrs. Stanley's Spice Cake with figs substituted for the raisins and called it "figgy pudding". I'd made the syrup for it early in the morning. That cake has been much easier to make ever since I realized that I should boil the sugar and raisins in my five-quart pot instead of a little saucepan! Dave and I ate one of the six cakes while it was still warm. I wrapped the rest and put them into the freezer. We also made inroads into the in-the-shell peanuts. (They made good cushioning for the carrots.) We had baked "encrusted" tilapia filets for supper, with tartar sauce and concatenated broccoli. I heated frozen broccoli in a cheese sauce that I made by shaving cheddar and parmesan into a dab of left-over chicken gravy, and I'd made the gravy by shaking the milk and flour in a nearly- empty Alfredo sauce jar. 22 March 2011 Tonight, canned soup and a bagel. Frittered away the morning, but still got the broadcloth (and a few socks and my black bra) washed, sewed the darts in my villa-olive shirt, and didn't blow off Handwork Circle. Where I actually did some handwork, and now I have two pairs of jeans in wearable condition. Both dirty, of course. Seems to go with making everyday clothing of white fabric. Made a complete hash of trying to fold ten yards of broadcloth after taking it out of the dryer. I think I'll try rolling it on the cardboard cylinder now holding my linen suit. The short cylinder that came inside the broadcloth will do for the pattern. 23 March 2011 Again, I frittered the entire morning, but managed to put a few stitches into my new shirt. I sewed the shoulder seams, then remembered that I'd meant to sew patch pockets to the front first. So I spent a considerable time deciding which end of the pockets was up, and sewed the ends of the hems, then turned the hems right side out. Supper was chicken cordon bleu baked with mixed vegetables. Chicken cordon bleu has gone from a dish I only hear about because I never eat in fancy restaurants to a dish I serve when I don't feel like cooking. We both liked it better than chicken Kiev. And I'm pleased to note that there seems to be a good deal more of it than of the Pepperoni-pizza stuffed chicken breasts. (We've eaten all the Kiev.) Martha and I got the banner all done in one session, except for the rod pocket. (She had drawn the letters and traced them on Wonderbond ahead of time.) I was planning to come back later in the week with a cardboard cylinder to roll the banner on, but found one among our supplies while I was cleaning up, so I brought it home with me and it's leaning against the table in the parlor now. It's way past time I got on with my homework. Haven't played the CD, and I'm only part-way through the introduction in the book. Less fritter, more study! 24 March 2011 I hope I don't forget that I'm making bread today. I put in a cup of cracked wheat, two tablespoons of vital wheat gluten (why always the "vital"? Encyclopizza says "vital" too), the left-over white-wheat egg rivels, a tablespoon of lecithin, a teaspoon of ascorbic acid, and enough red-wheat flour to make five cups. It made a much wetter dough than usual, presumably because cracked wheat doesn't absorb water as fast as flour does. I kneaded it with a spoon -- it did work up tough enough not to stick to the back of the spoon -- and trust that it will stiffen up while the dough is rising. I've been emphasizing red wheat of late, and I'm getting near the bottom of the last bag. There are several bags of white-wheat flour, though; I haven't baked much this winter. I've given up white flour entirely; I don't know what I'll do with the half bag of New Rinkle bread flour in the freezer. 15:28 Atlantic Standard Time: I remembered to punch it down, and I just made it into loaves. 25 March 2011 It came out of the oven at five, so bread was what we had for supper. I had avocado on mine, Dave took peanut butter and jelly. Too much salt spoils it for me, no sugar spoils it for Dave. Was tempted to try again this morning, and put all the dough into one pan since these loaves were half height. I'm determined to set in my sleeves this morning, but first check the mail . . . well, maybe read some of the messages. I got a little done on both projects simultaneously yesterday evening: I basted the pockets and sleeves while listening to the CD that came with my General textbook. And fiddled with some socks I'm re-making into slippers when the basting ran out. Again, the CD is a recruitment lecture rather than information; seems odd to aim it at someone who has already bought a textbook. I said I hadn't finished the introduction, but my bookmark is well into Operating Privileges. None of it has stuck. Hey! There's a flower bud on one of the daffodils! Now I have the sleeves set in and the neckband sewn on, and I'm about to sew the ends of the elastic inside the neckband together. Then will remain only the side seams, the hem, and the sleeve bands. I'd better think harder about how I can manage to fold the "slub cotton flowers" on grain and spray it with starch, because I'm going to want to be cutting it soon. 26 March 2011 Only futile fiddling accomplished on the sewing front. Supper was poached chicken thighs -- and the meat is *so* much nicer when you don't let the broth boil! The hyacinth clump is full of buds. Most of the daffodils close to the house have at least one bud in each clump. 28 March 2011 Finished my new T-shirt, fiddled with the fabric for my new dress, fed Dave a can of soup, rode my bike to Kroger, where I bought a round steak and a potato, among other things. After bedtime I zoomed through a practice test, randomly guessing whenever I didn't know right off, and scored less than 50%. And there's only one of the random guesses that I think I could have worked out if I'd put my mind to it. On the other hand, it didn't take very long and I didn't feel exhausted afterward! Haven't looked at the plant life. 29 March 2011 I most definitely didn't see that coat hanger when I started the washer. Got it out after the first wring, though. I hung the clothes OUTSIDE, on the LINE! And I remembered to bring them in before it got entirely dark. Forgot the bread and let it rise too long, but it came out all right. An overdose of gluten will do that for you. Dave could taste the sugar but wanted more. I guess I'll have to make some sweet bread. Preferably while we're still heating the house and I don't mind running the oven. Nary a stitch done, not even sewing a rod pocket in the banner. Why break the tradition of doing it the morning of the day I need to take it back? Had time this evening, but I'm too tired to think straight. The bread was really good zapped with salami and swiss and cheddar. (There wasn't enough swiss left to make a sandwich.) The wheat seeds I planted a couple of days ago have roots -- I can see because one of the seeds ended up pressed against the side of the transparent pot. I paid sixty-five cents for this bag of wheat at Rod Smith Health Foods in Albany, and I'd already been planting cat grass out of it for quite a while when we moved. But one or two more plantings will exhaust it. I hope Warsaw Health foods stocks sprouting wheat -- little packets of "cat grass seed" containing a teaspoon of wheat for $1.50 are a rip-off. 31 March 2011 It's been ages since I had any A-1 sauce, and according to the entry on "brown sauce" in Wikipedia, I never will again -- it's been reformulated so that it really is "ketchup with a kick". When reading remarks that this or that is eaten with "brown sauce" I've been envisioning brown gravy, but according to Wikipedia, "brown sauce" is britspeak for "steak sauce". And I do like steak sauce on almost anything but steak! Britons don't need a word for "brown gravy" because, I gather, they reserve the word "gravy" for brown gravy, and call all other kinds sauces. And some of the brits on my newsgroups feel that brown gravy *must* be colored with "gravy granules", and got a very queer picture when Americans referred to sausage gravy on toast. 1 April 2011 I thought I had a corrected mailing list in my drafts folder -- perhaps that was last month's banner. If you notice someone who was left out, let me know. We ironed and hung the banner Wednesday, and I came home early. I couldn't manage to lay the fabric out after basting the edges together, so I'm starching just the edges and will figure out how to starch the middle later.