.R:V ---L--P+----1----@10--2----+----3-----R I've really got to get around to splitting this file so I can use my spelling checker again. Doug Rivenberg dropped in this noon to look at our bathroom. The tile around the tub is all falling off; he says he'll rip off the sheetrock and put up a waterproof wallboard made of concrete and fiberglas instead of plaster and paper. We won't be able to shower for two days, he says, but he doesn't know just when -- he's picking up for his father, who recently had a stroke. He said that he's recovering, was taking physical therapy at that very minute, and had done a little light work. 8 May 1994 Finally "planted" my potatoes today. Should have done it yesterday, because today has been rainy, but I did get out, push them into the dirt, and cover each one with half a bucket of compost. Now I've got until the sprouts come through the compost to finish the job. The bindweed is getting a good start -- never let that stuff catch a toehold! Persistent persecution has slowed the bindweed up a little. Also got around to splitting the banner, so my spelling should improve from this point down. Ordered sausage and mushroom with hot peppers yesterday. Usually we both pick hot peppers off our pizza and pile them on one of the slices we are taking home, but yesterday, I was gathering up what Dave picked off and putting them on mine. He said they were as zingy as usual -- but I think it was the peppers and not me. I do think they were sourer than the hotter peppers we had before; perhaps that made Dave think them zingy. I cut down the aspen trees yesterday, then felt I'd done enough for one day and planned to cut them into fireplace lengths and bring them up to the house today. Dawned too cold and wet to wade through the grass in search of firewood, and I'd have appreciated a fire. Oh well, said the fox, they are still too green to burn. Not that aspens make decent firewood even when dry. There were two trees too big to take with pruning shears. I sawed one, and left the other to deal with later. I saw a robin picking up what I'd shaken out of my dust mop. I wonder whether he realizes that he's feathering his nest with cat fur? 9 May 1994 Threw out my "Sand-Knit by McGregor" shirt for being too small. I wish I knew what fiber it was; it was some sort of synthetic, but it was comfortable to wear and didn't pill a bit. Still looked new even though I've worn it a lot. A week or so ago I decided to clean out the closet, and the bedroom has been chaos ever since. There's no place to sort the stuff, so it just gets more and more confused. Especially when I clear the bed off in a hurry. Doesn't help that I started going through my scrap boxes today. Found some loose-weave used muslin I should have made my slip of instead of that crisp new stuff, and two yards of linen crash I don't remember buying. Hemmed both ends and threw it into the wash. I want to make at least one of the towels fit my cupboard shelves, so I figured I'd better cut it after washing instead of before. I turned the edge under once, and zig- zagged the raw edge down -- neater and more durable than a zig-zagged or serged edge, and not lumpy the way a regular hem in linen crash is. Also found some denim to make some pillow ticks, which is what I was after, but I'm going to have to piece it. Time the garden dried enough to till, I was to tired to plant onions, but I did get a start at mowing the back point four nine. About time; the front needs mowing again. Margie is not sympathetic: Danny hasn't gotten her mower going yet, and it's going to be a real mess when she finally starts mowing. Went to Olsen's before picking up groceries, to get a marker for my lemon balm. Decided to buy four even though I have one for the yellow onions and one for the multiplier onions and don't plan to plant anything else. Fifty-five cents is cheaper than going back again, and I'm bound to need more sooner or later. I think the zinc sheets on a wire hairpin are perfect. They are easier to read and less conspicuous than any others I've seen, and you can plant one leg on each side of a spindly sprout to make sure you don't hoe it out by mistake. This year they offer a special "carbon pencil" to go with the markers, but a common #2 pencil works just fine. Maybe the carbon is easier to erase; I haven't been using them long enough to re-use one for a different plant yet. The carbon pencil looked like a grease pencil, but with a wood casing and no string. I think I used one like that in first grade. I dragged some, but not all, of the aspens onto the pavement in front of the garage, and cut some, but not all, into fireplace lengths. They are almost juicy enough to weep when cut, so it's going to be a while before they are fit to burn. Arachne Saw a whole episode of Babylon Five. Straight thriller: Garibaldi, fleeing a false accusation, takes a tour of the Dickensian underworld of the space station, gets into several exciting fights, the last of which he wins just in time to stop the countdown at T minus one second. Predictable, these thrillers -- just once, I'd like to see them surprise us by stopping the countdown at T minus *two* seconds. Dr. Franklin assured him that there would be no trace of the experience to affect the next episode. 'Twould have been a nice touch if Garibaldi had worn one of his conspicuous bruises through the following episode; no re-writing would have been called for. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 11 May 1994 So far, Fred is pretty easy to chase back into the house when he escapes. But until this spring, it was dead easy to prevent him from escaping. He has discovered that life is more interesting out there, and timidity isn't going to hold him forever. Arachne I saw "Roman City" by MacCauley on Public Television. Disappointing. Supposed to tell how studying architecture reveals how the Romans lived, but too much of the show was devoted to stuff added on to make it "interesting." People who think the subject matter is boring shouldn't make documentaries. And they should have mentioned how archeology can complement and extend history -- the stuff we really want to know is the stuff that nobody bothers to write down because everybody knows it. I'd have never mentioned my iron if it hadn't stopped working, I mentioned that it gets hot only because it didn't get hot enough, I never explained what "ironing a shirt" means, and I never did say what an iron is shaped like. I've tried to read the Encyclopedia of Victorian Needlework, and even when they give "detailed" explanations of how to make a garment, I'm often at a loss to picture it. Only when practices have survived into this century do I comprehend the explanations. Someone should bring out an annotated edition, with photographs of museum pieces. And I'd like to see a history of clothing from the viewpoint of what people wore and why, and how they made it, as opposed to a guide for collectors. That history of underwear that promised so much turned out to be by people who didn't even comprehend that there's a watershed difference between shirts with gussets under the arm and those without; they mention gussets only as identifying marks, as if they had no more significance than embroidered alligators. And I'd still like to know what that "gusset on the shoulder, pointing at the neck" was all about. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 12 May 1994 A glance out the window told me I could cut "mow lawn" off my list of things to do today. Still too many things to fit into the little space on the calendar. I finished the back point four nine yesterday; I didn't see much poison ivy except right along the trees, so I guess that keeping it mowed has helped. I was still careful to undress into the washer and shower after each session. Which reminds me that I'd best add "remove pants from washer" to my list of things to do. I left it set for "soak" because I was going to a spaghetti party soon and didn't want to bother with the pump. At about the time I was ready to leave, someone spotted a pillar of smoke he thought was near Thatcher Park -- Roger said that it was plainly visible from 155 and 20, where he happened to be (no doubt waiting for that interminable light) when the tones went off. We couldn't see a hint of it from the firehouse, nor could the boys cruising around up on the hill. They gave up and came back just about the time the spaghetti was served. Doug and Roger speculated that the smoke came from the controlled burn in Berne. (a "Berne burn"?) Doug was left minding the engine room, and Roger arrived late because he'd had to dispose of the company truck he was driving and get his own. Shortly before Roger arrived, I walked across the street to see whether Dave was near his car, and gave the postcards Dave had asked for to Doug. All that may be somewhat confusing an account: the original firehouse is now used only for meetings, and the original engine room is now a lounge. Station One is across the street from the firehouse -- I call it the "fire barn" -- and Station Two is on Route 85 (New Scotland Road). They call Two the "New Scotland House," but "fire garage" would be appropriate; it's just big enough to hold the smaller pumper. A summons to jury duty came in yesterday's mail, and it's just as rude, discourteous, and unreasonable as the previous three. I'm beginning to commence to wonder why they don't pick on somebody else. 14 May 1994 I'm a more obedient daughter than I thought. I back-stitched a ripped sleeve hem on one of Dave's shirts this evening - - and if I'd realized sooner how much of it was ripped, I'd have picked out the remaining stitches and re-sewn it by machine. When I finished, there weren't any scissors in reach, so I substituted incisors, remembering that Mother always said not to get into the habit of biting threads because it would wear notches in your teeth. After several futile chomps, I realized that I don't know *how* to bite off a thread! The last time I tried it must have been before I had my front teeth bonded. I'm amazed at how well the patches have held up. A full week after I cut the aspen, and the leaves are still green. The largest aspen still stands; perhaps I'll cut it tomorrow. Must ask Lawrence how he feels about us planting a sugar maple on his side of the line to replace it. Yesterday I finished the lawn mowing by cutting the grass between the houses -- Margie, finally possessed of her riding mower, had already mowed the common area behind the pines -- and then I re-mowed the front lot. It was taller than when I mowed it the first time. So I guess I should have joined the rest of the neighborhood this morning, and started again on the back. Seemed as though every power mower in earshot was going. Margie still hasn't got her walk-behind going, but I guess that if Danny had time for only one, it's better that it be the riding mower, since Margie can't walk very far. Spent most of today working on the Bikeabout I said I'd deliver Friday, and I'm beginning to think I won't have it done by Sunday night. I was hoping to ride to Guilderland to deliver it, but if it isn't done in the early morning, I'll have to drive. At least I have all the pieces now -- except the Editor's Column. With any luck, the full-page E.C. announcement (I haven't managed to make it occupy a full page yet -- hope I've got suitable clip art somewhere) and all those pictures for the article on stretching will crowd it out. 16 May 1994 Went to bed last night with the front cover still unfinished and nothing hardcopied, let alone pasted up -- and there's a whole bunch of pasting in this issue. But on looking out the window at the rain, I decided that I didn't want to go riding today anyway. But I'm getting unbearably fat. Our comic weatherman, doing a Joe Friday imitation in honor of Police Day, said that tomorrow and the next day will have the same M.O. Pity I didn't plant the onions Saturday. And now I'll have to cultivate again. Much to my surprise, the Editor's Column fit into the half column narrowed by the Borders ad. I'd been planning on editorial remarks to fill up the extra space on the page reserved for Virginia's stretching illustrations. No doubt there is something in my clip-art file. Or I could restore the essay on the difference between the Radio League and the League of Wheelmen. Wanted that in a inconspicuous location in the middle of an editorial, though. Made the E.C. announcement fill its allotted space by the simple expedient of changing from fourteen-point type to fifteen-point type. (Bikeabout is printed at 75% of the original size, to improve the resolution of our dot printer.) 17 May 1994 Interesting board meeting yesterday, but I can't remember what we talked about, except that I suggested that our membership application be printed on one sheet with the ride calendars we give out. Sometime before I went, a thin film peeled off the top of the bruise on my nail and all the dead blood washed off -- I'd wondered why I couldn't scrape off the part of the bruise that had grown past the quick. If I'd known the stain was between layers of the nail, rather than under the nail, I'd have ripped the top off and cleaned that mess up weeks ago. It had alredy faded some, having been open to dishwater for a week or two. The meeting was in the caf at Borders Book shop, a much more pleasant place, the safety chairman told me, than Bruno's pizza parlor. (I missed the meeting at Bruno's.) I saw several books I might want to get for my gift certificate, but didn't inquire after "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long." When I got home, I told Dave that the local bookshops did have something to worry about, because Borders is like the Indianapolis Library as it used to be, except that everything is new. He said, "Barnes & Noble looks like that too." I had been expecting a superola, like the Grand Union on Johnstown, the Price Chopper in 20-Mall, Builder's Square, and Office Max. I wonder if I mentioned that the most-expensive grocery in the area, according to Business Review, is Price Chopper? In view of their name, I'll bet that annoys Price Chopper executives no end. But I'm willing to pay a little extra to be able to find what I want, so I stop at the Price Chopper across from Robinson's whenever I'm out that way. Those electric carts in the superolas ought to be supplemented by tricycles for folks who don't feel up to a long hike. I read an SF story in which grocery stores had grown so huge that everybody had to use an electric cart. It might come to that. I cut the remaining aspen today. I couldn't cut it flush, as I did the others, so I'll still have to mow around it. I must talk to Dave and Lawrence about putting in a sugar maple to replace it. 18 May 1994 I don't notice that aspen wood smells bad when it's burning, but it's shore a noisy firewood. Get the flames leaping up six inches, and it sounds like a chimney on fire. Selling computers to use in the home is supposed to be the next big business trend. I'll believe it when I see an advertisement for a cat-repellent mouse pad. In other words, our mouse is choking up on cat fur again. 19 May 1994 When I was in Stuyvesant Plaza buying a plane ticket -- which was, by the way, the day before another airline started a sale on direct-flight tickets for about half what I paid for a change-over in Detroit -- it got to be about four o'clock, when I need to take in a few calories. I reflected that it had been several years since "TCBY" opened up, and it was about time I tasted their frozen yogurt. Couldn't find "cone" on the menu ("cone" was listed under "Smoothees," which I mistook for beverages), so I ordered a sundae. The cheapest was rather overpriced, I thought. Then I discovered that despite all the signs bragging about how low-calorie and fat-free the stuff was, they pile in enough "yogurt" for at least four people. Half as many calories in real ice cream would have been a pig-out. So I ate it all, and then had to settle for a "French soda" at the board meeting, while Betty Lou ate a beautiful turkey sandwich made on a chunk of french bread. I did get so I could eat later on, but by then we were deep in discussion. I hope Jackie sends me the minutes so I'll know what we were deep in discussion of. I was appalled when I learned that Darryl had appointed her secretary, but it the post had been empty so long, if she offered, I guess he had to accept. I'm amazed that she'd want a post with a name associated with the oppression of woperchildren. Jackie can be counted on to go straight to the surface of any problem, creatively finding difficulties where none existed. I'm not really necessary at board meetings; if bloodshed seems imminent, I can stop attending. When Fred escapes, he stops at the first patch of orchard grass in the lawn and starts grazing, so today I found a big flower pot in the garage, and dug a specimen of orchard grass out of the garden. I doubt that he'll accept that as a substitute for freedom, but it might brighten up his cell. I plan to give it a few days to settle before I bring it in. While I had the spade out, I moved a couple of the catnip plants from the garden to stumps in the lawn, and dug up a couple of errant oregano plants and moved them to the part of the garden that I plan to turn back into lawn. I have plenty of unwanted sods; at one or two a day, a couple of weeks should suffice to cover the abandoned garden. Still haven't planted the onions. The fall-planted plants have been doing fine. We're still eating winter onions, but it's become necessary to seek out new plants; those with any size have developed the soapy flavor of summer. I'm going to have to dig out all the stray plants and throw them away when the youngest is too big to eat, and thin the old plants too. I must be harder-hearted about wasting the bulbils this year. Yesterday I ringed a stump with catnip and moved a sod of oregano; today I moved a sod of oregano. I hope to plant onions tomorrow. If I wake up. I figured I could go on a club ride, and opted for today's twenty-five mile "Ride & Rhubarb" instead of tomorrow's seven-mile "Little Loops." Came home, crawled into bed, realized I'd forgotten to take a dose of aspirin, and it was an hour before I got up the energy to get up and walk to the bathroom for it. Not only that, I dropped out when we passed through Voorheesville, so I didn't get any strawberry rhubarb. Yesterday I picked a few of our stalks and made some rhubarb juice, so I took a swig before crawling up the stairs. Summer has set in -- I took two showers in one day. Took a bath before putting on my cycling suit because my legs needed shaving, and came home wet with sweat. Took my nap sweat and all, though. Didn't even take off my tights. (Figured my poor legs could use the wool.) The last two miles were a literal pain in the neck, but it cleared up right away when I stopped cantilevering my head. Guess my neck was more cramped than exhausted. Arachne I did wake up in time to tune into Babylon Five fifteen minutes after it started, and found Sinclair and Garibaldi discussing a matter that had been the subject of a previous episode, so maybe I should go back to setting my calendar alarm to remind me to watch the show. They not only remembered that the incident had happened, there was the illusion of a hint at possible progress toward solving the mystery. The main plot of this episode was an exciting battle in space, largely cribbed from "Star Wars." I suspect that they got a bargain on leftover props. And the main plot also planted a mystery to be solved, so we may hope that they aren't pulling a "Coronet Blue" on us, planning to drag their one mystery out forever without ever having any meaning behind the clues. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 22 May 1994 A few days ago I was complaining that it was still April. Today is a slice of July. Looked in the T.V. guide to see what this week's episode of Babylon Five was about -- and it wasn't there. Should have known they'd do that as soon as I decided to start watching. 24 May 1994 Put on my "float" in Sunday's heat, and wasn't comfortable in it. A knee-length skirt is fine for skirt-type activities, but it's a bit too short when you bend over to pull a weed. Come time to change into my poison-ivy pants yesterday, I decided not to, because they were (of course) freshly laundered and the pants I had on needed a bath. Since I still haven't gotten around to cutting that denim I found when looking for the ticking, when this morning found my house pants soaking in the washer, I had nothing to put on but the poison-ivy-mowing pants. Though I've decided I don't have to patch the seat quite yet, I'm not at all comfortable in them anywhere except on the back point four nine. So I pulled the float on instead of a shirt, and when I turn so that the mirror doesn't show how uneven the hem is, I like the effect. If I ever get caught up on the necessary sewing, I think I'll make some knee-length shirts. But how do I get my car keys into my pants pocket? 26 May 1994 Sigh. I find packing the half-finished overcoat to send it back almost as daunting as working on it. Doesn't help that I feel so bad about letting Larry down -- I don't know that I'll ever have the guts to promise anybody anything again. I *still* can't see what is so difficult about covering five slabs of foam with Cordura. 27 May 1994 I just unscrambled "Penguin" with a score of three, which is the lowest possible, but I can't brag about it because I don't want Dave to know I've been wasting time on computer games. Reminds me of the joke about St. Peter and God watching a priest play golf on Sunday. Started mowing the lawn again this afternoon. I'm working forth and back this time, instead of around and around. When I got up from my nap, there was a lot of gas and rust in the water -- which I discovered by flushing the pot, a startling experience. I hope that means that they are finally repairing the broken water main on 85-A. About time; it's dangerous in the winter when the drainage ditch ices up and the water runs across the road. But I forgot about it while reading the mail, and before starting the lawn mower I poured the stale water out of the bottle and ran polluted water over it. I keep a half-dozen bottles of seltzer in case of just such an emergency. I'm *very* glad that I didn't start a load of wash! 30 May 1994 When I started to go out for the paper this morning, Erica was on the doorstep. Feeling guilty about locking her out on a chilly night, I let her in, gave her an arthritis pill and some Tender Vittles to wash it down, gave a crumb of cheese to each of the other two cats, and proceeded on my original errand. When I opened the door to come back in with the paper, I released a yellow rocket. Last I saw of her, she was on the picnic table engaged in a discussion with Margie's Rascal. What with Erica and Rascal, and me coming after him with a broom, I haven't seen much of Smoke this spring. I hope he's healthy. I figured I'd better pump a load of water through an empty washer, because we got some rust out of a faucet that hadn't been turned on while the mains were stirred up, but when time came to do it, I got a better idea and washed the bushel of cleaning rags that has been accumulating all winter. I must have been diligent about throwing out the smallest rags; the rags occupied only the dryer, even though it lost its innermost line last week and I haven't gotten around to stringing a new one. The last time I washed rags, I had to string line from tree to tree before I could hang them all. Dave says that last week's Enterprise announced that the mains were going to be flushed, but I dug that issue out and looked and looked without seeing any hint. Afternoon: I consulted my calendar and glumly reflected that not until five o'clock could I plan tomorrow, when I realized: they are not in the office now, and they are not going to go back to the office to set that thing at five. The recording has been on ever since Friday! So I called and found that jurors one through ninety-one have to report tomorrow. I'm #271, so I'm off the hook until Wednesday. Maybe on Tuesday they'll leave off at a hundred eighty-two. I am not looking forward to trying to park in Albany. And jurors don't get any afternoon nap. Evening: I finally deleted "dump out sock drawer" from my list of things to do. Emptied the drawer onto the bed, arranged my socks and underwear neatly, said, "that wasn't hard!" -- and then looked at what was left on the bed. Ah, well, it's all put away now. And I found that ball of red thread I wanted desperately last Saturday. Finished mowing the front. It was tall enough to be setting seed. I emptied the gasoline can, but Dave went out and bought more. Sigh. Fred thinks I'm going to let him out. Someone should come up with video games for cats. I suggested a six-pack of white mice; Dave was not amused. 31 May 1994 Just went out to mail a letter, saw Margie's trash by the road, rushed back in and got mine, and as I was balancing the bag of incinerator trash on the top of the pile founded by our four recycling bins (each "mixed" sitting in the corresponding "newspaper" to keep the wind from blowing the papers around) -- As I was setting down the last bag of trash, I said "Wahait a minute! Yesterday was a holiday!" Maybe Margie and Lawrence know something -- but nobody but us three has set trash out. Memorial Day came on Memorial Day this year. I wonder what Pogo would have made of that? 1 June 1994 I'm still lucky -- today they want jurors up to 165. At that rate, they won't want me tomorrow either. (Knock wood.) So I suppose I'll be called Friday and seated on a jury. Summons says "week starting Tuesday," but I'm hoping that they mean Tuesday through Friday, since Monday was a holiday. . . . Way to go! *No* jurors wanted for Thursday. Surely they won't work their way up to 271 on Friday -- knock wood. I picked up Erica's Vetalog and the Bikeabout originals today, then took a list that had been accumulating for weeks to Star Market. Bought so much stuff I was worried that the bag boy might not be able to get all of it back into the cart -- and arrived home without anything to feed Dave for supper, not even a dab of leftover meat to put into spaghetti sauce. We don't have any ice cream either, because I asked Dave whether he wanted me to move the neck button on his uniform shirt, and he said to wait until after his next interview with Dr. Casey -- it might could be rich food is going to be something I don't want in the house. I bought the tomato plants yesterday, but haven't cleared a spot for them yet. After sitting around all winter, I can't shovel mulch very long at a time. And there are still a few catnip plants that I want to move, rather than yank out. I cut a lot of bulbil buds off the winter onions today. Thought it would be by way of a rest after shoveling mulch, but after a while I was leaving those I had to bend for to grow a little higher. . . . Went out just before dark, finished mulching the potatoes, moved the last of the catnip, and cleared the garden enough that tomorrow I can run the cultivator around and plant the six tomato plants. I bought five Beefsteak and one Patio. Olsen isn't selling singles this year, but I hunted around until I found two packs in which some of the plants had failed. Gave Dave a T.V. dinner and some cantalope. I bought a gutted and peeled melon, which surprised him because I always buy whole fruit and he didn't know it came peeled. Must have been halves of two different melons, because mine was green and his was fairly good. Frieda is hatching the mouse. I'm going to take that as a hint that I should iron shirts instead of playing computer games. 2 June 1994 All jurors dismissed with thanks, and please mail back your summons so we'll know to wait four years before sending another. So why ain't I delirious with relief? It took me until 6:30 to penetrate their snafued call-in system. Since they are predicting unseasonable cold tonight, I hid my tomato plants under the lilies instead of setting them out. I planted the muskmelon seed a day or two ago, though -- just one hill. 4 June 1994 Got all the tomatoes out yesterday. Still haven't planted the multipliers. It seems as though I might as well make up my mind that on the day I wash, I'm not going to do anything else. It doesn't take up a lot of time, but I have to keep thinking about it; about the time I get something picked up, I have to put it down and go flip a switch. I didn't even get the bills into the box before the mail went. It was a splendid drying day, though; even my alpaca tights dried lying flat on the picnic table, which was covered with two clean kitchen rugs and a piece of blue denim. I washed all the wool things to put them away for the sumemr. Arachne I've been reading the books I picked up at the library's Memorial Day sale. Most of them I couldn't remember having seen before when I finally unpacked the bag. Most notable of the lot is Abbie Hoffman's The "Steal Yourself Rich" Book -- an expanded revison of Steal This Book. At the sale, I opened it to the chapter on shoplifting & thought it no wonder that it was privately printed; no reputable publisher would want to print it. Sure enough, the introduction included a two-page whine about "censorship." The introduction also hints that the F.B.I. scuttled potentially-lucrative deals to keep potent information away from the masses, but so far I haven't come across any techniques that would surprise any "Dragnet" fan. I thought the hint about using Selectrics to forge papers might have saved some research time for neo-forgers, but on second thought, it seems unlikely in the extreme that every government agency in the nation uses the same typewriter. It is almost certain that some Selectric face will be close enough, but that isn't what he said. On the third hand, the book was intended for people who haven't had enough experience to regard anything as trite and obvious. Poor Abbie -- Amerika is so oppressive that he didn't have the slightest difficulty in smuggling his book out of the prison. He emphatically states that he has unfinished chapters "scattered all over the floor of the cell," and appears to have no fear that the guards will sweep them up and censor them. Summary: childish venom. "Steal" got a lot less funny when I read one of the files Bob brought yesterday. "Critical Mass," which purports to advocate bicycling, oozes the same child-like arrogance, tribalism, and insecurity. "Critical Mass" seems to be a bit smarter, though. So far. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 5 June 1994 The screen door, the storm door, the old fireplace doors, and the burned-out lawn mower all vanished soon after I put them out by the road. We should try putting out the leaky water heater and the storm windows that I forgot to give Jimmy when he put in the new ones. Found green cat hair on my maroon T-necks when hanging out the wash. Much puzzled, until I remembered that the load before had included a piece of new blue denim. It must have dyed the yellow cat hairs, which remained in the washer until the shirts picked them up. Also washed the "bull" denim; it still refuses to straighten up and lie right. It's not as off as it started, so I'm minded to wash it again. I didn't know anything that wasn't perma-press could be so stubborn; I don't think I'll buy any more denim of unstated fiber. 7 June 1994 It's been quite a while since I snagged a loaf of "Small White;" I wonder whether Freihoffer has discontinued it. But the Friehoffer section at Stonewell has been sparse and picked over the last few times I went. Am I unlucky, or is the bakery in trouble? 8 June 1994 I finally got the multipliers into the ground yesterday. The volunteer multipliers are already making bulbs, so I don't expect a crop, but I should get enough to plant next year and preserve the strain. I forgot the dutch shallots altogether. Potatoes, yellow onions, and garlic seem to be doing well. I cut the rest of the "flower" buds off the winter onions yesterday; it will be time to take care of the garlic soon. All my tulips are shriveling up and turning brown -- except the one that I want to move. 9 June 1994 Doesn't hurt to cough as much today as it did yesterday. I thought I was coming down with the horrible awfuls -- until I went out to rake mulch the second time. Meant to postpone mowing the back yard for a while, but the buckhorn started heading out, so this afternoon I lowered the blade a notch and mowed anyway. Hard to see where I'd been in spots, but it needed mowing -- already? Soil seems a little dry for so early in the spring, but it was downright soggy where it had been under the pile of leaves all winter. I used to have trouble getting my woodruff to spread; now I'm going to have to start cutting it back. I should dig out a few plants and move them to neglected spots. 10 June 1994 Arachne I read Jules Verne's The Underground City or the Child of the Cavern tonight. Found it rather tame. Expected something more like The Begum's Fortune, so when the story was more than half over, I was still waiting for it to start. It was a travelogue of Scotland -- Verne had plainly never been there; the foreword said that those who know more about Scotland than I do can read it for yuks -- set off by thrilling adventures well suited to a TV show. (I don't recall any horses flipping over, but there was a good deal of bursting into flames.) I gather that the illumination of the coal mine by "electric disks" was a far-out and startling idea. I searched in vain for a date, but the flyleaf suggests that somebody gave this copy to somebody in 1890. The "city" was a village of miners' cottages inside a fabulous mine. The latest Uncle Scrooge Adventure was good. Scrooge and the boys search for the Library of Alexandria while Donald sits in the money-bin lobby enthralled by TV shows with high-speed fights in which Dick Savage's car, Mike Savage's submarine, Matt Savage's horse, and Buck Savage's comet all flip over and burst into flames -- "that is, I think it burst into flames; it's hard to tell with comets." Dave read it twice, and I'm inclined to leaf through when I see it lying on the dresser. Bam! Blam! Flip! Whoosh! @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 11 June 1994 Bad news today. Dave says that Doctor Casey says that small-cell carcinoma is like rust -- once it gets started, there is no way to stop it. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy can buy time, but in Fred's case it isn't going to be very much time. 12 June 1994 Dave checked out the chain saw, then (upon hearing that I was afraid to cut the locust trunk off in one piece) climbed the ladder and cut the limb off for me, professing that it wasn't much of a ladder. It didn't take long to cut the main stem into fireplace lengths with the chain saw, but there is a lot of work to be done with lopping shears -- especially since I decided that while I had the shears out, I'd cut off the maple limbs that were about to rub on the house, and nip the two lower limbs I had decided to take off the little black walnut tree, and while I was out front I decided that anything that hadn't leafed out by now didn't intend to and got a start at pruning the plum tree. It did take a while to saw the stub off the locust, even with the chain saw: it's locust, and I was sawing at a pretty sharp angle to avoid cutting the other trunk. I stopped almost at the end and finished with my little pruning saw. And now, I think I'll run upstairs and take a nap. Oops! I got all the cutting tools inside, but forgot the ladder. Takes two to move it when it's straight or folded small, but one can carry it when it's a step ladder. I sort of wear it. Jimmy, a contractor, recommended the Versaladder to Dave when he heard that we needed a stepladder, and it's been very useful. Reminds me: I must finish cleaning out the eavestrough the next time I have Dave to steady the ladder. When I unblocked the downspout, it was raining, so I quit as soon as it started draining. I need to carry the hose up and blast the mud. Odd how much heavier the ladder is when it's folded for storage; I suppose it's because you can't take hold by the center of gravity. We noticed yesterday that the storm window I left leaning against the utility pole is gone. I suppose I had better print up more "free" signs and carry out the rest of them. I've decided that old screens would be good to dry herbs on, but the screens were up when we had the windows replaced, and I think Jimmy missed only one. Perhaps I should go around looking at other people's utility poles. When Dave got stuck with calling the boys who want to help Fred make hay, he dug out Windows' Card File to dial the five numbers with. I'd thought it a clever program when exploring the new computer but hadn't thought of any use for it. On seeing Dave use it for a list of phone numbers, I thought I could copy my address book into it. Turns out that it will dial the phone numbers for you and save you the terrible chore of punching seven keys, but there isn't a way in the world -- or at least not in the Help file or the manual -- to address an envelope with it. You can, of course, copy lines from a "card" and schlepp them to some other program with your "clipboard." I guess that programmers fax all their letters. I've a notion to write Windows Magazine a letter saying that some few of us still use paper. None of the other Windows programs will conveniently address an envelope either, so I'm still using PC-Write. Word prints envelopes sideways and won't print labels at all. Publisher will do envelopes, and I think it will do labels if I insist on it, but that's -- not swatting flies with an elephant gun. It's more like shooting elephants with a jackhammer. Told Dave they don't pack ice cream in quarts, so I got a pint, and he insists that it does come in quarts. Not at super-markets or grocery stores! I haven't tried to buy ice cream at either of the superdebooperolas. 14 June 1994 When I went out to mail a letter at 10:30, a mass exodus was going on at the high school. Seems pretty silly to me to call the kids in at all if they aren't going to keep them any longer than that. I find it annoying that when an error message pops up in a Windows program, the only way you can get rid of it is to click "OK." It is seldom "OK;" more than half the time, the button should be marked "&%#@!" Font "Wingdings" has some characters that would go well on a turn-off-the-error-message button. Message buttons should be marked "I've finished reading this message." 15 June 1994 Poor little Fred. Fred greatly prefers to share his bed with humans -- though we seem to have talked him out of sleeping on faces. He also has very thick fur, a nice thick coat of blubber, and is shaped like a rugby ball -- a perfect physique for the arctic winter. Yesterday, Dave hauled out the air conditioner. Fred desperately desires to be in the cool bedroom with us -- but he can't stand the noise of the air conditioner. So all winter Erica oscillates, and all summer Fred oscillates. Dave suggested putting a cat door in the bedroom door. I suggested it last year. I bought a highlighter pen for some trivial reason, and have been using it on proofs so much that I should have charged it to the bike club -- it's much more convenient than the red pencil that I used to put arrows in the margin with. I suspect that the most convenient aspect of the highlighter is that you can't possibly write with it, so it doesn't wander off as pencils do. It also helps that it's the only day-glo yellow implement in the mug. 16 June 1994 Noticed "cultivate garden" on my list of things to do today, and decided to do it right after breakfast, before it got hot. When I stepped out into the sunshine, I knew it was too late, but it still isn't as hot as it's going to be. Brief pause to draw the curtains on the east side of the house. I've got "ride bike" on my list for this afternoon, too. Long bike rides in weather like this aren't bad, but I'm just running to the village and back -- it's really soggy when you *stop*. I suppose I'd better get at the Bikeabout while the hassock fan is still enough to keep me from sticking to paper. Perhaps it would help if I ran upstairs and changed into my float, now that I'm done with outdoor work. What I'd like to do is to go upstairs and go back to bed. But if I leave the air conditioner running, it will be too loud to sleep; and if I turn it off, it will be too hot to sleep, so I might as well get some work done. Especially since I have to deliver the newsletter tomorrow, and I didn't notice that Darryl had forgotten the photograph until it was too late to nag him, so I'm going to have to contrive some substitute. I think I've got some cuts of poison ivy and Virginia creeper I might could make a front cover of. "Leaflets three, leave it be --- leaflets five, don't jump to the conclusion that it came alone." Got a newsletter from House of White Birches today -- thoughtful to let the contributors know a little bit about the company, particularly since there have been drastic changes. It was sold in 1985, and right now they are trying to adapt to the computer age. Said that they have Macs and Aldus Pagemaker for all the editors, including those who work at home; I'm tempted to write and tell them they ought to get MacinDOS or some-such program for the main office, so contributors can send disks to the main office to be translated and forwarded to the editors. H.O.B. specializes in printing the work of people who aren't in it for the money -- hobbyist writers are going to do their typing on computers they have bought for some other purpose, if they have computers at all. And I can tell you that underpaid editors last longer if they don't have to re-type everything they receive. I was surprised, when I resumed work in the cool less hot of the evening, to find that all the pages of the Bikeabout are occupied, so all I have to do is to find fillers for eight little holes and a half page, and arrange the front cover. Of course plugging up little holes is the most time-consuming part, especially since I seem to be all out of medium-size fillers. I've several pages of articles, and about a page of shorties -- I've been using a lot fewer one-liners since adopting Publisher, since it allows me to measure white space in points instead of picas. So I'm going to have to find some clip art somewhere, and fit it in somehow. Hope I can get it done before the print shop closes for the weekend. I'm thinking of putting my poison-ivy and fivy-ivy cuts on the front page and running "Knee-deep in leaflets three" in the half-page hole. As I left the air-conditioned library this afternoon, I thought stopping wasn't all that bad, but things got sticky at Stewarts. I bought three quarts of seltzer and three quarts of tonic. I think I'll go kill previous bottle of tonic. 17 June 1994 Didn't make it. The wild strawberries are numerous and fat this year -- almost worth picking with a basket. The Joe Rickets berries are loaded, even those smothered under woodruff and violets. I think that after the berries ripen, I'll dig up one of the plants and put it in the raised flower bed. Might even put some in the garden, though more perennials to hoe around are something I don't need. I've already got asparagus, rhubarb, winter onions, and an enormous lovage plant. The bindweed is pretty bad back there, too. I'm keeping ahead of it -- so far. 18 June 1994 Sigh. I was printing out the last few pages, and thinking that I had enough time and energy to prepare the table of contents and finish the front cover, when I noticed that page 18 said this was Issue #6 June. "Arrrgh!" I said, and turned to the "background page" -- and it already said "#7 July" just as it is supposed to do. Then I noticed that the odd-numbered pages were good, and tried to change the left-hand background page -- but the program insists that there is only one background page -- and the correct page-number line appears when I look at the even-numbered pages on the screen. I persuaded it to stop resurrecting last month's dateline by printing while in single-page view, and not all ten of the even-numbered pages were bad; one had no page-number line and one had a hand-typed page-number line. But I'm not getting page one done tonight, and I can't figure out what went wrong, and I can't figure out why it didn't go wrong last month or the month before. I don't think I've ever switched Bikeabout to single-page view before, since a two-page spread runs off the top and bottom of the screen before it runs off the sides, and I like to see the pages the way the readers will see them. 19 June 1994 Frieda seems to be able to tell whether I'm typing or playing games with the computer -- I wonder whether Dave has bribed her to keep my mind on my work? Erica has been refusing to come in at night, and spends these steaming days curled up under my car. Maybe the air conditioning hurts her arthritis. I've served her pill to her in the driveway a few times. She came in for her pill this morning. Fred was locked in the bedroom with Dave at the time. Instead of going "rustle, thump, thump, patter, patter," unwrapping the cheese went "rustle, thump, patter, MEOW! MEOW! MEOW!" I ignored him, but eventually Dave got annoyed enough to let him out. The red lilies I bought at Olsen's are about to bloom. The madonna lilies are also making threatening gestures, but I think the red lilies are going to bloom first. The new plants are also less than half the height of the madonna lilies and tiger lilies, but I think I'll wait until next spring to come to a judgement on that. I suspect that my habit of mulching the flowerbeds with used cat litter has more to do with the ungainly height of my lilies than their genetics does, so the red lilies might be horsey next year. I've switched to stacking the litter beside the back door and letting it get rained on a few times before putting it on the flower beds; that might tend to improve my lilies. Dave and I went to Builder's Square yesterday, and picked up our new sink and faucets; Doug is to start work the 28th. They were out of matching shower valves, so we drove to the other Builder's Square in Clifton Park -- the clerk in Colonie phoned to make sure they had them. The clerks carry around gadgets that look like fat hand-held transcievers with a bar-code scanner tethered to them. These gadgets appear to contain the entire inventory. Since they have antennas, albeit shorter and thicker than the usual rubber duck, I presume that they are wireless terminals. There was a wall-hung sink, which I thought would be easier to clean around than a pedestal sink, but Dave didn't recognize the brand, and the display sink was cracked, so I didn't push it. We were warned not to buy anything at Builder's Square unless we knew and trusted the manufacturer, but the service seemed to be polite, organized, and efficient. And they all wear red vests so they're easy to find. We still don't have grab bars, but Dave says that Doug says that he thinks he knows where to get some. Thought I heard Fred feebly saying "let me out"; when I tracked him down, it turned out that he was saying "stop tickling my nose with your tail-tip." Both kitties are too limp to move, though they're in the living room and Dave has put up the air conditioner. I've been wondering whether it would be feasible to move the computer back into the living room. Aside from me being overheated, my programs have been doing queer things. Got the Bikeabout wrapped up and out in the car. It was less hot today, and they predict a low of 60 tonight. I finally scratched "iron shirts" off my list of things to do. Now it's time to wash shirts again. I'm going to hold off until Tuesday, because I want to ride to Colonie after delivering the bikeabout. We kidnapped Erica and locked her in. She was sneaking up on something at the time; we don't want her eating wild game because she gets fleas and tapeworms. That was when we got home from the Gold Coin. I was joking when I said "hot and sour soup" in response to "what's for supper," but it sounded good to him. The alternative was a bologna sandwich. 21 June 1994 I got home by 3:00 yesterday, but decided not to run a load of wash because I meant to spend the whole day washing today. I didn't check the weather report. I've got a load of shirts and underwear in, and will get it dry somehow. I can put what we absolutely have to have on hangers. I'm barefoot at the moment, because I forgot to save the socks I put on after my bath yesterday. When I went on a group ride, I came home completely wasted -- there was some doubt that I'd make it home. The next morning I felt better than I had in weeks. Yesterday I took a short, pleasant ride, if you don't count having to cross Central Avenue four times -- I had a light all four times, by virtue of putting in a few extra blocks. This morning, I'm wasted. Slept like a yo-yo; I guess I didn't get enough exercise to sleep soundly. Rapp Road is closed for repairs, which made my little eyes light up, as bikies' eyes do, so I drove to the Grand Union Superdebooperola after delivering the Bikeabout, and started my ride from there. Turned out that Rapp isn't closed, it's *gone*. And soon after crossing the sea of sand, I came upon the back side of another barrier and had to share the road again. On the return leg, I found a bulldozer re-arranging the sand, so I went back to the barrier and rode to Western on Gipp, bought some nuts at Paradise Foods, and followed Western back to the Grand Union. Then I threw the bike into the car and went to Price Chopper for groceries. Didn't think to buy cat litter -- P.C. and G.U. are the only places that sell wood chips, so I don't like to go to P.C. without getting some, but we have plenty at the moment. Hard enough fitting a major shopping into the car with a bike anyhow. Had two bags on the floor of the passenger seat, and all the stuff I got at Canterbury Tales, Logical Micros, and Kim's Oriental *on *the passenger seat. I put a box of salad-bowl tortillas into the wire pannier that doesn't close on account of the reflector bolted through one of its joints. Trotting back and forth to empty the car was almost as much exercise as riding the length of Rapp Road/Lincoln Avenue. Making it easier to get into Rapp strikes me as silly, as the road can't handle the current traffic volume, but I suppose they mean to widen it next year. I saw some condemned buildings, and they have made it one-way after Springsteen splits off; both roads come out on Frontage. There's a gap in Rapp at Washington; you follow Frontage, the service road, until you come to a chance to cross Washington. (Washington is built like an interstate, presumably on top of what used to be Rapp.) The red lilies opened today. They really are red, not dark orange. The madonna that strayed in among the tigers opened too. It's not much taller than the red lily, which may have something to do with the early bloom. 22 June 1994 Whoosh! It's so long since I printed the Banner that I've forgotten where to set the paper guides. I had time while working on the Bikeabout, but I was on my last ribbon. Lovely sunny day, and I expect to get the wash done up and mow some lawn too. I particularly want to mow the bindweed blossoms, with the mower set low. Makes a funny-looking patch in the lawn, but it will grow back. Unfortunately, so will the bindweed. Once bindweed is established, the best you can hope for is to slow the spread. I could try an herbicide, but I couldn't get all of the bindweed, and might kill trees and bushes. Dave says that the red lilies are a funny-looking red. After reflection, I agree. They aren't a *lily* red; they look painted. The hollyhocks are flourishing beside the door. I keep cutting the seed stalks off and carrying them to the oak tree, and they keep coming up beside the door but not out there. I thought hollyhocks were biennial! I'm going to have to dig up a lot of madonna lilies when they go dormant, and we have run out of places to plant them. I'm thinking of posting a sign-up sheet at the firehouse. 25 June 1994 When I got back from the MHW banquet, I laid the plaque they gave me on the glove chest in the entry hall, and there it still sits, serving as a paperweight for the outgoing mail. Considering what generates most of my mail, I guess it's an appropriateway to display it. I'd better get out to Borders and spend that gift certificate -- it probably has an expiration date. I've been using the new batch of MHW envelopes for months, but today, when I tried to put a #9 return envelope into one, was the first that I noticed that they are #9. I put the new batch into the bookcase when I got home with them, then decided that that was a convenient spot to keep them and never put them into the box with the #10s. 26 June 1994 There's no way I'll finish mowing before it starts raining again tomorrow. More important to cultivate the garden, which is developing a bindweed sod -- but not until I rest and cool off a bit from finishing the little piece of front lawn that remained to be done when the rain started. The rain was annoyingly timed, but we can use it. Things were getting dry. Karen's little tree is dying or dead. It's drying up, but I had watered it during the dry spell, and it's too well drained to have drowned. Maybe it caught something from the white-pine needles I mulched it with last fall. I just put the hose coupler on, and was surprised at how easy it was -- Dave struggled with the other one. Of course, I learned from that and slathered dish detergent on it before I started. Thereby hangs a tale. I wanted a short hose on the faucet in front so that I could fill buckets without getting wet -- both our outdoor faucets think that they are shower heads. I hunted and hunted all last summer and all last winter for a short hose, but the nearest I came to a short hose was a washing-machine repair kit which was ludicrously expensive for what I wanted it for. One day this spring Dave came home with a "hose coupler" he bought at what used to be Crannel's Lumber. (I think it's Phillips Hardware now; keep forgetting to look at the sign.) I cut a few feet off the hundred-foot hose, which is awkwardly long anyhow, and he repaired the cut with the coupler. After a few days, I realized that I had cut the hose too long; I had to coil it up in the flowerbed when I mowed, and it was squashing the sweet woodruff. I decided to buy another coupler, make a shorter hose, and put the longer short hose on the back faucet -- it would be handier than the fifty-foot hose for washing cat boxes, it could be left on the faucet all the time, and the cellar door doesn't squash when I throw a hose on it while mowing. So I went back to Phillips(?), but Dave got their last brass hose coupler and they had restocked with flimsy-looking plastic at a higher price. On the way in, I tripped over a football display of a marvelous new invention called a "faucet extender" -- a ten-foot garden hose. I got another coupler at Robinson's Hardware last Monday, on my way from the print shop to the Grand Union. I hadn't thought about Robinson being on my way, though, so I didn't have the faucet handle I want to replace. I wonder whether I remembered to take "hose coupler" off my shopping list? Later: that couldn't have been much of a rain we had yesterday, because the garden was already ready to cultivate. But we hadn't been dry long enough to need a long, soaking rain. Turned out that most of the green stuff was purslane, too. But not all of it. I'm going to have to do some hand weeding after it cools off a bit. 27 June 1994 The following paragraph is found in Poe's review of Dickens' Barnaby Rudge: "The stain upon Barnaby's wrist, caused by fright in the mother at so late a period of gestation as one day before mature parturition, is shockingly at war with all medical experience." You mean to tell me that "his mother was frightened by" was once taken *seriously*? On thought, it wasn't such a silly idea. A mother who is seriously frightened is likely to have some sort of experience which would injure the child: breathing smoke, going without food or water too long, extreme exhaustion -- there are dozens of ways to cause what embryologists term "insult" to the fetus. Whatever part is forming at the time might be missing or deformed, and it would take no imagination at all to figure out a direct connection between any deformity and something the mother saw. If necessary, the incident can be revised to make the aspect which corresponds to the "mark" more important. I never heard of George Jones before glancing at Poe's review of his history of America, but the following description sounds like somebody who's in the news a lot: "His qualifications are too well known to need comment. He has a pretty wife, a capital head of hair, and fine teeth." 28 June 1994 Last summer they dug a hole in the lawn of the county building to build, it is rumored, a new place for the emergency dispatcher. Men in orange shirts have clustered around it on occasion, and twice I saw mixer trucks pouring concrete, but there has been no visible result. Then this morning Dave went out for the paper and saw an entire back wall that hadn't been there yesterday. They can't have been working on the basement all this time, because there isn't any. The "hole" was just a trench for the foundation. Tuesday: the high point of the week. Luckily, the trash truck picks up the other side of the street first, so I have time to dash out with my bins and bags after I hear it pass. 29 June 1994 The air coming in through the office window smells good. The madonna lilies are in full bloom. Today's paper says that the new building will begin operation in October -- if no more than ten percent of the new addresses are wrong. The article implied that some people have already been assigned new addresses. Two and a half walls are up this morning, and I can see three large windows from here. That will be quite a change from the bomb shelter! Current plans for the trip to Indiana are to pack the car on the tenth, leave early on the eleventh, and arrive late that evening or early the next day. I forgot to let Erica in last night. Turned out to be a lucky oversight, since she wasn't out. 30 June 1994 Between showers, I caught the grass almost dry enough to mow, and mowed off the bindweed blossoms. I remembered that the lowest notch was too low, and set it in the third notch from the bottom -- and still scalped patches of lawn. The bag filled up faster than it does when I'm mowing high weeds at the usual setting. Before lowering the blade, I mowed the patch where the brush pile was, and mowed up the leaves from the prunings. When I moved the pile this morning, I found that the bindweed was living up to its name. I had to pull the limbs out one at a time. Ah, well, it made the pile more organized, and I cut most of the smallest branches into kindling & put them into the woodshed. We've got an August editor! Virginia Harrison called this morning, while I was writing down the essentials of the job to put in with the clip art. 2 July 1994 Today I finally finished mowing the back lot -- a day or two after time to start mowing again. I'm going to postpone mowing the front lot until Monday or Tuesday. The tallest weeds out back were covered with blossoms that were such a pretty blue, and were so popular with butterflies and at least three kinds of bees, that I hated to mow them down. I did mow around one isolated clump. Also spared a plant or two of what Margie calls "five finger." The weed book calls it "cinqfoil," which is the same thing in Latin. I've been patching my Elmer Little gloves today. I don't know why I didn't have the wit to buy two pairs when I learned that a few were still available. I've got only one glove patched, because you have to wait fifteen minutes for the glue to dry before you put the patch on, and I don't want to have more than one piece of sticky chamois lying around at a time. I kept all my worn-out gloves that weren't clear gone, so I've something to wear while I'm giving the contact cement time to harden. Had a terrible time finding the scraps of chamois. Been a long time since I needed them. Forgot to let Erica in last night, and she *was* out. Like to never showed up for her pill; I was beginning to be afraid she had rustled up her own breakfast. So far (knock wood) there are no signs of tapeworms. Yesterday's poison-ivy clothes, which were still wet at sunset, hadn't been rained on or blown off the line, so I guess she didn't spend too uncomfortable a night. Arachne I got two paperbacks when I went to Central Ave. for ribbons. The Whole Man by John Brunner (1964) was a telepath story -- pleasant change when so much sci-fi and even some SF uses telepaths for furniture. Talking computers have to be furniture; we've already got 'em. And FTL has to be furniture; if it takes sixteen generations to get from one star to the next, your space opera is going to be mighty dull. But telepaths? If brains gave off emanations which other brains could detect, telepathy would be as common as biological compasses or the electric-field sense, and at least as well developed. If you put telepathy into your story, that's your one improbable assumption; you can't just throw it in for stage dressing. Besides, gratuitous telepaths tend to mess up your plot. I have a nit to pick with the wendepunkt of the story, in which Choong deflates Howson for calling him inconsiderate and selfish when Choong was just having fun. Choong *was* inconsiderate and selfish; with no effort at all, he could have warned the hospital that he was setting up a "catapathic grouping" so they could arrange for a wake-up call -- perhaps something as simple as having the therapist appear as the Wizard's valet, saying, "Excuse me master -- you wanted me to remind you of your appointment in Mundania." I found Closed System by Zach Hughes (copyright 1986 by Hugh Zachary) while I was looking for Robert Hughs. Zach is not in Robert's class. Hughes doesn't realize that space opera is supposed to be fun, or he has queer ideas of fun. Things go swimmingly in the first half -- dying prospector gives our hero a diamond the size of a watermelon, beautiful virgin princess falls madly in love on first sight of our beat-up tug-boat captain, hero instantly becomes her willing slave, villain makes hero second-in-command as soon as they are introduced, hero always stumbles across just what he needs, the statue's uniform fits him perfectly, and in general one gets the feeling that one is supposed to disengage one's brain and enjoy. But saving the universe requires our hero to order thousands of incredibly-innocent "beautiful blond young men" to kill each other, after which he buries the princess and gets drunk for several weeks, in the end accepting the girl who should have been his one true love as a hand-holding consolation prize. It's like boarding a roller coaster, only to find that the roller-coaster car is hitched to a coal train. What at first appeared to be thrills and hills was low-budget track. If you want to tell an atrocity-of-war story, you should adopt a realistic tone from the beginning -- not that Hughes ever did abandon the "it's only a cartoon" tone. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 3 July 1994 I was worried about computing tonight. When the "thunder" persisted, I realized that I was hearing the fireworks at the fairground many hilly, wooded miles away. I'm sure glad I didn't go to the show! The dime dropped today. On stepping into our stuffy garage to fetch a pair of pruning shears, I realized that it has a window to open, and opened it -- possibly for the first time since we moved in, if you don't count the time the boys ripped it out and put in a new one. Anyhow, it's the first time I noticed that they forgot to put a sash lift on it. I had to pry it up with a cleaver. The plastic guides tend to glue themselves to the sash if they sit undisturbed for a long time. The window might as well be left open until fall; it opens into the woodshed, so it can't rain in. I broke some of the seed pods off the madonna lilies today; a few of them had nothing but seed pods. The ones that aren't close to the house seem to be a little later. Also picked the first raspberries in my weed garden around the oak tree. Looks better since the grape vines and the Virginia Creeper began to smother the smaller weeds. I'm going to have to cut back the grapes one of these days. I kept trying to persuade one of the ivy vines to climb the guy wire to the telephone pole, but it was a grape vine that finally latched on. Yesterday I finished harvesting the lavender, and picked an almost-ripe blueberry from the bush the lavender is crowding. Most of the blueberries are still grass-green. For the second time, I bought a quart of strawberries at LeVie's; they are open for the season, though they don't have anything local yet. I was tempted by a pint of blueberries, since ours produce just enough for recreational picking. Rushing the season, I bought a tomato and three ears of corn to have with our hamburgers tonight. Not good, but edible. Also bought a sack of charcoal (at Stonewell), but we couldn't find the grill. I like burgers better fried, but I will have to buy a hibachi so we can have some steak. Though neither of us remembers throwing the grill out, I do recall that it was in bad shape. It's too large to hide, and too dirty to be anywhere other than the garage or the shed, so we must have disposed of it. Patched my other glove today. Seems to have worked out well. What did we do before they invented contact cement? Doesn't work on wood, though; too flexible to make a solid bond. And wood glue is easier to use. 4 July 1994 Found some butter-based biscuit mix in the freezer and celebrated the holiday by making some shortcake. We tried to go to the Gold Coin, but they were closed for the fourth, much to Dave's surprise. He says that Chinese restaurants never close. Stopped at Stonewell on the way home hoping the corn wasn't too picked over -- there wasn't even a shuck or a thread of silk in the produce display. I bought a tomato, though it's against my principles to buy "fresh" tomatoes in a grocery store; they never ripen. Tomorrow Dave has a haying work party followed by a fair work party, and wants to be rushed out the door, so there is no point to buying corn tomorrow. It isn't in season yet anyway. Fred is back in the hospital. He is expected home before we leave, but Dave says that Sandy says that his doctors will be surprised if he lives more than a month. Hard to imagine New Salem without Fred Carl. He's literally a landmark. Or, rather, his New Salem Garage is. When he moved it, the deputies were disoriented. 5 July 1994 Today's wind finished the madonnas. Bought some corn anyway, and fed Dave half a salami sandwich and two ears of corn before he rushed out. I hope he didn't mean to take the treasurer's report that I just found in the printer. Rode my bike to Voorheesville by way of Indian Ladder this afternoon, to buy apples (and two bananas), mail a letter, buy corn (and some plums and half-price grapes), and buy milk and bread. Got home just a few seconds before Dave did. On the community sign at the intersection, there was an announcement (just barely big enough to read from a bike) that the Methodist church is having a thrift shop on Tuesdays from 7:00 to 9:00. So I went back after seven, and found them just starting to set up for the summer, which may be why there wasn't a legible sign. Either they unpacked the small sizes first, or only little girls throw out their clothing; largest dress I found was a 12. Hardly anything had been marked; one volunteer was busy with a tape measure finding out what size things were. I found a pair of brown sandals that appear to be wide enough, as near as I could tell with socks on. They might be a smidgeon too long through the instep, but if they are, I can donate them back: they were only 75 cents. 6 July 1994 When I showed Dave my bargain last night, he said, "*You* bought used shoes?" I shoulda said, "If the shoe fits, I buy it!" The weather report says that we will continue to have this enervating weather until we leave. I'd be more cheered by the drop from 90 to 80 when the sun went behind the mountain, were it not that it had been shining squarely on the back of the thermometer until then. But now that we're in the shade and it isn't quite dark, maybe I should dash out and finish mowing the front lawn. There's no more gas, but there's probably enough in the mower for that little patch. 7 July 1994 I wonder what the lawn looks like -- the light was still reasonable, but in some parts, the difference between mowed and not mowed was subtle. And other parts were shaggy. Once stirred up, I took the lopping shears out back and finished disposing of the pile of prunings. I suppose I should mow the front again, a notch lower, the Saturday before we leave, since Dave won't have time to mow & ought not to operate a machine that forces you to walk at a set pace anyhow. In view of what I bought by mistake, I want to inform you that I do *not* approve of writing "love" on a stamp. It's about as respectful as putting a flag patch on the seat of your jeans. Luckily, I bought only twenty. I sighted daisy-wheel printer today. There is already a new layer of "deal with laters" on the old printer, however. 9 July 1994 The corn at the deck party was good, despite having been boiled -- most of the firemen prefer corn that's had a good, long soak. So now we're leaving town. Both LeVie and Barber should be picking local corn before we get back, however. I started to wear my new sandals to the deck party, but by the time I got to the car with my sneaks "just in case," I had decided to re-donate the sandals. The bump in the wood-hard soles is too far forward, and after walking the full length of both floors at Crossgates, I was not in a mood to put up with bumps in my shoes. Had loads of trouble with construction on my ride yesterday, starting with Grant Hill, the road past the rifle range. When we first moved in, I couldn't tell whether it was meant to be gravel or blacktop. The road has usually been better than that, but has never been good. Yesterday, the road was so new that they hadn't re-painted the lines, just a row of dots and codes to guide the painter. By the time I realized that I needed to brake before each curve, it was almost too late! Then I stopped at Kimline for cat food -- getting a sack that will fill the bowl about once, because that was the largest in stock -- and decided to ride around two sides of a triangle to avoid the stretch of Western between Gipp and Rapp. The part of Western that has a "bike lane" isn't safe at the best of times, and traffic was heavy that day. I'd already had a traumatic experience when a long, long truck passed me with what felt like two inches to spare. This was partly my fault, since I had been riding in the center of the bike lane and that does not leave any flinching room between me and the curb. The driver no doubt saw that nice wide sidewalk and thought that I could steer onto it when I noticed that the space of road he left me was dangerously narrow. Or, perhaps, he thought that since the bike lane was officially designated, it must be wide enough to accommodate a bike. I *thought* that I had seen Rapp without a barrier, but it was more torn up than ever. (They are moving the road to line it up with Johnston.) I dismounted and began looking for a path to some nearby buildings, thinking that they must have access to Western Avenue. I chose a route that was about to be scooped up by a humongous bucket loader! Loaders beep when they move, in case of just such an emergency. Safe, but embarrassed, I made it to a clump of small trees that I hoped were part of the final landscape. The loader appeared to be carrying the dirt to a considerable distance. While it was gone, I darted across the newly-flat area into an area that looked stable, noticing a foul odor faintly like neglected hogs. I noticed the same smell several places where digging was going on, but I don't think there's any swamps about. The soil is pure sand. The stable area turned out to be the dead-end of a street off Western. I don't recall how I managed to turn left onto a bumper-to-bumper four-lane road without the help of a light. Somehow, I got to Crossgates Road, but couldn't even start working my way over to the left-turn lane, so I went on a block or two to a road with a light, made a U-turn in the deserted side street, then made a left turn with the light. Finally into the entrance to Crossgates, and the intersection with the ring road was torn up too! It's difficult to make the left turn to Caldor at the best of times, so I turned right with the majority of the traffic. Turned out that the left turn into Penny's was ten times as hard as the left turn toward Caldor, owing to still more construction. But there was a man directing traffic, so it was mainly a matter of patiently waiting my turn. Finally in, I found that there is no bike rack at the Penny's entrance. I went to the edge of the cliff, but saw that there was no way down without going back onto the torn-up road. I also saw that the Caldor entrance is now the entrance to the wing that's under construction, so I had made the right decision at the intersection after all. A new entrance had been built where Burger King used to be -- probably planned from the beginning, as it was a peculiar shape for a restaurant -- but the former bicycle-parking area is going to be the middle of a hallway. So I went back to Penny's, hitched to the flagpole, and hiked from Penny's to Caldor on the upper floor and Caldor to Penny's on the lower floor, which left me exhausted *before* I took a vertical loop through Penny's in search of the rest room. The posted plans say that a tour of the new wing will be at least as long a walk; I hope they plan to rent tricycles to the shoppers. I had come to buy tension rods at Caldor; when Dave put up the air conditioners, I found that we no longer had enough rods to put curtains in all the doors. (And today, I found that one of the curtains is missing, and basted a rod pocket into an old throw.) Everybody was having a sale on summer things, but I didn't see anything to try on. On the way back, I remembered that my nightshirt is a disgrace. Didn't find any nighties I liked, but I found one of those daytime nightgowns that they were calling "floats" a few years ago, and bought it to wear for a nightshirt on the trip. I needed something to wear around the house on hot days anyway. The outbound lanes were torn up worse than the inbound lanes, and when I finally achieved the exit road, I gloated "I never though I'd be glad to get onto Western!" Western was under construction too. Johnston-Normanskill, yahaha, wasn't, but it was long and hot and hilly. I got home just as the first few drops of rain fell, but all my clothes were wet -- from the skin out! My last water bottle ran dry in Voorheesville. Then in the mail was a letter it's too late to forward to Virginia, so I had to answer it. I'd thought I'd left my last responsibility for August at the printshop with the back cover that I dropped off on the way to Crossgates. (You wondered why I was on Western when Normanskill-Johnston is shorter, didn't you?) Planned to spend today washing every stitch we own and catching up on the yard work. Got the clothes dry between thundershowers, but it was too wet to mow and too hot to weed. Too hot to *think*. I decided to pack Dave's cotton shirts wrinkled, and borrow his mother's iron. Only 30% chance of showers tomorrow, and I hope it will be less hot. It's cool now, but I'm going to have to close the windows when I go to bed, in case of showers. 10 July 1994 All packed, though I've not done half of what I wanted to get done before leaving. Today was much cooler, and breezy in the evening. 24 July 1994 Frieda remembered me, but I'd forgotten Frieda -- picked her up the wrong way and got claw marks on my arms. Fred remembered me when I started to make a cheese sandwich. Erica has an oval bald spot on her flank, with an oval of discolored skin in the middle. I'll be phoning the vet early tomorrow. As soon as I'd unpacked, I had to sort out clothes to wear to Fred's wake. We'd expected it to take a little longer, but when it got so that he couldn't even talk, he refused the feeding tube and went home. The funeral home here couldn't hold a midwestern-style viewing if it wanted to. The two little parlors were extremely crowded even with people walking straight out after shaking hands with the immediate family. Fred drew a larger crowd than most, of course. A great many people from Saab, including the president, are coming to the reception that Sandy is holding after the funeral tomorrow. I'm debating whether to make some orderves; though it would make me feel better, it would no doubt confuse Sandy's plans. The disease had been devastating; Fred looked as old as he should have been. I didn't see Hazel in the reception line. I hardly expected it, since she can't stand long at the best of times, but I worry all the same. Didn't think it tactful to ask how she's taking the loss of her son, since it's none of my business. And everyone who might be presumed to know was in the reception line. Expected the lawn to be calf high, but it's not much more than due for mowing. The garlic needs pulling and the purslane is making a nice carpet, but the bindweed isn't too bad and the tomatoes have all set fruit. I suspect that some water wouldn't hurt anything. One potato plant has been dug up and there were a couple of new potatoes on the windowsill that I haven't had time to inquire into. 25 July 1994 Dave said that there were three potatoes in the hill, but he'd fried one for breakfast. That was the longest funeral procession I've ever seen; I wondered whether we'd all fit into the graveyard, but it has meandering driveways. My rust-dropping Toyota felt out of place among all those Saabs. I didn't go to the reception, but came home and hung up the laundry & spent the afternoon reading old newspapers. Too warm to do much else. Found a runner in my last pair of pantyhose when it was almost time to leave. 26 July 1994 And if I'd realized how much skill driving in formation takes, I'd have tried harder to hitch a ride. I'm filled with fury tonight, but the town hall had closed for the evening and I couldn't dump my junk mail on anybody's desk. Dave says that when I do, he won't bail me out. Somebody must have stomped in to complain about being unable to dispose of brown bags, because there is now a sign up saying that you are supposed to put them into the box labeled "cardboard only." I thought I had time to feed my bushel of junk mail through the teeny little slot in teeny little handfuls -- I hadn't even considered it when I was rushing around before leaving, which is why the trash was still in the car -- but there wasn't anything to stand on, so I had to reach and stretch to the teeny little slot, and there wasn't anything to rest my basket on, so I had to support it with one hand while reaching and stretching with the other. I didn't get very much in before I realized that I was going to make myself sore, and gave up. It isn't easy to feed loppy paper through a narrow slot when you can spare only one hand. Good thing I did quit, because I felt it a little while sorting the boxful of money wrappers tonight. Threw all the bill wrappers out, except for a few dollar-bill straps that still seemed to have some glue. Got the quarter, dime, and nickel wrappers assorted into cigar boxes. Dave is going to have to buy penny wrappers and some bill wrappers. He found half a bushel of money bags. Someone had exalted ideas of how much a fair brings in, or kept forgetting where he put the bags. We put all the money stuff into the safe, where it will be easy to find again. 27 July 1994 Several of the comic strips in our paper purport to be telling stories. When I got back after being away for two weeks, every story was exactly where I left it. Still haven't mowed the lawn. I hope to get at it today, if it doesn't rain before the grass dries. We got a nice heavy rain yesterday -- while the boys were working on the fair. A small stream ran through the basement and under the chair where I was sitting to sort the coin wrappers, but I didn't see what was leaking. Margie is mowing her lawn. The grass must be dry. 31 July 1994 It's all over but the counting! There's a boxful of bags of money, one from each booth (except the two or three early-closers we counted before the rush) to be taken care of tomorrow. But it took us only a few hours to take care of yesterday's receipts today, and we don't have to make up banks tomorrow. There was a heavy shower just when we were starting to set up; I waited five minutes for it to let up before going out to my car. John speculated that the shower cost us a couple of thousand dollars. I didn't get much of a nap after "lunch" -- a bowl of dry "Bunch of Crunch" (Hytop's version of Captain Crunch) and a few hazelnuts -- but that was more nap than I'd managed the day before, and I stood up better tonight even though it was a longer day. Dave and I split a chicken thigh and ate some bread just before time to leave (which was three), then we got our barbecued chicken dinners after everyone got their banks and the first flurry of requests for change eased off. (The fair opened at four.) I took a packet of saltine crackers with me, and though I didn't eat very many of them, they were a great help in keeping up my strength and quelling a queasy stomach. One of the times that I emerged from the cellar, the ambulance was missing, and I was told that they'd hauled off someone who had fallen, but there was never any conversation about it, so I suppose it wasn't serious. We had a better parking spot for the ambulance this year, owing to the absence of the Town's recycling hut, and they got dinners the same as the fair workers. I don't think they got that in previous years; if not, it's high time someone thought of it. I found a huge box of penny wrappers. After Dave had got some new ones, of course. Erica's irritated spot looks angrier than ever, but is much smaller; the whole top half has turned white (Erica's normal color). Perhaps the red skin seems drier because it is regenerating underneath, as burns do. Erica is less unco-operative about letting me put Panalog on it, perhaps because the vet told me to feed her immediately afterward, so it would have a little time to soak in before she licked it off. Still haven't got the suitcases sorted out and put away. I did get the front lot mowed, and the garlic has sort of been pulled, but otherwise I haven't touched the garden. (Meant to give garlic to the bake booth. Someone gave zucchini, yellow squash, and a cucumber, but only the cuke was small enough to eat.) This morning I finally changed the bed Dave had been sleeping in the whole week I was gone. Too much hurry every morning, in the evening I always decided I'd rather sleep in a stinky bed than stay up a minute longer, and I didn't think of it in between. Since I haven't done any wash either, except for a load of shirts and underwear the day of Fred's funeral, that was my last pair of clean sheets. (Changed both at once, as it had been so hot that the top sheet was dirty too.) Sure hope it's drying weather Monday. That's tomorrow's date the computer put at the top of this essay. It's after midnight, but I was too wound up to go to bed at once. Wanted to air the house out anyhow, having left it closed up because of the rain. Could have opened some windows when I came home to grease Erica at about seven in the evening, but was afraid it would rain again. 31 July 1994 J'ever lift a thousand dollars in quarters? Me neither, but I've heaved $500 in cupro-nickel a few times. Unh! It was about two in the afternoon when Dave decided that he wanted to go out and play with the other boys. We got most of the cash counted and bundled, and he stuffed most of the large bills into a locking sack and took it to the bank. The fellow who runs the rides and rents the quarter push and the kiddie striker has a machine that counts the quarters taken out of the quarter push, but does not wrap them, by way of encouraging customers to think he's doing them a favor when he asks for the quarters as part of his fee. He wanted the rest of it in cash too, but we had only a couple of thousand counted and wrapped. We were thinking of nefarious reasons, but the paper trail is there anyway; I think it's because banks are designed for people who sleep in the same county twice, and stores don't like out-of-town checks. But what does *he* want with bags of quarters? It's the customer who primes the quarter machine. Yesterday I found an enormous box of penny wrappers. We plan to put all that sort of thing into the safe, since it isn't used between fairs. 3 August 1994 Yesterday I made chicken salad out of the leftover barbecued chicken, thinking that was something I could get on the table in a hurry, and when Dave came home I ripped the shucks off the corn and rushed it into the steamer, he ate supper -- and sat down in the easy chair and wondered what it is he does when he's at home in the evenings. He went to bed early. I sat up until ten, but should have followed his example. Tonight there's a board meeting at the firehouse. Read in last week's Enterprise that a hundred years ago the Altamont "hose company are holding weekly drill rehearsals." The editor regarded this with much approval -- because they would "make a much more creditable appearance" when marching on their field day! I wonder when firemen first realized that you have to practice putting out fires? I hope we got some water out of last night's rain. Ever since I got home, the weather has been soggy and humid with frequent sprinkles and momentary downpours, but the soil has been increasingly dry. I think it sprinkled all night, or at least again late in the night. I really should have hooked the garden hose to the laundry pump before washing clothes the day before yesterday. Yesterday I mowed the back yard, and upgraded the kitchen to "filthy". The feds made Dave fill out some sort of form because he deposited a large sum in cash. It's all in the bank now, except for a small box of odd coins he left in the safe to deal with next year. 3 August 1994 Today a banker called up to get Dave's Mark of the Beast, otherwise known as his Social Security number, for aforementioned form. Our period of domesticity is over. He is at a board meeting tonight, and tomorrow is Dave's night -- to go out and play with Fred? I suppose the other boys will get together. Mowed from the garden past the patch of aspen this afternoon. I'm going to have to take a pruner out and get a couple of aspen that I missed with the mower. Spent the morning working on the Bikeabout, and put three proofs in the afternoon mail. More accurately, I sent proofs to three people; one had an author and a typist. 4 August 1994 Urf! I decided that before I started work, I'd cut out the tree that's growing up in the barberry bush, cut down the two aspen I couldn't quite reach with the lawn mower, and look around for anything else that needed pruning. Turned out that there were a *lot* of trees growing up in the barberry bush, and what seemed like half the bush was dead and needed cutting out. After spending the whole morning in a "barb" berry, I was not a happy camper. But I did cut down the dead madonna-lily stems, and the aspens, and all the tall grass that kept me from mowing close to the stumps that had protected the sproutling aspens. Also found that one of the stumps was rotten enough that I was able to break off several pieces, and another showed sawdust around a bug hole. The garden is almost untouched and the house is filthy, but I think I'll take the afternoon off and fetch Erica's pills by bicycle. They will be ready at three, so if I leave at one I should have worlds of time. Didn't leave until after two, but it took less than an hour and a quarter to get to Delmar Animal Hospital. Hills not as bad as I feared, though they got steeper on the way back. I've still got a barberry thorn in the tip of one finger. Also a few more hither and yon, but those don't hurt. 9 August 1994 Still one thorn embedded in the callus on one knuckle. I think I'll have to wait for it to wear off. Went to an MHW board meeting wearing pearls yesterday. On Saturday -- our re-scheduled anniversary -- Dave presented me with a cultured-pearl choker before taking me to the Bears for steak. (I hadn't realized it was thirty years even.) I did nothing at all for him. The Bears has changed a lot since the previous trip; it's much more formal than the jolly-innkeeper ambience that it had before. Our waiter, Dave thinks, was a young boy when we were there before. I was tempted to ask him whether he'd broken a leg playing football, to see whether he was the boy with his leg in a cast. Bobby Paine (Pappa Bear) appeared in the dining room, but apparently on his way somewhere, not playing host, and he walked as though he'd been carrying a heavy weight for thirty years, not like a jolly fat man. But I could see why our football-player waiter looked as though he'd forgotten to take off his shoulder pads. And the teddy-bear waiter was obviously his brother. Most curious to see two people with such contrasting figures and yet it was plainly the same build, and it was equally plain that you couldn't fatten or diet one into the other. The boy was cute as a button. Built like an inverted triangle, hair brush-cut and combed forward in the latest fashion, and doing the stiffest and most-formal trained-waiter act I've ever seen. Picture Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Henri. But Baby Bear is better looking than Arnold. 10 August 1994 By chance, the most-convenient place to put the computer in the dining room is between the front window, with a view of the road, and the side window, with a view of the door. Shortly after sitting down to punch in "MHW Hosts Bike-Aid Group," I noticed Erica sitting hopefully on the step. Frieda heard me let Erica in, and Fred heard Frieda trotting to investigate. The cause of this chain reaction? Erica's arthritis pill. I've a load of wash in -- partly because I forgot that I dried the previous load in the cellar, and thought that I was out of socks. Now I can try out my new Rubbermaid basket -- I wrecked all my previous baskets by squashing them against my hip so that I could carry them with one hand, so when I stopped to look over Walmart on my way to Monday's board meeting, I bought a basket intended to be held with one hand. Also picked up a kitchen stool. It's been several years, now, and I decided to stop holding out for a plain one. I'm not sure I'd have gotten the mock-rush ("woven top") stool had I realized how top-heavy it is. But, though Erica circled it speculatively, nobody has jumped up and knocked it over -- so far. If they knocked it over when they jumped up, I'd have no problem -- it's the launchings that destroy my stools. 11 August 1994 The last time I was at the library I leafed through the famous paper-clip section of a book on how things came to be, and went on to read about beer cans. The book says that the flat top of a beer or soda can has to be thicker than the paper-thin body of the can, to hold pressure, so the "necked" design saves substantial amounts of expensive aluminum. On looking at a conspicuously-necked can, I wondered why they don't neck the cans all the way, and make them into metal bottles. I suppose it has something to do with shipping crates and vending machines. 13 August 1994 Sigh. When I picked up the August originals the day before yesterday, I said "I *hope* I can deliver the next issue on Monday; I've got stuff that isn't even punched in yet." In the bad old days, when I got everything punched in, I put the stencils into an envelope and delivered them. 14 August 1994 Learned today: when a program that automatically saves on exit is running under Windows, you must save before exiting. Windows is more likely to freeze up and require rebooting than the application, and might prevent the save. Publisher, however, must not be saved before the exit dialog, or it will create clutter files instead of saving properly. Word creates clutter files too, but it cleans them up. Also, I seldom have anything in Word files that I'm afraid to erase. I've got eight of twenty pages crossed off my map, another six are full or nearly full, and I have an inkling as to what I'm going to do with the front cover in the absence of any cover stories. I do have photos! Three of them, counting the pair that go with "Trading one Hazard for Another" as one picture, and I've already placed the two that go on interior pages. Brilliant inspiration: one of the two photos I'd promised to print because Virginia hadn't found room for them is a shot of the winner at the Tulip Festival Criterium, and I didn't realize it was Racing News until after I'd filled up the rest of that page with letters. It had been a real bear to make the letters fit properly -- had to fudge the definition of "properly" -- and messing with page two would have meant doing redoing page four, which had been even tougher to fit, and messing with page four probably would have created entirely new problems on pages five and six. Then I noticed that the winner was a member of the Brueger's Bagel Racing Team, and put the photo under "Other Club's News." A perfect fit! The other of Darryl's two photos goes on the front page because both of the clowns are MHW members, and the "Follow the Clown" ride was an official club ride. Where did I read a story about the company that makes professional clowns' shoes? It mentioned special clown shoes that allow you to drive a car in your makeup, but didn't mention any with cleats. Most of the cycling shoes in the catalogs look sufficiently ridiculous. Most come at custom-built prices, too. None, however, come with slotted cleats and laces. The latest catalog doesn't even offer slotted cleats, but tries to pass off what we used to call "touring shoes." While looking for some guidance on the use of "e.g.", I caught the venerable Los Angeles Times Stylebook in an error. It included "SOS" in a list of abbreviations that needn't be spelled out. You needn't spell out "SOS" because you *can't* spell it out -- it's not an abbreviation. 15 August 1994 Dave's in the doghouse, but luckily he'd left to go back to work when I found out about it. Tomorrow is predicted to be a warm, dry day, so I wanted to put the aprons and moneybags in to soak tonight, and wash everything in sight tomorrow. But this morning Dave put on his very last pair of clean undershorts, so I had to run a load today, when I'm trying to get the Bikeabout finished six hours ago, and spoil my plans for tommorrow. After lunch I took down the wash, took it upstairs -- and found his drawer jam packed full of undershorts. There had been a new shirt lying on them, so that only the edges of the shorts were visible. Thought there were rather few shirts and shorts the basket, but was too rushed to think about it. The original plan was to put the bike and the bikeabout in the car Sunday night, deliver the first thing this morning, park at the Price Chopper, and ride to Canterbury Tales and Kims Oriental. Saturday morning, when I remembered that the library doesn't open on Saturday in August, I decided to add the drafting board to the load and stop at the library to add the Touhey ad and the clip art for the Mountain Bike Festival poster. Then I figured that I'd work this morning until I was sure which copies I wanted, ride my bike to the library, finish the Bikeabout, and deliver by car. Then I was back to stopping at the library on the way to the print shop -- and leaving out the other copies I'd planned to make. As I finished sticking a bike-riding bear into the festival poster, I heard someone on a telephone behind me say "five to five" and knew that I was on a shopping trip to Star Plaza. I stopped at the print shop just in case, but did not try the door because I have to discuss blue ink for the Century poster and explain the pullout and the ride calendar -- this isn't a drop-and-run issue of the Bikeabout. I just put the aprons and moneybags on to soak. When I offered to wash a bagfull of change aprons, I forgot that it meant going through the pockets. Found a felt-tip marker. Hope there weren't any more! Most of the aprons said "Crannel's Lumber" on them. 16 August 1994 Kept forgetting to go down and start the aprons on the next cycle. Then as I set out for the school-budget vote (walking, since the school is next door), I remmbered that I had forgotten to take them out of the washer. Then I remembered what apron strings do when you put a couple of dozen aprons through four cycles, and it was after half-past five when I got the last one pinned up. I had to stand in line to get into the school; it probably wouldn't have been so crowded at four. The clothes line looks like a jellyfish with all those strings hanging down. If Dave is fair treasurer next year, I'll stuff the strings into the pockets and baste them shut -- and leave them for the fair workers to pull out again; it would make them easier to fold away. Found a quarter and a bobby pin in the washer. I've more sympathy for Clinton after watching a mother train her child in Smitty's. The poor guy is squealing and whining and running back and forth and Mommy still won't buy him pretzels and give him quarters. 17 August 1994 No sooner had we found out our new address, than I found a stash of letterhead and envelopes with the old address on them. Not many, however. 20 August 1994 Grump. I seriously want a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and I didn't buy milk yesterday. Mom ate her cornflakes with orange juice, but I can't develop a taste for it. The pizza of the week was reuben: corned beef, saurkraut, russian dressing, and swiss cheese. Quite good, though not recognizable as pizza. I thought there was too much russian dressing, but Dave thought it just right. I wonder when they will come up with a "Special" pizza. One of the waitresses is looking forward to chili pizza. I woke up exhausted this morning, and was even more tired after my afternoon nap -- which went on for an unusually long time, though I don't think I was honestly asleep. I stood up to the boat ride quite well -- literally, since there weren't any chairs on deck and I didn't want to go inside -- even though I didn't get much of a nap yesterday. But I was not at all sad to see the end of it; three hours on the water was about right. So there I was fifteen minutes past bedtime and eagerly looking forward to getting home, and everybody decided to go see the Sala's new house. I went straight to Diane's rocking chair and didn't take the tour. After rocking quietly about half an hour I perked up enough to take part in the conversation. The heat today hasn't helped my recovery any. I felt much less tired after sitting in Smitty's a while, where it was unpleasantly cool. Right after breakfast, I tried my new cycling suit out by going for two gallons of milk -- and got one and a half, because Mobil hasn't trained its new milk-delivery man yet. Also picked up four ears of corn at Barber's Creekside. Despite the hi-tek superwick maxcool fiber, the suit felt exactly the way you'd expect an all-synthetic outfit to feel on a hot day; on the way back, I unzipped the front to get the collar off my poor itching neck. I never unzip my jersey, not even when I wear a wool jersey on a ninety-degree day by mistake. You don't get any noticeable ventilation, and do get sun. The catalog says the jersey has an "elliptical cut" for full coverage. I call it draggling down in the back. "Elliptical cut" is particularly stupid when the fabric is so stretchy that putting your wallet in your pocket makes the back three inches longer without waiting for washing and wear to stretch it -- or even waiting for the rest of the stuff I carry in my pockets. Moreover, my first reaction, on seeing myself in the mirror in a thin, clingy jersey with lycra shorts that conspicuously outline my underpants, was to wonder whether it's too late in the season to buy a beach coverup. This is not the summer outfit I need so badly, but it was cheap -- Performance was holding an end-of-the-season sale -- and it will, because it fits so tightly, be much better under my winter clothes than my present shorts and jerseys. So I still need to write to Flye and ask whether they can make their cotton jersey in yellow. And I need to find plain old lace-up, slot-cleat shoes someplace. I wonder whether there are any bike shops in the Compuserve Mall? 21 August 1994 After an hour or so searching the Quill catalog for plain #10 envelopes, and finding a whole bunch of printed envelopes and a politically-correct watermark, I've decided that my need for envelopes isn't urgent. I have plenty of #9, which will do for everything but the Banner, so the #10s I have should hold for a while. I hope Dave forgets that I said I'd order his rubber stamps. Can probably get both stamps and envelopes at Delmar Stationer. Compuserve Mall is pretty near nothing; the only interesting catalog they offer is one I already have. It will be a few years before the Net rivals the yellow pages. I got a little digging done in the garden before the rain started, and harvested several fat potatoes. The tomatoes are threatening to produce faster than we can eat them. Dave ordered our house numbers and those for the firehouses the same day. The firehouse numbers arrived a few days ago, but there is no sign of ours. The route man is giving out numbers for people to stick on the fronts of their boxes, because he can't wait forever. The folks who moved in where the Campbells moved out stuck the house numbers on the box where wires go into the house, but ours is on the side of the house, on the second floor. Besides, you can't see their numbers from the road unless you stop the car and get out, and our house is more than twice as far back, and we have bushier trees. I'll have to find some sort of stake. Since it is now the law that farmhouses have to have street numbers, you'd think the garden shops would start displaying driveway stakes with room for house numbers. There's room for a number on the wooden sunflower that Indian Ladder sells, but that's a looking ornament, not a buying ornament. I smile at the version with an exhausted crow lying on its back on top of the blossom, but I sure wouldn't want to have it someplace where I'd have to see it every day. Dave found plain white envelopes instantly. (They were under the neon envelopes.) One night at Alice's, I heard a bird call in the night that sounded like someone very slowly driving a nail into thin wood. Alice said that there were woodpeckers in the area, but it was a call that sounded like pounding, not real pounding. One morning soon after I got back, I wondered what the guys working on the new building were up to, to be pounding so slowly, and what could they be pounding on to make such an odd sound. Then I looked out the window to see two turkeys strolling across the back point four nine. They clucked faster when they saw Rascal, but soon realized that he was an inept young cat, and resumed whatever they had been doing, maintaining a couple of yards of separation. Rascal maintained surveillance. I suspect that he co-operated in maintaining the separation -- even such a sheltered cat must have some idea of what a full-grown wild turkey could do to a fat, soft housecat. 22 August 1994 Yesterday I decided, after taking ten minutes to fight my way through the funny books to release the northeast corner of the sheet I was changing, to ride my bike to Colonie today and buy a comic-book box. The rain is supposed to let up later on, but I'm inclined to do tomorrow's schedule today. Unfortunately, my plans for tomorrow were to wash clothes and household linens and several months' worth of rags. 24 August 1994 Got the wash done today, not including rags, but it did include ten yards of broadcloth scraps I found on my doorstep when I carried out what I'd thought was the last load. I didn't attempt to shrink any of the fifty yards of osnaburg that were in the same order. (I intend to make osnaburg curtains for the bay window, five regular windows, and two doorways. The scraps were a frivolous impulse.) Got the funnybook box yesterday, but it didn't do much to clear a path through the bedroom. Brought it back filled with saimen, and also got two printer ribbons and a pair of non-skid chopsticks. Parked at Price Chopper, bought all their wood-chip cat litter, then set the bike up and rode across the street to Robinson's, where I finally bought replacement handles for the outdoor faucets. I even put one of them on! Chucked the other one into a drawer. We turned the back faucet off from the inside, because the broken handle wouldn't turn it all the way off. Wouldn't take long to re-open it, but I forgot until after dark; I'll think of it the next time I want to wash a cat box -- I hope; I've gotten used to doing it at the less-convenient faucet. After putting the handles into the car, I went the back way out of Price Chopper onto Oxford, which is a dead end off Gipp, which is the only way you can get onto Rapp these days. The ride from Westmere to Colonie is probably less exercise than riding to Voorheesville and back, but it's a change of scene. I rode up Rapp to see what was going on, and found it a very short trip. The pavement now ends at the top of the first rise, where I confronted a newly-bare field and a massive new building. The roads are so convoluted that it wasn't until I noticed a sign reading "Caldor" behind the construction that I realized that I was looking at the back end of Crossgates. So *that's* how they got money to pay for moving Rapp! Hope it works out better than the last road they coerced Pyramid into paying for. And I sure hope that they don't mean to make it inaccessible to bicycles. Westmere Plaza is at Gipp and Western, a quarter of a block from Gipp and Oxford, so on the way back I dropped in to verify that Kimline had a twenty-pound bag of Max Cat Lite -- *and* I remembered that I wanted to go back to Kimline after my second tour of Price Chopper. The car was pretty jammed by then -- I never mentioned buying seltzer at Stewarts on the way out (and also buying gas and mailing a heavy letter and a light package) -- so I sat the bag of cat food in the passenger seat and belted it in. I was pretty beat by the time I got the car unloaded, so I ate one of the packages of oriental alimentary paste and took a long nap. 25 August 1994 I saw something new on the way from Western to Central: they have re-opened the crossing of Washington where Springsteen ends on Frontage. I was curious to know where it went, but crossing Washington isn't something one does more often than necessary, and I wasn't sure I could get back onto Rapp. The map says that the other access road does extend to Springsteen -- which I should have known; how else had they gotten access to the chopped-off part of Springsteen before the crossing was re-opened? But the map also says that Springsteen doesn't go anywhere, the land on the other side of Washington being a peninsula defined by Washington and the interstates, almost pinched off by a loop of Thruway Exit 24. The map also says that the footpath leading off the bike path under the I-87 bridge probably leads to Railroad Avenue, which goes into the back of Northway Mall. I measured three yards of osnaburg and put it on to soak, together with the canvas I bought to make a poncho shirt, which still felt a trifle starchy. Tomorrow I'll wash them in hot water and measure the osnaburg again. 26 August 1994 The osnaburg now measures two yards and thirty inches, so I can expect each yard I cut to lose two inches. That isn't much shrinkage for gray goods. Spent the whole morning trying to wash our king-size "dry clean only" mattress pad in the bathtub. Finally gave up and put it in the washer for a last rinse -- figured that if I couldn't see how dirty the water was, I'd hang it out to dry. And then I found that neither the rubber mallet nor the plungers would induce the pump to pump, and resorted to the bucket. Yes, I remembered the two pumps under the laundry table, but hauling the water out in a bucket seemed less complicated than stringing hoses up the cellarway. Besides, I knew for sure that the bucket would work. Should have replaced the pad instead of washing it; it's worn so thin that I'll have to put an old blanket under it. Maybe I should just use two or three old blankets -- blankets are a bunch easier to wash! 27 August 1994 Hung the mattress pad out for a few hours this morning, because it was dampish at sunset yesterday, and was surprised when I took it in -- it was the first time I'd noticed the absence of the stains left when our waterbed leaked. Dry cleaning never touched them, but in the wash, they vanished without a trace. And dry cleaning makes things stink. Got up from my nap and took another stint at rolling the osnaburg, but after reeling in a few yards, I found that I was too sore to continue even though only three yards remain. This morning I measured a doorway and calculated how much cloth I'd need for a curtain, allowing four-inch hems and another four inches for the rod pocket. Then I multiplied by four, calculated the allowance for shrinkage two different ways, got nine yards and fifteen inches by both methods, and decided to cut off nine and a half yards. So I started measuring, and was startled to come to the end of the piece after six yards. Nothing would do but unrolling the whole fifty yards. The rest was all one piece and I could have used it directly off the roll, but there was no way I could know that without unrolling it. Then I had to dispose of a thirty-yard pile of fabric. I assume it's about thirty, after removing three, six odd, and nine and a half from fifty. I took advantage of the unrolling to put pencil marks every yard, and small safety pins every third pencil mark, but had no spare energy for counting safety pins. I wish I'd had the wit to count the pile of pins before I started! Rolling the cylinder back the way it came proved impossible. I tried folding back and forth in armlengths as dry-goods clerks do, but it didn't take many yards to get too heavy to hold, and piling one installment on another required more hands than were available. So I flopped the folded part over to get at the beginning, and tried rolling while holding the roll in the air, and that worked after a fashion, but it didn't take the roll long to get so heavy that instead of rotating it, I had to sort of roll it down my belly and then heave it up again. With frequent pauses to untangle more fabric, it was kinder strenuous. Hmm. With so little to go, I'll bet I can put it on the floor, straighten the fabric, and bowl it. Anyhow, I've got two pairs of door curtains shrinking in the washer. Making hems and rod pockets should be nothing at all after this! And the roll will be considerably lighter after I cut off three pairs of window curtains. If I ever buy another whole roll of fabric, I'm going to take it down to the firehouse and unroll it on two of their long tables. But where on Earth do I look for holdbacks? Hardware stores don't have them, and Renovators has only elaborate, expensive reproductions. Almost 5:00. Probably time to swap this outfit for the same thing without holes. I'm finding myself short of stuff to wear around the house. I've an adequate supply of clothes I don't want to get dirty, and worlds of ragged clothes for getting really dirty, but very little to do house work in. And it's probably too late to buy summer clothes. Ah, well, cold weather is comng on and I've an ample supply of long-sleeved everyday shirts. Who Whitaker is, the waitress didn't know, but his pizza is white sauce, raw tomato chunks, green pepper, mushrooms, and mozzarella. She's still pushing for chili pizza; I told her it isn't time yet. I got the osnaburg rolled after we got back (though not carried upstairs yet) and Dave plunged the laundry tubs for me before we left. The pump is pumping again, slowly. I sure hope I like osnaburg curtains. It's nice stuff to work with, so far. All the store-made cuts are nearly thread-straight, which suggests that grain isn't going to be a problem, and it's easy to pull a thread when I want to cut it. It's soft, but not slithery. I may make a blouse from the leftovers. 28 August 1994 Today I wanted to clip the comic strip "Shoe" out and mail it to someone. The reporter, Shoe, calls the computer repairman, who carries a wand and wears a wizard's untidy robe and pointy hat. The repairman looks at the word processor and says "It could be anything . . . maybe a power surge from that storm last night . . . or the disk drive. I'll do some tests and run a diagnostic. Then we'll reconfigure the hard disk, reinstall the program, do a restart, and hope it works." To this Shoe replies, "Are we still sure this is an improvement over changing the ribbon?" Right *on*, man! Writing machines are a big help, when they work, but the check you write isn't the only price you pay. And you still have to change the ribbon. I threw all the dingy pillowcases I could find in with the osnaburg, thinking (correctly) that soaking in detergent all night would brighten them. It made them look newer than I expected: some of the specks that washed out of the osnaburg stuck to the muslin. 29 August 1994 Fred took advantage of our screen-door closer's delay to dash out after I came in. I went back out, and he dashed in again. So I came back in, smirking over having conditioned his reflexes. Then, noting that he'd already left the entry, I said to myself, "Wahait a minute! Wasn't there a flurry of motion in the corner of my eye?" Fred had made a second U-turn and was back outside. This boy is getting good. I'm glad Freida isn't particularly interested in the great outdoors. Maybe I should go back out and pick some fresh catnip. Hung one of the door curtains up to see how wide to make the hem -- and found that it is exactly long enough with no hem at all. Measured the door again: it's still two yards and eight inches. Then I divided nine and a half by four: two yards and thirteen inches. Hardly enough for the rod pocket without allowing for shrinkage; I'm surprised that the curtain is that near long enough. How could I make such a big mistake when I checked my calculations twice? Luckily, I had bought some calico to make a radio cover, then decided to use osnaburg instead, so I can use that to make false hems. It's just the right width. I'm a bit nervous about cutting off the window curtains and putting them in to shrink. Maybe I'll do only the two east windows this trip, and do the three in the north and south later. The west window is going to be a dilly. Hope I can remember where I put the pleater tape. Leastways I know where to buy it now. If they still stock that kind. I think I'll forget the metal tiebacks and use the traditional cup hooks and ribbons. 30 August 1994 Erica's spot looks funnier with mouse-length fur than it did bald. The way cats shed, I expected it to be shaggier by now. 1 September 1994 In the course of checking the secretary for stuff I mean to use in WEB #39, I put away a stack of "Threads" I had moved from the bookshelf to the secretary so I'd know I'd scanned their ads for labels for the overcoats. (Never found any suitable labels, which, as it turned out, was just as well.) Decided to see whether I'd missed anything in the September issue, and burst out laughing in the middle of "Basics." This installment includes an explanation of the difference between the straight-stitch needleplate and zigzag needleplate on your sewing machine. The accompanying illustrations were labeled "straight-stitch needleplate" and "*normal* needleplate"! 5 September 1994 The door curtains still want hemming -- I'm not under much pressure to finish them, since we haven't been using the air conditioner lately -- but I've got two pairs of window curtains finished and hung. Except that I turned the hem on one to the right side. I think I like it that way, but after I've got the other curtains made, I'll rip it out -- it's easier than ripping out the other three. I'm glad I set the stitch length to three millimeters. I was so nervous after the mistake I made on the door curtains that I allowed eight inches for hems on this set, and it came out exactly eight inches. So I left it that way, and ended up wondering whether to make the other three pairs to match or to go back to four inches. Decided after a while that instead of putting these two pair on the two east windows, I'd put them on the dining room windows, and then the curtains in the living room could be different. But while putting them up, I decided that one breadth was enough for the narrower windows -- particularly the north windows, where curtains are only symbolic and will never be closed -- so I think I'll put one of the four on each of the two north windows, put the remaining pair on the living room's east window, and make one pair and an odd curtain for this room. But right now I've got the finished curtains on the windows where curtains are functional -- one pair on the dining-room east window, and the other split between the living room east window and the south window. Next on the agenda is the bay window. This could take a while. I haven't even hunted for the pleater tape yet. Another bafflement: I took down the curtain that was in the window, and made the new curtains a quarter inch shorter -- but they came out an inch too long! They're going to spend most of their time tied back anyway. If I can find holdbacks. Dave suggested that I just tell Howard Coughtry what I want. That's a good idea for the letter rack I've been hunting for ever since we had the windows put in. 6 September 1994 I got a surprise while we were waiting for our pizza Saturday. A week or so before, I'd picked up some barberry twigs and the tip of a thorn broke off in the thick callus on the tip of one finger -- broke off so short, I thought, that it seemed to be a little sphere embedded in the thickened skin. I couldn't get it out, and waited for dishwashing and wear to bring it to the surface, but it was awfully sore for such a small splinter, and interfered badly with typing. Instead of working up, it got inflamed and infected. It's exceedingly rare for a wound to get infected after I've soaked it in bleach-spiked dishwater. I happened to mention it to Dave at the pizza parlor, and he had a pair of tweezers in his shirt pocket, and I always have a sewing needle in my wallet, so he set to work and got it out. It turned out to be an entire thorn, pushed in deep enough to be clear out of sight. No wonder it hurt! When we got home, I put a drop of Chlorox in one of my stainless-steel two-tablespoon measuring cups, stuck the fingertip in it, and played a round of "Penguin," an all-mouse game, with the other hand. Rather rash treatment, but it didn't eat off my fingerprint, and it did draw the inflammation. Noticed this morning that I have to know where to look to see the spot, and I can't feel it at all. 7 September 1994 While coming back from leaving the trash, I noticed that from a moderate distance, the reflective background on our new house numbers disappears entirely against the gray siding, so that the numbers look like a beautiful job of hand lettering. Dave grumbled that it looks as though the little window were #444, but the garage is the only part of the house that you can see from the road. Margie has no place to put numbers at all, and is thinking of hanging a sign from the cross-arm of her yard light. Oh, yes, we did finally get the numbers that we ordered from the post office. Dave speculated that the problem was that they had run out of fours. I still haven't sent in the Quill order. One of these days, I'll ask Dave whether he still wants rubber stamps. If he doesn't, I'll go to Delmar to buy envelopes. I wonder whether Delmar Stationers carries nylon attach cases? And where did I buy that Rubbermaid "Box Office"? I want the same brand so that I can stack them. I dug the rest of the potatoes and got about half a scrub-tub. Not bad for six hills. Most of the potatoes are huge; I mashed one potato for supper yesterday, and we had potato cakes for breakfast. Well, potato, corn, and fried-rice cakes. 7 September 1994 Oh, eee, ooo, ah, ah! The grammar checker just told me that cold weather causes cycling clothes to "therapist," or maybe "counselor". 8 September 1994 Calculated that it would take sixteen yards and sixteen inches to make eight panels for the bay window, cut off seventeen yards, and it's now soaking in the washer. I still can't remember where I put the pleater tape, but I found two unopened packages of pleater hooks that I'd forgotten about. There is also a heap of pleater hooks in the end table, exactly where I thought I'd left them. I wonder whether the tape is in one of the suitboxes of scraps? 9 September 1994 Arrgh! Fred has realized that if he gets out of sight, I can't chase him back inside. Reclaimed another strip of garden today. I'm getting into the part where I'm going to have to weed around things. Took all the cat litter out of the car -- I like to leave it in the heat, hoping that the artificial cedar scent will cook out -- and put in the floor pump and one of the self-inflating air mattresses. I'm all set for the Century tomorrow. I'm tentatively scheduled to sell shirts and mugs. Maybe I should take a couple of brown paper bags in case I get re-assigned to a refreshment stop. The riders always want to dispose of trash, and the snacks have pits, cores, wrappers, etc. 11 September 1994 Spent the day registering non-members and sorting registration cards. Over four hundred riders, I believe. All I know for sure is that there were 29 non-members and 29 members when we drew cards for the quarter-century door prizes, and then two latecomers registered, so there were sixty on the twenty-five. The pizza parlor that catered our "carbo re-load picnic" was impressed with the way hordes of bikies can make ziti, eggplant, and pizza disappear. Carol said that she would get only one tray of meatballs today. It was a pretty good day. When I left, we had all the halves and metrics back, it was reasonable for a few hundreds to still be on the road, the Doubles were on their last twenty-five, and we figure the eight missing quarters were merely rude. Since all of the first-timers ride the quarter, the twenty-five collects all the people who don't know the rules. I thought Carol Burr was slated to call them up and lay on the guilt, but she left before I did. I have no guilt about not hanging around to help Allan with it; I'd instinctively go into try-to-make-them-feel better mode, and end up assuring them that we don't mind staying up all night searching for yahoos who can't be bothered to check in. I've been thinking for some time that we ought to have a decicentury for small children and old ladies; I think I'll bring that up at the next board meeting. (Didn't I say that last year?) The capital "D" in "Doubles" was a typo, but I decided to leave it. There was a rumor that the L.A.W. doesn't even offer a patch for the double century -- that's unconscionable. Patches have pretty much gone out of fashion, but if I ever rode the double, I'd want a souvenir. Someone said that another local club designed their own patch and had it made up. Wish that in the previous entry, I'd mentioned where I had been. According to my notes, I wrote a $22.45 check to or for S?ike on 9/9. Don't recall going anywhere but Stonewell, and I paid cash the last time I was there. Got the wording for Dave's stamps, and I'm finally sending in the Quill order. Needed envelopes, and I'm spending nearly $75. The envelopes are $5.29. I noticed that Quill has ribbons for my printer, a trifle cheaper than at Logical. I'm glad to have a second source -- and one I can telephone, when it's too nasty to go outside. Did I mention the elusive $100 error in last month's bank statement? I finally surrendered and wrote a "deposit" in correction. This month, the statement is off by $100 the other way. The error must have been the bank's, since my accounting agrees with this month's statement, but Dave studied last month's statement for ten minutes without finding anything amiss. When Dave was hunting for last month's statement in the clutter of important papers in the basket on the TV, he said "This must be the one. It's marked `aargh!'" I usually write "balanced" and the date.