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Beeson Banner
1 January 1996
Dave began the New Year by cancelling
Compuserve and deleting all the WinCim
files. Then he realized that he'd been
using the Compuserve "viewer" with
Netscape and other programs. He found
another viewer on file, and now Netscape
works faster.
I had Dave save the "file cabinet"
directory, but I'll probably throw out all
the letters I got through Compuserve;
WinCim uses mysterious hex numbers for
names, so the only way to identify a file
is to open it and read it.
Eudora will copy to other files, and
copy any number of letters into one file.
I haven't found any way to append a letter
to an existing file without
schleppboarding, though. I've been
keeping posts that include book reviews,
and would like to concatenate them, edit
them, and add new postings to the file.
Nobody came to my ride, which I'd
expected because last night the tape still
said "the last half of -- November!" (Sue
seemed to be having trouble reading her
lines.) Just as well, because I got a
debilitating headache at fifteen of one
and didn't want to do anything but lie
down. Since I can hear car doors in the
parking lot from anywhere in the house, I
retired to the sofa, and woke up at two or
three with Frieda on my hip.
I'm about two thirds through the ring
finger of the replacement for the glove I
lost in Woods Hole. Gone have to rip out
the last round of the little finger, as it
came out pointy.
2 January 1996
Snivel. The knit@geom.umn.edu server
is down again. I'll have to work instead
of reading my mail.
3 January 1996
I have discovered that a cat
can understand that you tripped
over him by mistake -- when you are
walking toward a piece of cheese you plan
to give him.
I'm working on the middle finger of the
glove. Took a year to make the glove I'm
replacing. Little finger is too long.
5 January 1996
The server ate the list. I've gotten
at least half a dozen messages to that
effect, and forwarded the news to half a
dozen more. The next time I dial Global
One, I intend to re-subscribe again, as
the server did not send a receipt as it
did when I subscribed the first time, and
I haven't gotten any postings.
Working on the index finger of the
glove. Frieda likes to sit on my lap when
I'm working on it -- she didn't much like
the afghan; nice and fuzzy to curl up on,
but I kept insisting on moving it, or
trying to make her lie under it instead of
on it. She seems to like finished
afghans, though.
Sunny today, but didn't remove much
snow. Crunched when I fetched the mail;
didn't look at the thermometer. I got
icicles on the Jeep while I was at the
opthalmologist's yesterday. Clean bill;
don't even need new glasses. Pleasant
change from this time last year!
We didn't get any mail yesterday. I
suspect that this was not unconnected with
the scanner traffic concerning a mail
vehicle in the ditch on Stove Pipe Road.
Driver wasn't badly hurt, but he couldn't
leave the mail until a sheriff came to
watch it. I gather that his father took
him to a doctor and his brother took the
truck. Not sure what happened to the
mail. Presume the brother stopped by the
post office.
When I took Margie's mail up, there was
a car in her space. Caught a glimpse of
Margie crossing her kitchen doorway fully
dressed, and she appeared to be serving
food to a guest. She had said she dressed
for the first time on Thanksgiving day.
Must be feeling better.
Whine. No sign yet of the yarn I
ordered, or the WEBS catalog either. Dave
got his fire-company checks today. The
snow is so crunchy that when I heard the
UPS truck, I thought it was a snowplow.
Sorted the CIS "file cabinet," pruned
whole sub-directories, re-named the first
four characters of the hex numbers to
reflect the directories I'd found the
remaining files in, and moved them all
into one directory. Don't know of any way
to get them into Eudora but to send them
to myself.
And I can't send them without putting
them into Eudora! If I really want one of
the files, I can schleppboard it.
Sorted and purged Eudora files tonight.
Got the various mailboxes down to
manageable sizes, and moved a lot of mis-
filed postings. Pity I can't delete
irrelevant matter; some posts that I saved
for an address or some other brief bit of
information have pages of chat in them.
If you save something under somebody's
name, you save precisely what he wrote.
Which makes sense. I could put the
"from" line on the clipboard and move a
message into the out box, which erases the
original "from" line and replaces it with
mine -- and you can't edit it, either.
Eudora isn't fond of people posing as
other people. Then I could put the
contents of the clipboard into the "to"
field to identify it and edit to my
heart's content.
Easier to copy the files en mass to PC-
write.
9 January 1996
The big storm passed us by, dropping
less than an inch of snow, but another
seems to be starting. The gray sky, the
big flakes, and the lack of wind all say
"coastal" but I didn't hear the weather
this morning.
Margie cancelled the daily paper
because she has the energy to read only
one a week, but when I fetched the mail
yesterday evening, I found a paper in
Margie's box and put it in her door with
the mail.
This morning Dave said, "Did
yesterday's paper ever come?"
Had the glove almost finished, then
discovered that I should have decreased
the thumb at two stitches per round
instead of one. The knitlisters call this
frogging: rip it, rip it.
One post read "Thank you for your
support during my sojourn on the lily
pad."
The server ate the list again before it
got up, but this time Amy had kept a
backup on her machine at home.
My yarn came yesterday -- and they got
the order wrong. I ordered one hank of
red and two hanks of white; the invoice
reads "two hanks of white" and the box
contains one hank of red and one hank of
white. There are no prices on the invoice
and, foolishly, I didn't keep a carbon of
the order blank, so I'm going to have to
look up every item I ordered in the
catalog before I can write the letter.
Finally started work on the indexes
yesterday, and got through two issues of
Crochet World Specials, which is half of
them. There are six Crochet Worlds -- and
only one Women's Household Crochet. I may
have lost three issues, but I think maybe
it's been discontinued and they won't be
wanting an index. I'll ask when I write a
cover letter for Specials -- perhaps
today.
Had a thought, and created a file in
the "out box," which is where I'd want
addresses anyway, schleppboarded the
contents of every file I was saving for
addresses into it, and deleted the
originals.
I must have been doing a lot of typing
in Eudora lately. I keep using hyphens
instead of dashes. Would do that for the
indexes too -- it's surprisingly hard to
remember to type 1/2 instead of <1/2> --
but the indexes contain no dashes.
11 January 1996
When indexing the Fall "Special," I
learned that it was also being sent to
people who were expecting Household
Crochet. Mailed Specials yesterday, and
indexed February and April of CW. I'm
putting off starting work on June now.
With a little luck, I could finish the
index in time to stop at the post office
on the way to the vet and the book store
tomorrow. (Book House called yesterday to
say that "Split Heirs" was in.) CWO
(known to the publisher as CTF -- it's
been through a few name changes) weighed
in at three stamps, but CW will exceed my
little postal scale.
The calendar is beeping to tell me that
it's time to call the vet and order
Erica's pills to pick up tomorrow.
Divided my "address" file into three
messages: snail, http, and off-list. By
leaving the "to" field blank, I guarantee
that they won't be sent by mistake.
Oh, my, there's a pineapple in
there!
Yesterday, I went to Indian Ladder and
stocked up on fruit. Today, while Dave
was playing with the computer after lunch,
Bob Fuglein came up the walk with an
enormous fruit basket. It appears that
the fire company is concerned that Dave
hasn't been fit to attend fires lately.
We each ate a bunch of grapes, which is
what was on top, then after Dave went back
to work, I stacked them up on a dinner
plate as high as I could and strapped them
on with plastic wrap. That's when I found
the pineapple.
It barely blunted the spire of fruit;
now I've got to see how much of it I can
fit into the crisper drawer.
And then write a letter to Eudora.
Dave tried and failed to order a copy of
Eudora Pro from the Web page before he
bought one from Egghead. Apparently they
did get the message, but failed to
acknowledge it. Hasn't shown up on the
Mastercard that I know of.
17 January 1996
We e-mailed Qualcom; they sent back the
phone number that was missing from the
label, and, without too much time on hold,
a man told me to seal the package back up
and give it to Airway Express after they
call and make an appointment to pick it
up. Which Airway hasn't done yet.
Today Dave got the results of all those
fancy high-tech tests he's been taking the
last couple of months. He's got
heartburn.
The long-handled name is acid reflux
disease. He spent a good bit of time
looking up medical references on the Web
this evening, and says that they describe
exactly what he feels.
Monday I saw some luscious woolens at
$2.88/yard, and couldn't think of anything
to do with them, so I settled for buying
five yards of black to make two pairs of
pants, or one pair and some accessories,
depending on how much it shrinks when I
wash it in hot water. Upon examining my
remaining samples of H2O, I had
concluded that it was made machine
washable by the simple expedient of
felting it. This stuff was marked "dry
clean only" which probably means that the
dye will bleed like a stuck pig, but at
2.88, it's worth the experiment. If I
ruin it, it will still serve for furniture
covers; wool stops cat hair and fur dirt
in its tracks.
Yesterday, while making the bed, I
threw our ratty, cat-snagged thermal-weave
polywool blanket down the stairs in
disgust, intending to wash it and dump it
in the warming bus, when Dave pointed out
that it's the only thin blanket we own.
Most of that stuff would have made
lovely lightweight blankets. I even
thought "blanket" when I noticed some
white just like the half-blanket I use on
my side of the bed, and said "no, I've
already got a half blanket."
At that price, there's no use going
back to see whether they have any left.
I still don't know what to do with the
pineapple. We've eaten all the
grapefruit, and Dave discovered that he
loves kiwis. He took two of them to work
after lunch; he usually takes an orange or
an apple.
These kiwis didn't taste at all like
the one I tried several years ago; perhaps
that one had been picked green.
Got my samples from Webs.
Disappointing; all the yarns were lovely
but no use to me, except one worsted that
was just exactly what I had in mind -- had
it been two-thirds as thick.
I expected more advertising with the
samples. I should take another look at
their Web page -- but I think I'll order
some Kroy 3-ply from Medrith Glover -- who
appears to be Emily Ocker's daughter.
19 January 1996
Brilliant idea: I was re-reading last
October's Banner, which I finished hard
copying today, where I reported October's
crash and tried to remember the date of
the previous crash. I noted that it hurt
to ride a long distance in the Fiero, and
I'm pretty sure that we drove a full-sized
car to the convention where I limped
around the Concord -- so all I have to do
is to ask Dave whether he sold the Fiero
before or after going to the fire-chief's
convention; if before, then I crashed
before my hip started feeling funny, and
the crash is the most likely cause of the
injury.
Grump. All of the special sock yarn in
every catalog is Machine Washable, which,
according to the gossip on the knitlist,
makes it entirely unsuitable for my
purposes.
Any worsted is machine washable, if you
have half an idea what you are doing.
What the process does is make the wool
machine dryable, and I don't even own a
dryer, so I don't get any payback for the
deficiencies of unfeltable wool.
22 January 1996
Plenty of excitement Friday: warm rain,
with all that snow vanishing and basements
being pumped out all over the county.
Then come dark the rain changed to sleet
and high winds, trees down and blocked
roads all over the place. Our lights went
out when I was about ready to put the
"boneless rib" TV dinners on the supper
table; we were surprised when they came
back on a few hours later.
Not as surprised as we would have been
if we'd known that our spruce tree had
come down and taken the return power cable
with it! NiMo hooked it back up the
following afternoon, and we resumed using
the computer.
Right now, Margie's lawn mower is
cutting up the spruce. I thought it would
make a good snow fence until spring, when
I could cut it up in installments with our
little electric chain saw, but the top is
touching the communications lines, and
Danny had already called the guy to get
rid of some trees on their side of the
line, so Dave told him to take ours too.
Seems to have begun with ours, no doubt
because it is right next to where he
parked his truck. And it's the only tree
threatening lines.
Dave has been intending to put in a
foundation for his antenna, but the storm
changed his mind. Instead of ripping up
the antenna, the wind gently bent the
steel fence post, and Dave bent it back
upright the following day. I told him
that if he does put up a tower, he should
put in a shear link.
Much to my surprise, the lawn is going
to look just fine without the spruce. I
had expected the maple to be deformed on
the side next the spruce, but it is going
to fill in nicely.
And now we can see the mailbox from the
dining room.
On closer inspection, I found that
Webs' descriptions of yarns that weren't
sampled included a fingering-weight
worsted, so I ordered a cone of white.
Would have ordered a cone of black too,
but they are more than $20 each, you get a
discount of 20% on orders over $60, and I
didn't want to come that close without
going over.
Also have an order to Quill in the
outbox. Finally getting around to
ordering the envelopes that I was after
when I crashed in Delmar last summer.
Decided to replenish the plain paper and
the three-hole paper while I was at it.
Couldn't find the pocket protectors I also
planned to buy in Delmar. Read the whole
misc. section.
And an order to Medrith Glover to get
the rest of the newsletters for 1995,
which have not yet been issued.
23 January 1996
Sigh. The lawn mowers just left in two
trucks piled high with brush. I hate to
see all that good mulch going to the
landfill.
All the trees that fell were spruce.
26 January 1996
Yesterday Dave looked in the crisper
and found nothing but an ample supply of
apples and pears. I said "Shall I put
'oranges' on my shopping list?"
He said, "Either that, or I've got to
get sick again."
28 January 1996
Dave has straightened his antenna so
many times we're starting to worry about
metal fatigue.
29 January 1996
Just looked: the vertical is more-or-
less vertical.
Dave beat them by about ten minutes.
He called to say Guilderland police would
be calling, because he left his car beside
155 with a flat tire. (That same road was
probably responsible for the flat tire I
had on the Day of the Great Rain.) New
Salem Garage is going to come out and take
care of it when their truck gets back from
another call, and Harvey picked Dave up
and took him to work.
Perhaps I mentioned that our Times-
Union paperboy got fired for complaining
about a new system that forced them (it's
a married couple) to deliver during rush
hour. We weren't very happy about that
either, since we like to read the paper
with breakfast.
Last week he called to say he'd been
taken on by the Gazette; since our reason
for changing to the Knick News (the TU
used to have an evening edition called the
Knickerbocker News) was that it wasn't
satisfactory to receive the Gazette by
mail, I signed on immediately. A couple
of days later, Dave said "If we're going
to get two papers, we're going to have to
get up earlier."
About then, Dave called me to come and
bring him the Jeep, since he'd told the
boys to take his car back to the garage.
When I saw it in front of the middle
school, I remembered making a breakdown
call from that same office. Can't
remember what was wrong with my bike,
though.
I learned yesterday that I can edit
text files with Eudora. Considerably
eases the concatenation of the book
reviews, since I can open the same file in
Eudora and PC-Write. I downloaded a list
of available knitting books and I'm
plugging the reviews into it. Beginning
to look like a great deal more stuff than
anyone is going to want to read. None of
these guys were writing; they
were discussing.
Didn't actually download, since I don't
have a Netscape manual. I marked the
whole file, copied it to the clipboard,
and pasted it into a Eudora message. Then
saved the message as a text file, after
learning that Eudora doubles as a text
editor.
30 January 1996
The boys not only couldn't salvage the
tire, Dave had to buy a new wheel. He
wonders how he got clear up the hill
before the tire went flat. Good thing he
did, because there aren't any safe places
near the bridge.
This morning I said that I probably
wouldn't ride my bike until spring,
because the roads are so bad that I don't
even want to drive my Jeep. Dave said
"Tell me about it!"
It makes me sick to think that so much
money was spent baby-smoothing Depot Road,
which was probably good for another forty
years with minimal maintenance -- and as
soon as they finished wasting the money,
and the very sound concrete that was
poured for war machines in the early
forties, they started complaining about
people driving too fast for a residential
road. I wouldn't be the least bit
surprised to learn that the new asphalt is
already breaking up.
In the meanwhile, 155, the road people
ought not to use Depot instead of, is fit
only for vehicles that run on tracks.
Hope I remember to take The Road Past
the Rifle Range the next time I go to
Guilderland. Too narrow and twisty for
motor vehicles, but nobody minds you
driving at 20 mph to look for potholes.
1 February 1996
After reading about a Colonial re-
enactment, I looked up "hasty pudding" and
found out that I've been eating it all my
life. It's corn-meal mush served as a hot
cereal. If you flavor it up and bake it,
it's "indian pudding."
2 February 1996
When my needles came from Medrith G.,
they came with an ad for a clearance on
Persian, so I ordered twenty ounces.
Considering how long it takes to knit an
ounce of Persian, that might prove to be
rash. Also ordered two more sets of
needles, since I haven't any 3 mm dps.
I've decided to make my fingering-
weight worsted into a vest instead of
socks, but haven't reeled it off the cone
yet, let alone shrunk it. A pound of yarn
all in one piece is a Whole Bunch.
Most folks don't shrink yarn before
using it, but I gave the first pair of
socks I ever made to a small child after
I'd worn them once. Besides, I've had
bright-colored water drain off the yarn
after I dunked it.
I was nosing around in the stash the
other day, and discovered that I still
have a ball of the yarn I made those socks
of; I'd forgotten it by the time I learned
that one can pre-wash yarn. There's also
half a skein of the Bernat 50-50 I made my
first baby blanket from, and other
fingering- weight yarns. I'm contemplating
a scrap project of some sort. I'm
converting an odd glove I found in the
stash into two cuffs for a pair of
stranded-persian wristers.
12 February 1996
It made very long cuffs; amazing how
much yarn there is in a single glove.
Reeled the worsted fingering, and
discovered that the setscrews on my skein
holder jiggle loose. Doesn't show much
when you are reeling a third of an ounce
of Persian or four ounces of Fisherman,
but the machine collapsed repeatedly while
I was reeling a pound of fingering. Made
an extremely messy skein that I'm not
looking forward to winding into a ball,
especially since the holder will probably
collapse as often while unreeling.
I think I'll order one of Medrith
Glover's skein holders before I try it.
Haven't selected a not-too-lacy lace for
the vest yet. I'd like a long repeat to
save boredom, and I want a pattern that I
can memorize.
The twenty colors of Persian I ordered
from Glover arrived, and I finally started
the wristers, in deep maroon and a buff
that appears to match the yellowed white
of the cuffs. Got one past the thumb
hole, and started the hopsac edging right
there to save figuring out how to carry
both yarns through the cast-on. As a
consequence, they are going to be shorter
than originally planned, because hopsac in
Persian is a Royal Pain. Looks good with
the stranding, though.
If I were to do it again, I think I'd
make the border in garter stitch, work it
back and forth, and make the gusset in
needle lace while sewing up.
I've thought of a much better way to
join the stranding onto the ribbing, but I
don't want another pair of wristers (I
didn't want this pair very much!), and I
don't have another old glove to dispose
of. Not to mention that there won't be
enough buff and maroon left to do it
again.
I rode around the block Saturday, five
or ten miles, and came home not at all
tired; I didn't even take my usual
afternoon nap. The road wasn't bad on the
counterclockwise side, but on the way back
from the village, I could see that I
didn't want to ride that stretch the other
way.
I'd like a morning nap today. Our
smoke detector kept going off in the
night, and we never did figure out what
was bothering it. We recently changed the
batteries, and it doesn't give that many
beeps per burst for a dying battery.
Do you have to be a knitter to roll on
the floor over this one? One knitlister
posted that a yarn-shop owner she knows
has a cat who steals cheap acrylic yarn
and buries it in the litter box.
15 February 1996
Not a lot going on. Went to Ellenbogen
today; my bridge isn't exactly sore, but
it's been going on for weeks. He rapped
on all my teeth and couldn't get me to
yelp, so next Thursday he's going to clean
up a trace of decay on the adjacent wisdom
tooth and see whether that helps. Dave
said that didn't sound very scientific.
I'm going to have to start another
afghan. Everyone else says that they knit
while reading the Knitlist, but I can't do
anything more complicated than watching
television while knitting Persian. I have
scads of odd balls of Fisherman's Two Ply
in the stash.
My new vest is forming up. Got the
idea of wanting one when I noticed that
the edging on the Peacock would look
lovely around the hem of a tunic, and when
I got the pound of fingering-weight
worsted I ordered to make socks, I said
"There's the yarn," and I've settled on
the shape, and garter-stitch bands around
the neck and armholes -- but what stitch
do I put between the bands and the edging?
When I settle that -- and wind 2240 yards
of Greylock into balls -- I can cast on.
I was surprised at how many knitting
books I've got. No help so far. Found a
Gansey pattern I thought I might swatch,
but near as I could make out, they left
out instructions for that particular
stripe. Probably was a repeat from a
gansey earlier in the book, but I wasn't
sufficiently interested to go microscoping
after it.
There are more books in the trunk
upstairs, under the sewing patterns.
Better get with it, because I can't
make fingering-weight socks until I see
how much Greylock is left over from the
vest.
I'm wearing my new wristers. Hopsac in
Persian wasn't such a pain with aluminum
needles. 2.25 mm is a bit too fine to
make in bamboo -- though they were lovely
in the stranded part of the knitting.
But the ribbing kind of folds down over
the stranding, looking (from this side) as
though I were wearing stranded gloves
under ribbed sleeves. I've got the same
problem, to a smaller extent, with my
anklets; there is a sort of welt where the
ribbing changes to stockinette. I wonder
if digging out my 1.25 mm needles for the
ribbing on the socks would help.
17 February 1996
The new moon is making me nervous, even
though I haven't been outside to look.
Dave is running "Moontool," which shows
the current phase on its icon, and the
black square makes me think something is
wrong with the computer.
18 February 1996
Found the pattern I wanted for my pink
socks, in an old fifty-square sampler-
afghan book. I can't believe that I once
worked a pair of socks from those
instructions; it was a struggle just to
graph them.
Another pattern in the book has the row
numbers underlined, which would have
helped a bit, but I don't recall having
used it. It's a dull-looking pattern,
though cleverly made.
Still no choice for the vest, but I may
swatch pattern #40 in the afghan book.
22 February 1996
Oh, man, I really, really want to floss
my back tooth. I don't think Ellenbogen
would approve of doing that before the
filling has had more time to harden. I
was mistaken; he didn't see decay; he saw
a broken filling and he thought there
might be decay. He said he doesn't like
to work on wisdom teeth, and after
standing on my head with spit running up
my nose, I don't think much of it either.
And while I was waiting for my
appointment for surgery, my bridge stopped
being sore, not even when I used it to eat
some raw almonds.
Drank some "Citrus Pop" (Stewart's
Mountain Dew) in the morning yesterday,
and my nap hit me like a ton of bricks, an
hour early. So I figured it was safe to
chugalug it in the afternoon.
I went to bed at 2:00 am.
I was reading a book I picked up when I
went to the library to order Time
Enough For Love for Dave, but
it wasn't that good a book. I
called "The Girl who Heard Dragons" fan
fiction. Renegades of Pern (Which
includes "Girl", from Thella's point of
view) was fan fiction in another sense:
fiction written for Pern fans, who can be
expected to remember outcomes and
significances from other books, so that
not all the story need be told in this
one.
I seem to have missed the book that
explained how Giron got from Southern to
Thella's band in the North. Though all
sorts of portents accompanied his recovery
from the mental vagueness caused by his
head wound and the loss of his dragon, he
got his throat cut without anything much
happening. Maybe that was in the same
book that explained how he crossed the
ocean without help from dragonriders or
shipmasters.
Despite the jumping around and the lack
of plot, I intend to finish. McCaffery
can keep you interested in her
characters.
But I'd like more confidence, when
someone is coping with a problem or a
puzzle, that I'll find out how it came
out.
Speaking of puzzles, Dave printed out a
crossword puzzle from the London
Telegraph. The next day he printed the
answer -- and I still don't get
it. Do people actually solve these
things?
I note that people in the U.K. can get
clues for 39 p/minute.
Some of it is that it's in British. An
American isn't going to spontaneously
think of "layby" as a response to "place
for other drivers."
26 February 1996
Last Saturday's pizza was a winner!
The special of the day was "the villager",
the pizza that brought home the silver
platter in a televised bake-off. John
said that it was designed to appeal to the
judges' eyes; the red peppers, for
example, were cut in long strips and
arranged radially, which made the pizza
more difficult to eat, but was spectacular
to look at.
Dave brought the platter over to our
table so I could read it; the name of the
restaurant hasn't been engraved on it yet,
but the date and the name of the TV
station that sponsored the contest are.
28 February 1996
Fire Control opened the home alerts to
proudly announce that the new building
scheduled to open the October before last
is finally on line -- and accidentally set
off every fire siren in the county.
Kinder spoiled the effect.
A few minutes later I went out to mail
a letter and couldn't figure out what a
Colonie K-9 unit was doing coming out of
the Albany County Highway Garage parking
lot. When I imagined asking him "what's
the occasion?", I figured it out.
A state patrol vehicle followed him
when I was on the way back.
A little tension on the knitlist. I --
along with a thousand other people -- was
getting worried before Avital found time
to post. I suppose she also didn't want
to tie up the phone line until after her
husband called; she mentioned that she
hadn't been able to get a message to him.
The bus blew up right where she had
recently been in the habit of being, and
when she went to collect her son, the
sitter's daughter was late and had been on
her way home by way of the bus stop that
was in the news. So she had to stay until
the girl called in.
A policeman on the TV said that the
skid marks definitely showed that the
driver had tried to avoid the crash, but
the paper says that later investigations
as clearly show that he was out to do
something of the sort. Perhaps he had a
last-minute attack of sanity.
I took a letter to the mailbox barefoot
today. I suppose we'll get six feet of
snow tomorrow.
4 March 1996
"A Waterman Laureat [fountain pen]
*can* survive a trip through the washer
and dryer. The clothes that accompany it
on this journey, however, are another
matter entirely."
I saw a Winter Aconite last Saturday.
Re-emerged when the snow melted, but you
have to have it pointed out to you; it
looks more like a bit of litter than like
a flower.
I wonder whether there is such a thing
as a Summer Aconite.
7 March 1996
Yesterday I noticed that it was half an
hour until Dave would come home for lunch,
and decided to take a nap. I was just
getting settled down when something hit
the house, Whoomp! Whoomp!
I wanted to get on with going to sleep,
but it hit again, Whoomp! Whoomp!
As I was getting up to investigate, the
people in Selkirk were toned out for a
mysterious explosion at the railroad
yards. I'm not sure how far it is to
Selkirk, but I'd plan on having lunch
before I came back if I went there. Not
to mention that the shock wave took so
long to get here that someone had time to
come out of shock, find a telephone, and
explain things to Emergency Control.
Needless to say, I didn't get much of a
nap.
The paper says that "nearby" homes were
rattled; I was tempted to write them a
letter. It also says that it was a tank
car of propane; I was tickled, somehow, to
read that they were going to carry off
what's left of it on a flatbed. (Folks
dealing with traffic smashups are always
asking, "do you need a hook or a
flatbed?")
Nobody was hurt, according to the
Gazette, but I'll bet lots of people were
scared out of a year's growth. About an
hour and a half after the shock wave, I
heard an ambulance crew saying that they
were signing off a shaken-up patient. I
got the impression that it had taken him
that long to calm down enough for them to
be sure he wasn't hurt.
Snowing steadily. Prediction for six
inches. Dave took the jeep.
12 March 1996
Message from the knitlist:
> Although this is not even close to knit
related, I know I remember someone
referring to her worm bin. Would you
please contact me? (I'm sorry, but I
don't remember your name.) I am in dire
need of help. I just put my bin together
and my worms are trying to escape.
15 March 1996
Spotted bright green flecks in the
grass today.
It was the bread crumbs I threw out
after the corned-beef dinner on Wednesday.
A yellow crocus is up, and close enough
to blooming that I can see the yellow.
My Winter Aconite is visible yet again.
Somewhat the worse for wear, but you'd
never guess that a snowplow ran over it.
I dug out the map that I tatted a
knotted string for. Selkirk railroad
yards are about ten miles from here, as
the crow flies.
Posted on the knitlist:
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: mail problems
> *po}-good; they dared to keep the
noise level below the threshold of pain.
Not low enough to hear yourself think,
however, so I took a knitting break
halfway through. A lot of people went
home while I was in the Ramada Inn lobby.
It's been inconvenient to check the time
ever since I broke the band off my watch
and started carrying it in the bottom of
my purse (used to keep it on the key ring,
where it made a handy handle), so I don't
know how long that was. I finished the
ten yards of blue Persian, knitted up ten
yards of brown, and started a ball of
maroon. These are LOUD socks. Thought it
would all be down inside the shoe, but
forgot that I'd be seen knitting them.
We checked out at the front desk with
what appeared to be the same form they use
for renting rooms: one guest, it said, two
or three thousand dollars. And that
didn't include the band!
Just before the band started playing,
the MC introduced the guests and called
attention to an engaged couple. When he
introduced the band, the leader said
"Congratulations to the couple about to be
married. Do you have a band?"
That got a laugh.
Time Enough for Love was a
disappointment. I remembered it as pretty
good, but it was an extremely Sixties
book. The only part worth reading was
"The Tale of the Adopted Daughter," and
that was more of a biography than a story.
There was some amusement at watching
Heinlein trying to hold (fervently!)
several pairs of mutually-exclusive ideas
about copulation.
18 March 1996
Dave's newest screen saver has a
grievous fault: there's no way to turn it
on when you want to look at it.
It's a map of the sky currently
overhead, with all the planets. For the
last few days there have been a bunch
piled up over the sun, and now the moon
has joined in; don't recall any reference
to the conjunction in the astrological
column.
I've been mooning over the one yellow
crocus that's thinking about blooming in
the flowerbed north of the entry door. On
the way back from the mailbox, I noticed
that there are a whole bunch of yellow
crocus already blooming in the flowerbed
north of the front door, and at least two
purple croci. Couldn't walk over for a
closer look because I'm wearing the
sheepskin house slippers Dave got me for
Christmas, and the ground is very soggy.
There's a path through the snowbank,
now, so I could get there without much
damage to my newly-polished everyday
shoes. I got them wet sponging salt off
the cars a few days ago, and took that
opportunity to scrub them with a nail
brush and put a fresh coat of shoe dye on
the toes. The blacking doesn't last very
long, but otherwise they look good for
another year of wear. My newer shoes,
oddly enough, are more comfortable. I
think they are made on a last with a
larger toe-to-heel ratio.
19 March 1996
Yesterday's ride was a real water haul
-- and bringing back most of the water I
took with me might have contributed to how
tired I got.
We were out of cat chow, so my plan was
to park behind Oceans Eleven and ride to
Canterbury Tales, making a side trip to
Sysco on the way out and stopping at
Walmart on the way back.
Well I parked and hauled the bike out
of the Jeep -- a lot harder than hauling
it out of the Toyota; I'll never buy a
two-door again! Rode around the building
to Kimline Pet shop and bought twenty
pounds of Max Cat Lite, walked to Paradise
(because the Max Cat was unbalancing the
bike) and bought some sesame crunch to eat
along the way, put the Max Cat in the car
and rode to Stewarts (y'all comprehend, I
haven't gotten out of the parking lot at
this stage) and, after much thought,
bought a bottle of apple juice. I must
remember to get some sugar snacks at Super
Valu before the next trip; these were Not
Satisfactory.
Just before I turned from Gipp onto
Rapp, a motorist asked me where Pine
Street was; I said I thought it was behind
me. Just after turning from Gipp onto
Rapp, I saw a sign saying "Pine Street" --
well, I knew it was nearby. Should have
remembered that Pine is the dead-end
street that I must not turn onto by
mistake for Gipp. Hope the poor woman
didn't go all the way to Western before
learning that I'd misled her. If so, she
can buy an Albany map at Stewarts.
I'm going to have to consult a map to
see why I can't see Walmart from the bike
path through Six Mile Park.
A four-wheeled vehicle had been along
the path recently -- tracks were still wet
in one patch of sunshine -- so it wasn't
as bad as it might have been. The boy on
the mountain bike was making much better
time than I was; despite the tire tracks,
I had to get off for the patches of snow,
and he didn't. I don't think he
dismounted for the car excluder, either,
but it was hard to tell from his tracks.
On the way to Sysco, I remembered that
I hadn't brought the addressed envelopes I
meant to ask Canterbury Tales to mail Groo
in, and on the way back along the path I
remembered that I'd forgotten to bring the
books I meant to turn in for credit, so I
decided to give the bookstore a miss.
Good thing; I'd gotten a late start, and
barely made it home in time to cook
supper.
I went to Sysco for juice glasses and a
spatula; they no longer sell the kind of
spatula I want, and their selection of
glassware is much reduced and, on this
trip, didn't include any juice glasses. I
think I can delete Sysco from my shopping
list. Pity -- I have no other reason to
cut through Six Mile Park, which is quite
nice later in the season. I may go in to
see whether the memorial tree is alive --
I don't think it's the same one that I saw
in that flowerpot last summer.
I couldn't find anything on my list at
Walmart. Partly because they have no map,
partly because I was tired. Saw a pillow
for $8 & later decided to buy it, but by
then I had no idea where the pillows were,
so I found a clerk and asked which way was
out.
But I did get the cat food. There are
only a few bowlfuls left in the can, so we
needed that.
And judging by how I ached when I got
home, I needed the exercise.
The Voice of the Mountains, a catalog,
came yesterday -- new item: a paint roller
for putting on makeup! It had to happen.
22 March 1996
Snowing again. Judy Shearer, Cathy
White, and I "audited" the books of the
Auxiliary this morning. Didn't find
receipts for some of the expenditures, but
they were small, and we remembered voting
for them. Got in some baby-cuddling while
waiting for Judy to come back from letting
a guy into the firehouse to deliver fish
for today's fish fry. After a while, baby
called me a rank amateur and went back to
mommy.
23 March 1996
What a novel idea! The paper says that
when Madonna's stalker came up for
sentencing, he said, "Your honor, I'm
crazier than a June bug and can't help
doing these things," and instead of
cutting the sentence out of pity, the
judge replied, "That makes it too
dangerous to put you back out on the
street!"
Pity ordinary citizens can't get that
sort of consideration.
24 March 1996
Dave has had a cold for a few days, and
I've been sleeping all day and then going
to bed early. I suspect that I'm coming
down with it too.
Withdrawal: "Ste.Amy" has gone to Haiti
to teach nuns how to knit -- "Never send a
lawyer to buy the yarn" -- so the
knitlisters are asked to go easy for the
next three weeks, since there is no-one to
make the server spit up when it gets
clogged.
Another member of the expedition
mentioned that he or she was a lawyer,
then hastened to add "*not* the lawyer who
bought the chunky yarn!"
I've been thinking about how hard it is
to turn onto Fuller out of the Six Mile
bike path, and don't regret that there is
no longer any need to take that short cut.
28 March 1996
Dave still at home with his cold. I
went to Auxiliary meeting tonight --
signed up to set up for the fish fry next
Thursday.
Didn't do anything to the shirt I cut
out yesterday, but I re-sewed the pockets
on the prototype shirt. I had ripped them
off because Dave said they were so far
apart they were in his armpits.
Also sorted my knitting needles into
ziplock bags in a notebook. The hint had
suggested punching holes with a three-hole
punch, but mine was exceedingly unhappy
about punching holes in stretchy plastic,
so I used a brass knitting needle and
enlarged the holes with a wooden afghan
hook. Had the job half done when I got to
size zero! I dumped six and up all in one
bag; there aren't many fat needles, and I
knit so loose now that I'm not likely to
ever again want them.
Found stuff I thought I'd lost years
ago.
The needles were already in smaller
zipper bags, so they are sorted into kinds
within a size. I had kept most of the
bags that the needles came in, and those
were handy for dp needles too thin or too
long to put into my sock-needle case.
That expedient failed me with three 12"
#00 needles, and they were punching their
way out of the larger bag, so I wrapped
them in a sheet of ledger-size typing
paper. Folded it in half lengthwise
first. The package fits into an 11" bag
diagonally. As do the tubes of #000 and
#0000 needles.
I don't think I've ever used #0000;
they came in an assortment of brass rod,
and many of them haven't even been
sharpened. (The two tubes were the
original packages for the brass rod.)
I have also an envelope of factory-made
#0000 needles; I must have gotten a
bargain on them, because needles below #00
are extremely expensive, and I can't see
me mail-ordering them without a use in
mind.
1 April 1996
All the crocus are out, including one
that I covered with a slab when we buried
the cable last summer. There's at least
one tulip smothered under the slab, but I
cut its companion in half while trying to
remove it with a trowel, and I don't dare
to use a spade.
2 April 1996
'Tis the time of evening when I feel
tempted to play computer games, and
mousing is Extremely Bad for my right
hand, so I'll try to find something to
natter at you guys about.
Not much going on. I fetched meat and
no milk (Mobil is sold out of skim until
Thursday) by bike this afternoon, and then
took a nap.
Dave went back to work Monday; I went
back to bed. I haven't been coughing,
sneezing, etc. much, but I tire easily.
Don't know how much is infection and how
much is winter fat. I seem to have plenty
of endurance on the bike -- I rode around
the Stonewell block Sunday, which I
guesstimate at ten miles --but if I stay
out a long time, I begin to feel that I've
overdosed on starlight mints.
We have been trying out Karen's new
laptop computer. I'm aghast at paying
$2,200. Comes with a full set of cases
for all the accessories -- as well it
might! I tried playing some computer
games with the "trackpoint" finger-mouse;
didn't like it. (But it didn't hurt my
hand -- partly because I didn't persist.)
One could live with it for word-processing
and the like, but "trackpoint" would
probably drive me crazy if I loaded
Publisher into a laptop.
I finished my odd-ball socks this
morning, and I'm wearing them now. I
should have knitted the white a quarter
inch longer -- the yellow stripe peeks out
-- but they are very comfortable. I must
cast on a new pair soon, so I'll have
something started that fits into my purse.
Showed the socks to Dave and he asked
"What's the point of all the colors? They
are down inside your shoes where nobody
can see them."
3 April 1996
Planted potatoes today -- a few of the
smallest red potatoes I found in the
SuperValu a week or so ago. I still hope
to get some seed potatoes at Olsen's.
Pity I can't get blue, Yukon Gold, or the
like, but those little bits of eyes that
come mail order don't grow well. That's
compensation for not being able to buy
fewer than thirty, I guess, but if I'm
going to weed thirty hills, I'd like to
harvest thirty hills.
The ground looks as though I could work
it, but I found frozen chunks in the
rotting leaves I covered the potatoes
with. Not pleasant to work outside
despite the sun. Was better when I found
my garden gloves and put them on. Also it
was a bit later in the afternoon when I
went back out to cover them up.
I haven't told the saga of the
amoxicillin. When sweeping behind the
computer, I found a prescription bottle of
big, oval pills. You always take the
entire bottle of an antibiotic, why didn't
I? Glanced at the date. Surely I'd
remember something as recent as the first
of last September!
I opened last year's Banner files and
read all of September; nary a hint that I
was sick. Took another look at the label,
and read the January Banner. I did take
amoxicillin, about the ninth, but I
definitely finished the prescription; I
mentioned that it was about a week after
the last amoxicillin when I got that
frightening rash from the Ibuprofen.
After another couple of days, I noticed
the mystery bottle on Dave's desk. The
dime finally dropped and I popped one of
the pills into my mouth and offered the
bottle to Dave.
A few weeks ago, I broke the wrapper on
a package of Certs. They taste terrible,
so I forgot having put them into the
Amoxicillin bottle.
Oh chuckle, oh snicker! I have caught
out the O.A.D. Checked my desk dictionery
hoping to learn how mints came to be
"starlight" and discovered that starlings
are noisy birds "with glossy blackish
speckled feathers that forms large
flocks."
My Duegi shoes came in today's mail.
Strange how near-miss shoes are labeled
anywhere from six through eight -- but
anybody's 39 fits me fine.
The proof will be when I take them
riding; my corns are nearly gone -- hope
this doesn't bring them back.
Was alarmed when one of the shoes
clanked when shaken. Turned out to be a
wrench for adjusting the cleats.
Thought for a while I wouldn't be able
to figure out how to adjust the cleats --
all the writing except the notice that
walking in the shoes voids the guarantee
is in Italian. And I think that it
wouldn't mean anything if I could
read it.
Now if only I had a summer shirt. I
know a custom jersey maker, but she can't
get any fabrics that aren't sheer and
synthetic. I'm not real keen on either
plastic or undershirts when the humidity
hits ninety.
I should order a new windbreaker. I
don't think she can get nylon, but
microfiber ought to do. And if a rain
jacket turns out to be transparent, who
cares?
7 April 1996
We did something wild and crazy at
Smitty's yesterday. Instead of pizza, we
ordered a sliced-sirloin sandwich, a
"special", and a side of hot potato salad.
I could make a meal out of a double
order of hot potato salad and a toasted
hard roll.
I wonder why they call them hard rolls
when the crust is soft? Perhaps they were
originally served straight from the oven.
14 April 1996
What a struggle! I just copied the
pattern for my new blouse. This is a
"Friends" pattern, which comes on a bunch
of big blueprint sheets, for you to copy
off what you need -- the assumption is
that if you like the pattern you'll use it
dozens of times, and will want to fine-
tune it. Which makes it advisable to
preserve the original for reference.
The "Ohio Dress" is rather strange: the
bodice is cut entirely on the bias, and
all shaping is done with pleats, not
darts.
The last time I bought cheap-cheap
interfacing, I didn't look at it closely
enough; it's fuzzy on both sides, and
stretches, and sheds. I didn't want to
use that, and my shelf paper isn't wide
enough for the back or the sleeve, so I
resorted to newspaper. Shades of my
innocent youth!
Developed a sudden passion for the
financial pages, which are small print.
Since you can't see through newspaper -
- and I didn't want to dirty the pattern
by writing on newspaper laid over it -- I
resorted to overlapping sheets of carbon
paper, and tracing with a stylus left over
from the Bikeabout's Mimeo days. Missed
the paper the first time I traced the
back, so it took a while even though there
are only four parts: front, back, sleeve,
and neck facing. The skirt is a simple
pleated rectangle, so I didn't copy that;
I'll just add a wide ruffle to the bottom
of the blouse.
I plan to leave off the apron and
"cape", and add a mandarin collar using
the stand from Dave's shirt pattern. It
happens to fit my neck perfectly, so I'll
make the neck of the dress fit it, if
necessary.
The "cape" is an apron bib; I wondered
why it wasn't made part of the apron, but
the pattern is supposed to date back to
when washboards were high-tech, so I
suppose it would have been important to be
able to change only the part of your apron
you'd gotten dirty.
17 April 1996
On my way to the bank -- I notice that
Fleet made a mistake on the new withdrawal
slips: it's possible for a person with a
"J" and a "Y" in his name to sign them!
In compensation, they have half a dozen
different kinds of slips; I hope I chose
the right one.
Home again: weeks after time to plant
them, I finally got to Olsen's to ask for
potato and onion sets. They are hoping to
get them any day now.
At least they were open.
My birthday present was in the entry
when I came back: A Yaesu FT-2200 Mobile
Transciever.
I'm not making any progress with the
manual. Dave is planning to cut the
connectors off the power cord and buy some
at Radio Shack to match those on his
radio. Then we can swap power supplies.
Dave expected the package yesterday.
The Fed Ex man came, I dashed to the door
-- and accepted a pair of shoes. Dave put
them on when he got home from work and as
far as I know he's wearing them now.
I fuss so over shoes and he buys them
mail order! Well, I can buy mail order
too -- if I can find size 39. Perhaps it
is cheating that most of the 39s I buy
have been lace-to-the-toe models -- but
the chinese slippers that used to be
available were practically slip-ons, and
they fit fine in thirty-nine.
I celebrated my birthday by trying out
my new shoes -- and losing the cleat bolt
on the right shoe. Dave found a bolt that
will work, and has ordered a stainless
replacement. He's getting a few extra.
I thought it odd, on the way to Indian
Ladder: my right foot is bigger than my
left foot, it still has a knot where I
cracked a metatarsal while getting out of
an easy chair, and it gets no relief by
being taken in and out of the pedal at
stops. But the right foot was quite
content with its shoe, and the left foot
was aching.
Changed shoes to go inside at the
orchard, since these are expensive shoes
and emphatically not made for walking, at
which time I discovered the missing bolt
and tightened the remaining bolt. My left
foot didn't ache on the way to the
village; perhaps I'd tightened the laces
improperly the first time I put them on.
Chanced retaining the shoes for the short
walk into the gas station to buy milk,
which displaced the bolt-less cleat so
much that I couldn't put my foot back into
the clip, so I changed back into my Lady
Red Wings for the rest of the trip.
Then I came home and slept all
afternoon. How can I work off the flab
when I'm so fat that the least bit of
exertion wears me out?
Since the restaurant where we'd planned
to have my birthday dinner isn't open on
Monday, I bought a huge new potato at
Indian Ladder, and a couple of filet
steaks at Supervalue. Then I dug around
in the linen closet for a tablecloth so
red that it made Dave say "wow!", and laid
on a feast.
And Dave says that he still wants to
take me to Christine's.
Didn't make a cake -- I don't really
like cake. I plan to make brownies, baked
in a cake pan and frosted, for Dave's
birthday.
I said I shouldn't; He said he'll take
an extra Tagamet.
19 April 1996
Little Fred may be more worldly-wise
than I thought. He escaped when I came in
with a winter onion to brighten up my
leftover macaroni and cheese. Since I
planned to feed the "kittens" before I
ate, I didn't see any call to chase him
down, so I went to the kitchen and washed
little dishes until I heard faint, frantic
meows. Went to let him in, and found that
he wasn't peering in through the glass the
way Erica does when the little dishes are
rattling. He had his tail to the door and
was looking out for attackers.
Must remember to remind Dave of
Christine's.
23 April 1996
It is bad planning to have spring
immediately after winter.
I started picking up debris on the lawn
the other day, and took the cart out to
the road intending to swath back and forth
until I got back to the house. I filled
the cart twice on the first forth because
the windstorms took about ten year's worth
of dead limbs off the oak tree. I never
got to the first back because I was
getting sore.
There's a violet in bloom in a crack in
our front walk. And today I finally
spotted the first sprouts of the giant
garlic. I know very well that the reason
for planting it so deep is to stop it from
coming up before the weather has settled,
but with the New York and Indiana garlics
flourishing so, and the freezing-and-
thawing winter, I was beginning to worry.
Also took another cart of downed limbs
to the garden; I hope we have a calm day
for burning before it's time to cultivate.
Probably ought to soon, but it rained last
night.
Speaking of the rain --when I went up
to bed last night, neither of us could
remember whether Erica was in or out. The
porch light wasn't on, but she could have
been out since before sunset. I looked in
all her nests, and under the table in the
cellar because it was thundering. I
opened the door and called without result,
which didn't mean anything because when
it's raining, there is no way to get Erica
out from under the Jeep. Well, I did get
her out from under the Toyota with a
broom, once, when I needed to drive it,
but instead of running through the door
I'd left invitingly open, she ran behind
the house and hid in the woodpile. Erica
literally doesn't know enough to come in
out of the rain.
I gave up and went to bed; after a
while Dave said he couldn't sleep, and got
up and went through the same drill, then
went down cellar. When he came up again,
she was waiting for him at the top of the
steps, wondering what all the commotion
was about.
25 April 1996
Sometimes things work out. I went out
to the raised flowerbed intending to pick
a sprig of catnip for "the children", but
it and all the other weeds seem to have
winterkilled. The Joe Rickets
strawberries I planted among the catnip
last summer are thriving.
My new radio comes with certain
functions disabled, but if you can show
them a current pilot's license, they'll
tell you which jumper to cut to un-disable
them.
I think my brain has an extra jumper.
The day before yesterday, I found the
previous day's mail unopened on the
breakfast table. I picked up a magazine
and an unopened letter, put the magazine
in the staircase to be taken up to read in
bed, walked through the office and kitchen
back to the living room, and somehow
arrived without the letter. At first I
assumed it was in some easily-found place,
such as on the counter where I'd put it
down to tear off a paper towel, but it
still hasn't turned up. I hope
Phyllis didn't tell me anything I
desperately want to know.
Yesterday, I stewed a couple of little
chuck filets in a pint of Knorr boullion.
Dave and I ate most of one of them, and I
picked some gristle off the other. Then I
forgot to clear the table, and somehow
went up to bed without going back into the
living room and seeing it.
This morning, there was nothing in the
pot but a quarter of a potato and a few
carrot sticks. So far, I haven't found
any signs that anybody has thrown up.
And Fred and Fried have to have eaten
all of it; Erica wouldn't jump onto the
table unless she knew it was worth the
effort, and she avoids F&F when they are
in feeding mode. It isn't likely that
Frieda would let Fred have any while she
could still stuff it in, either.
I hope she did it in the cellar.
I've been getting fan e-mail for my
Knitlist posts. I don't know how to deal
with this.
Except by making a special trip to the
Book House to see who publishes books like
Shuttle Solitaire. All suggestions
welcome. I want somebody who advertises
outside the specialty needlework market,
since it's a proselyting book. All I can
think of is the supermarket women's
magazines, and I'm not keen on that.
Perhaps I should look at books in
Faye's Drugs, not the Book House.
I never went to Voorheesville Pharmacy
when I had it, but I miss it every few
days now that it's gone.
26 April 1996
Just noticed something: my foot
measures 23 cm long -- so why is my metric
shoe size 39?
27 April 1996
Yesterday I finally shrank Betty's
yarn. When I was in college, Mom gave me
some yarn she found in Betty's trunk --
Aunt Becky couldn't bear to unpack it, so
Mom did. I made a pair of navy-blue
anklets, which shrank, so I gave them to
Sara Lee. Yes, gang, Sara used to be
smaller than her Aunt Joy.
I found the rest of the yarn when I
started my sock-knitting spree. It's now
purple; it couldn't have changed that
much, so there must have been two batches.
I decided that the yarn must be knitted
into something that will be used and worn
out, so I wound the ball into a skein &
yesterday I finally got around to putting
it into a pot of water. I heated it very
slowly -- so slowly that after a few hours
I decided that I'd let it cool in the pot
in lieu of bringing it to 200.
There was dye in the water, so I was
afraid that it would fade, but the bath
seems to have brightened the color.
In some lights, it's blue. Maybe it's
the same yarn after all. I'm going to
cast on a pair of anklets, and hope that
they get down inside the shoe before the
purple-blue gives out. The bath plumped
up the yarn and made it on the heavy end
of of the fingering range, so I don't
expect it to cover too many square feet.
Ah! I thought it was only an ounce,
but my postal scale puts it at an ounce
and a half. If it isn't still wet, and if
that isn't light sport instead of heavy
fingering, I've got plenty.
Babylon Five didn't advance the plot
much, unless the man who thought he was
Arthur is going to be a regular in the
cast.
28 April 1996
When the frost is on the rhubarb
And the tulips are in bloom
If the angels wanted boardin'
I'd excavate a room.
I've tucked in the ends on the last of
Dave's titanium-wood covers, and hooked a
numeral "1" on the biggest.
Did I ever mention that he took his
gift certificate, the one given to me at
the banquet, and his Visa card to Dick's
Sporting Goods and bought a set of golf
clubs?
29 April 1996
It's Apriling, and forecast to continue
for the next three days. Good excuse not
to ride my bike around the block.
A strange vehicle just passed. It was
painted black-and-gaudy, the front end
looked like a semi-tractor, and the back
end looked like a backhoe or cherry
picker. Wasn't either one: no shovel, no
visible basket.
I looked out to see it because it was
following a semi, and the semi made
slowing-down noises in front of the house,
apparently mistaking the main drive of the
county building for the truck entrance a
block down the road. (I usually hear
trucks only when they are coming out;
going-in noises attract attention.) I was
disappointed that the circus cherry picker
didn't follow it in.
Another semi just like the first came
along soon; whatever can they be buying
that comes in such big boxes? The stuff
they put on roads comes in dump trucks.
Banner headline: Erica came in out of
the rain!
Sniff. My little girl is growing up.
2 May 1996
Dave and Nancy are out celebrating his
birthday. I baked brownies cockaigne in
my springform pan and bought a small box
of sour cream to use in lieu of frosting.
Got the back yard mowed, and my order
from Schoolhouse arrived. The check is
dated 23 April; that's hardly more than a
week. Zonked out on knitting books a good
part of the evening, but most of it is
stuff you have to be more-or-less awake to
comprehend. Got two Walkers, two Gibson-
Roberts, and the Rutt.
I also spent some time crawling the Web
in search of wide muslin, since my sheets
are getting thin. I think I can get more
quilt liner at Shaker Pines, but I'm tired
of paying so much for stuff so flimsy.
I thought I was getting somewhere when
Global disconnected me. Closed Netscape,
re-dialed, and the computer wouldn't let
me open Netscape again, claiming that it
was already open.
So I ate a hot dog. Did learn that
sheeting is still being made, gathered the
names of two of the mills that weave it,
and learned that I want to plug the phrase
"bed sheeting" into my search. "Sheeting"
gets you thousands of companies that make
fashion clothes out of muslin; I thought
that went out of style ten years ago.
I've been joking that a wholesaler
regards a fifty-yard roll as a sample; I
think the firms I've located so far regard
a boxcar-load as a sample. I did, oddly
enough, find a firm that retails
theatrical fabrics. Never wondered where
scene-painters buy scrim, but now I know.
The catalog included muslins, but unlike
the other fabrics, it said call for
prices, and didn't say how wide.
I wonder what theaters use muslins for?
Oh, yes, on the way back from buying
chocolate and nuts for the cake, I picked
up some stainless washers for my shoes --
literally; the clerk didn't let me pay for
them.
So what shall I use for an excuse to
stay off the bike until it's too warm for
my clothes?
Really must get around to ordering a
new windbreaker; even when it was big
enough, my current windbreaker was tight
around the hips --partly because only men
are allowed to wear practical clothes, and
partly because they never allow
for the stuff in your pockets.
But first I've got to find my sweater
and take some measurements.
3 May 1996
John Lawson called today and gave me a
combination to the lounge. There'd been
talk that the Auxiliary ought to be able
to get in, because that's where we keep
the key to the cooler. I guess that with
hot weather due soon, they wanted the
coffee committee to have access to the
cold drinks.
I got at least half of the field mowed
before the rain started. That's about as
much as I care to do in one session. The
poison ivy isn't up yet, but I washed my
pants afterward anyway. Washed my "silk"
jacket too, and it fell apart in two
places. I think I can mend it, but it
wasn't cheap enough to justify such poor
seams.
4 May 1996
Grump. The whole point of today's
expedition was to get some exercise and
try out my newly-functional cycling shoes.
But it dawned cold and wet, so I'm going
to the Altamont Garage Sale by Jeep.
Ah, well, if I find a beat-up old
kitchen chair, I'll be able to bring it
home. The one I put the laundry basket on
when unloading the washer is getting a bit
too beat-up even for that.
Arrgh! WhatEVER made me think I could
park a car in Altamont and walk around?
You can't even drive *through* Altamont
today.
Ten or fifteen minutes before regaining
open road, I did hold up traffic for a few
minutes to let a space open in front of me
so that another driver could escape from a
prime parking space, but I'd been
screaming "Let me out, let me out, LET ME
OUT OUT OUT!" for at least half an hour by
then, so I didn't even consider taking it.
What had pushed me over the edge was
that after finally struggling out of the
traffic jam, I realized that the only way
I could get home was to turn around and GO
BACK THROUGH IT.
Arachne
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy
Magazine, #11.
As usual, nothing unusual. The cover
story about a witch or demi-goddess who
knitted a magic fishnet, I might have
mentioned to the Knitlist, but my post was
already too long, and the author never
succeeded in convincing me that she knew
anything about either knitting or loons.
(Do they really have talons and perch in
trees?)
One story was convincing; at the end,
the bio noted that the author was a
geology student like his hero. But it had
the fragmentary feeling common in short
fantasy; creating a world, even when it
appears to be a standard fairy-tale world,
takes space. Biggest problem was that the
student didn't have any puzzles to solve
or difficulties to wrestle with; it was an
"I saw something interesting on the way to
work today" story -- or an introduction to
the real story that starts when she keeps
her appointment with the dean.
8 May 1996
I've been working the lower part of the
ribbing on my black socks with 0000
needles because my white socks occupy all
of the 000 needles. They had never been
used, so they were tarnished and had burrs
on the points. Didn't take near as long
to wear the burrs off as the 000 did,
though, and they shined up quickly. 1.25
mm is small enough that I have to be
careful how I hold them, or I'll wear a
sore spot on my left little finger.
And now I have to start over with the
other five needles on the other sock.
I've been trying for days to convince
myself that I could knit this one back
onto 00 needles and use the 0000s that are
already broken in, but that would get one
sock too far ahead of the other.
The wild strawberries are in bloom, but
the Joe Rickets berries don't seem to be
thinking about it. In the raised bed, one
of the catnips is showing signs of life,
and there are a zillion weed seedlings.
10 May 1996
Well, at least I don't have to shine up
the other five 0000 needles. Yesterday I
frogged back to where I left off with the
00 needles. I figured, correctly, that I
couldn't knit enough stitches to encircle
my D-width toes too small for my trim,
well-turned ankle --but I could
knit them too inelastic to pass over my
heel!
Haven't finished un-knitting the last
couple of rows yet -- and it's going to be
too cloudy today to continue.
12 May 1996
Between showers, I've managed to finish
mowing the field, start over at the road,
and get back almost to the edge of the
field. Will be time to mow again before
it is dry enough to do so. Was cats-and-
dogging again after the last mowing before
Dave came home, so we still haven't moved
the picnic table so I could mow under it.
I'm going to have to make a bed for the
cat. I started to make a new pad for the
rocker -- stacked up three rectangles cut
from the old wool mattress pad, with a
piece of polyester batting in the middle,
and eventually figured out how to get it
into a tick without disrupting it. Now
I'm tediously making buttons out of a
scrap of the mattress pad, and wishing
that I'd not gotten that idea for stopping
the ties from tearing through the tick.
In the meanwhile, the work-in-progress has
been lying on the floor, and Erica has
gotten into the habit of spending the
night on it.
Dave is starting to complain about
needles all over the floor.
Didn't help that I started the Peacock
today. (Time out to pick up the #3 sock
needles, which I won't need any more.)
It's as fascinating as the first time I
knitted it, but Round 33 refuses to work
out; I fear that I'll have to un-knit back
to where I knew what I was doing.
13 May 1996
The mower has always been more likely
to choke coming back than going out when I
mow the field clockwise. This morning I
noticed a straight-sided strip of darker
green on that side -- I'll bet Lawrence
fertilized that side when he owned it.
There's a flag on what looks like a
putting green near the track-track on
Lawrence's side of the field. Told Dave
he and Mr. Lawrence should get together.
If Joe does buy Danny's house, the L-
shaped rough would be enough to put in a
one-hole golf course. And there's a
fringe of trees on all three sides to
contain the balls.
Could only play one way, though, as
going back would have you driving toward
the road.
This morning, I referred to the path
the cross-country boys have beaten across
the backs of our properties as the "track
track." I think that is a good name for
it.
Kinder hard not to notice what they are
doing when they come through while I'm
mowing back there! They use it only
during the school year, though, so there
isn't much overlap.
(If I noticed, I'd have to put a stop
to it.)
It's not raining today. I've got a
load of wash in, and hope that it will be
dry enough to mow under the picnic table
before it's hung. Could leave it until
the wash comes down; I think
we've got the rest of the day.
16 May 1996
I've begun mowing the lawn for the
third time this spring. Left the field
out of the second pass. Figured to pause
for a while after reaching the house, but
it's raining today; by the time I finish
the front, it will be time to mow the
back.
Hey, it's not half-past ten yet, and
I've already got all of my list of things
to do on today's page of the calendar!
But I cheated and put "write proposal
for Shuttle Solitaire" on tomorrow's page.
Not going to make any progress until I
decide who to send it to.
Must check to see whether all the books
at SuperValu are novels.
Ooops. Have to put "buy eggs" on the
list -- and there isn't room.
Alta Vista, the search engine, has a
new motto: "Seek and ye shall find, and
find, and find..."
Like 8000 hits in two seconds. Rumor
has it that Alta Vista is going to come
out in a single-user version -- for people
who want to search their own disks.
Evening: Finally finished the pad I was
making for the back of the rocking chair.
Seems to work. I tried this a few years
ago, but it wasn't thick enough, and it
wouldn't stay in place. The polyester
batt from that attempt is inside this one,
together with three layers of the old
wool- filled mattress pad.
I'll never again buy a pad for a king-
sized bed. Stacking three blankets every
time I make the bed is a nuisance -- but
it's a bigger nuisance to have a mattress
pad dry cleaned every time it gets stinky,
and dry cleaning doesn't exactly get it
un-stinky. Three old blankets can be
washed in installments.
Now I have to make Erica a replacement
for the chair pad, which she has been
sleeping on every night. I plan to make
this one fit into a pillowcase, and I'll
quilt it firmly enough that I can wash it
in the machine. Brought the rest of the
mattress pad down to my cutting area, and
laid the pillowcase I plan to use on it.
Erica says this will do nicely & is curled
up asleep.
17 May 1996
Sometimes listening to the scanner is
frustrating. The sheriff's dispatcher
just said, "Are you aware of the situation
on 85A?"
What situation? Should I postpone
shopping until they clear the road? Lock
the doors? Go out to watch?
By the way, the problem with Round 33
of the Peacock was that I was reading
"K11" as "K1". That is somehow easier to
do when the instructions are lower case.
For some reason, I usually figure out
quickly that I'm reading "p11" as "p1."
Guess I got stuck on the "k11" because the
first "1" after a "p" might be an "L", but
nobody would be stupid enough to read
"k11" as "kl1."
85A followup: a garbage truck didn't
see or didn't believe the low-clearance
warning at the underpass, or forgot that
it was carrying a "container". Yecch!
Vehicle removed, road closed pending
examination of the underpass. Hope they
notified the railroad.
19 May 1996
Background: the SCA is people who dress
up in medieval costume, and there is a
Sci-Fi film called "Road Warrior."
Yesterday's junk mail included a
catalog of music and a few knicknacks for
fans of fantasy, SF, Sci Fi, and the SCA.
One of the albums is called "Woad
Warrior."
I'm tempted to buy it just to find out
whether it's really about ancient England.
Up until today, it's been cold and
rainy. Today it's hot and muggy. Don't
we get a May?
Mowed the smaller part of the front and
edged around the house in back, then
cultivated the garden for the first time.
The bindweed is thriving. Potatoes are up
-- the white ones; I think the red
potatoes must have been given an anti-
sprout hormone. Also see signs of life in
the Jerusalem Artichoke bed. Rhubarb
should be picked. Asparagus is spindly
and small.
Dave went to the parade in Altamont. I
chickened out.
I've been nervous while knitting in the
rocking chair ever since I flattened the
tip of one of my expensive Addi Turbos.
I have my developing afghan on three of
my five #3 47" Turbos, and it's time to
knit in the remaining two. Before I reach
the end of these, though, I'll get to the
stage where one round is a whole evening's
work, so I don't need to hurry about
ordering more.
I've decided to keep this afghan as
bedtime knitting until it's a bedspread,
or until I stop having scraps of that
yarn. It may get a bit tweedy in the
outer reaches, where a fist-size ball
won't go around even once. I began with a
ball and an unopened skein of "oatmeal;" I
worked the Peacock in oatmeal, and I plan
to work stripes of oatmeal and "spice"
until I run out of spice, then start using
the other browns. I intended to save the
heather (floor- sweepings) brown until I
was far enough from the center that it
would make only one stripe. Alas, I find
that I somehow acquired two
skeins of the stuff! I'm hoping that it
will look better among bright colors than
with other browns.
I'm dithering over my white vest. I've
decided that I'd rather use a worsted than
buy more of the woolen Bartlettyarn I use
for mittens and afghans, but nothing in my
collection of samples suits. There's an
alpaca-wool worstedweight among the Web's
packets, but it's not quite what I had in
mind, and the white sample is a rather
dead white. I had a warm, almost ecru,
white in mind. Found an old packet of
"Warm Fuzzy Farm" yarn samples that I have
long wanted an excuse to order from, but
it was the lovely dyes that I liked;
again, I'm not fond of the white, and it's
a light and fluffy yarn.
I was sure I had a sample of a lovely
unbrushed angora and wool blend, but I
must have read a description on the
knitlist or seen a picture on the Web; I
don't have it in my catalogs.
I wonder whether it's true that there's
a yarn store in Clifton Park?
Every time I think about making Erica's
new bed, she's asleep on it.
At that point I remembered that Dave
had let her out, so I cut two pieces of
padding, sewed them together, selected a
piece of duck, and got a good start on
making the cover.
When I got tired and wanted to go to
bed, Erica said that there was no way
she'd come in on such a nice warm night,
and I had to chase her down. When I
finally caught her, I put a hand under her
bottom to pick her up -- and discovered
that she's stopped to take a leak. We
were both very unhappy.
21 May 1996
ARRRGGH! Noticed that it was time to
put the last crumbs of Max Cat into the
cat's dish, and remembered that I hadn't
brought in the new sack I bought
yesterday. Went out to the car: clean.
Dumb me; operating on automatic pilot, I
must have carried it down to the freezer
instead of leaving it upstairs to refill
the can first.
Nothing in the freezer but some pre-
FUS Purina Cat Chow.
I remember taking the sack out of the
car so I could put my bike in, but I don't
remember putting it back in. There isn't
a way in the world I could get out of a
practically-empty parking lot without
seeing a great big bright-yellow sack
lying on the pavement -- is there?
Department of "How did I get on THIS
list?" Yesterday's mail included a
catalog of the summer 1996 classes at a
local quilt shop -- in Houston, Texas!
Just back from the grocery store, where
I bought enough Little Friskies Senior to
fill their bowl about once. While putting
groceries away, I think I found the cause
of our ant infestation: an "unopened"
plastic bag of brown sugar was crawling
with the little critters. I put it out on
the step while I'm thinking how to dispose
of it.
22 May 1996
Grump. Went to the store twice
yesterday -- went back to get sandwich
rolls for supper -- and today I remember
that I meant to use that brown sugar in
the cookies I'm baking today for
tomorrow's Auxiliary party.
Well, there's almost enough in the
glass jar where I kept the remains of the
previous bag. I'll piece it out with
white sugar.
Forgot about the sugar, and had some
explaining to do when Dave found it lying
on the steps!
Every time I top off the kittens' bowl,
I find that every crumb of Friskies Senior
has been picked out of the Max Cat Lite.
Maybe I'll stop going all the way to
Guilderland to buy cat chow.
But I do hope I can find it in bigger
boxes!
Erica seems particularly fond of it;
since her appetite for Tender Vittles has
been dropping off, this is a good reason
to buy more Friskies.
But if Tender Vittles stops being a
treat, how do we get her in at night?
Perhaps I should give them their
spoonful of canned food at bedtime,
instead of at suppertime.
Arachne
I pretty much lost yesterday to the
three books I bought while attempting to
buy ribbons on Monday. Now there was a
water haul! I went because we were
desperate for printer ribbons and cat
food; Logical Micros was out of ribbon,
and I lost the sack of cat food. And
Canterbury Tales rejected the Galaxies I'd
hoped to get rid of. Still had a net gain
in credit.
Pretty nice trip otherwise, but I
didn't push the water down fast enough (it
was our second summer day, and I don't
have habits yet), so I got pretty tired.
On the way out, I decided that power
windows were a luxury after all, since I
could open the passenger window and get
air without having it blow right on me.
When I got into the car after the bike leg
of the trip, and couldn't open the windows
until after starting the engine, I had a
different opinion!
Ah, yes, the stories. Wagner's
Death Angel's Shadow, which I'd
been meaning to get through interlibrary
loan. Must be a collection of early
stories, because in the first story, he
slows the pace of the fight scenes by
putting an exclamation mark after every
sentence! The punctuation was less
obtrusive in the second story, and I don't
recall any exclamation marks in the third
-- but this one was a love story of sorts.
I'm not sure whether I'd read these
novellas before or forgotten them; the
theme of the third was very familiar, but
I remember the details as being different,
though I'm not sure just what they were --
perhaps he re-wrote it later with
something more imaginative substituted for
the vampire.
"The Warlock Enraged" by Stacheff. A
much better story than I expected; perhaps
as good as the original story of the
series, and quite fit to stand on its own.
Ann Perry's "A Sudden and Fearful
Death" -- I was still in the first half at
bedtime last night, and a trifle farther
into it when I actually went to bed. I
peeked at the end to see whodunnit, but
that won't spoil the story; the appeal is
how Monk figures it out, and the
relationships of the characters. There
appear to have been at least two books
between this one and the first of the
series, and Monk is still retrieving bits
of his past.
(The first book was a tour de force:
thanks to a crack on the head in a
carriage wreck, Monk couldn't rule
himself out. Only detective
story I ever read in which
everybody was a suspect.)
23 May 1996
Isn't that sweet! There is a family of
cats enjoying the shade of Danny's hedge,
five kittens about the size Fred and Freed
were when we kidnapped them. Three larger
kittens formed a picket line between me
and them.
I think the "kitten" in the middle was
mama; though not obviously larger than the
other two, she looks more mature, and acts
like a mama.
I'd seen one of the "older brothers"
before, getting chased by Erica -- who
seemed delighted to find someone who would
run from her. I assumed then that it was
one of Danny's cats; I've been introduced
only to Booker.
I assume that they live on Woodwind
Drive; they're obviously accustomed to
people. "Mama" considered coming to me to
get her ears rubbed, but thought better of
it when I moved.
Did two loads of wash today, including
both pairs of denim pants and every last
pair of my polyester socks. So I've been
running around barefoot in a shift all
day, not wanting to dirty my better pants
or my hand-knit socks.
Barefoot was fine this morning, but
when I got up from my nap, I had the
feeling of having stepped on a few things.
I ought to put on some of what I've
taken off the line and get a little lawn-
mowing in before time to go to the poet's
meeting, the envelope-stuffing party, and
the "Make It and Take It" party. I
planned all along to "attend" the Make It
and Take It by dropping off a plate of
cookies, then the mailing party was moved
to the same date as the MIaTI. Since
these are the same people, I've no idea
how that is going to work out. I did want
to help with the Punkintown Fair mailing,
but not at the cost of attending a Make It
and Take It.
When we were planning this party, they
said we'd all bring our sewing scissors.
I silently sneered, "Sure, I'll let half a
dozen untaught strangers whack around with
my Wiss Bent Trimmers!" Later on, I
remembered that my imitation Fiskars are
capable of cutting cloth, so I wrote
"Beeson" on the blade, and they are in the
car.
I made a batch of "Oatmeal Crispies --
Mrs. Pritchard" from my string-bound
cookbook, and they make an impressive
display on a plastic platter that came
underneath a gift of some sort. I stashed
the arrangement in the fridge to keep ants
out of it; though they aren't as thick as
they were, I still see a few, and I'm sure
they'd like the cookies as much as they
liked brown sugar.
I was surprised at how easy it is to
make icebox cookies. It's been a long
time since I did that sort of thing.
The woodruff is still covered with
white four-petaled stars, and the Joe
Rickets strawberries are in full bloom.
Now there was a busy evening. While I
was dressing, Nancy called to ask me to
pick up a pint of mayonnaise for the six-
foot sub, so I went first to SuperValu,
then to the firehouse, where two mailing
parties were going on: one in the lounge,
and another at the auxiliary meeting
upstairs. So we stuffed, and held the
regular meeting while stuffing, and
stuffed some more. I tipped on out when
the Make It and Take it seemed about to
start, but stopped at the downstairs party
to have a slice of the six-foot sub. Then
off to the library, where I dropped off
the Galaxies that Canterbury wouldn't
take, looked in at the book sale, and
joined a poets' meeting that was well
under way. They were serving pretzels, so
I was glad that, as a latecomer to an
unusually large gathering that been
crowded into a small office (the book sale
was in the meeting room), I couldn't reach
the table. Meeting broke up and I found
that the book sale wasn't quite closed, so
I bought a copy of The Magic of
Atlantis, edited by Lin Carter. (I do
mean to go back tomorrow or Saturday, and
take a proper look.)
Got home to find no Saab in the
driveway -- but the poor kittens still
hanging out in Danny's hedge. I greatly
fear that the poor dears have been dumped
-- and where do you find a home for eight
cats?
So I went to the firehouse, to find
both parties dispersing. Sandy has re-
joined the Auxiliary. Collected a hunk of
sub Dave had planned to take home, then
went upstairs, gathered up my scissors and
a few compliments on my cookies, and
contrived to give all the cookies to Linda
(? CRS), after she asked for a few for her
lunch. Gomphed down some goodies and came
home.
24 May 1996
Great relief: I asked Grace, when she
arrived, and she said the kitten family
had been hanging around Danny's shop & he
had brought them home.
The bad news: while talking to her I
noticed that one of the "uncle" kittens
had enlarged nipples and a decidedly
rotund outline.
Found the following on the knitlist
today. Never thought I'd snicker after
reading about a suicide, but . . .
Subject: 1994's Most Bizarre Suicide
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given
by the American Association for Forensic
Science, AAPS President Don Harper Mills
astounded his audience in San Diego with
the legal complications of a bizarre
death. Here is the story.
"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner
viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he had died from a shotgun
wound of the head. The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten-story
building intending to commit suicide (he
had left a note indicating his
despondency). As he fell past the ninth
floor, his life was interrupted by a
shotgun blast through a window, which
killed him instantly. Neither the shooter
nor the decedent was aware that a safety
net had been erected at the eighth floor
level to protect some window washers, and
that Opus would not have been able to
complete his suicide anyway because of
this."
"Ordinarily," Dr Mills continued, "a
person who sets out to commit suicide
ultimately succeeds, even though the
mechanism might not be what he intended.
That Opus was shot on the way to certain
death nine stories below probably would
not have changed his mode of death from
suicide to homicide. But the fact that
his suicidal intent would not have been
successful caused the medical examiner to
feel that he had homicide on his hands.
"The room on the ninth floor whence the
shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an
elderly man and his wife. They were
arguing and he was threatening her with
the shotgun. He was so upset that, when
the pulled the trigger, he completely
missed his wife and the pellets went
through the window, striking Opus.
"When one intends to kill subject A but
kills subject B in the attempt, one is
guilty of the murder of subject B. When
confronted with this charge, the old man
and his wife were both adamant that
neither knew that the shotgun was loaded.
The old man said it was his long-standing
habit to threaten his wife with the
unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to
murder her - therefore, the killing of
Opus appeared to be an accident. That is,
the gun had been accidentally loaded.
"The continuing investigation turned up
a witness who saw the old couple's son
loading the shotgun approximately six
weeks prior to the fatal incident.
It transpired that the old lady had cut
off her son's financial support and the
son, knowing the propensity of his father
to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded
the gun with the expectation that his
father would shoot his mother. The case
now becomes one of murder on the part of
the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
"Further investigation revealed that
the son (Ronald Opus) had become
increasingly despondent over the failure
of his attempt to engineer his mother's
murder. This led him to jump off the ten-
story building on March 23, only to be
killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth
story window.
"The medical examiner closed the case
as a suicide."
Happy Knitting/Memorable Memorial Day to
All./Susan
28 May 1996
Further conversation reveals that the
mama kitty is the mother of the two aunt
kitties, and two or three of the kittens.
The non-pregnant aunt is the mother of the
rest. They delivered about the same time,
and pooled their litters.
Danny says that he's found a place that
gives quantity discounts on spaying, but
he intends to wait until the kittens are
weaned. Either they won't get pregnant
again, or won't be too far into it for an
abortion, and it's already too late for
the aunt kitty.
29 May 1996
From a knitlist post:
"I learn so much from ya'll. Not only
knitting but "portant" things like
copyrights, publishers, how to bathe a
cat."
1 June 1996
Fred and Erk had a spat while I was
reading the Telegraph, and Freed just
pussyfooted through the office, so I guess
everybody is accounted for.
Dave has been reading the Electronic
London Telegraph, and subscribed to the
weekly paper Telegraph. The first issue
came in today's mail & I picked it up on
the way to the pizza parlor, but Dave
hasn't seen it yet; he went to bed soon
after getting home tonight.
From one of the columns --about Breast
Feeding Awareness Day -- "We should think
about...the babies. Should they really be
introduced at such an early age into the
disgusting British habit of endlessly
eating snacks in public?"
Went to the New Salem and Voorheesville
Garage Sale today, but didn't buy anything
except the map, a sausage sandwich, and a
25 paperback copy of Alas
Babylon. After coming home from New
Salem to refill my bottle and take a piece
of junk out to the road, I meant to take a
lap around Picard and then go to
Voorheesville, but I took a nap instead.
2 June 1996
Night before last, Dave was rousted out
in the night, only to find that Roger and
Roger had stomped out the fire before he
got there. They had another grass fire
today, but, once again, put it out with
their feet. Took more feet, this time.
I mowed the field today, and went east
and west instead of round and round.
Found it much better: I pass through the
strip of sumac crossways instead of
endways, and break the trimming along the
windbreak into mower-width installments.
Also, coming at it end-on instead of
mowing along it lets me get more of the
poison ivy.
Best of all, when I quit, I'd got all
the poison ivy, so I won't have to undress
into the washer and take a shower the next
time I mow.
Scrubbed the grass off my shoes, too.
To my surprise, they didn't need another
coat of dye, so I went straight to the
heavy coat of stain boot polish, hoping,
probably in vain, that all the grass will
come off next time.
I haven't polished my newer shoes at
all -- seems odd to take better care of my
gardening shoes than the good pair!
Somehow, we have lost the middle out of
the Weekly Telegraph. I've been through
the recycling bins and the stack of
newspaper to no avail.
4 June 1996
Commenced downpouring; I went to check
the windows, and it switched back to light
drizzle before I was quite finished. I
guess that is what the weatherman meant by
"pop-up showers".
5 June 1996
Our TV station made a great fuss about
the TV premier of "Backdraft." Dave went
to bed while they were still setting up
their situation, and I didn't notice that
he turned it off before the end even
though I was sitting here at the computer,
so I guess I wasn't very riveted either.
Every last fire the squabbling brothers
get called to is a fully-involved
structure fire with people trapped, never
a false alarm or a flaming wastebasket.
And every last structure fire sucks in its
breath to go "Whoomph" with. Dave says
that "backdraft" might happen
when windows break. The special effects
didn't seem to include flashovers, which
are nearly universal. No tension of
seeing the smoke rushing away from you and
knowing it's going to come back like a
tidal wave.
Well, well! I thought putting the old
water heater out by the road was a daft
idea, but a fellow just took it. So we've
saved the ten or fifteen dollars it would
have cost to dump it, and he's got a
perfectly good burner.
6 June 1996
From the Knitlist:
> good judgement is the result of
experience
> experience is the result of bad
judgement
7 June 1996
All things come to him who waits.
I invented the laptop fifteen or twenty
years ago. The first time I picked up the
keyboard of our first computer, I noticed
that it was hollow & immediately realized
that there was room inside for enough
hardware to run a text editor. I decided
then that as soon as portable computers
with decent keyboards got down to $300,
I'd buy one. (The two cubic yards of
desktop cost only $8,000 for a whopping 64
kilobytes of memory, and two 8"
floppy drives. We were impressed.)
Laptops appeared, in due course, but
instead of getting cheaper, they got more
and more expensive, and the keyboards got
worse. I went to the second-hand computer
store, but even there, everything cost a
lot more than I wanted to pay for a dinky
keyboard.
A few days ago, I swept behind Dave's
shack (a big desk he refinished to hold
his radio equipment), and asked, "What's
that thing that looks like a laptop case?"
He said that it was an obsolete laptop
that R&P had discarded; he brought it home
to use with Weatherfax, but found that it
couldn't handle graphics.
So I'm trying it out as a portable
typewriter. The batteries are unreliable,
and replacements are no longer available,
but they do take a charge, the machine lay
unplugged with an uncharged battery for
two days without losing the stuff on the
RAM disk, and there are two spare
batteries. And there are more times that
you can plug a portable in than there are
when you can't.
But if the batteries are *too* flat, it
won't turn on even when plugged in.
The RAM disk is so small that I can't
run XTree Gold, which fills two AOL
floppies. The old XTree on the firehouse
computer might fit, but Dave is looking
around for a DOS manual -- and I've
already remembered how to copy, at least
well enough to get stuff on and off
floppies, and I've picked up a few other
basic commands from the introduction to
the DOS 6 manual.
I don't think I'll need a file manager.
All I need on a portable is a book or two
and some letters, and I can keep track of
that with DOS and PC-Write's directory.
Speaking of books on my disk, if you
see a needlework or "how to" publication
in the supermarket or some other non-book
store, write down the publisher's name and
send it to me. I still haven't offered
"Shuttle Solitaire" to anybody.
Avital thinks "Shuttle Solitaire" is
great. This makes me less chicken.
The first computer I had used "virtual
memory," pretending disk space was memory,
then we went through a generation of RAM
disks, pretending memory was disk space.
The current generation has memory and disk
space to burn, so I suppose that we won't
see any more virtual hardware.
11 June 1996
I told Dave that we'd have to make
Nancy be Fair Chairman again next year,
now that she's figured out how to do it.
She got the idea of mailing letters to
everybody on the tax rolls to remind them
of the fair dates. Great idea; we had
already set up the addresses to print on
labels for the Calendar Drive. But she
planned on stuffing the envelopes a week
before they were delivered, and when they
arrived, she had forgotten to have the
bulk-mailing stamp printed on them.
So Dave had a rubber stamp made, and
there are two boxes of letters in the
office. This is the last batch, and the
largest: the ones that go through the
Voorheesville post office. When Dave was
stamping Delmar a few days ago, he said "I
feel like a printing press." I saw what
he meant when I tried it; there is
something very coordinated about
picking envelopes with one hand and
stamping with the other, back and forth
from pad to envelope.
Grump. I stopped at the hardware store
yesterday, to see that the earmuff-hook in
the hearing protection section was still
empty, and never thought of buying a lawn
chair.
13 June 1996
It's no longer eight cats. It has been
days since we saw more than four of the
kittens at one time, and today when I took
Erica's leftovers out to dispose of, I
discovered that a stepladder left standing
on edge had fallen over and strangled one
of the remaining kittens. I lifted the
ladder off, but the body was stiff and
cold. It happened before our latest
thunderstorm; its fur is wet.
Then I didn't know what to do with the
corpse. I hated to leave it on the
pavement for Danny to find, but I didn't
feel that it would be right to bury it
without asking him. Hope he comes home
soon.
Kitty must have been climbing the
ladder, as the signs are always warning
kids not to do on dumpsters.
I've always wondered about those signs;
surely children old enough to read them
would already know better.
Oh, my. One of the mama kitties is
grooming the body. I must do
something with it.
On a more cheerful note, when I came
back from leaving Danny a note, I counted
four kittens. I had been afraid the
kitten with the infected eyes had died; it
appears that it got well.
Erica changed her mind about going out
at noon, but showed up for supper on time,
and is now in the window beside the
computer, watching the kittens play.
And her fur isn't up. Much.
She gets no Ovaban tomorrow. I
resorted to cream cheese to get today's
pill down her, despite the ban on milk.
You can put one of the tiny Vetalog pills
on anything and it will go down, but the
bigger Ovaban will fall out of anything
that doesn't stick tight.
14 June 1996
Erica looks more like herself this
morning, but didn't seriously consider
going out. (Never thought I'd be
encouraging the cat to go
outside!) The spot looks terrible, but
that appears to be because it's peeling
like a burn. There was a loose bit, so
she can't be licking constantly.
It's well into June, and I'm still
eating the winter onions. They have
gotten coarse, and I have to throw away
most of each one -- in early spring, one
could eat everything that wasn't dirty --
but they don't taste of soap. I suspect
that the soap flavor comes of drought
instead of maturity.
Finally got around to cutting off the
bulbing heads a few days ago. It was so
late that I brought one of the top-bulbs
in and chopped it into my lunch.
Topped the wild garlic the last time I
cultivated; this was early enough that I
could snap the buds off with my fingers.
I missed a few that were still inside the
stem.
Don't know when it will be dry enough
to cultivate again. I was pushing it a
little that time, but the bindweed was
flourishing and I feared that it would
rain any minute.
The bindweed is still flourishing; at
this time of year, a garden needs
cultivating more often than is possible.
I saved a pillowcase each of garlic and
onion seeds last year, and planted them
this sPring -- rather late, but it's still
rainy, and one of them is flourishing.
The other didn't come up at all. I've
forgotten which is which. They are as
thick as grass in the row; I doubt that
the bulbs will be big enough to store in
bags over the winter, and I doubt that wee
teeny bulbs could make it through enough
dirt and mulch to protect them in the
ground. We shall see what develops.
Are you familiar with Tetris, a
computer game in which tetrominos of every
shape fall rapidly, and you must build a
hole-free brick wall with them?
I find that when I desperately need to
fill a hole, I tend to deflect something
hopelessly unsuitable to that spot, and
thereby block myself from playing the
right tetronimo when it falls --usually
immediately after I've blocked the hole
that it fits.
I think the same thing happens in
politics -- there is a need, therefore we
must do something, even if it makes the
situation worse.
It often happens that the misdirected
game piece is the mirror image of the one
that's needed -- that happens in real life
too.
20 June 1996
From a Knitlist signature:
"My spellling reflexs my freedom of
expresssion." -- Peg ("Pegg") Alexander
21 June 1996
Just planted my annuals. I haven't the
foggiest idea what "San Marzano" tomatoes
are, just that they looked the least over-
ripe of the marked-down plants at Our
Family's Harvest.
As I set out for fruit and lunch food
yesterday morning, I realized that I was
late setting out plants, so I went through
the greenhouse at Indian Ladder before
buying grapes, pears, and strawberries.
(Rather shipped-in tasting berries; I
should have waited for LeVie.) I was
unsurprised at the lack of tomatoes;
Indian Ladder is a tourist orchard, so it
sells ornamentals and herbs. A sad
collection of marigolds was marked down to
75/sixpack, and I got one despite
the crowded state of my flower beds. Made
room, this morning, by pulling out some
very vigorous strawberries that had no
fruits; I strongly suspect that they are
not Joe Rickets, and mean to
exterminate them and repopulate with
plants of known parentage.
Thence straight to Olsen's, with no
stop at SuperValu. Olsen had plants in
four-inch pots, which would have done
nicely to plant this late, but, alas,
nothing was left except peppers. We're
about ten feet too far north to have any
luck with peppers, but I got a "chocolate"
pepper, and their last sprouted muskmelon
seed. Never had any luck with melons
either.
Thence to Stonewell to buy some of
their excellent salads -- a box each of
potato and slaw, and the way Dave has been
going at the potato, I wish I'd gotten the
large box. Rather sad; it's obvious that
nothing is selling well except the salads,
and nothing has been done about severe
winter damage to the parking lot.
Checked my list and decided that loose
tea wasn't urgent enough to go back to
SuperValu; they might not have it either,
and I was getting tired and hungry. Set
out on the straighter route home --and hit
the brakes just past Our Family's Harvest,
which I'd forgotten about. (They have a
second driveway for just such an
emergency.)
They had tomato plants, and I bought a
premises-baked raisin scone while I was at
it. Baking soda biscuits are stale before
they reach room temperature, but they put
enough sugar in their scones that they
keep more like cookies, so it was edible.
A cookie would have been better.
21 June 1996
SNARRRRL!!
I devoted the entire afternoon to
taking Erica to the vet, never got her
there, and my back aches from looking
under furniture.
I hate, hate, HATE the guy who tore out
all the doors in this house.
I did see her back foot about ten
minutes before her first appointment. I
think there were white toes on
the foot I saw.
22 June 1996
Found her locked in the spare room --
which I had searched carefully several
times. Tomorrow, I plan to devote the day
to getting all the junk out from under the
spare bed.
Going to Guilderland today, and having
trouble remembering why.
Dave warned me that the intersection of
20 and 155 is going to be torn up and a
nightmare to get through; I thanked him
and changed my route to Normanskill-
Johnston.
While contemplating possible side
trips, I realized that folks wanting to go
from Voorheesville to Crossgates and
points east are the only people with a
serious alternative, and the only
convoluted alternative is for people who
want to go from Voorheesville to points
west. And most of the people who hit the
construction will be taken completely by
surprise, and those are two of
the busiest roads in the area.
I'm not sure five miles of clearance is
enough!
Is this trip necessary?
25 June 1996
Well, I didn't find anything to buy,
but I took a complete lap on both floors
so I wouldn't need to go back to
Crossgates ever again. Caldor is the same
size it was before it was embedded, but it
still suffers from the "more floorspace,
less stuff" syndrome.
Went to Stuyvesant Plaza for lunch,
because I got there by mistake for a
hardware store that just might have lawn
chairs. (Turned east when I should have
turned west.) Bought a copy of The
Reign of the Brown Magician while I
was at it. That title sounds like part of
the Blue Adept series, but it's the end of
Watt-Evans' Three Planets Trilogy.
Forgot about the work at 20 & 155, but
traffic was backed up so far that I
noticed only a few blocks past where I
should have turned, and so few cars were
getting through from the other way that I
had a chance to make a U turn only a few
seconds after I decided that I needed to.
Traffic was moving, but I
think that if I'd been on my bike, I
wouldn't have been able to balance.
A while back Carl Strock wrote a column
cleverly noting the resemblance between a
women's-studies conference and a church,
describing what I've been calling "the
noisier sort of feminist" -- the ones who
dance in circles pounding on little drums,
and then claim exclusive credit for work
done entirely by other people -- as clergy
without a laity.
A few days later I went to the store
intending to buy lime sherbet. There
wasn't any, so I settled for Rainbow,
figuring Dave could dip a serving of lime
out of the green streaks.
The sherbet is beautiful, striped in
raspberry pink, lime green, and orange
orange --- but no matter where I dip my
spoon, it's all the same flavor.
Today, an angry academic feminist wrote
to complain that Strock was wrong in
saying the conference members "were all
believers" -- in fact, they "included men
and women of different nationalities,
races, class backgrounds, etc., and ... we
were graduate students, professors, part-
time teachers, health-care workers, and
interested people from the community."
She didn't say which "community."
28 June 1996
I've got "Beginner's Lace: Old Shale
Corner" polished, cut into pages, and
ready to print. I've written a cover
letter. I have the address for Family
Circle.
Now all I need is guts.
Looked into my "trash" mailbox at the
beginning of a letter filed there by my
filters. Wish I hadn't; it made me so
angry that it was difficult to concentrate
on finishing "Old Shale Corner."
I've persuaded myself not to waste time
and psychic energy by casting pearls
before yahoos, but faith and begorrah, I'm
going to tab over to Eudora and tell you
guys her exact name and address! Lindsey
Cleveland believes that
because America is a democracy, Amy has no
right to make any changes in her mailing
list without consulting the fifteen
hundred people for whom she is laboring on
her own initiative, at the expense of her
knitting time, without any pay, and with
very little gratitude. And all that was
in the first line! I had the wit not to
read the rest of it. If Ms. Cleveland is
still on the list, Ste. Amy has gone
beyond sainthood into idiocy.
Ste. Amy is indisputably right; you
can't have over a thousand and a half
people chatting on a mailing list any more
comfortably than you can have that many
people in your living room, and anything
mailed to thousands of people should be at
least as thought-over as a letter to the
newspaper. Moreover, there are already
plans afoot to move the conversation to
Usenet, which is designed to accommodate
that kind of traffic.
Anybody who thinks that the list will
be boring now that the topic is limited to
knitting ought not to have signed up in
the first place.
Just grabbed the ragged broom and
dashed outside to break up a cat fight,
only to discover that the Child's
grandchildren are visiting. I wonder
whether I should have told the little
nippers what they sounded like?
1 July 1996
The winter onions have started forming
bulbs. I must be sure to catch them
during the few hours that they are big
enough to mess with and have not yet
sprouted; they make excellent dried minced
onion, and it should keep all winter in
the deep freeze.
And harvesting bulbs should reduce my
excess population.
Erica visited us yesterday evening,
when Dave was watching the shack TV & I
was playing with the computer, and this
morning she not only came up for
breakfast, but demanded seconds. I
postponed that third call to the vet.
Do you suppose she knew it was Monday
and decided to fake me out?
3 July 1996
Arachne
I find, lying about, several of the
books that I've read lately. In no
particular order:
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls,
Heinlein, 1985. A sequel to both The
Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Time
Enough for Love, with everything ever
written by anybody thrown in. A dough-
shaped novel, but a page turner. The
title character shows up at the end: a
kitten who walks through walls because "he
isn't old enough to know it's impossible."
This trait is introduced, apparently, so
that the kitten can add to the horror and
pity of the end, having followed our hero
into a battle where no sane man would take
a kitten.
Job: A Comedy of Justice,
Heinlein, 1984. Appears at first to be a
multiple-universe novel; turns out to be
the same theme as The Unpleasant
Profession of Jonathon Hoag. But in
structure, it's a romance.
I'm not familiar enough with romances
to say just when it became necessasry to
disguise them as male-style pornography to
get them past the PC censors, but I find
it amusing that this man's story, early in
the "spice"ification of women's stories,
is an old-fashioned romance: our hero
meets a glorious schoolteacher, goes
through Heaven and Hell to get her
(literally, this being SF), and then they
open a little restaurant and raise a
family.
Crewel Embroidery Simplified,
Inge Brenner, 1971. This was the 6th
printing, so I guess minibooks sell --
though I haven't seen them lately.
There's one spread each for a few of the
basic stitches -- "zig-zag" appears to be
a misprint. I could never work it from
the diagram, though I can easily invent
ways to get the illustrated effect. These
are followed by several designs, some
hackneyed, some clumsy. I suspect that
the small pages cramped the artist -- and
the objective was to persuade the reader
to draw his own designs, so some of the
crudeness may have been deliberate. There
are a few black-and-white photos of
finished work in the back, and a color
photo of an embroidered pillow on the
cover.
The Reign of the Brown Magician,
Lawrence Watt-Evans, 1996: "The life-and-
death conclusion to the Three Worlds
Trilogy!" There are sequel hooks all over
the ending of this, but I hope that Watt-
Evans works on one of his inspired series,
or a new series, instead.
Sword and Sorceress, edited by
Marion Zimmer Bradley, 1984. Nothing
memorable, but worth picking up at a
thrift shop. Or did I get it at a garage
sale? Got Job and the crewel book
at my last garage sale.
Last Saturday, I went in search of a
sale advertised in the Enterprise,
thinking that Hennesey was the loop formed
by Koonz and the end of Tygert. Hennesey
runs from that loop to Depot near the
Guilderland Center end. So I took the
long loop, and did find two books and a
juice glass. Took the books from a box
labeled ten cents, and was charged a
quarter each (having come to the checkout
past a different pile of books), but I
thought the juice glass worth more than a
nickle, so I didn't say anything.
Came back past the library, and read
magazines for a couple of hours. Was
planning to come in saying "I should have
known a sale in the Altamont paper would
be at the Altamont end of the road!", but
Dave had gone giraffe hunting.
From the Valley of the Missing,
Grace Miller White, 1911. That's a
Curwoodish title, the age of the binding
was about right for a Northern, and I
failed to notice the sex of the author.
Opening scene on a river barge seemed
reasonable, so I bought it. Turns out to
be a romance of the switched-babies
variety; a desperate "squatter" saves her
infant from her drunken mate by thrusting
it into the arms of a woman on a passing
yacht. Later, the drunken mate helps a
bereaved friend kidnap the twin children
of the next-door neighbor of the woman who
adopted his child. Everything is unknown
to everybody, madness and co-incidence run
rife, and we end with a dramatic rescue
and reunion featuring the two villians
murdering each other and their insane
concubine-and-mother dying of grief.
Though people went missing right and
left, there doesn't seem to have been any
valley involved.
I was much amazed at how much Edgar
Rice Burroughs I saw in this; particularly
his belief in Lamarckianism -- the thief's
son grows up to be a thief, and the
lawyer's twins instinctively shrink from
breaking the law.
There are more read books lying about,
but not handy.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
I just read "Global 2000 System
NOTICES- PLEASE READ" for the fifteenth
time, and discovered that the last
paragraph did say that if we
weren't using any of the programs above,
we must call technical help while we can
still download. I'm still not happy that
we are offline while waiting for them to
snail us a disk.
I've been getting sixty messages a day
-- what a mess there will be when I
finally collect them!
There is a lot to be said for
stagnation. What we had was working well
enough. The new and improved hardware
isn't working at all. I suppose it *will*
be better when we get access to it.
But the biggest reason they gave for
wanting it was that there would be fewer
interruptions in service!
5 July 1996
Grump. I mowed the front lot just
before the rain started, and it needs
mowing again, so I'm right eager to get
the front yard, back yard, and back lot
done, and the grass is nice and dry today
-- drier than it was the last time I mowed
it.
So the mower like unto didn't start,
and then sounded funny, and then put out
great clouds of unprecedented black smoke
every time I engaged the blade -- not to
mention that there is something sticky and
brown on the deck that I never saw before.
So I'm afraid to use it.
Dave managed to persuade Terminal to
download GoLauncher yesterday. He'd tried
several times the day before, but it
always aborted. Then he discovered that
all we needed was a new script for Trumpet
Winsock; we can go right on calling
Trumpet ourselves, without asking
GoLauncher to call it for us.
So things are back the way they were.
I got 177 messages when he connected the
first time yesterday, and three more
before noon. I still haven't read them
all, even though I "read" with two fingers
on the "trash it" keys.
We'd been wondering what to do with the
ground the boys tore up taking out the
stump of the spruce that blew down. We
discussed it for days, and I leveled it
some with the hoe, and Dave tried to use
my five-tine cultivator on it. Finally I
hauled my little cart full of dirt from
the pile under the pine tree a couple of
times. The morning of the third, I raked
it out and put shovelfuls into grooves
where roots had been, and decided that it
wouldn't take too long to level it even if
I hauled only one cartload a day.
The evening of the third, the boys came
back with a dumptruck of dirt, leveled it,
and seeded it. Then it rained all the
fourth, just right to settle grass seed
in.
They did a much better job than I would
have done -- but I was getting into it!
Today they ripped out stumps on Danny's
side of the line. I'm not too clear on
what they are up to, but the pile of dirt
they left on the pavement after repairing
our stump-hole is now on Danny's front
yard. In ridges and piles, so I presume
that they aren't through.
Their little bucket loader just zoomed
through with a load of dirt from somewhere
else, startling Smokie, who is -- or was -
- sunning himself on Danny's front step.
6 July 1996
When Dave came home, he discovered that
the mowing chamber was packed full of
dried, moldy grass mach, with
actively-fermenting pockets. Yecch! I
cleaned it out with a sharp stick while
Dave held the mower up for me.
7 July 1996
Got half the field mowed today, which
entailed undressing into the washing
machine and taking a shower; the poison
ivy is flourishing. Some of the vines
have leaflets big enough to wrap your
lunch in. That would be rash, one way or
the other.
Also printed out my chart for the Old
Shale corner, and the commentary thereon.
Now all I have to do is to make my cover
letter a bit less little-girlish and mail
the thing.
Package is bigger than Family Circle.
But I hear on the internet that Knitter's
World is still publishing, under the name
"Knitter's Digest," & I can offer it to
them as a leaflet. Trouble is, House of
White Birches doesn't pay much.
And their leaflets, as far as I know,
have pages much too small to include a
chart.
Forgot to water the grass seed until
late in the day. Hope it didn't fry.
Dave found our good sprinkler, which
makes the job easier.
Good thing Dave was able to use
Terminal after the crowd eased off; the
disk Global 2000 snailed still hasn't
come.
Today's paper said that the guys at
Global 2000 wish that they were allowed to
say how much they got for the name "Global
One," because people are thinking that it
is a lot more than it was, & all the new
equipment was already planned when Sprint
started leaning on them.
9 July 1996
It rained last night, and brought up
the first sprouts of the new grass.
In the afternoon, I got about a third
of the front lot mowed before it rained
again. Still needed to water the new
grass.
Less than half the field remains to be
mowed, but I don't want to begin it until
after I buy more gas.
Mailed Old Shale to Family Circle
today.
Now I've got to write a proposal for
Shuttle Solitaire. I think I'll
send it to Interweave.
11 July 1996
Yesterday I punched a couple of
register tapes into Quicken & decided to
count the money in my purse and put the
expenditures I forgot to record under
"misc." Quicken says I've got $140. I
actually have $174. How does one deal
with that?
There's no way I could have
received $34 without noticing. I
got some checks, but I deposited all of
them & haven't gotten cash any way except
from the savings account. I accused Dave
of lending me a couple of twenties, but he
didn't remember doing so -- and I don't
recall asking.
I started fixing supper right after my
shower yesterday, and forgot to scrub my
shoes, so I had it to do this morning,
with the grass dried on. Constant
scrubbing has given them such a shine that
I'm tempted to mow poison ivy in my better
pair.
Which I polished today for the first
time -- bought them a year ago. Nearly
used the last crumb of polish. The can of
polish probably moved here from
Indianapolis, and might be older than
that. I've not only been using it
frequently, scrubbing makes the shoes soak
up polish like a sponge.
I sure hope shoe polish still comes in
cans that fit our shoe-shine kit. You
can't buy horsehair brushes any more, so
there's no chance I'll buy a new kit to
fit the polish.
When I bought them, I thought my older
pair of shoes the ugliest things I'd ever
seen, but the older and more beat-up they
get, the prettier they look. I hope Red
Wing still makes that style; if I came
across a pair that fit, I'd buy it for
fear that they'd discontinue it before
this pair wears out. I won't be going to
Jerry's this year, though.
The tracks that the boys left when
sowing the grass seed are still visible,
and I noticed this morning that the grass
is much thicker where they stepped on the
seed. There's enough contrast that I
think that I could recognize them as
footprints even without the traces in the
dirt.
One night I heard the deputies hunting
all over for a suicidal subject who had
taken pills. Reminded me of how every
time Dr. Kevorkian hits the news, someone
is sure to sniff "he could have inhaled
carbon monoxide without professional
help."
A doctor isn't necessary -- a bodyguard
is.
Besides, the average yahoo doesn't know
what's lethal, judging by what people do
without suicidal intent.
The last time I went to the grocery, I
noticed that D.O.T. had patched the trench
the power line burned into 85-A. It was
filled as soon as the power was turned off
and the fire was put out, but that patch
started breaking almost at once, and it
was getting dangerous. The new one isn't
smooth, but I no longer have to brake.
A good thing, too, as I had another car
on my rear bumper all the way home from
the poet's meeting tonight.
Michael reported three sales: a story,
something I didn't catch in another
magazine -- he forgot to mention it during
the meeting because the big news is that
he's sold a book. "This is a
proposal -- and this is a
contract!"
Due to be released in 1998.
"I love shetland, to knit with, to spin
and to just get down on my knees and hug
the sheep!" -- Ellen Bloomfield
12 July 1996
The winter-onion bulbs seem to be at
their peak, and I pulled a whole clump,
leaving only one bulb to regenerate. I
soon regretted biting off so much work,
and then most of them were two or three
small bulbs instead of one big one. But
the plateful of minced onion in the oven
should be a year's supply.
So what do I do with the other five
clumps?
The catnip is getting past its prime,
and Bertha is supposed to rain all over us
tomorrow. Should have picked some this
morning, as the previous batch is dry. I
did get that out of the oven and into the
bag in the freezer.
13 July 1996
Bertha came to town last night.
Hurricanes are rain without a breath of
wind by the time they get here, and we can
use a little rain, but it's gloomy and
depressing. Have to put the lights on at
noon! So I don't feel like doing
anything. And I definitely don't want to
go outside.
From the lace list, a personal message
probably posted by mistake: "I hope by the
time Bertha gets to you it will just be
rain. It's the names they give these poor
storms. If they called them Buffy or
Tippy the hurricanes would go shopping
instead of messing up everyone's
lives"
14 July 1996
From the lace list: "Boys will be boys,
and so will middle-aged men."
We both flaked out in the heat and went
to bed so early that I'm up again and it's
still not time to go to bed. I got up
about 9:00.
I dreamed that I was in-line skating,
so skillfully that it didn't bother me
that I was carrying an antique oil lamp by
the handle. Nor did I notice much whether
I was on grass or pavement. It did worry
me a little that my technique wasn't
physically possible.
15 July 1996
Erica is eating the mint I left on her
pillow.
Catmint, that is.
Later: I got the more-important half of
the garden cultivated before the rain
started, but the rows need hand-picking
something awful.
Still later: I yelled at poor little
Fred while I was attempting to make the
bed, leaving him peering fearfully around
the doorway. (But I was finally able to
straighten out the mattress pads.)
When I got it made, I flopped onto it
for a couple of hours. The gloom and
dismal of today's weather doesn't match
Bertha, but it will suffice. Everything
in the house is sticky, and soon after
suffocation forces me to open a window,
rain makes me shut it again.
It's the middle of July, and so far
I've given only passing thought to
changing the laundry pump from the septic
line to the hose, and haven't watered
anything but the newly-seeded grass.
It's up enough now that I don't think I
need to keep the surface damp any more.
Or it will be by the time the rain stops.
I must remember to find out who
published "Poems of Color" the next time I
go to the library, to make sure that I
don't send "Shuttle Solitaire" to the same
people.
I wonder whether that's the same
publisher that changed "bobble" to
"bauble" all through "Knitting in Plain
English"? Oh, yeah, I've got to look that
one up too.
16 July 1996
From the lace list: "I want to die
peacefully in my sleep like my
grandfather, not screaming, terrified,
like his passengers."
Just back from the Methodists' Tuesday-
night thrift shop, where I bought two
books, a beat-up three-ring binder, and a
brand-new water bottle for eighty cents.
I can't think that they raise a lot of
money for the church, but disposing of all
the junk that's too good to landfill is
certainly a public service.
One of the two books was a 1941 edition
of The Boston Cooking School
Cookbook, attributed to Fanny Farmer,
but re-written by Wilma Lord Perkins.
Gave me two surprises: upon opening it, I
found that it reeks of tobacco
smoke; I'm glad I didn't put it straight
into the closed bookcase. I can keep it
with the atlas on the desk top for a
while.
The second surprise was that I want to
try the recipe for shortcake -- I've got a
bowl of sugared strawberries in the
fridge.
But Dave is off to work parties every
night, and I'm not keen on the idea of
heating the oven.
18 July 1996
I wonder how long that R&P pad has been
under the mouse? I like it better than
the old one; the smooth surface doesn't
hold cat hair, and it seems to give just
as much traction to the ball.
Think how recently that paragraph would
have been utter gibberish!
Later: he brought it home last night,
and it does lose traction now and again.
But I used to skid on the cat fur.
It says "http://www.rpco.com".
Rode to Stonewell this morning for
three bottles of prune juice, some instant
oatmeal to make very thin gruel for my
water bottle, and some stuff I saw in
passing. There are great empty spaces in
the store now, as they draw the remaining
merchandise toward the middle. I
overheard the checkout saying she had no
idea was was going to become of the
building.