On the way back, I found that Hackett isn't as easy to follow out as it is to follow in. I recognized Picotte somehow and got back to Whitehall, but if I'd stuck by my wrong turn, I'd have come out on New Scotland only a block from where Whitehall does. The first day, I'd gone on to the other end of Clara Barton and come back by New Scotland just to see how it was. I found that (a) I'd probably never have found Clara Barton from that end (b) New Scotland takes longer than Hackett and is much less pleasant. Well anyhow, my CPR certificate should arrive in the mail Real Soon Now, and I can forget about this stuff for another year. Sometimes things get complicated. Yesterday, a little before noon, I decided that before I moved on to whatever was next on my agenda, I'd sew the collar of my new shirt together. (The one I'd cut out on the long tables at the firehouse after delivering the Annies.) My only piece of interfacing is black synthetic, and I thought well-washed white cotton would be better for chambray. The small pieces of muslin on my rag shelf were worn, or had been sleazy in the first place; the first stout piece I came upon was an old sheet I'd been saving to make pillowcases. So when Dave came home for lunch, I was halfway through making four pillowcases. It had been a hand- made sheet, so I could tear off suitable pieces and use the original hem. Anyhow, I was left with a lifetime supply of collar lining, which I folded neatly and put into the pattern drawer. This morning I attached the yoke to the back. Also a complicated deal; I'd gotten pretty baffled about the way it fit together before I realized that I was trying to attach the lower front to the upper back. Even after I got the correct piece, I had to gather where I'd planned to ease. I think that next time I use woven fabric, I'll collect the gathers into two distinct darts, instead of having it sort of puckery all the way across. Did I ever mention that I'm flying to Indiana next Friday? Linda's wedding is on Saturday. I plan to go down to see Alice the following weekend, and drive straight to the airport on June 22nd. (I'm renting a car; got a credit card just for that purpose. (Mustn't forget to get it out of the little drawer and take it along!)) 10 June 1992 I made a point of getting to the gym Monday, even though it meant arriving by automobile when they are most crowded, because I thought I'd be ready to deliver the Bikeabout by bike today, and visit the weight room again. Ah, well, tomorrow is better timing with regard to my flight anyhow. I was already running behind when the president called me to say there was an emergency board meeting at 7:30 that evening. I'd planned to spend the evening hardcopying and pasting, finish up in the morning, and deliver this afternoon. (Revised from original plan to go riding in the morning.) The meeting was 100% politics, and extremely boring, and ended with a brief notice to be printed in the Bikeabout. I may have mentioned that I was already to the hardcopy stage; adding something after layout is complete is not easy. It took at least an hour this morning to squeeze it in, the location was none of the best, and the hole I made wasn't quite big enough for the announcement. Well anyway, I got finished about five o'clock; all except the back cover. I want to run down to the library to make an enlargement of our return address. I can go for a pleasant ride in the morning, then come home and start packing. I did the wash this morning and have it already folded and put in the drawers -- except for some shirts airing in the doorway; the all-cotton ones weren't quite dry when I brought them in. I don't have to mow the lawn; I'd been wondering how to squeeze that in when it's ankle deep in front and I haven't finished in back, but the mower died. Dave says he'll hire it done while the mower is being repaired. Hope there's nothing I forgot to tell Dave. I should make him dose Erica in the morning, to make sure he knows where the pills are, and what I mean by "coat them with cheese." My new technique works like a charm. First I let Erica outside & wait for her to calm down. Then I take a very small piece of excellent colby cheese, squish it a bit to warm it up, and form it into a sphere around the pill. I feed Erica the cheese ball, then follow it at once with some Tender Vittles I've been keeping out of her sight. She's only taken two pills, but is limping much less. I've gotten my jersey pattern far enough along to run down to Alfred's on Monday (before going to the gym) to buy a red 9" neckline zipper. Also found my yellow cotton interlock. I intend to put the zipper on the outside to keep it away from my skin, and thought that a red one would look as though I were doing it for decoration. Also, there's no way I'd match the yellow. Before that, on Monday, I finished my blue-striped chambray blouse. Found it too thin to fit so close; below the yokes, the seams show badly. More important to my purpose in making it, it was distinctly tight about the arms, and some powerful force was pulling the shoulder seams to the back, so that the front of the neckline choked me and the back stood away from my neck. It seemed like a lot of effect to get from narrowing the shoulders, and I couldn't figure out what was pulling on the shoulder seams. I figured that the sleeves were tight because narrowing the shoulders three inches pulled each sleeve an inch and a half higher. Studying the wrinkles made me think the sleeve-cap needed to be higher, and because I was more uncomfortable when reaching forward, I thought there might not be enough difference between the front and the back. Lo and behold, when I looked at the sleeve pattern, not only was the difference between front and back just barely detectable, the extra fabric was in front! So I ripped the sleeves off to see how much effect the sleeve-cap had, and found that the sleeveless blouse fits perfectly. If I didn't want it for a prototype, I'd face the armholes and keep it for a dickey. I've re-drawn the sleeve pattern and there is plenty of chambray left, but I haven't had time to cut new sleeves. 24 June 1992 I've mixed emotions: we need this rain, but I planned to spend today catching up on the mowing and weeding. I'm not sure any of the zillion indoor jobs I've got to do will keep me awake. About all I got done yesterday was a few loads of wash -- and there was rust in the water for the first load. It was mostly underwear, and the worst stains were on stuff I had already decided to throw out as soon as I get around to buying replacements, but the new blouse Evelyn gave me was in there too. It appears to have been on the far side of the washer, and was inside out, so it isn't ruined, but I'd only worn it once and now it doesn't look new. I also burned my finger preparing lunch, then after lunch Dave showed me the new lawn mower and pinched another finger on the same hand in one of the safety devices. I complained of the way my luck was going & Dave said he didn't want to hang around me and went back to work. After lunch I went out for meat and milk with no more mishaps than to fail to notice that LeVie was open until after I'd bought my vegetables at Stonewell. But when I got back, I remembered that there was an MHW board meeting that evening, so I made a potato salad and left Dave on his own for supper. Ordered a chicken salad at Platts & got a chicken-salad sandwich instead. Turned out to be a committee meeting, not a board meeting, & I had no business being there at all; the only question concerning the Bikeabout that came up was how much did it cost to send out copies to twenty-five influential people, and costs are not my department. I was able to tell them that all they really needed to consider was the cost of postage; twenty-five extra on an order of a thousand is almost nothing. The burn is visible this morning, but I don't feel it -- aloe-leaf poultices really work! I moved the poultice to the squashed finger when the burn quit hurting, to less effect. The squashed finger is sensitive, but not sore, and the part that whaps keys wasn't bruised. It put me off typing yesterday, but I didn't have time anyway. The day after coming home, I got everything out of my suitcases, nested them, and put them in the closet. Still a few things piled on the dresser waiting to be sorted, though. To start at the beginning, I got packed in a more-or-less premeditated manner for a change. I failed, in the frying heat, to include anything with long sleeves, but that worked out. I checked my nylon- canvas suitcase and carried on Dave's nylon-canvas overnight case. With a little more care, I could have gotten everything into my suitcase. It fits (barely) under an airline seat and converts into an excellent backpack, which would have saved waiting for luggage. But on the way out, I found that I could wait for my turn at the car- rental counter and wait for my bag simultaneously, and on the way back American Airlines was so eager to get rid of its surly passengers that my bag reached the luggage claim almost as soon as I did -- I saw it unloaded before they got the gate connected up to let us out. I wouldn't have liked hauling everything I owned around O'Hare for five or six hours. Still, I think I'll go back to Tough Traveller and buy a purse big enough to hold a few paperbacks and some knitting. Then I can pack my everyday shoulder bag inside the suitcase, or leave it home and take the leather handbag that looks good or the crocheted bag that folds flat. The plane from O'Hare to Michiana was an hour late, then I went tootling down US 20 when I was supposed to exit onto SR 31. The map showed 20 as passing north of South Bend and I was south of the city, but there had been some construction since the map was made. It was over a week before I figured out what had gone wrong. To compound matters, I left my address book at home, because I had no one to write to except maybe Dave, and his address is on my letterhead. Forgot that I might want to *telephone* some people. A kind fellow got off his lawn mower to direct me to 331, which was a more pleasant route, but slower. I got to the rehearsal dinner in time to have some dessert and a chicken wing. Every wedding must have a disaster; the woman who made the cake was kind enough to get that out of the way the day before, and bake a second bottom layer during the night, so everything was perfect for the ceremony. We could have used a breath of wind -- if the ring bearer hadn't tripped and made folks giggle, I'd have dozed right through. Joe drove his lawn mower from his house to Evelyn's (he said it took fifteen minutes) and swept the lawn just before they set up the chairs, and the lawn was beautiful. It was covered with dead cottonwood leaves again on Sunday, started to look brown on Monday, and got into a *real* mess on Wednesday. I was astounded by the organization; when the guests left, there was no sign (aside from the swept lawn) that they had ever been there. And all that work didn't show -- all that was to be noticed was that a sacred ceremony was going on. In church the following day, we were surprised by an announcement that the Junior class was giving a dinner after services, and decided to stay. The remains of the first bottom layer of the wedding cake made an appearance during this affair. The dinner party was in honor of a family of missionaries, and the wife told something of what it's like to be a mother in Japan. One thing she said was that Japanese playgrounds are covered with sand where we might have grass -- is that where we get the expression "sand- lot baseball"? It strikes me as safer than the gravel and bark used in Leathers playgrounds, and definitely safer than the blacktop often used, but of course sand would have to be raked every day. We didn't go shopping much, but dined out several times. On a brief foray into Walmart I acquired a black straw hat and two and a half yards of poly-cotton print. I got home with the hat despite leaving it under O'Hare's plastic chairs more than once. I bought the print to make a skirt, and was annoyed that I didn't think to get five yards and make a matching blouse. Then I decided to make a blouse of it instead, and later decided that I did need a second skirt, and later still decided to make a long-sleeved blouse from this piece, and get another length to make a skirt and blouse. After careful calculations (on Sara Lee's calculator) I bought two and a half yards of the same width to make a short- sleeved blouse, but that allowed for a sixth-yard of error; I think a little ingenuity in laying out will get long sleeves out of two and a half. I've got until September to get on with it, if I stick by the idea of making long sleeves. All bets may be off after I've washed it. On Wednesday the hot, stuffy weather ended in a good thunderstorm. The lake was blown over to our side, so that Evelyn's dock was visibly closer to the waves at sunset than it had been in the morning. All was normal Thursday morning; even the pond of rainwater on the part of her lawn that used to be sandbar was gone. I discovered a pretty good puddle out by the road, though, and was glad that I'd come out barefoot. Cottonwood limbs were all over the back yard and some had blown around or over the house to land in the front yard; one was on the roof on the front side. There were smaller pieces of sycamore, oak, and maple. We piled up more debris than would fit into a pickup truck; alas, the trash men came along before anyone had seen the heap. The smaller pieces made it look as though we'd done nothing. When we got up the nerve to go down to look at the beach, we were surprised to find it as clean as before -- maybe cleaner. The wind had been blowing hard out of the south until the storm started, so I suppose the trash washed up on the northern shore before the wind shifted. On Friday I left a while after lunch to drive to Alice's house. I made it through Logansport without visiting the hospital! I made up for that by attempting to leave Warsaw on Route 15 instead of 25, and by turning towards Frankfort when I came to 28. There are exceedingly few places to turn around on 28. Well, there are lots of them, but you can't see them soon enough to use them, and there was a pickup on my back bumper. Finally, almost at the city limits, I came to a church & knew there had to be a place to get off the road, so I started signalling before I could see just where I would turn. When I got to 1230, Alice followed me up the gravel road -- how's that for timing! On Saturday I went to Lafayette with Sara Lee and Larry -- to my great surprise. When she'd said the bird shop was on the other side, I thought she meant the other side of Frankfort! They got a bird feeder to give Don on Father's day; I bought a totally useless object which is going to send me leafing through my math texts in months to come. I'd seen the "do- nothing machine" at some elevator -- probably the one in Manson -- under the title of "bull grinder," but there is something else niggling at my memory; I've seen that method of drawing an ellipse somewhere else. "Linkage" might be the word I should look under. It was downright chilly on Saturday, and I gratefully wore the long-sleeved shirt Evelyn had given me under my cotton-duck copy of the Busch Gardens shirt. It remained cool on Sunday and Alice decided to bake her turkey breasts instead of wading in the grass to set up the smoker. The breasts gave off such lovely broth that Alice had to make some dumplings, so our "snackies" turned out rather hearty. On Monday morning, the first full day of summer, there was frost on our cars! I meant to complain to the Hertz clerk that they hadn't included an ice scraper, but by the time I found the airport, I'd forgotten about it. I got onto business 31 at the same intersection where I had gotten onto 20 on the way down, and it turned into a one- way road before I was certain that I had missed a turn. I turned into a gas station and asked directions, then decided to put in a dollars worth of gas while I was there -- I had enough to get back to the airport, but I wasn't sure there was enough for side trips. Then I noticed that the station was on the corner of a cross street that connected this one-way street with one going the other way, and managed to blunder back onto the two-way section of business 31 just in time to take a ramp labeled "20 west, 31 north, Michiana Airport." After a while I came to an exit labeled "Michiana Airport," but the arrow pointed as much straight ahead as to the exit. I braked and swerved, feeling that a wrong side road was easier to correct than a wrong Interstate. I eventually discovered that it meant both roads; the side road ended on Route 20 after 20 split off from 31, within sight of the airport. So I returned my car and handed custody of my larger bag over to American Airlines, grateful that for the rest of the trip I'd have a navigator. It started off well; I was in time to take an earlier flight to O'Hare and didn't have to sit around Michiana. Alas, the earlier flight to Albany left about the same time I landed, so I had to wait an hour or two before I could check in for the one I was scheduled for. Then there was another hour until loading. Then there was an indefinite number of one more half hours until we find this leak -- apparently hunting for it entailed unloading all the baggage. Then there was what the gate attendant called a "salmon run" while those who were still on tried to get off and those who were off tried to fetch their carry- ons. I heard him say he should have gotten the ons off before he told the offs to get on, but he concluded that there was no good way to deal with the situation. At least we had plenty of time to wait in line and dodge each other. Then we waited until another plane became available, then we waited some more because our old plane was clogging up the gate and they couldn't start servicing the new plane -- which apparently hadn't even unloaded its previous passengers yet -- until they found a mechanic to taxi the broken plane out of the gate. I got out of the salmon run soon enough to call Dave while he was still at the office. It was about eight o'clock when I finally got home. The flight took one hour and twenty minutes. Then upon arriving home, I discovered that the reason the mower quit running before I left was that I had forgotten to oil it, and Dave had bought a John Deere. That poor old Toro would have run several more years if I'd taken care of it; I plan to read the owner's manual before touching the Deere. It's a good thing I packed plenty of food and paperback novels. I wonder whether I'll ever finish reading "October the First is Too Late"? It has no overall structure; each incident is interesting, but there is no loss if I miss a few. Odd, when the introduction said that the premise was only an excuse for the storytelling. Perhaps he meant the sort of storytelling folks do when sitting around, not professional storytelling. The incident of the music contest seemed to be shaping up as a short story, but in the middle of it the clouds broke open or we dropped below them and there was something to see out the windows. I saw Thatcher Park from the air, and with that clue was able to spot our house. It isn't very interesting from straight up. Also saw what I think must have been the Selkirk railroad yards; we usually land from the north, so I was a little confused when we came in from the south. Perhaps that's why I've never before picked out that conspicuous peninsula of hilltown with the bright-blue rectangle of swimming pool in the middle. Dave says that he trained Erica to take her pills while I was gone. (She took all of them, so I can't see a demonstration.) The trick was simple, if tedious -- he refused to let her out until she swallowed the cheese-coated pill. Does that mean we have to let her out every time she takes a pill? 26 June 1992 Yawn! I hope I get some work done today. I've been flaked out ever since I got off the plane. It didn't help that I had two more meetings yesterday. Made both of them, too! I got out of the poets meeting at 9:00 and went to the firehouse on the way home to see whether anyone was still around, and got there just in time to get a slice of cake (which I brought home to Dave) and orders to bake two dozen cookies for the Punkintown Fair (the orders, alas, I kept). Looks like a good day to mow lawn, but the grass should dry for an hour or so yet. 28 June 1992 Today I threw a lonely lambsquarter and half a bushel of bindweed and common mallow out of the asparagus bed without making it look much better. It annoyed me that I knew so much about the round- leaved weed without being able to remember any of the names in my herbal except the singularly inappropriate "cheeses." I knew it was a member of the mallow family, as can be seen by its resemblance to hollyhocks, rose of sharon, and hibiscus, so I came in, looked under Malvaceae in "Common Weeds of the United States," and found that I couldn't remember its particular name because it hadn't any. Also learned that that butterprint (also called velvetleaf, piemarker, and toilet-paper plant) and prickly sida are also Malvaceae. I never heard of prickly sida before, but the picture looks familiar. According to "A Modern Herbal," common mallow is a larger plant with showy mauve-purple blossoms. The Herbal is a british book, and plant names do repeat. "Weeds" describes Malva Neglecta; "Herbal" describes Malva Sylvestris. 29 June 1992 Boy, is this a good drying day. I took enough pillowcases off the line to hang up the two lengths of fabric I brought back from Indiana, folded the pillowcases, took down the rest of the wash, hung up the shirt and the socks that had been in the load with the dress goods, and ended by taking down the all-cotton piece of fabric. Now that I've got the wash in the linen closet and drawers, I suppose it is time to take down the polycotton piece. It was in the windshadow of the other, which is why it was still damp in the middle. Good luck: while sorting the hot whites, I found my missing silk sock. Very good luck, because it would have been ruined if it had gone in with the dish towels. My pretty boots turned out to be too tight to wear with the socks I had on when I bought them, but are as comfortable as going barefoot when I wear them with silk stocking liners. Alas, I've only the one pair because they cost twice as much as similar wool stockings and weren't half as good. Well, if I'd liked them, I wouldn't have any at all; I wore out all the wool socks that I bought while you could still get size ten. I've been trying to find another pair of thin socks, because these won't wear long and I hate the feel of hose inside boots. I bashed my knee on the flange of the raised flowerbed yesterday or the day before, and the spot is just now starting to show pink. Explains why I can never remember how I got bruised. When I found a new mark during my trip, I said that that exonerated Fred, whom I'd accused of stomping me with his big feet during the night, but Dave says that he noticed it before I left. 1 July 1992 We've started to call Erk "Gimpy." I suppose I'll have to refill her prescription for Vetalog. Last night and the night before, she failed to answer curfew. What's worse, she showed up in the morning but didn't come in for breakfast -- she must have been rustling up her own grub. Wish I could persuade her to bring it in and let me cook it. Which is worse: tapeworms, or frying mice? I harvested the lavender today. I just left it on the bush last year, and it looked pretty bad this spring, but the dead branches appear to have been brittle and are no longer around. I covered one of the jelly-roll pans that I use for cookie sheets with paper towels and laid it on that to dry, in the oven, since I don't have a dry, dark room to hang it in. Pity one doesn't harvest these things when the furnace is running! The first few sprigs of blue lavender were so pretty against the yellow paper that I thought it a pity to spoil the picture by dumping the rest on top. There was a pile of lavender blossoms, which I find amazing. This stuff isn't supposed to be winter-hardy. A few years ago I bought a pot plant to put in the middle of a bed of marigolds. The next spring I was yanking out dead marigolds and was surprised when the lavender resisted: I looked at the plant I'd just pulled up and found green shoots, so I re- planted it in a lily bed. Later it got in the way there and I stuck it in the ground beside one of the blueberries, and after at least two winters in that exposed location, there it still is, flourishing as though it planned to be more of a bush than the blueberry. Which isn't doing so well, being no bigger than it was when I planted it soon after we moved in, but this year it's loaded with berries. I think that blueberries are supposed to get six feet tall and make a hedge, but each plant is a few stems about knee high. The garden books says to prune out all the three- year-old wood, or maybe it's two- year-old wood. I've never thought they could spare anything that wasn't dead. When tender plants such as lavender and oregano do so well, why do I always manage to kill common thyme? Oregano isn't supposed to grow in this climate, but I've got large patches of oregano lawn. Smells lovely when I mow it. 3 July 1992 I looked up "lavender" and found that it loves lime. Might explain why the blueberry is doing nothing. This rain looks like exactly what we have been needing: gentle, steady, and it appears to intend to keep on well into the night. Pity it started while I had clothes on the line. I was sitting by an open window, and noticed immediately, but hardly anything was dry yet. I scrounged a load of wash to test our new system: Dave pulled off the hose leading from the pump to the septic tank, and put in a coupling so that I could pump the laundry water out through the garden hose. It sounded easy, but he had to run all over looking for the right sort of coupling, then he had to wrestle and struggle trying to get it installed so that it wouldn't leak. He brought home a new thirty-foot hose to run up the outside cellarway. I pumped out two tubs of water under the clothesline before connecting the fifty-foot hose to run the second rinse onto the grapevine. It made a very small puddle, and when I hung the clothes, I had to look close to see where it had been -- two fillings of a sixteen-pound washer slurped right down! We needed this rain. Still need it. I hope it doesn't stop anytime soon. The nicotina have started to bloom. I should pick some of the flowers to bring in; I'll never bring myself to whack off perfectly- good flowering stalks and throw them onto the ground. When I was hanging the clothes, I noticed some locust limbs that should be whacked off, but figured I'd get caught up in gardening, so I decided to type for an hour first. When the timer went off, the clothes were back in the house. Hope I remember to do it tomorrow. Wish I'd remembered to call the vet about refilling the Vetalog. With the weather so damp, Erk might need it before Monday. But she did come in out of the rain. Skittered down the outside cellar steps just ahead of the basket of clothes. I can't find "Oregano" in "A Modern Herbal" or "Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening". Maybe I should try the weed book! The "Encyclopedia" has suggestions for using oregano in cooking, but none for growing the plant. "Herbal" includes "wild marjoram," which is a name for oregano, but the description doesn't fit. When I told Dave that the Winona Lake congregation sang harmony, he said "They're preaching to the choir." 7 July 1992 I complained that my second picking of nicotina spoiled the bouquet, turning it into a crowded bunch. Dave said, "but it smells nice." I have to get right up to the bunch of flowers to smell them. My fading sense of smell might explain why Dave won't eat food with garlic in it. I've been enjoying my pickled garlic buds with citric acid in them. I thought the wine vinegar I used might be 4%, which isn't strong enough to preserve garlic, and added a few crystals of "sour salt". Hoo, boy, is it sour! A few well-drained buds make a pint of broth pleasantly tart. I'll know better than to use wine vinegar again; the purple soaked into the buds and makes them look spoiled. 7 July 1992 Today I got to LeVie's before they closed but not, alas, before they sold all of today's corn. I've never known shipped-in corn to taste so good. If genetic engineers have been messing with it, more power to them. I fear, though, that the engineers will take another model to heart: one day they were selling rose-pink, rock-hard tomatoes for $1.29/pound while juicy, red, ripe, flavorful tomatoes cost $0.89. I got to the gym shortly before leaving for Indiana, but never got around to going after I got back. Last Wednesday, I got my deserts: a ferocious bout of back trouble. It wasn't a backache, but sudden stabs of severe pain every time I moved wrong -- and a very tight feeling from trying to walk in perfect balance. That afternoon I noticed that I had time to ride my bike to Guilderland and back before supper, so I took a nap. I did go the next morning, though it took until noon to get away. It was far too late to work it out, but it was predictable when I got back, which was a considerable improvement. I suppose the two forty-five minute rests helped too. Sitting or lying make my back stiff, and walking is a hazardous undertaking, danger, but I can't move wrong when I'm on the bike, and the gluteus maximii keep the back warm, so the sore muscles can relax. I suppose the entire expedition counts as a rest, because I'm conscious of how I move the entire time I'm in the gym, so I'm at risk only while changing clothes. Some of the Wheelmen can't ride when their backs hurt. If I needed a school paper, taking a survey on the relationship between bike riding and back trouble might be interesting. Are women's backaches more likely to benefit from dropped handlebars? Do some people get both kinds of backache? Anyhow, I'm much improved now. I mowed the front part of the lawn yesterday. It took much less time than with the old mower, and was much more aerobic. I mowed on 4, which turns the walk-behind into a trot-behind. Dave wondered what the 5 setting was for; I told him I used it when I was at the back of the lot when I finished mowing and wanted to hurry back to the garage. I don't think anybody could control it at 5; I found 4 too fast whenever I came to a tree or bush. But great swaths of the front lawn can be mowed by walking straight across and straight back, and it was handy to be able to mow those at the fastest trot I could sustain. Awkward to have to stop and shift, though. The next improvement will be a two-position dead-man's bar, so that the mower will slow down when you tighten your grip to make a turn. The mower has two dead-man bars, one for the wheels and one for the blade. I find that the blade bar adds at least as much hazard as it saves, but it's sometimes convenient to be able to turn the wheels on without turning the blade on. When I want to turn around on the neighbor's lawn, for example. Though Lawrence always mows first, and he mows much shorter -- you'd think he'd have noticed by now how scalped and brown it looks whenever we go more than two days without rain. Danny has started to mow the field, but he didn't get very far because it is very tall and it hadn't quite dried out after the rain. I suppose that he won't have at it again until the weekend. I'm impatient because I cut a lot of thorny limbs off the locust trees, and I can't haul them out to the burning-place until after it's mowed. I've some pine and spruce branches too, but I don't mind handling those twice. Danny mows our field when he mowed his mother's, and we take care of the snow on the driveway. I'd better make a point of getting to the common lawn behind the pine trees before Margie does for a while, because she did a lot of my work while we were between mowers. Today I finally took Fred to the vet. She said the pimple on his ear was just an infection, and should heal up on its own if we wash it with peroxide twice a day. But she didn't like the looks of the matter coming out of his eyes and gave us some drops -- also to be used twice a day. And she gave him his August shot, so he won't have to come back with Frieda and Erica. He was quite cool. He complained constantly, but didn't cower at the back of his cage, and when I opened the door to pet him while waiting our turn, he tried to put his front feet out on the floor -- this with two dogs in the waiting room! Getting him onto the examining table called for extraction, as usual, but I pulled him out without any help from the vet. Weird sensation: he kept coming and coming. He weighs 14.5 pounds, and it isn't *all* blubber. And he was making himself as long as possible in the hope of keeping his tail covered. As soon as he was all out, he shrank to about half that length. After returning Fred to his home and hearth, I went to Stuyvesant Plaza and bought eight yards of a startling polyester-rayon print to make curtains for the bay window. The sun is far enough north now to shine on the easy chair, and it's still up when Dave watches TV. He has been complaining. I suspect that I should have gotten twelve yards. I also bought six yards of thin interlining to use for pattern paper. They tried to charge me $1.00 when it was three yards for $1.00, which by my digital calculator adds up to $2.00. Things were a mite hectic around the cutting table. Among other things, they were selling a quarter yard of lining to a woman who almost spoke english; she was there before me and it still hadn't been cut when I checked out. I don't trust the labels at Alfred's, but you can't beat the service; all the clerks sew and are more than willing to discuss your problems. I've finally cut out the new sleeve pattern and completed the blue-striped blouse. It's still too tight, but I think it will be just right when made in knit, so my next project will be my new jersey. After I get the curtains up. I did finish "October the First is Too Late." It was not one of Hoyle's nobler efforts. Stopped at Price Chopper and LeVie on the way back from Alfred's, and was sorry that I rejected the supermarket corn. But the strawberries are running late this year and I bought a quart of those. Dave only had a snack before running off to the fair committee meeting anyway. 8 July 1992 I washed the curtain material this morning, and the selvages shrank. It's a great deal more work to turn an edge under twice than to turn it under once, and I suspect that polyester-rayon won't tear neatly. The design won't serve as a cutting guide; hope I don't have to pull sixteen yards of thread. Could trim off an eighth of an inch and ravel threads until one travels the full length. 9 July 1992 I hadn't gotten too many yards into trimming a narrow strip off the selvage of my curtains before I began to think that it hadn't been very puckered at all. I tore the second selvage, regardless of the havoc breaking polyester wreaks. Most of it will iron out and the rest will be inside the hem. There is a locust tree coming up in the grapevine. I haven't decided whether to cut it down or cultivate it as a trellis. Right after breakfast, I had to run down to the fairgrounds and check out the men's room. Dave wanted a second opinion that the insects in the wall were honeybees before starting to call beekeepers. He doesn't want them sprayed with raid, but from what I recall of what I read before our subscription to "Gleanings in Bee Culture" ran out, that's just what the beekeeper will do -- though with a different brand intended for this specific job. It's a pity, because they have found themselves a perfect home. I told Dave to just put a sign over the entrance and call them an exhibit; if they were farther from the door, maybe he would. They were opening a second entrance when I went down to look, and there is no telling how big the hive will be or where they will be coming and going by the time of the fair. It's on Thursday for (as far as I know) the first time in history. The rides wouldn't come for less than three days. The boys quit having the fair on Sundays a few years ago and don't want to start again. My newer Busch Garden shirt is tearing under the left arm already. That's what comes of making them out of sun-rotted curtains. It takes so little time that I think I'll just make more as they wear out. It's not much more difficult than a pillowcase, now that I know the way of it. And I haven't found new fabric that's suitable. There's solid duck, and upholstery fabric that would be good if the fibers were selected with consideration to how they feel against the skin, but nothing stiff in splashy prints. Calico would look fine, but would be warmer than something that doesn't drape so close. And calico musses easily. Used to be blue denim still available, in thin weights suitable for blouses. I love the idea of lining the sleeves with half- bandannas, and someday I'm going to do it. 10 July 1992 I had to get the peroxide out after all. This morning I decided that Fred's ear had healed enough to do without the peroxide; the time for peroxide was before we went to the vet, not after; it hasn't fizzed once. When I was handing Fred to Dave, who restrains and consoles him while I put the eyedrops in, I allowed his back feet to dangle, and in flailing around for footing, he got my thigh. The peroxide did fizz on me. I told John Petit, the publisher, that I'd take the Bikeabout to the printshop Monday, but I think I'm going to deliver it this afternoon; I need only to paste headlines on two pages and create the front page, which I should be able to do by noon. Then I can ride out the road past the rifle range, drop off the repros -- hope I don't forget to put the photograph in the package this time! --and go to the racquet club for a much-needed workout. Then tomorrow I can mow the back yard. I'll have to run the mower much slower than in front, because there are more things to mow around. Maybe Danny will start first and I can haul the locust limbs out into the field first. I forgot to go to the poets' meeting yesterday. Had time to do it, too. I'll tell them it's because I mislaid my July datebook. It was in the accumulated mail, I lost it, found it when cleaning off the papers that had accumulated on the sofa --and didn't put it in my purse right away. And I can't remember where I did put it. I'll have to miss the next one too, because I've skipped too many Auxiliary meetings and the one just before the fair might be important. If only because I need to know how to package the cookies I've promised to bake. 14 July 1992 The humidity is getting to the keyboard, and the "a" doesn't always work. Yesterday I got most of the way through piecing the quilt block I want to make into a knitting bag. Today I didn't get anything done at all, except that I spent a couple of hours reading my novella. Time to hardcopy it and send it out for comment, but I flinch at printing a document fifty pages long. It would take nearly an hour. Don't know what to do with it when it's finished, because the magazines that accept stories set in obviously- alternate worlds (*all* fiction is set in alternate worlds) insist on new and startling alternate worlds, and mine is only a background for my story. Cain't even claim a new plot; my only variation on the tried-and-true "princess in the tower" is to put a prince in the dungeon and have a handsome young princess rescue him. I was surprised when the prince got the kingdom at the end. I was planning to send the happy couple back to Pine Ridge. He became president of a medical school, which is the highest rank of royalty in "the world," as the inhabitants call it. No potential for a series, either. Can you see people searching for another story about "the world"? I think of "the world" as Nether Earth, but that's a bit infernal. I'm a little disappointed in the quilt block. It was very difficult to piece, and isn't as smooth as I'd like. The star lies flat, but the rest of the block ripples as though the star had shrunk. Perhaps that is because the star had the pieces with the oddest grains. Each diamond had the long axis, not the edges, lined up with the straight grain or the bias. As a short cut, I cut all four on-grain diamonds on the straight grain even though two of them were to be sewn on the cross grain, and I think it's the cross grain that ripples most. I should have pieced a nine-patch star and appliqu‚d a star to it; it would have been about six hours easier to piece, it would have lain flat, and letting the star stand out slightly would have given more of the jeweled effect I was after. My August datebook came in the mail today. I put it into my purse at once. Fred doesn't take to having stuff dropped into his eyes any better than I do. He seems to forgive us instantly, but is beginning to avoid me whenever I look as though I might pick up a cat. I wish the bottle were translucent so I could see how near we are to using it all up; 5 ml does not respond well to the heft method of guessing. It has helped his eyes considerably. No sign yet of fur re-growing on the infection on his ear. Now that I've thought of it, I'd like to take off my glasses and look for fuzz, but Fred is not receptive to close attention. Just caught Fred lying next to the cat comb, managed to pick it up without scaring him into the basement, and combed a big handful of fur off him. Hope that teaches him that I don't always approach with evil intent. Had to comb Frieda, too, but didn't get much fur. Erk was outside, or her nose would have been out of joint. I was surprised that Fred didn't object when I transferred my attention to Frieda. She was harder to comb; she enjoys it so much that she dashes back and forth. Unfortunately the light was so poor I couldn't get a good look at his ear, and I thought carrying him over to the table lamp might be pushing it. 18 July 1992 After several laps around the house, I said that Fred's medicine was making him bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Finally I closed the cellar door so that I wouldn't have to run up and down the steps any more, then Dave got into the act and we trapped him in the hallway. I said that the medicine was also making him lose weight; Dave said that it was taking more weight off me. Last I saw of Fred, he and Frieda were asleep on our bed. Erica was last seen lounging on the apron of Margie's garage. Last I saw of Dave, he was pulling out of the driveway, none too sure of where he was going. The parade in Elsemere is beginning --at least a lot of people are checking in "out of service to a parade." Dave spoke of going, but couldn't work up any enthusiasm. I've got a strainerful of uncapped honeycomb in the oven, trying to get it hot enough to melt wax without getting it hot enough to melt plastic. So far, no soup, but some honey is dripping down. I cold- drained it overnight and filled three nine- ounce mustard jars. This is a souvenir of the Punkintown Fair. When they started to clean up the fairgrounds, they discovered that they had forty or fifty thousand females in the men's room. The beekeeper said that it was right crowded in there! I thought it a pity to evict the bees, because except for three days a year it was a perfect spot for a hive. (The original plans involved Raid; Dave persuaded the boys that the nest needed to be cleaned out, and it turned out to be a good investment because when the wall came off, they also found a nest of wood-eating ants.) The beekeeper said that the bees had to have been in the wall last summer, perhaps before last year's fair. If traffic was light, as it would be when a swarm is just getting started, they might not have been noticed. I told them to put up a sign that said "apis melifica" and call them an exhibit, but that didn't go over well with the men. I don't think it was because they knew that the official name is "apis melifera." Just checked the comb and it is getting soft, so I cranked up the heat one more notch. Sigh. I thought that I could use Indian Ladder as an excuse to make my knitting bag over again, now that I've figured out how to do it, but I've decided that one large medallion in the middle of the square is a very poor design for a pick-it-up-by-the-corners knitting bag. When one spreads it out flat, one does so lining side up, so the design is never seen except when you hold the empty bag up to show it off. I could make an allover design, but that isn't the exercise I had in mind. So what else is a two-and-a-half- foot square of muslin good for? 23 July 1992 Counterproductive safety measures: Fred met me in the kitchen, flinched, and ran --which reminded me to chase him down and put antibiotic into his eyes. I have to hold the bottle upright to squeeze drops out now, so I hope someday it will run out. Picked up a job yesterday: typing an executor's final report for the retired lawyer who still uses my services every few years. It's almost entirely numbers, so I regret billing by the byte instead of the hour. Going to be a substantial check anyhow. I hope to call him over to proofread today. I intended to go to the Empire State Games cycling time trials, which started at the grade school eighteen minutes ago, according to yesterday's paper. Howsumever, when I got up to find rain coming down so heavy that I had to turn a light on to cook breakfast, watching the races didn't sound like much fun. Being in a race sounds like even less fun. Nobody has invented windshield wipers for cyclists yet. 29 July 1992 Sunday night, just before bedtime, I succumbed to the urge to make cocoa syrup to put on our ice cream. Got it finished, then discovered that all the pint jars that haven't been gathering dust in the basement are now in the freezer full of dried catnip. Scrounged further and found a stoneware mustard jar that would hold a pint. I got a little awkward trying to push in the unfamiliar cork and knocked the jar over, splashing syrup over my hand. It was no longer boiling, but was hot enough that it seemed wise to rush to the sink and wash it off with cold water before setting the jar upright. I completely avoided getting scalded, but a whole pint of chocolate syrup goes a long way! It was puddled on the top of the stove, it was down through the burner holes, down the side of the stove, over the doors of the oven and broiler, on both kitchen rugs, all over the floor, and on my better pair of pants, growing more sticky and annoying as the cleanup proceeded. Then when I came back from putting the rugs, my pants, and the towel that had been hanging on the oven door into the washing machine, I found that I'd dribbled syrup all the way down the steps and across the cellar floor. Dave seemed to be out of it when I finally came up to bed, but the next morning, he asked "what was all that clanking and banging last night?" Well, that's one way to stick to your diet. But a little syrup remained in the jar, which had a neck narrower than its body, and after the fair party yesterday evening, I had a dish of ice cream. They put the tent up yesterday, and assembled the booths that go in it. When I left, Chris was up in 2370 stringing the pennants. That's the second time 2370 has been put to practical use. They compared it to one of the pumpers when they hosed out the quonset hut, and concluded that the new engine pumped better, at least for cleaning. Yesterday Fred and one of the younger members --or maybe it was the son of a member -- were hosing out the men's room with the small tanker. When the beekeeper was in there, I hadn't noticed that there was linoleum on the floor. Don't know whether that was because it was so dirty, or because neither the keeper nor the bees approved of close supervision. We all hope that it's a long time before 2370 is needed at a fire, but it's comforting to have it. It has a nozzle at the end of the boom, and can give a burning building a showerbath, if needed. I finished rinsing out the clothes the following morning and hung my pants up to dry; when I wore them to the fair party on Monday night, they seemed unharmed by the experience, having been chocolate- colored to start with. Good thing, because I'm sewing mighty slow. I want to ride my bike to Altamont today to pick up the envelopes NSVFD has on order, and both my old raggy ill-fitting jerseys are dirty; I'll have my choice of even raggier and worse-fitting shirts, if I haven't thrown all of them out yet, and winter clothes. Could wear a T-shirt; my shorts have a pocket that probably would hold a can of Halt, and everything else can go into a bag in the pannier. Assuming that my nose don't run. The net for the big jersey pockets is hanging in the cellar, the yellow cotton interlock is draped over a chair in the spare room and the pattern is refined -- time to get on with it. I did sew pleater tape on half the new curtains this morning, and hang them up. They look better than I had feared. Can't sew up the other two until I remember where I put the rest of the pleater tape, so I left the hems undone; I want to hem them all at once to make sure they match. When I was at Alfred's Monday, I saw some brown-on-brown fabric that I liked, for the same price I paid for the red-on- black print. I was tempted to buy it and start over. 1 August 1992 Arrgh. Thursday night, Dave was too tired to sleep. Friday night, I quit early. Tonight, we start work at four pm and keep going until everybody goes home. I'm running the kiddy striker, which I tend to call the "low striker," so my constant companion is a mallet. I can walk off and leave my prizes exposed, but I can't turn my back on that mallet! Norm called up yesterday to remind me to bring my junk to the swap shop at the Wheelmen picnic tomorrow. Driving to Saratoga for barbecued chicken isn't my idea of the best way to spend the day after the fair! Ah, well, dinner isn't served until 2:30 pm. Maybe I'll be awake by then. I washed our "New Salem" shirts and mowed the front lawn this morning, and now I think I have just enough time for a nap before festivities start. I want to get to the grounds soon after 3:00 so the idiots in the bank won't give the mallet to one of the children again. I meant to bring it home with me last night, but I put it down while turning in my money and one of the bankers put it on a shelf, thinking that I meant to turn it in too. 1 August 1992 Oh, arr. If I don't write fast, that date will change before I get to bed. Unless maybe the computer is still on standard time. I knew I was taking in a lot of money because my carpenter's apron was getting crowded. It was still a surprise to start counting and find that I had nine fives and two tens in my shirt pocket, then I ran the ones through the counter --having run out of prizes, I was cashing in early & they let me count in the bank room -- and there were forty- five of them. I ran them through again and it was still forty-five. I lacked one quarter of having enough to make a roll, and there were dimes and nickels and six pennies. (Six?). After subtracting the fifteen dollars I started with, we found that I'd made one hundred and nine dollars, one quarter at a time. No wonder I was too tired to add straight! They've threatened to give me permanent custody of the kiddy striker. On the way out, I met Dave coming in and helped him count. He'd been in charge of raffles, and his apron was a trifle fuller. It took a long time just to sort and flatten the bills. I didn't notice his total, but there were three fifties and some checks. I believe there were two hundred and twenty-three ones. I'm sure of the twenty-three, because I counted the odd stack. But it ended twenty-four, because after adding up, Dave got a five and a six another worker couldn't account for and figured he must have stolen from Dave. The food booth ran out of food, so they drew all the raffles at once and everybody went home. The band had been paid until one am, and the workers milling around make it look as though the fair were still going on --there's still beer. I found a few more prizes in the "chicken house" while I was putting my booth away, but was well pleased that I had quit when I did. I put them in a box and put the box on the kiddy striker, hoping that they will still be associated next year. Only one child hit his leg (quite a few bumped their heads on the handle), and after he'd been fussed over adequately I gave him three extra hits and it cured him right up. I'll bet he has a blue mark on his shin. One of the children hit me on the thigh, and I've got a sore spot on my forehead I can't account for. When Dave was advertising the barbecue, "only six dollars!", I silently amended "or three days' work." Two of the workers didn't get any chicken, and I was one of them! I got two helpings each of cole slaw, potatoes, butter, watermelon, and koolaid. The other worker was advised to make it up in clams at the tear-down party, but I don't like clams. And I'm otherwise engaged. Mention of the tear-down party makes me content that I unintentionally committed myself to driving to Saratoga on the day after the fair. And I'm not going to be eating barbecued chicken two days in a row! Set out to cut the jersey yesterday morning, but decided that the sleeve-cap needs to be raised some more. Selected fabric to make a third prototype, then fussed over altering the pattern until I didn't have a comfortable allowance of time for laying out a pattern and cutting it. There are two yards of the fabric, so I think I'll make the brown blouse come down to mid-thigh. I noticed while wearing one of Dave's T-shirts that that is a flattering length. I think I'll make Bush-Garden- shirt tails on it, so I can get into my pockets. I may end up making the jersey with the original dropped shoulders. The black blouse is quite comfortable, and doesn't look half bad. Might have sewn this morning, but I decide to mow the front lot instead. After lunch, I lay down for a nap before dressing for the fair. Two or three people telephoned, and the mailman honkety honked up the drive with a magazine too large for the box. 9 August 1992 I forgot to let Erk in before I went to bed last night, and woke up in the night several times to listen to the rain and wonder whether it was blowing in, but never once did I think about the poor kitty huddled under a car. Dave let her in early this morning (then went back to sleep, and is still in bed). Erica is curled up in a box we had left on the hat-and- glove chest, with two uneaten "Pounce" tablets beside her. When she ignores a Pounce, she's tired. Dave always gives her more than two, so I don't think she passed out on an empty stomach. Finally got around to cutting out my jersey. After I'd been patting, stroking, pulling, and shaking for a while, I began to realize why Jones gave up cutting jerseys with the grain of the cloth, but with the horrible example hanging in my closet, I persisted until I got the fuzzy stuff to lie flat. Whether it's on grain or not is hard to tell, since interlock doesn't have reference lines the way woven cloth does. Meant to cut a straight strip on the cross grain for the collar, so there wasn't any collar pattern, and I forgot to include it in the layout. The scrap is more than enough to make another jersey, so things will work out all right, at the expense of making the second jersey even harder to lay out. Alfred's has some 100% cotton knits (at least the sign *says* they are cotton) which include a duplicate of the remnant that worked out so well in my black blouse, and that remnant was easier to work with than the yellow interlock I bought in Schenectady years ago, when I still went there once a month to deliver the Bikeabout. I think that the printing flattened the fuzz, and the fabric is stiffer. The interlocks at Alfred's include one with white flowers on a bright yellow background, which would be adequately visible; I mean to get some when I know how much I need to make a jersey. Trouble is, I do most of my riding alone, and flowered jerseys aren't safe unless you are with a group. Anything feminine is a neon sign saying "victim available." Maybe I'll sew fast enough to have the flowered jersey for the Century this year; it will be two weeks later than usual because "our" school is doing something else with its parking lot on the weekend after Labor Day. I thought we were at the head of the line! I suggested to next year's probable Century chairman that we rent a pavilion like the one we rented for the picnic, but I don't think any suitable parks are in suitable locations. Pity I didn't note the width of the flowered knit. I did note that some black denim suitable for making work pants is 48" wide. I should measure today and get some denim on my way to Rod Smith's tomorrow; I'm down to one pair of pants and they are getting frayed. Perhaps I should get some yellow interlock too; Alfred's will begin clearing out the summer fabrics Real Soon Now. Should check the cotton knits at Beyond the Tollgate on my way to Guilderland. It's out of the way, but I need to put some miles on the odometer. It's reading 660.8 now; according to a note on my shopping list, it was 640.0 at the start of last Thursday's expedition, during which I dropped some checks at Rod Smith's. At this rate, I'm going to end up riding the desk at the Century again. I was tickled when I first began to buy great wide fabrics -- 45" is regarded as narrow, now -- but I find it a lot of work to lay patterns out on 60" and 72" fabric. I wonder why meter-wide fabric, which was standard for a while, has vanished? There may be some political hanky-panky behind the disappearance. 12 August 1992 I'm still trying to get the beeswax out of my half-gallon strainer, but we had spaghetti for supper tonight. When I strained the honey and wax, I blithely assumed that I could put the strainer in a pot of water and boil it clean -- forgetting that the long handle is designed to keep it from going down inside a pot. I've tried various expedients, but the one that seems to be working is scrubbing it on the outside, little by little, with a "vegetable" brush that turned out to be too stiff to use on potatoes. The left-hand "Alt" key went out a couple of weeks ago, and now the "s" key is giving up, and often has to be hit several times before it will register. Dave thinks that cleaning the contacts again will repair it. I'd want a new keyboard, if there were any for sale that weren't exactly like this one. When will it dawn on keyboard manufacturers that some people type with them? And how long is IBM going to sit on the patent for the split space bar? I did go to Stuyvesant Plaza. I didn't think to measure the yellow interlock, but I bought five yards of black denim to make two pairs of trousers. I'll be wearing them with boots, but not motorcycle boots. I wouldn't mind a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back. Now the "d" and the "b" have skipped a beat. I wonder where Dave keeps his contact cleaner? She wore black denim trousers and lightweight dancer's boots and a wool flannel poncho with some fringes on the back I wonder whether the reference librarian could find me the lyrics to "The Terror of Highway 101"? I cut two "Busch Garden" shirts out a few days before I cut the jersey, and haven't put a single stitch into any of the three shirts, nor yet pressed any creases except on the front pockets of the jersey. The denim has been washed, and I'll have it flattened by the time I finish the shirts. I'll have to get cracking, because pretty soon I'm going to have nothing left but rags, and winter pants that don't fit too well. Meanwhile, I'd better get at the work I should have done on the Bikeabout last week. I *have* gone so far as to make a map to guide me in piecing the thing together, but don't know where I put those two pages from Bikecentennial that I meant to include. Assuming there is room after I put in the adventure I forgot to send Cobble Stone a proof for. 13 August 1992 Still wondering how to fill all my pages. I may have to kill the Bikecentennial spread and reduce September to 12 pages. Department of wasted time: A long- winded story. A few days ago I noticed that the right-rear tire of the toyota was soft, and the next morning it was nearly flat. When he got time, Dave put on the spare and took the flat to Fred's to have it fixed. The spare had gotten very soft, so I didn't want to drive on it. I told Dave not to put the repaired tire back on, but to watch me doing it. We never had time simultaneously, and the days rolled by. This morning Dave felt sick to his stomach and stayed home; while he was assembling his new antenna in the living room, I decided that it was time to get on with the tire- changing, and got out the owner's manual. After a while Dave came out, and stopped me from trying to sock down the lug nuts before I let the jack down. All in all, it was easier than changing a bicycle tire -- except that you don't worry about dropping the bicycle on yourself! I was astonished at how easily the jack worked; I didn't know I'd started lifting the car until I saw it moving. The manufacturer seems to have adequately considered the possibility that little old ladies might have to change their own tires. But they should have included instructions for the jack- rack; it's a clever little bracket that you put the jack into, then you turn the thing that you put the jack-handle into with your fingers until it is too tight to fall out, but they don't tell you that, and you expect some sort of spring clip; it's disconcerting to find that the jack appears to be a permanent part of the car. Well later on, after lunch, I was feeling the urge to take a nap, but took hold of myself with both hands and decided to mow the lawn. So I put the gas can in the back of the car, put on the pair of pants with no holes in it, put my wallet in my purse, got my keys and watch out of my helmet, and got into the car. It wouldn't start. I started looking around for a lever with a butterfly, rabbit, and turtle on it, for it was exactly th feeling that I get when I forget to push down the throttle on the lawnmower. After a while I gave up and decided to burn up the little bit of gas in the tank, so I put my ragged pants back on, changed into my leather shoes, and started up the mower. I drove it over to the place where I wanted to start, shoved down the blade engage, and the engine died. I started it again, engaged the blade again, and it died again. The third time it wouldn't start. I peeked into the tank, decided that I'd burned up the little dab of gas, and came in to change back into my sneakers. Eventually I remembered to put my watch back into my helmet. The new watch is smaller than the one I mislaid, and seems to irritate my wrist more. And now there is a polka-dot of rain on the walk. Prediction is that it will be wet right through the weekend. I guess I'll take that nap after all. I don't think there is any way I can be pasted up before closing time on Friday anyway. 14 August 1992 Didn't get the nap, but I didn't work on the Bikeabout either. Did get some work done on the two poncho-shirts I cut out several days ago. And I've been thinking about the fitted cover I promised to make as a replacement for the dishtowel covering Dave's new radio. I think I'll put an eight- pointed star on it, arranged and colored to suggest a compass rose, and use the design I worked out on my knitting bag for a printer-stand cover. Dave ran the furnace yesterday to give it a workout. I've got it running this morning to keep my hands limber enough to type. Certainly a change from last summer. I was desperate this spring to get Dave to modify my laundry- sink emptier so that I could pump the water out onto the plants, but nothing has needed a single drop; indeed, it's been hard to find a dry day to mow the lawn in. The trouble with the car was that it had been sitting several days and I'd given up one crank too soon. About five o'clock yesterday I decided to dash out for gasoline while it was still reasonably likely that LeVie had some of their fresh- picked corn, then bethought me that it would be wise to have some meat in the house, in case Dave didn't feel like going out with the boys, and while I was at the meat market I remembered that I'd been planning to buy a frozen duck & had better get it today in case we wanted to dine on Monday, and then I had only $4 left, which would probably cover the amount of gas I wanted but was too close for comfort. Money seems to vanish out of my wallet awfully fast nowadays, considering that I haven't gone anywhere. The woman ahead of me at LeVie's bought a bagful, not the largest standard grocery bag, but a bag obviously in need of two hands. She was carrying a purse about the size I would carry if I thought I might have to stay overnight. The handles were long enough that she could have pushed it up onto her shoulder to get two hands free, but instead she waved her flight bag awkwardly with one hand while taking a casual swipe at the bag of produce with the other. She immediately accused the clerk of causing the accident by not giving her two bags! I suppose she figured that if the stuff was in two pieces, she'd have been forced to pick it up properly. The clerk, of course, accepted the blame without comment and replaced the bruised tomato; she tried to replace the peaches too, and the yahoo got mad about that, carrying on as if the girl had intended to steal them. I wonder if yahoos are the reason I can't get checkout people to put a half- load of groceries all in one bag? The room is warm enough now; I'm fresh out of excuses. 16 August 1992 Arrgh. Here it is after 2:30 pm (14:39 by Dave's clock) and I'm just about to *start* pasting up. On the other hand, it's all hardcopied, *including* the front page, and I've taken care of the contributor's labels already. All I have to do is to paste it up, wrap it up, and go to the printshop. And plan my shopping trip for tomorrow. Going to the printshop first means taking the Big Loop clockwise; don't know whether to go to the health club before shopping, go out of the way on the way back, or forget working out. It will be Monday and Altamont doesn't open until Wednesday, so turning left instead of right isn't an option. Haven't seen the thrift shop once this summer. If our elusive sag-committee chairman turns up and asks me to revise page four, he's dead. Hooptydo! 16:50 and I've pasted up every page. Except, of course, for monotyping "The Adventures of Cobble Stone." For not doing the job on time, I get to do it twice: once in 18 pt. type for immediate use, and again in 36 pt. type to be copied at 50% when the library is open. Thought of trying to do it Monday before delivering, but the logistics grow complicated. I wonder whether the fire department's copier can do 50%? Considering that it has to be unpacked and put away again every time it's used, and that I don't know where they keep it or how to operate it, it would probably be less trouble to monotype twice. Couldn't I have come up with a shorter title for the series? 17 August 1992 Dave's new radio has brought us closer together -- his radio chair is back-to- elbow with my typing chair. I've been working on a program to teach me to take morse with a mill. I've got it working for the twenty- six letters. Now to put in the other symbols -- if I can find a list. I should put in a switch to practice letters only, or all the symbols. Then I've got to write another one to make it send a file instead of random characters. When I saw the weather report, I turned the all-day shopping trip into an out-and-back to the printshop. I was one curve from the house when the rain got definite. Was never heavy; I wish it would rain properly and have done with it.