Are we awful clean or awful dirty? Just two quarter loads of wash this week.
Oops. I haven't ironed the shirts I washed last week.
I was surprised to wake up at the usual time today; perhaps I was getting more micro-naps than I thought last night. But I don't feel like baking bread today, and I'll probably take my nap early. I think I'll make spanish hamburger for supper tonight. Should have bought some of those hot peppers I saw at the farmers' market.
I walked to church by way of Chestnut yesterday, but came back over the girder — the newer, un-warped girder that's bedded in grass on both ends. I had to walk around a pile driver to do it, but haven't heard any thump-thump-thump. I suspect that there's a lot of work to do before they can drive piles.
They seem to be going about this bridge in an entirely different manner from the other. I can't figure out what's going on. At the moment, they have dug a ditch on this side, separated from the creek by a neatly-squared wall of earth, and are filling it with gravel.
The weatherman seems to be determined that I pay proper respect to my sore knee: the first sunny day is predicted to be Thursday.
The bump on my tooth can't be bothering me too much. I forgot to call Dr. Hollar.
Thump, thump, thump, the piles are driving
Hear it, comrade, we shall go
drivin' 'cross the creek in our cars again
free at last to leave our own beloved home.
Once they get set up, the actual driving is anticlimactic.
I think the wall of dirt is a cofferdam and will be removed once the abutment is completed.
Dave said that Beer & Slaubaugh didn't build the first bridge — no wonder the techniques are entirely different.
Didn't work up the energy to call Dr. Hollar.
Got a pair of pants off my to-mend pile. The one with only one missing eye. The new pair that hasn't any and also needs four hooks and two hems may be there for a while.
Only one pile lying on the creek bank, and one stake showing where to drive it. At least that's all we can see from this side of the creek. One of the driven piles is uncomfortably close to the line between two yellow "gas line below" flags. They must have been very confident that they knew exactly where it was.
Didn't do my knee any good when, in my haste to change my sandals for the walk, I sat on a pile of blankets without any bed underneath. I rolled nicely, though; you'd think I'd had some training in how to fall. Carpet helped, too.
I forgot to read the ads before my shopping tour. I think they were expired anyway, since new ones came in tonight's paper. I hit Owen's for a trunkful of fizzwater, then did the whole of Sprawlmart. I skipped Big R because I felt tired. I was tempted to skip Aunt Millie, but we had only a couple of slices of bread. Now we have three loaves, a bag of bagels, and two bags of slimwiches. Straight home from there, since I'd bought frozen food at Aldi.
Didn't get down for my nap until four, woke up after five & thought "oops", but Dave, instead of waking me, had started warming a TV dinner. After a while, I had some instant couscous, with beef boullion instead of salt and garnished with mild cheddar and arrabiatta sauce. I might have the rest of the box with cinnamon, butter, and brown sugar for breakfast. Make that honey; there is brown sugar in the freezer, but I don't know where.
I bought twelve expensive brands of three-ounce cans of cat food at Pets Plus, and tonight's paper has a front-page ad saying I'd have gotten ten percent off if I had waited until Monday.
Uh, eleven brands. I'm pretty sure that I got two flavors of one of them. I got all expectant when I saw "Chicken Soup" on some of the cans, but it was "Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul" brand ordinary food.
Heard them driving the remaining pile this morning.
In defiance of the prediction, it looks like a lovely day out — uh, this is Thursday, when a sunny day was predicted. Where did the week go?
But I can still feel something different in the knee when I pay attention to it, so I'm staying home. Not that I have anywhere to go anyway.
It might be a good idea to ride a few feet just to remind the knee to get on with the repair job, but it hardly seems worth while to change shoes for just five minutes.
I microwaved my couscous in a mug of milk, and emptied my cinnamon capsule into it. (Also dissolved the capsule.) That wasn't quite enough cinnamon. Put lots of butter in for the sake of my calcium tablet, then remembered that I hadn't taken the thyroid pill until six, so I can't have the calcium before lunch.
The clock chimed noon while I was typing that last sentence, and I haven't even finished getting my needle and thread out. I meant to sew all day.
I did manage to sew a piece of tape to my wallet, and sew half a snap fastener to the tape. Now I need to sew the other half to the pocket.
It was cold enough to wear my wool jersey after all. But I wasn't too chilly in cotton interlock over a silk turtleneck.
Washday. I have a load of hot-with-bleach in. I soaked it overnight with a bar from Dave's failed batch of bath soap, after simmering the soap in rain water so that it would dissolve.
Since we are going to dump the barrels soon —it got down to 29F last night— perhaps I should save a half-gallon jar of rainwater for each remaining bar of soap. If I put the bar in it, it won't grow mold, and the soap would get a head start on dissolving.
I saved all my half gallons when we moved because half gallons had been outlawed, but I've seen them in stores a couple of times and they didn't have a "don't use for canning" sticker, so I guess that large canning jars have been de-illegalized. (The rationalization for outlawing them was that home canners are too stupid to comprehend that only liquids should be canned in jars too large to heat through by conduction in a home-size canner.)
I discovered yesterday that the Banner I thought I'd sent last Monday was still in my drafts folder. How embarrassing, to get it finished on time for a change, and then forget to mail it!
My knee still feels tired when I pay attention to it, so no long rides in the near future. I am hoping to ride to Owen's to pick up my prescriptions today. To the farmer's market and back on Saturday was just right. The leg hurt enough to tell me that I was wise to forgo the flea market, but not enough to tell me that I shouldn't have gone to the farmers' market.
Getting dressed was complicated. I dug out fleece pants —the old navy sweat pants— and then couldn't remember how to put them on. Finally remembered that I use two brass safety pins and two drawstrings removed from sweat pants, but couldn't find the drawstrings, so I cut two pieces of gray mystery tape long enough to wrap around my knee twice and tie in a bow. I pinned the tapes to my pants with the pins when I took them off.
(I have a reel of gray 5/8" twill tape I don't remember acquiring, of unknown fiber content, and refer to it as "mystery tape".)
Before remembering that, I tried to put on my old pants protector and, having forgotten that I now have two, was much puzzled that the tape pinned to it would only go around my knee once. When I found the new pants protector, the pin and tape for the other leg were missing. I won't bother to do anything about that until I need to ride in jeans, and since my presentable old jeans are white, that may not be any time soon.
I found my cycling mittens about a month ago — so, where did I put them?
A ragged old pair of Trailhouse gloves were lying on the shelf when I suited up, so I didn't look for the good ones. Good thing I didn't — I shoved my gloves into my pocket while shopping at the Farmer's Market, didn't put them back on for the trip back, and found only one glove in the pocket later on. And the one I didn't lose was the one with a large hole in the thumb, too.
About time to switch from my leather-palm gloves with crocheted cotton backs to the all-plastic gloves that fit under warm gloves.
And now I know why I'd been in the habit of hanging my gloves on the brake cables: the plastic gloves won't fit over the top tube.
Found only one black fitzall glove in the pile in the hall closet. Picked out a pair of pink fitzalls to put on the bike, then put them back and put the lonely black fitzall with the lonely black Trailhouse glove.
Except for lacking paint that serves only to mark the Trailhouse gloves as "right" and "left", and being fuzzy, the $2 fitzall gloves are in no way different from the $15 gloves that I bought at the Trailhouse. I hope Marsh has the fitzalls again this fall — and that I can buy all black. Often they are packaged as two pairs of different colors stapled together. (And nearly always, at least one color is icky.)
Oops! When unloading my pockets upon returning from Owen's, I found that I'd taken my car keys instead of my bike keys. On the other hand, I got back with both gloves, and didn't hear any back-talk from my knee. Feels a bit tired now, though.
As I was waiting for the light at Center street on the way back, someone pulled up beside me in the right-turn lane. When I got across the street and it was time to pull over to the right — that car was still beside me. Rather frightening, as I had no clue as to what the driver meant to do. When I caught up to her at the next stop sign, I was very tempted to rap on the window and tell her she ought not to confuse people.
Picked up yeast and a chocolate bar as well as the prescriptions, but forgot to look at the meat department, so we are having canned soup for supper tonight.
Saturday, I asked Dave what he wanted for supper and he said that if he thought they had any left he'd have one of the brats he'd seen the Cerulean staff preparing for an Octoberfest mountain-bike event. I said we could go there and ask them, and if they didn't have any we could go to The Boathouse for a black-and-blue burger. We ended up going directly to The Boathouse, and I did have a black-and-bleu burger. Dave had a Boston Burger.
Black-and-bleu was good, but the meat was delicious, and after I'd nibbled off what stuck out, I couldn't taste anything but blue cheese. I think the black-and-blue burger is for someone who has that patty for lunch every day and has gotten tired of it. The seasonings on the Boston Burger were good, but not overwhelming.
I've got a new criterion for acquaintancing Facebook "friends", now that I've found out how to acquaintance people. Anybody who mentions any candidate for U.S. president on my newsfeed is outa there. But so far I've only removed those who use nasty language to describe the candidate they hate.
Two crocheted doilies that have been languishing in the laundry sorter because I never noticed them when I had the time and energy to wash them properly somehow got in with the black wash. They didn't appear to have been injured by the experience, but I didn't have the time to pin them out, so I stretched them with fingers, left them on the ironing board to dry, and put them away unblocked. I did pull out the petals on the irish-crochet roses on one doily.
They commenced bashing the concrete on the other side yesterday, but didn't get very far before quitting time.
Rode to Owens two afternoons in a row and no back-talk out of my knee. Gone rest up tomorrow and try going downtown Saturday.
They moved the cofferdam to the other side of the bridge some time ago. Also moved the girder bridge; now the far end rests on a slab of broken sidewalk someone used as riprap yea many years ago, and the girder bounds alarmingly when one walks on it. The twisted one was removed entirely and is now in the pile of junk. Which pile includes a couple of signs that I'd thought they intended to put back up. More bashing today, but I just rode past a couple of times and don't know what's happening. They have two wells, but left the pumps turned off when they went home for the night and the hole is filling up.
Dave's boat was taken into storage today. Then he wanted to start taking the pier posts out, and realized that he'd left his piece of rebar on the boat.
Dave took a movie of some of the bashing and put it up on his web site.
I rode downtown today. My knee is exhausted, but I don't think I've re-injured it. It was definitely worth my while to take my sweat pants off, even though I'd already pinned and gartered and tucked into socks, and put a pair of wool long johns on under them.
On the other hand, I appear to have spilled chili on my wool jersey. I worked on the stain at a drinking fountain as soon as I noticed it, and washed the jersey as soon as I got home, and think I got it. But hanging the jersey in the hallway to dry brought its hem to eye level, and I noticed a moth hole that needs mending.
It was very good chili. I ordered vegetarian on a hunch that it would be better for cycling, and found potatoes in it. So I didn't need the corn muffinlet I'd ordered on the top. Ate it anyway. Should have taken it on a napkin so I could have it for dessert — it was sweeter than most cupcakes.
I was puzzled to find what appeared to be wee little potatoes in addition to the chunks of potatoes; on inspection, they turned out to be garbanzo beans. When I complimented the cook, I should have asked her what she did with her garbanzos; I've never been able to cook them soft.
There were also black beans, kidney beans, and textured vegetable protein in it.
When I broke my foot in 1963, I used a meter stick for a cane until I got crutches, so it amused me to see, in the antique store, a cane marked for use as a measuring stick. I seriously considered buying it.
I should have used the handicap elevator when I stopped at the library to use the restroom, but I don't appear to have damaged the knee any. I put one foot on the stairs to where they keep the books, remembered that walking down stairs uses the same muscles as cycling uphill, walked back toward the other elevator, went to the water fountain to wash my jersey, and left. I walked up the stairs at the exit with malice aforethought.
Brief pause to turn away from the computer and kick my feet. My knee doesn't like for me to sit motionless for hours on end, particularly at the computer.
I'm eating a bar of Ghirardelli chocolate. I don't think it's any better than Möser-Roth chocolate of the same concentration. Perhaps I should take a crumb of each at the same time, just to check. (Turns out we haven't any 60% Möser-Roth, just 70%, chili, and mint.)
Grump. I used my bulletin for a bookmark and left it in a pew Bible.
Didn't injure my knee riding or on the stairs, but it appears that standing stressed it a little — I felt some pain in it while I was cleaning the fridge after the service. Didn't bother me walking home, but I took the precaution of walking down Ninth Street instead of using the stairs.
Crossed the girder wearing Sunday clothes twice. I guess I'm getting used to the way it bounces. The creek is way up from what it's been (which isn't very up) and leaves and other floaters are moving downstream. The bridge builders left the generator off over the weekend (I wonder why they don't have NyMo put in a tap? Or, for that matter, use diesel-powered pumps instead of powering the pumps indirectly.) and the water behind the cofferdam is nearly as high as the water in the creek.
One of the plastic wells they used on the other side was broken at the top; they appear to have thrown it away and made a new one out of one of the steel-pile tops that they trimmed off.
Ouch! I got careless while getting supper out of the oven (frozen lasagna and baked vegetables) and touched the handle of an iron skillet. I pulled back instantly, of course, but an instant is plenty long at four hundred degrees. (Which Dave's brand-new infra-red thermometer said the skillet was, but the area measured probably included some oven bottom.) I've warmed up two cans of lime seltzer and one can of grapefruit on the burn, and it still stings whenever I let it get warm. It hasn't blistered, but I suspect that that is because I've kept it firmly pressed against an aluminum can most of the time.
The fourth can isn't going to last as long; I opened it. Sitting around with a can of soda in one's hand tends to make one think about drinking soda.
Bedtime: it's stopped stinging and still hasn't blistered.
Still no blister, though there's a spot that looks as though it would have liked to be a blister. No stinging, unless I put it into hot water.
I washed two loads of wash and the bridge crew drove some piles. Five to go, I think. One of the workers said that there is going to be a pedestrian lane.
Spent too much time at the computer and my knee is sore again. Sewed pocket-slit flaps on my new tunic. Now all the parts of my new suit are attached; just hems and fasteners and two side seams to go.
[I had forgotten the facings for the other side of the pocket slits when I wrote that sentence.]
Along about sunset I got to feeling guilty about lack of exercise and took a quick lap. There are two steel piles still lying in the parking lot, and one in the driver half-driven. I gather that halfway through driving is a good place to quit for the night because it keeps all the tools in place.
I was wrong; they don't have three pumps — they have four. Only two were going, and both of those were going slurp-slurp-slurp. When I came back from the grocery this morning, the hose draped over the cofferdam was under enough pressure that a pretty good rooster tail was coming out of a pinhole leak. The arc ended in the creek, so I suppose the leak didn't reduce the efficiency much.
As I was passing by the pile of old piles, which are surprisingly unrotted for the length of time they've been buried, I realized that the first time they built this bridge, they used steel where it showed and wood where it didn't. This time we're doing it the other way around.
Rode my bike to Owen's for salad and salad dressing this morning, after darning my wool jersey. I also got "ribs" —strips of pork butt— and baked them in the toaster oven for three hours at 250. Or some point between 300 and 150; it isn't a very precise dial. It came out so tender that my knife didn't work. I don't think that the technique would work in a regular oven because you don't get the intermittent intense infra-red. There *is* a technique in which you put meat into a very hot oven and then bake it at an even-lower temperature for a lot longer, but I haven't used it in years.
I also bought a chicken that Dave is going to bake Zuni style after it chills two days. He dried and salted it tonight, and I fried the offal in the chicken's own fat for a snack. Absent-mindedly ate the whole heart without offering Dave any.
9:28 — if we counted correctly, they are driving the last pile.
We didn't count correctly. But they are all in now. Still have to put the caps on.
There are only ten halves left of the dozen eggs that I devilled yesterday.
I bought a whole pint of horseradish at the Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago and wanted to open it. The fumes were so pungent that I put in only a small spoonful, then I couldn't taste it so I put in two big spoonfuls and that overdid it. But they mellowed overnight.
I think I'll have devilled eggs for breakfast again today.
And a fried-cheese spamwich for lunch. I just now noticed the cast-iron plate called a "bacon press" sitting on a burner and got a brainstorm. The next time I make a fried sandwich, I'll turn a fire on under the bacon press when I start heating the skillet, then plunk the press on top of the sandwich and toast both sides at once.
If I make another sandwich before I've forgotten all about it.
We're having Zuni chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy for supper tonight. I'm doing the vegetables and gravy, Dave is doing the chicken.
Put my new headband sewing-machine light to practical use for the first time today. The blue light is nearly useless for threading a needle, but I managed to do it before I got disgusted enough to get up and fetch my magnifiers from the living room. Perhaps I should get the Necchi its own pair; the White has one, the sofa has one, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary has one, and my pocket has one.
But there really isn't space in the drawer. I could move some of the less-frequently-used threads to the shelf, though.
Big adventure: to Owen's and back to pick up my prescription. I got two bags of frozen peas while I was there. The bridge crew was welding when I went out and doing something with the crane and a stick of wood when I came back.
Cakes made of left-over mashed potatoes for lunch, with grated cheese, italian seasoning, olive oil, bacon bits, and an egg stirred into the batter. Could have used more cheese. And a tad less italian herbs.
Dave gets a menu for supper tonight: leftover chicken, leftover bean soup, or leftovers smorgasbrod.
I paid no attention to my knee last Saturday, when I rode to the Farmers' Market and came back by way of Owen's to buy a bag of carrots, so I think it's healed. I'm still inclined to consider my knees fragile. If I've counted correctly, that was three weeks to heal an injury that should have gone away in three days. If I haven't counted correctly, it was four.
I get one extra Saturday ride this year: the church next to Warsaw Health Foods is holding a bazaar on the first Saturday in November. After that, I'm going to be hard up for exercise.
Dave was asleep when it was time to cook, so I warmed up the bean soup and made another pan of cornbread. I put way too much fructose in, and he loved it.
Took a sunset tour of the bridge. Looks as though they are getting close to being ready to start filling in behind the wall the piles are supporting. They left the generator running when they quit for the day. I hope I'm around when they remove the cofferdam.
Have I mentioned that Dave takes a picture of the work every day and posts it on his Web site? He has also posted two short movies.
Hey, the dead skin peeled off my burn a little after midnight this morning. Well, I absent-mindedly peeled it off while reading Usenet. No more "somthing stuck to my finger" sensations.
Except for a scratchy little ring around where the burn was.
We saw a pile of rip-rap rocks on the pavement on this side of the bridge on our way back from taking the Taco to the shop for a new muffler.
We had breakfast at the Red Apple again. I forgot to take my pills before we went.
I somehow missed the turn onto Main from Harrison —Market is closed today— and had to go on to Clarke (Fort Wayne being one-way) and come back on Bronson. Traffic on Detroit was light enough to make me nervous. It reverted to normal when we wanted to turn left to get from the Toyota place to the Red Apple.
Oops, Main doesn't intersect Harrison. Google puts little arrows on one-way streets now; I wonder whether that's new, or I hadn't looked closely at a street I knew to be one way?
I missed the cofferdam removal. They were installing rip-rap when I walked down to look. When Dave came home, I told him and we walked down to take a picture and watch for a while. I said that they didn't need to run the little roller back and forth on the fill — the smaller backhoe is doing a fine job! I expect that the roller was partly to make a reliable surface for the backhoe to work on.
The big backhoe on the other side doesn't have room to roll back and forth much. I'd like to have seen them jockeying it into that position.
The white-bearded worker said that they hope to start laying deck tomorrow.
I'm hoping to make a Sprawlmart tour tomorrow. I've got a lot of little things on my shopping list. And a pair of six-kilo dumbbells; if I find those, I think I'll just make a note of where they are.
Oh, grumbly gripe. I forgot entirely that I meant to walk over to the Senior Center after supper. We did go for a walk — they started putting deck sections into the new bridge today, so we walked down Columbia Street instead of Union.
One side effect of the bridge construction: I have now got a firm handle on which street is Columbia and which is Union.
I took a sprawlmart tour — did have dumbbells, but they were marked in pounds and my note was in kilos. The labels repeated the weights in metric, but the price tags had been very carefully positioned to hide that information. Didn't want to haul twelve kilos of steel around anyway. And I don't think the bars were quite long enough — us old folks put the thumb beside the fingers to avoid joint damage while lifting weights.
Found gloves at K-mart. Nearly three bucks for fifty-cent gloves even though they were in a clearance bin. The black pair I wanted was stapled to a gray pair, which is not wanted but at least not icky. Might put them into the glove compartment in place of the red pair.
The black pair was labeled "glow in the dark" and had white bones printed on the backs. I thought this cool, because the black won't show handlebar dirt and the white will make my my hands more visible when I signal. [Several days in the window failed to make the paint glow in the dark.]
When I got back, Dave took me to the Toyota place so I could drive the car back. By the time I got to Center Street, I'd forgotten that I wanted to stop at Kroger and buy salad.
Then I had lunch (late, heavy breakfast) and slept until time to start supper. Dave had Banquet salisbury steak and I had pirogies. And raw veggies — no tossed salad, but there was celery, carrot, cauliflower, radish sticks (I've been slicing off the radish I bought last Saturday all week!), bell pepper, and tomato.
I managed to delete yesterday's entry, presumably by failing to click no-save before closing a second instance of the word processor. Wasn't much of an entry anyway; I wrote it about this time of night.
We went to the Boat House tonight and spent the rest of the gift certificate. I had a Boston burger with cole slaw and Dave had a Wisconsin Cheese Burger with french fries. Didn't help his scheme to lose weight — and neither will the chicken livers and onions that I have planned for tomorrow night.
Thought about suiting up and riding to Aunt Millies, as the weather is pleasant and we are down to one slice of bread. Instead, I sewed a watch strap to my doubleknit wool jersey.
Yesterday afternoon, I wore my windbreaker for the first time this fall. I rode to Owen's because we were out of milk. I got rained on, just barely enough that my spectacles needed wiping when I got there.
The rain had quit by trick-or-treat time, but the hot-dog supper had already been cancelled. I thought about putting my wizard suit on over my cycling suit and walking uptown anyway, but didn't feel like it.
I rode the Tour d'Warsaw Saturday, and met young Evelyn when I got back. Met her at the Auditorium, actually, where I'd been seen stopping to see what was going on. Raced them to here, and won because the bridge is open to pedestrians now. At least it is on the workers' day off.
The bridge is getting close. Last time I walked down, the dirt had been packed in almost level with the deck, and only a little rip-rap remained to be placed. A good bit of work still to be done on the railings. I suspect that those were postponed because they would have been in the way of the riprapping.
It takes only a few hours to lay the asphalt, once they get to that stage. I read in some essay about roadbuilding that the pavement on a road is merely a coat of paint to protect the real road underneath.
The junk has been hauled off, and the signs remain.
Facebook has decided that introducing the "acquaintence" list was a mistake. You can still put people on the acquaintence list, but it no longer keeps them from cluttering your newsfeed.
Live Journal has decided to scuttle the "friends" page. Since my style has been deprecated, I haven't been able to view the beta -- but I haven't seen one single mention that isn't AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!, and I read several pages of comments on the announcement page.
This strikes me as somewhat suspicious. You could propose to roast live babies and serve them to unsuspecting nuns in arsenic sauce, and *somebody* would find something good to say about the plan.