2006 Beeson Banner 2 January 2006 Haven't laid a needle on the black linen slacks, or any of the dozens of other things that need mending. Haven't even done the ironing in weeks. Been eating lots of goodies, though. Just as we got rid of the loot from Christmas, we started over at the New Year party. I put two bags in the freezer. The first two days after Christmas, my breakfast was devilled egg on garlic bread, but I didn't bring any eggs back from the New Year party. I undecorated the tree this evening, put it into a box, and threw a dust cover over it. Al took great interest in the procedure. Al has given up being paper trained for his New Year resolution. When I brought the plants in, I noticed that he *really likes* real dirt, so after the thaw, I dug up some of the pile of sand that got dumped on the garden when I asked for lake muck. On New Year's Day, I scooped some of it into a spare litter box and set it beside the box of sawdust pellets. And he has been burying his turds ever since. So instead of picking up the newspaper and carrying it out, I have to sift the sand, dump the lumps onto a newspaper, and carry it out. But it's not so *urgent*. 4 January 2006 Al just reverted to using the paper. I think it's his way of saying it's time to change his dirt. 7 January 2006 I'm getting the paper version of the Banner ready to print, and came across a note, about this time last year, that I was neglecting my bodice muslin. The muslin is assembled, and I've been wearing it, but I haven't got around to putting pockets on it -- and I'm not sure where I put the pattern, let alone made the change and cut out the beta. No wonder I'm so short of clothes -- I can't finish a shirt before I grow out of it! Luckily, my weight has been holding steady. We took Al's flea allergies to the vet Wednesday, and the vet said everything Al sleeps on should be washed every week. That's a full-time job! I've given all the blankets five minutes in the dryer, rushing the lint outside after each one. The heat might make the eggs uncomfortable too. I put the chinese quilt in soapy water last night, spun it out and rinsed it this morning, and it looks *much* better. The water is so cold that it hurt my arm to reach down into the washer to rinse the quilt. I've got it spread out in the parlor to dry, half on the davenport, half on the floor. This had nothing to do with the flea infestation -- it's needed washing for months. 11 January 2006 Dave has figured out how to use his brick of tea -- he cuts off single servings with his band saw. My first knitting lesson is tonight. Time chosen to suit Pat, and Martha says there's a chance she can come too. 13 January 2006 Spent the whole meeting un-knitting a sweater that had been joined up wrong. At least nothing needed to be un-sewn, which I had feared from Pat's description. We plan to meet every week through January, then every other week. Giving Al a sandbox has proven unfortunate. Sand is a single-use medium, and where I needed only to step around the corner of the house and empty the newspaper into a flue tile, I have to carry the sandbox clear to the garden (where I'm filling in a hole), and then stay out there to sift fresh dirt from the sandpile into the box. We have two containers of sand in the garage for when the weather turns cold again. Probably in April, the way we are going. It's drizzling rain at the moment. Which makes for rather soggy sand. We're still putting out the newspaper, in case he decides the sand is revolting before we do. 15 January 2006 The 2005 Banner is ready to print. It's also boring. On the bright side, it's also only thirty pages. On the fourth hand, it's in Times Roman, which take up less space than the Microline Proportional I used last year. This year doesn't look much better: for a highlight, I patched my brown wool pants yesterday. When I made them, I put in guards at the crotch like those in Dave's suit pants, but didn't think they'd do much good -- the wear comes from the outside. But yesterday I discovered that one of the guards had worn clear through and the wool was showing, so I selected a couple of little scraps of china silk, turned the edges under on the larger, trimmed the smaller one to fit under it, stuck them together with "Elmer's washable School Glue Stick" after they totally ignored starch, and spent the evening taking teeny-tiny stitches with #100 silk thread. Wasn't as difficult as I remember that thread being when I used it to make the suit. Perhaps that's because my new magnifying glasses allow me to see it. This was the same china silk that had worn through in the first place, but I didn't have anything heavier that was black. *Now* I realize why there weren't any scraps of the black crepe in the box: I never made the suit I bought the black crepe for. Having gotten the boy-knit rib T-shirt down to the hand work, I've started work on a pair of black cotton-interlock tights -- that is, I've cut off two sheets of paper to draft the pattern on. All the time I was working on the T-shirt, a question hung in the air: is this a shirt or an undershirt? It doesn't look too bad even though I didn't put the neckband on correctly, but it's slated to be underwear: the knit is too soft and stretchy to support pockets. 19 January 2006 I downloaded my e-mail without bothering to instantiate Explorer and report the spam first. When a huge zip file started downloading, I thought I'd made a big mistake -- but it turned out to be attached to a message from Tim and Linda with the subject line "Matthew Joseph". Congratulations! (But I was hoping for a girl.) 20 January 2006 Yesterday I was roodling through my knitting tools for some reason, and noticed that my crocheted chicken was badly yellowed. So I pulled all the pins out of it, cut the drawstring, took out the stuffing, wiped the front end of it on the surface of my jar of Orvis, and dropped it into a bucket. After taking the clothes out of the washer or whatever, I put enough water on it to dissolve the Orvis. When getting ready for bed, I remembered that I'd meant to put more water on it after the Orvis had had a chance to soak into it, went to do it, and found the water dark brown. So I poured it off and put fresh water in, and on shaking, found there was still enough Orvis in the chicken to work up a suds. I was elated this morning to discover that the white parts are white! But as I was about to start wringing and rinsing, I remembered that the tail feathers were also white, so I dipped my finger in the Orvis, painted the tail feathers, and now it's soaking some more. 21 January 2006 When I was getting ready to go to the Great Wall -- for the first time in a long time -- I went into the laundry room to clean my dirty shoes and found the chicken. The tail feathers are lighter, but not as light as the nest. I rinsed it under the faucet, blotted it with towels, and hung it up to dry by means of a Sharpie marker stuck into the thimble holder -- which is much too small to hold a thimble for anyone over the age of five. I hadn't thought to try a thimble in it before washing, but I think it was bigger. We ate too much, as usual. Got rather cold walking the point seven afterward, but I think it was stuffedness rather than the weather. And I didn't dress heavily, since I'd been taking my coat off and putting it back on all through our afternoon walk. We had gone around the hotel and American Brattice Cloth, and through the Grace Campus. Which reminded me that I still haven't gotten around to checking out the Grace library. 23 January 2006 I finished the boy-knit rib T-shirt Saturday night -- before and after our trip to the Great Wall, and it's lucky that I decided to dress first and hem afterward: see "clean shoes" and "found chicken" in previous post. I thought that I couldn't wear it right away, since I planned to wear my white suit and silk shirt to church -- but I looked at the thermometer in the morning, decided that a mock-turtleneck and wool vest were more appropriate than the thin, short-sleeved silk shirt, then remembered the long-sleeved T-shirt while looking for a turtleneck. A trifle informal, but I had no intention of taking my coat off. Still haven't cut out my new long-john pants, but I've got the fabric down off the shelf. Ran out for milk today and filled five grocery bags. Well, not so full that I couldn't carry all five at once. The good news is that they had a sale on the very peanut butter I'd come to buy -- the bad news is that all of it had been sold. I suppose I should have hunted up a clerk and had him look in the storeroom. Instead, I bought peanut butter mixed with cocoa: "Dark Chocolate Dreams". The checkout clerk held it up before she scanned it and said "This looks good!" I told her I couldn't resist it. Never had a checkout comment on my purchases before. Haven't opened it yet because we are still loaded up with sweets from Christmas. Not to mention that Dave got two bags of double-dipped chocolates (peanut and malt ball) when we went to Spring Creek for cheese last week. [It *looked* good, but the cocoa neutralized the peanut taste without adding any significant chocolate taste. Oddly, adding Christmas jelly makes it taste more like peanut butter.] I love the raisins I bought at Spring Creek. Dave said they are more like dried grapes than raisins. Alas, "raisins" was the only identification on them. It's neither Flame nor Thompson. And definitely not Muscat. The skins look a little red. I started printing the file copy of the Banner yesterday, and got to page 20 today. I have one set of four mailing copies printed, but not burst and decollated. (Who'd have thought "decollated" would be in my spelling dictionary?) Hope I don't read about that structure fire in tomorrow's paper. Sounded bad, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to find out was going on. They seem to be cleaning up now. 25 January 2006 It was a barn fire, and four horses died. The story in the paper didn't say anything about the "exposure", but the picture showed a fireman spraying water on it. It was plain from the picture that if the fire department had gotten there any later, the house would have gone as well. (Dad would have disapproved very strongly of building the barn so close to the house.) On our walk (Saturday, I think), we saw the particle-board roof beams going into the new building in "The Village at Winona" and reflected on what would happen to them in case of fire. Perhaps better than glued end-to-end beams. Dave said that beams spliced with steel plates are even worse, because the plates get hot, the spike-holes get bigger, and suddenly, without any hints beforehand, the whole roof collapses. I've got the black interlock pants ready for the first seam, but haven't changed the thread in the sewing machine. This should go very fast when I get started, as there are only five seams, three hems, and no handwork. But they are flat-felled seams. Hence the need to change the thread -- if they were plain seams, I'd use the six-ply white thread that's in it, since it's much stronger than my three-ply black cotton. Breakfast was the last of the "bear mush" (generic Cream of Wheat) pieced out with the first of the polenta. I bought the polenta for corn meal, but on closer inspection it's intermediate between corn meal and grits -- about the same as Cream of Wheat. It should be just perfect for making tamale pie. (And I think I have all the ingredients . . . ) (How much water should be added to a can of tomato paste to make tomato juice? For this recipe, I guess it doesn't matter much.) No more brick tea for Dave until he cuts up some more with his band saw. I wonder how Alice is managing with her brick. 28 January 2006 He had an idea, and sliced the tea into little tiles instead of cubes. It dissolves faster, and doesn't require as much tea to make a pot. The last of the little bitty fruitcakes I made with left-over dough has been opened, and Dave has eaten a third of it. I haven't had any yet, but might before bedtime. I need an excuse to make more. I had a bit of a turn the last time I bought bread. I heard a siren go by while paying, then went out to see *three* sheriff's cars going by with lights and sirens. Followed by a Warsaw police car. More sheriff cars. More police cars . . . I was getting thoroughly freaked before thirty school busses hove into view. (I didn't count them, it was in the evening paper.) While I was gaping, a passerby told me that Kosciusko County had sent all its third-graders to the circus in Fort Wayne. Thirty miles of driving with the siren on? Ouch! Splains "get the light at Argon and Center" that I'd heard on the scanner earlier in the day -- that would have been when they were leaving. First time I ever saw a parade moving so *fast*. The busses were keeping together well, too. I printed out mailing labels for the Banner yesterday. Haven't finished printing the Banner itself. Threw out two ribbons today, after using them to print out a letter I wanted Dave to check the spelling in before I e-mailed it. 30 January 2006 When we moved here, I worried that an indoor cat wouldn't get enough exercise in a house with no staircases. If you have floor-length windows at opposite ends of the house, the cat is all set. But he's stalking a squirrel at the moment, and squirrels tend to stay within the view of one window. 3 February 2006 The Banner is in the mail. I need to buy a new ribbon so I can print last year's file copy. Put the waist elastic into my new long johns today. They don't fit as well as I'd hoped. The Wednesday before last, knitting class was just me, and I got my sock onto four needles -- it had been on five ever since I picked up around the heel flap, which made it a pain to fold up and put away, but I hadn't had the concentration to shift it. Lost count a few times as people came through the study, but had privacy to recover in after. I think that was the day a young man and I pooled our ignorance over the copier. I zoned out counting stitches and left half an hour later than I planned. Last Wednesday was just Pat and me, and she didn't require much help, but a mother came in to scope me out and I'm going to have a young child to watch next Wednesday. And Anita will be back, if she's recovered from moving and hasn't got a funeral -- but she's advanced enough now to know when she's in trouble. Once dry, the thimble holder stretches enough to hold a thimble. I haven't put the stuffing back in yet because I've been thinking of writing a study of the pattern. I googled "crocheted chicken pincushion", hoping to find out who had designed it, but found nothing like it. There were enough hits that I may have missed one, though. The tamale pie was good, but my technique is rusty. And I put too much tomato paste into the mush. Since I'd fried the meat the day before, to keep it from spoiling, I assembled the filling and the liquid for the mush separately, and divided a can of tomato paste between the mush and the filling. Next time I'll put it all into the filling and just wash the can for the mush. I added boullion cubes to the mush on account of not cooking the liquid over the meat. 7 February 2006 When taking the clothes out of the washer last night, I found a piece of cord elastic such as I put in waists, and when I hung the clothes up I found a half inch of seam allowance waving around and fraying fast. I suppose I'd better inspect everything before I put it away. 11 February 2006 I baked fruitcakes yesterday, and we've already eaten two of them. One was a small one hot from the oven, though. Seem a bit spicier than the ones I baked for Christmas; perhaps there was a higher percentage of dried fruit in those. I meant to make them all small, but when I'd filled all six miniature pans, I still had enough dough to make two of the regular size. Seems to me that I should have some more mini pans somewhere; I used to bake *all* the cakes in toy pans. And after I'd committed to baking cakes, Dave roodled around in the bread shelves in the freezer for hot-dog buns, and found the jar of chocolate-cookie mix that Sherry gave us. I set it in the fridge so that I wouldn't forget it again. Mustn't forget to put my magnifying glasses in my pocket tomorrow; Pat wants me to find a mistake in her knitting after church. Skipped the walk this evening because the snow was melting as it hit the patio, and I thought it would be wet out there. Dave had walked the superloop (includes the island) during my nap, so he didn't insist. I didn't write down the date that I mailed the Writers' Exchange Bulletin, and now I have to write a W.E. report for the National Fantasy Fan. I'll say it was Tuesday. 13 February 2006 I said Wednesday. [After sending it twice to addresses that don't work, I changed back to Tuesday before posting it on the N3F mailing list.] Went for a "long bike ride" today. The plan was to drop off the old magazines at the emergency room, then go to Wal*Mart by way of the boardwalk and Warsaw's Park Avenue, lunch at Steak 'n Shake, and come back by Fox Farm Road. Thought I didn't need to lay my clothes out the day before, because what I'd been wearing to walk in is plenty warm. Forgot about gloves, and I like to never found my zip-front wool jersey. (Some idiot had hung it in the closet, where it cowered among summer jerseys of the same color.) So I didn't get off until ten. I'd thought I'd hike through the hospital to the main waiting room after dropping as many magazines as I could in the emergency room, but they have put up another little rack, and had a small fraction as many magazines as had been crammed into the one, so I left all my 'zines there and turned to the bike path. Oops. They don't plow bike paths. It was less than an inch of snow, and only one man and a cat had crossed the boardwalk before me, so I forged on -- and arrived at the road well coated with snow about the ankles. Also had to drop the bike a few times to get snow out of the fenders and panniers. That was a *long* walk for a cat. I didn't think to check for back feet stepping into the prints of the front feet until after the critter wandered off into the woods. Could it have been a very small fox? I thought I could wade through the underpass, but had forgotten that one has to go through a long field to get to it -- and though my water was freezing in the bottles, it wasn't cold enough to guarantee that everything *under* the snow was frozen, so I crossed Detroit on 200 N and looked for a link on that side. The road behind the businesses comes quite close to the road on the other side of Route 30, and traffic was light enough that a grade crossing would have been feasible -- were it not for the chain-link fence. Nothing for it but to go back the way I came. I dropped in at the electric supply house before crossing back, just to see whether anything was interesting. On the way across the parking lot of their neighbor, I stopped to adjust something or the other. I saw the big shaggy dog, I also saw the chain -- I didn't see the two extra yards of chain. It was just enough to allow him to sniff me over, then sniff the bike and lick my water bottle. (It was when I tried to wash it with water from the other bottle that I discovered that the valves had frozen.) I stayed on Park to Fort Wayne, intending to shop downtown, but after eating lunch at Subway (after holding my bottle under the hot-water faucet in their rest room -- but I continued to use the other bottle), I decided to go straight home, and did -- forgetting that I was only half a block from the Salvation Army store. I made up for that by crossing the railroad on Bronson instead of through the interurban tunnel so that I could stop at the pawn shop in Lakeview Shopping Center. We'd been talking about a nest of screwdrivers in a hammer handle that we thought we'd had before moving, and lo and behold, there one was, marked $0.99. So I bought it -- $1.05 with the tax -- but when Dave looked to see whether he could repair the threads, he discovered that a screwdriver was missing, and that was why the hindmost screwdriver didn't hold. I'd wondered a bit upon noting that the innermost screwdriver was Phillips. I suppose the missing screwdriver is also Phillips. Ah, well, a rubber band will keep it from falling out. Then after supper we went for our usual walk, entirely forgetting about the Fellowship Committee meeting at 6:30. On the other hand, Pat had solved her own problem before our Sunday-morning appointment. I sure hope I don't forget to turn up on Wednesday! 16 February 2006 Pat and Anita had to work, and the kid didn't show, but I nearly finished the gusset on the sock I'm knitting. Today the church secretary called -- I'd kept the pastor and the Women's Services organizer and the students informed, but I hadn't told the keeper of the calendar when classes meet! The 2006 brochure for Imperial Tours came in today's mail. In April, for only $70/person, they have a day trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago (yea! rah! let's go, maybe Alice will go with us!) and the Shedd Aquarium, and the Oceanarium, and The Wild Reef, AND Omnimax (never mind). The Museum alone takes two days. Dave has a S.A.R. meeting tonight. He also received his new computer today. He put it all together, and it works! When getting ready for bed, I had no socks to put into the hamper, and realized that I hadn't set foot outside even once. I forgot entirely that I'd meant to go for a walk while he was at the S.A.R. meeting. Probably wouldn't have gone anyway; the weather was nasty. 17 February 2006 All that storming in the night left a rather pitiful film of snow. It's time to start a new sewing project, but nothing is pressing to the head of the queue. It would be logical to refine the knit-pants pattern while I'm warmed up; on the other hand fabric.com has a splashy pure-linen print, and if they haven't sold it all before I get my sloper pattern advanced enough to assure that I'll cut it some time in this lifetime, I can buy some. Then again, the in-stock indicator has been holding at 111 yards for days, I'm going to need my pullover wool jersey on Monday if it isn't blowing or precipitating, and it has several places where the stitching is coming undone. And there's a lot of other mending on the storage hook, including one hook-eye to work on a pair of pants I want to wear on Sunday. [I wore it with safety pins.] Speaking of hook-eyes, isn't it about time I finished my other pair of brown wool pants, that I left sans hooks and eyes when I packed the fatter pair to take to Australia? I'll probably dither in choice paralysis until nap time. 24 February 2006 Oops, my library books are due tomorrow. I think it was Tuesday: one morning the wind was hard and cold out of the west, and the sun was low in the east. We looked out on the lake to see a sparkling array of white goose butts. Which led me to wonder why a critter so widely considered tasty would have such a conspicuous feature. White-tails also have a conspicuous feature, but they can conceal it while grazing. And I've also seen a photograph of some African deer-like critter with a white patch on the rump . . . must be a trend here. Yesterday we went through the field in Dane Miller's back yard on our nightly point seven -- which makes it more like point-nine miles -- and saw a deer. It saw us, turned tail -- and about twenty flags went up on previously unseen deer. Tuesday or Wednesday I jerked _Tatting, Design and History_ off the shelf to check some point or other for a mailing-list discussion, and the entire rank of knitting books fell over and knocked the brick I'm using for a book end onto a pillow that happens to be lying on the floor. This exposed a pair of cycling mittens I've been hunting for all winter. Perhaps I should take all the books off the shelves, or at least borrow an inspection mirror to peek behind them. I sewed the reflective patches back on right away, and last night while watching "Triumph of the Will" I finished darning them. Also got a few rounds past the gussets on the current sock. I had remarked that people keep comparing things to Nazi propaganda movies, so I'd like to see one to see what they are like. So Dave ordered one at random as his first choice from NetFlix. Rather boring, actually -- think "newsreel", but without the narrator. Simply a series of pictures showing what Hitler sees on a sight-seeing tour, with no comment. Also aerial shots of ceremonies and parades. A couple of rousing speeches in which he says little that can be objected to, though when you know what comes later you can get a bit of a chill out of "Now that our enemies are no longer culling us, we must inspect ourselves and expel defective parts." Which isn't at all close to what he said, but I'm not about to re-view a two-hour movie to find and freeze-frame the subtitle. The subtitles were mostly to identify what people of the time would have recognized; there was very little speech. Several scenes of young men and boys brushing their teeth, shaving, combing each other's hair for want of a mirror etc. Followed by a rather sloppy service of noodles into what looked more like canteens with the top sawed off than an eating dishes. I was surprised at how much thirties Germans looked like thirties Americans, though I suppose that people of the era would have seen sharp differences. At one point Dave commented on a cute little boy pounding a drum with great enthusiasm, and wondered whether he had survived the war. The CD is in the mailbox now, as Dave is eager to get -- didn't find him or his medium-weight coat when I went to ask what movie. Perhaps he was really eager and went to the post office! 25 January 2006 I looked out this morning to see that the lake was very rough and the wind sock stood straight out, and decided to use the Buick to return my books. As I was leaving the library parking lot -- without any new books, for some reason -- I reflected that it was really quite nice out and I should have ridden the bike. Just then a woman coming out of the library with her arms full of books suddenly found herself wearing a hood that had been hanging down her back. That's probably the first time I went downtown and made only one stop. Before leaving for the library, I tried to sign up for DNR's three-day outdoorswoman workshop that is in Ross Camp near Lafayette, April 28-30. You can't sign up until 10:00 a.m. on March 1. I hope there is a form on the web page at that time; I've never once had a telephoned transaction come out satisfactorily. Not even when all I wanted was to read the data off a filled-in mail-order blank. I Googled Ross Camp, and found Tippicanoe Park Department's Web site, but didn't get any information as to what the workshop meant by "bring your own mattress". The Parks Department only said "bring your own bedding", which most of us would think meant sheets, blankets, pillowcases, maybe pillows. There is a bunk room in the lodge, but no mention of the barracks save that it can be had as a side order with the lodge or the dining hall, but can't be rented separately. Are we putting the mattress on a bunk or on the floor? Could I bring our queen-sized air mattress? The little self-inflating air mattresses aren't thick enough for a woman as fat as me. Perhaps I'll get the brochure mailed to those who have registered in time to go buy something. Next question: can I get the bike into the trunk of the Buick? If I have to use the Toyota, would they let me bring a bike into the barracks? 25 February 2006 Dave says that I've actually had the bike in the trunk of the Buick. If it doesn't go, I can always take off the front wheel. If you wonder what I'm on about, the URL is http://www.bow.IN.gov . Hope I remember to turn the brightness on the monitor up in the morning. I turned it down to a quarter of the usual setting because Dave complained about the glare after he turned off his reading-in-bed light, and I wanted to keep the sewing-room door open. 26 February 2006 No trouble at all -- when I sat down to check my mail while waiting for the sausage to cook and found Eudora's gray areas black, I remembered. My usual setting is brightness 25, contrast 75. I wasn't too surprised when the peppers I brought in for the winter died, considering how Al had treated them, but now that my compact marjoram is dying, I think it must be the same disease that got my pussy-willow starts. The leaves just dry up still green -- albeit a sickly bluish green -- and there doesn't seem to be any intermediate stage between alive and healthy and dried up and dead. 28 February 2006 Dave made the "Castle Cookies" last night. We ate three each right away; I'm not sure I didn't have four. This morning, the lake looks all thawed and summery in the sun. I'll wager that there is still ice at the south end and in front of the hotel. Near as I can make out from a photograph, Little Eagle is also thawed and blue. 1 March 2006 Last time I checked, the available stock of the splashy linen had dropped from 111 yards to 108. Chore for today is to patch my herringbone-twill pants so I'll have something suitable for an Outdoorswoman Workshop. And scope out the remaining herringbone twill, because that's all the sturdy and reliable pants I have. It's only two days, but I could easily come back to the barracks desperately wanting a change. And the width of this fabric is such that it's *much* more economical to cut out two pairs at a time. Could be the dearth of everyday clothing is about to end. 2 March 2006 The printed linen is down to 102 yards now. Today's plan was to patch my old jeans and cut out the new ones; I got as far as vacuuming the living room and spreading the fabric out, at which point I realized that I'm going to need to iron it before I can cut it, and the ironing board was elbow deep in chores to be taken care of later. Which it still is, but I got two jobs off it -- and put one on. I think the rest can be piled into the two baskets without causing much increase in entropy. Three jobs off -- the mittens had been darned, so I took them out to the bike. One job -- the pants I wore to church with safety pins in -- I transferred to the storage hook, and the pillowcase with a split seam I repaired. Though it turned out that I had to tear a worn strip off the bottom -- possible because it is for a double-length pillow and I made it twice as long as a standard case, which left extra hang-over -- and I'll pretty soon need to make another extra-long pillowcase. And I may have to *buy* fabric to do it; the madras would make a good pillow case, but it's so LOUD. [On the other hand (see entry for 22 March), that pillow is kept entirely under the blankets.] 3 March 2006 Three tundra swans -- two white and one gray -- spent a considerable time on our sandbar today. I got the herringbone ironed -- well half of it; the other half was under the first half while I ironed, and I don't plan to use more than half. Also ironed the pattern, but I think I'll copy it before laying out, since I mean to cut two pair. There's not much work piled up in the sewing baskets -- mending a broken stitch in a dirty pair of hand-knit socks is all that's urgent -- but there's a lot of sorting to be done. March forth! 2006 Before bedtime, I also duplicated the front, back, and broadfall pocket of the "my pants" pattern. I didn't bother to copy the waistbands, patch pocket, passport pocket, or watch pocket because I use those patterns as templates for cutting by drawn threads. There were seven swans on the sandbar when I got up. The three swimming north -- and soon out of sight -- appeared to be the same family of tundra swans we saw yesterday. The remaining four kept their beaks buried in their feathers when not lined up with bushes or trees, but I caught a glimpse of orange on one, and they hold their necks like mute swans. Somehow I never got around to cutting my herringbone today. Was going to do it after my nap, but Al was asleep in the middle of the patch of floor I meant to use -- the herringbone is too big for the table -- so I decided to sort the scrap paper instead. Al, of course, became exceeding lively as soon as I began to flap string around while tying the paper into bundles to be taken to the recycling center. oops . . . I forgot to pick up the stack of "The Paper"s that I set aside to be used under the sandbox. Seems odd to be getting ready to drive south without the Wheelie-Cool. [This was a reference to Amanda's birthday party.] 7 March 2006 A really odd sight out the window this morning: just two buffleheads on the sand bar and, way out, a speck that I took to be a lone coot. It dived just as I got out the binoculars to check for white beak, and I didn't wait. I like to carry a few coins and bills, a pocket comb, and some other small things when I go walking without my purse. I got tired of spending five minutes getting ready to walk, and found a zippered coin purse to keep them together. It was fake leather, and the plastic film peeled off the knitted scrim until one morning I couldn't stand the thought of putting that ugly thing into the pocket of my pretty dress, cut a scrap from the dress into a rectangle twice as high and wide as the purse, and hastily sewed it into a bag, leaving the edge raw. Still ugly, but it won't show against the dress. And I used that bag with all outfits until it got so dirty I couldn't stand it, then made a muslin bag with torn edges and the seams outside to use while I washed it. All the while planning to find a short zipper or salvage the one in the worn-out bag, and make a nice purse. The last time I was in Goodwill, I saw a very nice three-compartment coin purse for fifty cents, tried it in my pocket for size, and said "why bother making one?". I quickly learned: Because this bag takes up more space empty than my muslin bag does full. When the three-compartment bag is full, I feel an irresistible urge to take it out of my pocket whenever I sit down. So this morning I took everything out of the purse and put it back into my "villa olive" bag. And, really, folding over the top is much more convenient than a zipper. But it's going to be as hard to get my nail clippers off the zipper-ring as it was to put them on. Perhaps I should make a pocket bag to match my new wallet, should I ever make one. My old bull-denim wallet is starting to show daylight through the seams. And that should match my new purse, should I ever get around to buying some black ramie. Meanwhile, I've discovered that my old attache' case works very well -- it even has a snap to hang my key rings on. And it's a good way to carry books to class. 9 March 2006 But yesterday I used the Trafalgar Tours carry-on, because I wanted to take a half-pound ball of yarn. The carry-on has a special pocket for magazines, which served nicely for paperbound knitting books, and the travel-paper compartment was handy for small stuff -- I even used the travel-paper wallet for a needle case -- but it needs some pen-and-pencil pockets. Somebody bought three yards of that eight-dollar linen print I've been keeping an eye on. 99 yd. left, and Kristl promises that there is more linen in the warehouse waiting to be catalogued. Might not be any printed linen, might be some I like better. 11 March 2006 Still four broadfall pockets yet to cut for the new pants, but I did put a stitch into the patch today. Just so I couldn't say I'd done no sewing at all. I've spotted a lightweight cotton-linen blend that would make a good summer scarf -- bright yellow so I can be seen a long way off. Dithering over whether to buy extra so I can make something with the scrap -- takes a yard and a half to make a triangle scarf, if you don't want to piece it. Not near as much of that left as of the print, which still stands at 99 yards. I don't really need a yellow scarf, as I still have the other corner of the fabric I bought for the lime-green scarf I lost. Perhaps I should hold out for handkerchief linen. But it does say "hand: soft" on the sunflower linen, and yellow *is* more visible than lime green. I've a new hat to wear to church tomorrow. I went to Penneys looking for wool socks -- no have got; I'm going to have to go to Columbia City, I think -- and found them clearing out pillows at $6 each and hats at $1.77. I couldn't resist a real-wool beret at that price! Though I think that a real beret has a somewhat larger diameter; this merely perches on top like a skullcap, so it isn't any honest use. But I also got a black curly-brimmed fedora-ish hat made of some sort of knitted plush, which I think looks rather nice, and I can turn the brim down in front when it's sunny. I just hope it doesn't vanish. As many hats as I've lost, you'd think we'd sweep one out from under the furniture once in a while. And Dave likes the pillow. I rather wish I'd gotten two. We saw a yellow crocus blooming in the crack between a retaining wall and a side walk on our walk around town. But in retrospect, it seems rather small -- it might have been a winter aconite. 12 March 2006 Off to church, without long johns for the first time this spring and wearing my new hat -- and when I saw a mirror there, I realized that I'd forgotten to shave! Also wore my brown wool pants because I still haven't gotten around to ironing my white damasks: maybe I don't have a surplus of dress-up clothes after all. But the navy herringbones I'm making will do for many of the occasions when I've been wearing the white ones. Didn't think to look for the crocus on the way back. The rain had brought a few earthworms up on the sidewalk on Chestnut Street. Searching Phoenix for "handkerchief" turns up nothing, yet there is a bright red handkerchief linen on the 100%-linen page. So I copied and pasted, in case I'd spelled it wrong: still no hits. The linen is lovely -- and cheap -- but I don't want bright red underwear, and I have a red scarf. Should I ever get caught up, I may splurge on the $16/yd. handkerchief linen Wm. Booth, Draper sells. 13 March 2006 Maybe there is something to not starting things on the thirteenth. Today we moved my old computer into the bedroom so that we could move Dave's old computer -- soon to be my new computer -- into the sewing room to neaten up his room. Shortly after the job was done, I realized that this means that I can't sit up late clicking the keyboard. My new pants may progress more quickly than expected. And even with a pillow on the chair (I thought that adding and removing a pillow would be easier than adjusting the chair when I move it from keyboard to keyboard), the extra inch in the height of the keyboard stand *matters*. Which will be useful to know if I ever get around to buying a proper keyboard stand. The package of ledger paper on a cardboard box works so well that I'm being very fussy. On the other hand, Al sometimes claws the cardboard box -- even though he only does it when it gets him yelled at, the box may not endure forever. 22 March 2006 In addition to running around and doing things, I've had half the Banner files on one computer and half on another -- and this particular file is on the one that's unavailable after Dave goes to bed. I've got everything but this one letter of the files I use moved to the new computer, and I'm about halfway through shifting the archives. I have found that the more files you upload in one sitting, the more likely it is that one will error out and abort the rest. Luckily, WSftp finishes one file before starting another, so if I can find out where it left off, I don't have to start over from scratch. Which is very nice when one has been uploading JPGs. The equinox was day before yesterday -- drat, I forgot to check out the crocuses in the crack on my way home from knitting class. And I came that way, too. And I walked home in daylight, for the first time. (Though "twilight" was a better description by the time I got here.) There was also a blue crocus the last time I noticed. Saw Dave running around outside in his shirtsleeves, which inspired me to hang the king-sized sheet out on the line instead of wrestling it over the shower-curtain rod over the bathtub. It was so windy that I noted that I should come back in five or ten minutes to bring it in -- and then forgot about it until I went out to bring in winter onions for our salads. No visible damage. Speaking of forgetful, Dave said he hadn't had lunch until three, so all he wanted for supper was his salad, and do we have a boiled egg to put in it. "We will by five o'clock." The timer went off to take them out just as I'd laid out all the vegetables ready to start slicing and dicing, so I emptied the water, shook the pan a bit, and set the eggs aside to peel after I'd put everything else in the salad bowls. Then after supper, I saw the pan still on the stove. I ate one; the other egg hadn't cracked when I shook the pan, so I marked it and put it back in the fridge. I tore the repaired pillowcase getting it off the pillow, so I tore it to standard length and tore off two yards of madras to make a new one. I intended to make it 42" or 43" instead of 40" so I wouldn't have to pull so hard to get it off and on, found that the fabric was 45", and used the full width. Will need to be pressed before I can sew it. I have until Monday, when the bed is due to be changed. (I didn't get the bed changed until today this week, though.) (Hence the king-sized sheet on the line.) Yesterday I sat down to put the first stitch in my new pants by sewing quarter-inch tape over the raw edges of the curved openings in the broadfall pockets. Whereupon I discovered that my black quarter-inch cotton tape had never been off the card, which meant that it had never been wet. So I reeled it off -- all seventy-two yards without attracting Al's attention; I was rather worried until Dave pointed out that I'd caught him napping -- piled it in my six-quart stainless pot, and set it over low heat on the stove. After a while the water turned a lovely purple; I said "neat!" and broke ten yards of white yarn off the cone and popped it into the kettle with the tape, but it was a dead black by the time the kettle cooled. After which, I could have hemmed various straight edges with half-inch tape, but somehow I didn't. Didn't get anything done today, either. Had to lock Al in the bedroom to get the tape onto the drying rack this morning, but he let me reel it back onto the card without much help. Perhaps because he got all tangled up in it and had to be released just before I set to work. I wrote "boiled 21 March 2006" on the card before winding the tape back on it, but strictly speaking, it was *simmered*. I was afraid that a rolling boil would tangle it. 25 March 2006 I not only clipped unbroken nails this morning, I clipped all ten! I'm not accustomed to having unbroken fingernails; wish I knew what I was doing different. I did put an envelope of gelatin in my soup a few days ago, but I don't think that would affect nails already grown. Still fiddling around about making my new jeans, but I'm about to press the patch I intend to sew on the old ones. Went downtown by bike twice this week. The first time to order a printer ribbon, the second time to pick it up. Went to the health-food store on the way out the second time, but forgot to look at the toothpaste. Yesterday Dave moved this computer into his room so that he wouldn't have to turn it off when he goes to bed. Even when displaying a black image, the monitor gives off too much light to be allowed in a sleeping room. It also means that I can write additions to the Banner after his bedtime. This message is the only job left on the old computer now, but I still have a lot of files to move. Takes attention: the comcast server doesn't like to be FTPed at too long at a time and throws one off at random intervals, so I have to compare the directories carefully to make sure everything has been copied. Still, it beats sneakernetting one file at a time on floppies. I wish Comcast gave me some way to record what I've put where and how much of my allowance I've used. I can try printing the screen to the clipboard, then pasting into my word processor. But even if it works, it's six separate log-ins. At least I know how to see the data now! I do wish users' manuals hadn't gone out of style. 28 March 2006 I've figured out how to make Thunderbird tell me when it's quite and entirely through downloading my mail. When I want to know, it's because I plan to unplug the data line when it's finished -- so I just click the "work offline" button. It asks me whether I want to download my mail first, I say yes -- and when it's quite finished, the plug icon in the lower-left corner gets a little red X on it. Got a start on hemming my pockets today, and sewed the torn pillowcase and the madras. But I have to press the madras before I can hem it, and when Dave went to bed he discovered that one of the clean pillowcases I put on the bed today is coming apart at the seams. I can't think why -- could I have used basting thread by mistake when I made it? Looks like good DMC Cordonnette. But I didn't use a magnifier. 29 March 2006 -- just after midnight I took another look around for a way to make the header pane, which doesn't scroll up out of sight the way the headers in Eudora did, stop occupying a good third of the window when I read my e-mail. Cussing all the while because Thunderbird doesn't have a help file, just a link to the FAQ, which never has any answer for the Q at hand. Suddenly noticed a little minus sign, clicked it, the pane folded up into a narrow bar! (Still displaying all the data that had been on the space-hogging pane.) 30 March 2006 After hemming the madras, I put it on the pillow. Dave complained that it was rough & suggested making one of silk. So I went to Phoenix Textiles and told him I could make a satin pillowcase for only forty dollars. He said "This one will do just fine". I think I'll iron it the next time I wash it. We have had a clump of purple crocus in the flower bed for some time. Today I noticed a yellow one. Isn't that supposed to be the other way around? There's also a little six-petal blue thing with a white spot in the middle that I don't know the name of. The yellow crocus in the crack has withered up, but the purple one has multiplied. Everybody else's daffodils are about to pop, so I don't think the daffodils I moved last fall plan to bloom this year. Two have buds, but something bit them. Tulips are coming up all over. 3 April 2006 Aunt Doris was buried today. 12 April 2006 Grumble gripe. On Tuesday I forgot to plant the onion and potato sets I bought on Monday, and we had a nice rain last night that would have brought them right up. Seems to plan on being drippy all day. At least I have the multipliers in the ground. And I filled out the row with last year's radish seed, over the remains of a packet of New Zealand spinach that I don't expect to come up. I intend to bury all the old seed under radishes, in installments. On Monday it took me a shade over two hours to ride to Spring Creek Market, and (despite a water stop) a shade over an hour and a half to ride back -- because I was tired on the way back! When you are tired, boring is good -- not to mention that all the hills have been planed off and consolidated -- so I stuck to US 30 as far as Pierceton. Then I shifted to Pierceton road because it comes in the back way, I was past the washboard terrain, and 30's shoulder isn't as good near Warsaw. Dave came back from Walgreen's disappointed. In the process of buying a new camera, he discovered that his oldest camera was full of exposed film -- only one shot left. So he had it developed, but the film was *way* past its best-by date. He made out a picture of a cat, and another of an oil truck. They didn't charge for the developing because nothing came out. 19 April 2006 We looked out the window this morning and deduced that they have closed the dam. I haven't even started cleaning up the beach. If they can't tell us when they intend to close the dam, they could at least tell us who "they" is! I noticed, this morning, that setting the box containing two or three feathers beside the bag of books didn't suffice to get it to Alice's. I still wouldn't have thought of it if Al hadn't pulled out one of the feathers. Last thread I read on 18th-Century Woman, a poster claimed that a properly-hardened feather will write twenty-five letters before it needs to be re-trimmed. But she also said that a Gentle Guest will ruin your pen just by signing his name, so I imagine that mileage varies all over the lot. I recall a story written when feather pens were the norm in which a character was writing so furiously that a steady stream of discarded pens was flying over his shoulder. Which reminds me that Dad once said that when he was a boy, some of the old men knew how to sharpen quills -- but never did it except to show that they could. Still nothing showing in the garden. Except the stuff that was planted or left in last fall. I've harvested a catnip sprig; the last I saw of it, it was rapidly disappearing stem-end first. And it smells as though it's time to change the catbox. 26 April 2006 I don't achieve timing like that very often. I noted that the hamburgers were cooked just as Dave ate the last crumb of his salad, then the microwave dinged and the clock struck 5:30. 28 April 2006 Packed and ready to go to the "Becoming an Outdoorswoman Workshop". Last night I decided not to take the bike; this morning, I decided not to take the Wheelie Cool. The car is still packed with stuff -- the trunk is clear full of bedding. The brochure says that the bunks are wooden shelves and everything else has to be brought with you. Since our air mattress won't fit on a bunk, I rolled a king-sized sheet of foam, folded in half, around a self-inflating air mattress. [I'll leave the air mattress home if there is a next time; it wasn't much use. But two old all-wool army blankets under the foam were.] Didn't quite get the new pants finished: When it came time to sew on the hooks and eyes, I went to bed. Two hours early. The other pair is un-hemmed, and the front waistband isn't quite finished. 1 May 2006 I came back to find that Dave had been sleeping with a box of paper handkerchiefs while I was gone. He says he felt much better last night, and I didn't find any handkerchiefs on the floor this morning. Strange -- according to my notes, the trip odometer read 115.5 miles when I parked the car and 116.6 miles when I started the return trip. It was a long, long walk from the barracks to the parking lot, but I didn't think it was a mile. On further thought, the note was taken when I first arrived, and I drove from where I first parked to the barracks and then from the barracks to the official parking area. Which they were still putting the signs up for when I got to it, so I was the first car in. I thought I was going to be the last car out when I left, but after rounding a curve -- I'd been given a lift by someone who was leaving the barracks in a van about the time I got my stuff organized -- I saw another car in the far corner of the campground we were using for temporary parking. Didn't seem to have done much damage to the grass, since we parked once and stayed there until time to leave -- and the ground was still hard when we parked. I don't think the rain amounted to much. The ATV class wore the grass off at the corners, but didn't dig any holes, and we were on the flood plain of the Wabash. (Not to mention that there had been another class in the morning.) It took three hours and ten minutes to drive down, and two hours and three quarters to come back. Saw more of Tippecanoe County than I planned on, including a stretch of gravel road. Also saw about three miles of 52 I shouldn't have on the way back. And when I got back to the junction with 231 *North*, it was the very same intersection where I'd gotten onto 52 in the first place! Trip odometer read 229.0 when I parked here, so that makes it 112.4 miles back. By, ostensibly, the same route. The first time I washed my feet at camp, I realized why hiking boots are traditionally made of undyed leather. 2 May 2006 TaDah! I checked the freezer and find that I have all the ingredients for a brownies-Cockaigne chocolate cake. Though it didn't take long to find the chocolate, I had to hunt way back in the cupboard to find the double boiler. When I took my wet, mud-splattered old black shoes out of the car, I held them up and told Dave that that summarized my weekend pretty well. It was much the same here, even though Lafayette is enough farther south that I hesitated to identify a redbud because the leaves were too big. (Later on, we spotted one with remnants of blossoms on.) Ours are still magenta, but now you can see the leaves from the street. And, what brought this up: it's *still* wet and drippy out there this morning. Just checked the animated radar, and we seem to be at the trailing edge of the current precipitation. I read on Usenet that some mailers recognize sigdashes and clip the sigs off quotes when you reply. Put in a sigdash when you write so I can see whether Thunderbird is one of them. You make a sigdash by typing "" I wish Thunderbird had the option of quoting only what you have highlighted, as Agent does. Interesting: "sigdash" isn't in Thunderbird's spelling dictionary, but "dashiki" is. I used to think "dashiki" was a style of shirt, but according to Google, it's a print pattern suitable for making that style of shirt -- and also the poncho shirts that you sometimes see for sale in tropical resorts. (Dashiki prints vary a lot, as paisley patterns do -- which makes me wonder whether there is any paisley dashiki print.) The "Smokey Bear" bandanna I got in cooking class says "made in China" on it. I hope that that works out as well as "made in occupied Japan" did, but the powers that be seem to be determined to prevent any good outcome. It also says "give matches to an adult", but I flout that rule: I carry matches only when on my way to the outdoor fireplace. Didn't we use to call that style of fireplace a "furnace"? I often have to stop myself from saying "furnace" and confusing people. Well, not *often*, since I hardly ever have reason to mention outdoor fireplaces. They gave us stuff at every meal and in every class. I was glad I took my attache' case, because I brought it back stuffed with magazines, booklets, handouts, and papers. In ATV class, I said "to keep the wheels on the ground!" without pausing to think of the consequences, and was handed a size XL T-shirt with some sort of slogan on it. (Can't read it because I don't want to open the package.) Alas, everyone who went back to the camp in the van was either bigger or smaller than XL and wouldn't take it. Must be *somebody* in the family who takes XL and can wear a shirt without pockets. I suspect that the size L that says "Outdoorswoman" on the front and "DNR" over a list of sponsors on the back will be harder to dispose of. It's rather embarrassing to confess that it fits -- when I'm at my proper weight, I take a boys' large, not a men's large. I'd be doing well to get back to "medium". White Castle is among the sponsors; the only sign I noticed was the coffee cups the cooking class served the chili in. (You make chili over a fire exactly the way you make it in a kitchen, so I didn't learn much.) (Save that putting a rack in and setting a pan on it is an optional extra when baking in a dutch oven.) (And flour tortillas make lousy pie crusts. But at the final meal, one of the dishes was a sort of lasagna made of taco filling and flour tortillas, and that was pretty good.) 8 May 2006 Overdid the tea yesterday -- or, rather, I kept drinking it too late into the afternoon, and sat up late last night. Woke up by 9:00 anyway. I've been lying to people all week: despite the note on the calendar, I got it into my head that the big birthday party was next week, and kept saying "I'll see you in church". Dave was never confused. Nancy & Jim and Lenda & Frank were there, as well as the usual suspects. This time I got the feathers to Alice's, then forgot to give them to Larry. I noticed the box as I was getting into the car to go home, and stuck it into Sara Lee's van beside Ripley. Alas, I didn't notice the XL tee shirt. I'm without a drivers' license -- for the crime of keeping my Social Security Card in a lock box. Tuesday, when we went to vote, a poll watcher noted that our licenses were expired -- and mine had been during the trek to Lafayette and back. It being Dave's birthday, he was all right, so he ran down to the license bureau and took care of it right then, and learned that I'd have to pay a $5 fine for being late. Which struck me as reasonable. So on Thursday, I suited up, stuck a shopping list into my pocket, stopped at Warsaw Health Foods to buy a tube of unsweetened toothpaste and some nuts, stood in line at the bureau, got my eyes "tested", waited to be called, showed a clerk my expired license and my SSN, was told that the SSN wasn't "in the system" so she'd need to see my card. So I went to the used-book store, where I didn't find anything, went to Reader's World, where I was told that the paperback of Harald (note the second "a"!) wasn't out yet, poked around in the library, decided I was too tired to fill out an Inter-Library Loan request or go to Owens, bought milk at Zales, went home, got my SSN card out of the little drawer, and stuck it into my wallet. The following morning, repeat entire procedure -- omit stop at health-food store, add noticing that my hands and saddle area were sore from the previous day; I don't ride enough. Except that this time the clerk said this card wouldn't do, this card is a stub, she needs to see the other, identical card that's in the lock box! I hope I wasn't *too* blatant about how much this upset me. She did give me a coupon to allow me to skip the "eye test" tomorrow, big whoop. Dave is, at this moment, on his way to the bank to get my Mark of the Beast out of storage -- at least they haven't gotten around to having them tattooed on or implanted yet. So I went to the library, looked through a couple of books, filled out an ILL form, checked out Verne's _Desert of Ice_ by way of trying out the new self-check stand, and came home. Rode to Owen's Saturday morning and finally got the stuff on my list. They were having a six for six dollar sale on half gallons, but I had the gallon from the drug store and I was buying two and a half dozen eggs, so I got only three. (I was thinking of the egg package as a dozen and a half; no wonder I had deviled eggs left over for the first time!) That afternoon a librarian called to tell me that _Harald_ is so new that the libraries that have a copy aren't lending them to other libraries yet, and, incidentally, she had a hard time finding it because I'd asked for "Harold". I'm *so* embarrassed! I'd been watching that book get written for *years*, and knew very well how it's spelled! On the other hand, she says that there's a possibility that WCPL will buy a copy of its own. So Dave is back from the bank, and says that the SSN card in the box is another stub -- for Joy Loveless. On Sun, 07 May 2006 11:03:59 -0600, "David M. Palmer" wrote [on rec.arts.sf.composition]: > And it forms a convenient nerd-> pack that you can transfer > from one shirt to the next > without a tedious unloading and > loading process. Egad, I have re-invented the pocket protector! But I prefer to carry my pencil outside my "pocket bag" so I can get at it quicker, and I also carry pencils in other pockets, so I'm looking for a pencil case of some sort. Which reminded me of -- and finally made me see the point of -- a pencil I'd seen in the drawer of Grandmother's library table: it was a stub in a bullet-shaped holder that could be plugged into a handle either end first. Was an advertising premium, if I recall correctly. I should try sticking the cap off a stick pen onto a golf pencil; I think there are some extras rattling around in the drawer. And some of the larger point protectors for knitting needles might work. It's a pity that add-on erasers won't stick to the sharpened end. -------------- Well, I was about halfway through proofreading this in preparation for an overdue mailing when Dave offered to drive me to Elkhart to get my missing card taken care of. We had to wait in line for a long time, because it was about lunch time when we got there, but when our number was called, a nice fellow got me the magic paper in short order. The replacement card will be mailed in about ten days. I'm taking the entire attache' case with me when I ride to the license bureau tomorrow. It being Monday, we couldn't stop there on the way back from the SS office. 10 May 2006 I am once again an officially-certified human being. No fuss at all, save that there were customers lined up to the door and I'd mislaid my "go to the head of the line" coupon -- it wasn't until I woke up from yesterday's nap planning a tirade about where-all I'd hunted for it that I thought of looking in the little drawer. I suppose I should take it out and throw it away now. I'd Googled _Desert of Ice_ and learned that it's the second volume of a novel, which I'd rather suspected from the way it begins in the middle of a scene. Wonder why that wasn't noted on the title page? If I recall correctly, it didn't even mention that it was translated. Was a very pedestrian translation, which was another reason for returning it unread. I checked out _The World's Best Short Stories of 1925_, which, to my surprise, includes "The Most Dangerous Game". I was the only one at the self-check even though there was a line at the counter. Finally started working eyes on my new pants today. Also put in three loads of wash. One still soaking at nap time. 12 May 2006 The creek is still level full, but it isn't precipitating at the moment, and the air looks as though the sky might clear up. The animated radar, on the other hand, shows a red-and-yellow patch of precipitation aimed right at us, and the regional radar shows that it's part of the same old stationary swirl pattern. Big gap in the swirl behind the patch, which may account for the drop in precipitation probability from tomorrow to Monday. Doesn't look as though that pile of rotten leaves will be dry enough to mow up for a while yet. Lots of white foam on the beach; I hadn't thought it was that windy. 16 May 2006 The lake seems to be up a tad more; the puddles on the beach are definitely part of the lake now. The baby ducks have their own private lake in the park, but had skittered elsewhere the last time I looked. No sign of the drake. On Saturday we took our after-supper walk for the first time in a long time, Dave dumped four inches of water out of his rain gauge and said "no wonder the lake is up", but when I dug a grave for the duck, the dirt was amazingly non-muddy -- presumably because I dug in the high end of the garden. So on Sunday, I walked to church dressed entirely in cotton and thinking that I'd resume garden work on Monday, but the rain had caught its second wind by evening, and this week's forecast looks just like last week's. When I got up from my nap yesterday, Dave said he was about to go for a walk around the island, so I jumped into my pants and shoes to take advantage of the break in the weather. By the time we stepped out it was sprinkling again, so we settled for a modified point seven in case we wanted to run for the house. After supper, we went around the island *and* the hotel without getting rained on. A while back, I was starting supper when the doorbell rang and I found a distraught child at the door -- he'd seen a mother duck with a "broken leg". I had to tell him there was nothing a human could do without making matters worse, and stayed with him until he calmed down. He'd seen a dead duckling in the road, so we presumed she'd been hit by a car. The duck, surrounded by babies, was sitting in the flooded grass beside the creek, not nearly as upset as the boy. There were half a dozen drakes swimming in the creek, and one I presumed to be the duck's mate on the bank. At first I thought the drakes were picking on the injured member of the flock as chickens do, but it turned out that they were a bodyguard. A day or so later I saw her crawling in our lawn, escorted by two drakes. There was no sign of the ducklings, and I presumed that something had eaten them, but a day or so later I saw a flotilla of drakes resting on the park's point with small birds in the grass. I got the binoculars, and lo and behold, there were the baby ducks, all running toward one of the drakes. I'd wondered how something could get all of them with the drakes standing by! I've been seeing them off and on ever since, sometimes on their own, sometimes in the company of a drake. Sometimes they are on the far side of the creek and sometimes they are on this side, which leads me to wonder how such tiny creatures cross the flood. The creek is running faster than I can walk, and doesn't slow down much when it reaches the lake. The next time I saw the duck, she was lying on the compost heap -- Dave had found her dead on the beach. The vultures never did their duty, so I buried her the first time it was dry enough to work outside. Sewed the last eye last night. Two hooks, and I can wear the pants! Then I ordered four yards of blue-hibiscus printed linen to make a summer dress. Haven't yet ordered the four yards of hemp twill to make another two pairs of pants. Wm. Booth, Draper's fabrics stay in stock, so there is no hurry. And I mean to cut out a new slip today -- my fedupness with the old black cotton slip has come to a boil. 17 May 2006 I was planning to say, when I got around to writing this entry, that the beach had been wetter than the photograph on Dave's wallpaper and now it was less wet, but the waves are breaking over it again. And I've heard thunder, but the radar says most of that is going north of us. The dangerous-weather alert expires at suppertime, but I suspect that I'm going to drive to the knitting lesson again. At least I'm wearing my new pants, which I finally sewed hooks on this afternoon. Got out patterns and fabric for my new black slip, and find that I'm going to have to take about three inches of ease out of the pattern to make up for the stretchiness of the interlock. And more than that out of each sleeve. I'm making a T-shirt first! Fortunately, I bought a *lot* of the interlock. 18 May 2006 Got the pattern for the T-shirt drafted this morning. Then the hibiscus-print linen arrived. I had thought, when looking at the U.P.S. site, that two pounds shipping weight was rather little, and when she came up the drive holding the tiny box in one hand, I wondered whether I'd ordered one yard by mistake. But the print is at least as thin as my lime-green "handkerchief linen"; had I known that, I'd have bought two extra yards so I could make a sarong to match my dress. If I go on a long trip before I get around to cutting it -- I have five linen and cotton-linen prints now -- I may make the sarong and skip the dress. I could get both a short-sleeved blouse and a sarong out of four yards of 56" fabric. 19 May 2006 Looks as though the swirl has finally moved east, knock wood. Dave went golfing yesterday, but had a doctor's appointment today. Came home wearing band-aids again. Seeing doctors is dangerous! Cut out the T-shirt this morning. From a scrap that was just enough to make a shirt -- plus a little for making contrast bands later on, if a snippet of it sewn to white fabric doesn't bleed -- but I was planning to make a second T-shirt to try out an idea I'd had about the sleeves anyway. I haven't measured the big piece of interlock, but I'm sure there's enough for a slip and more than one shirt. I strongly suspect that a great deal of what is sold as "interlock" is actually one-on-one ribbing. Measured off a crosswise strip just big enough to pull over my head, and (according to the notes on the template) it's five inches shorter than the last neckband I made from jersey. Before starting to sew, I went out to check my drainage ditches. Before yesterday's after-supper walk, I checked the beach and found that the rhubarb and some of the asparagus were drowning, so when we got back I took a spade out and dug a ditch. Then later I took a hoe and connected the ditch to the big puddle, connected the puddle under Brent's pier sections to the big puddle, connected the puddle around Nancy's rhubarb to the pier puddle, and re-opened the place where the big puddle had been draining into the lake. This morning the pier puddle was pretty much gone, and Nancy's rhubarb was drained but the Alice's-rhubarb puddle had stopped draining after pretty much clearing the asparagus bed, leaving the rhubarb underwater and a deep puddle where I plan to dig to pry up the wall around the asparagus bed to make that end as high as the other. So I deepened the asparagus-to-big-puddle ditch, and re-reopened the drainage for the big puddle. I believe the lake went down a bit in the night. 25 May 2006 Yesterday I noticed that one of the leaves of the drowned rhubarb is standing up, and there are streaks of green in it. Dave is staying home from golf for the second day, because he thought it was aggravating his sore back. My back is none too robust right now, but culta-ezing the beach yesterday didn't bother it -- I think pushing the cultivator is easier on it than walking, because it helps me keep my balance. I may culta-eze the garden today -- it's way overdue, thanks to the prolonged rainy spell. One benefit of the wet weather: the winter onions are still good even though they are going to seed. I could start harvesting from the set onions now, but there are still surplus onions in the winter-onion bed, and they are still sweet -- and they are handier to the kitchen. I found _The Eight_ by Katherine Neville lying on my ironing board and read the first chapter. Very nice magical-object fantasy about an abbey of nuns about to be destroyed by the Reign of Terror, though my Willing Suspension of Disbelief was shaken a bit when the abbess, after going to elaborate lengths to prevent the nuns from being able to betray one another under torture, announces that the street names and addresses of eight of the nuns were to be known to *every* nun. Then the next chapter jumped into the present with a very ham-handed Horrible Situation foisted upon our very sweet, innocent feminine protagonist, with no indication that we'd ever return to the characters who had earned our interest in the first chapter, so I initialed the book and put it into the circulation bag. 30 May 2006 Rode my bike to renew the _World's Best Stories of 1925_ today. First I had to remove a pile of warm clothing from my bike baskets. Never did find my linen jersey, and my cotton jersey was way too warm. Also didn't remember that I have a ragged pair of cotton-back gloves tucked away for summer wear until the first time I peeled off soaking-wet plastic-fiber gloves. Went out through the bike trails and got a big surprise: someone is building a house on the exit to Southtown. Right now the contractor has the whole lawn pounded into a pretty good road, but I imagine that the owners will expect us to find another route about the time they lay the sod. I did notice that there had been a lot of traffic on a branch trail that used to end in a deer's bedroom, so I suppose the other exit is already in operation. Also ran over a stick and wrecked my front fender. [Brief pause to replenish the supply of twist-ties in my wallet.] On the way home, I stopped at the Trail House to order a new one. He had never heard of Blumel. I wandered around the sales floor a bit, and learned that the latest fad is brazed-on fenders that blend into the frame. They didn't have any gloves that don't feel like plastic. Not much excitement in town -- I bought ten yards of elastic and a spool of thread at Lowery's, bought chicken boullion at the Mexican grocery, renewed my book and left the library without going upstairs, toured Reader's World without buying anything, picked up a paperback at Bishop's, bought rice, soy sauce, etc. at the health-food store, which has replaced the bowl of sugar-free truffles with a bowl of calcium chocolates. Considered and rejected a not-quite-small-enough keychain knife at the pawn shop, passed by Sweet Dreams in favor of lunch at home, stopped at the Trail House, came home for not-much lunch, it being nearly time to start supper by the time I'd showered and washed my clothes. An hour or so after our after-supper walk, I went out to dig at the trench for setting the edging around the herb bed. Once out of the corner, the digging suddenly got easier and I finished the trench. But I was too hot to think, so I didn't try to level it and do the stake-and-string bit. Never thought to leave the Trail House by way of Canal Street to see whether they've poured the curbs that the stakes and strings had been set up for the last time our walk took us that way. Because of the heat (and because Dave has resumed golf) we settled for a quick point seven this evening. All the rhubarb leaves are flat and brown, but there's a fleck of green that might be a new leaf coming up. 2 June 2006 The ants are back on the clothesline. We don't see the orphan ducks as often as we used to -- I suppose they are ranging farther, now that they are bigger. When getting ready for bed tonight, I reflected that some tyrannical regime had been rumored, when excessively-tight pants were in style among the "decadent", to have policemen arrest any man who couldn't get his trousers off without taking off his shoes. I'd have to be careful not to wear my sandals if I ever went there! I buy them half a size too long to get them wide enough, and adjust the straps to shove my feet forward until they fit, which leaves a half-inch shelf sticking out behind my heel. I never notice that -- unless I try to pull my foot out of a pants leg with my sandals on. It's rather like a barb: it goes in, but won't come out. 5 June 2006 The last week or two, I've been thinking that there was something special about the fifth of June, but I still can't remember what. Thought it might be a Fellowship committee meeting, but when I finally found where I put the folder when I cleared everything out of my attache' case to make room for social-security and driver's-license papers, I couldn't find any notes about the next meeting -- and the dates on the minutes of previous meetings strongly suggest that we meet on the *second* Monday of the month. Last Saturday, I decided that it was high time I cooked a pot of soup on the outdoor fireplace. I hadn't provided myself with suitable seasonings for beans, so I used an "assorted pork chop" and about half a cup of rice -- all that was left of the previous purchase of brown rice. The most-suitable iron kettle in my collection has no lid, but the lid from one of the other pots would do if set down very carefully. I started the fire with the largest piece of driftwood, which was rotted into ribbons and then thoroughly dried --it was half a section of log, the other half of which had fallen away. It filled the whole fireplace, so that I had to put the grill on sideways, across the two arms of the fireplace, but I figured it would burn up like paper and be gone in short order. It turned out that there were large chunks of sound wood inside, preserved by being saturated with pitch! I cooked over that log for hours before it broke up enough to put the grill in. Smelled nice burning, though. Excellent soup -- the rice, in three pints of water, cooked into a lumpy gravy. I put a carrot and a potato in an hour or two before supper time. I shouldn't have left the cayenne peppers in when I put the leftovers away -- today's lunch is a bit zingy. 10 June 2006 I saw ear corn in the supermarket yesterday, and was shocked to remember that the Farmer's Market opens in May. Now for the eternal question: is it open on Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday? But I'm sure it's open Saturday morning: I looked forward to riding my bike there today --and writing down the dates and times, in case I get up from my nap before it's all over some weekday. What I heard when I woke up dissuaded me from that notion, and what I saw when I looked out made me wonder whether it was wise to rake my drainage ditches yesterday. I thought the rhubarb from Alice had died in the flood, and the rhubarb from Nancy, which is on slightly higher ground, had taken less damage. But the Alice rhubarb is rebounding vigorously with dozens of new sprouts, and the Nancy rhubarb has only half a sickly leaf. I raked some muck yesterday, and carried off a wheelbarrow full. Seemed to have almost stopped washing up, so I might get it cleared off and Cult-A-Ezed before Dave gets back. Shipped Dave off to New York Thursday morning, and ran the cultivator over most of the beach that afternoon. Friday was mostly devoted to going to the dentist: I threw the newspaper and junk mail into the back of the pickup and stopped by the recycling center on the way home. (Both the dentists' office and the center are on Union Street.) I thought I was rather inefficient to carry the bundles to the dumpsters one at a time, but a car that was parked by the plastic-and-metal bins when I arrived was still there when I left. The train that arrived while I was shifting the truck into "drive" wasn't there when I turned out of the parking lot, which made me wish that I'd looked at it; it couldn't have been more than half a dozen cars. 13 June 2006 Grump. About half-past eight, I looked out the window and realized that if I'd rushed the trash out when I first realized that I'd forgotten to do it last night, they would have taken it. Given how much trash the people across the street put out last weekend, the trash men are probably just as happy I didn't. I was pleased to see that they emptied that nice wire basket and put it back. Ditto the "milk crate". There also remains some stuff that is too big for the trash truck. Headline news: I've worn out one of my pairs of blue, white, and ivory plaid pants. I'm going to tear the hem off one of the matching shirts and re-hem it in sound fabric any day now. Just when stuff gets nice and soft, holes start appearing. Had a "well duh" moment when choosing to wear my old shabby hat because the new one is a tad loose, and wishing I had time to make a new new one. So last night, while waiting for it to be time to go to the Fellowship Committee meeting, I picked the sweatband off, then, because it was quite brown with sweat and I didn't want to wait until washday to put it back, put it on the bathroom counter and scrubbed it with a toothbrush rubbed on a bar of toilet soap. Then I put it in a bucket to soak, and, after the meeting, rinsed it and laid it out to dry. To my surprise, it came out cleaner than it had been when I tore it off the bolt. I was even more surprised when I re-measured it and found it a quarter inch longer than before! Good thing I didn't rely on washing the hat to bring it down to size. Had a fairly productive Monday. Got some sewing done, cultivated the garden and pulled some weeds, raked a little muck out of the lake. It's in pea-soup mode again -- or was yesterday. There's a slight current which might have carried it over to Brent's beach. In bed last night, I noticed that I'm spending so much time in the lake that I'm getting dishpan feet. They seem to be re-oiled this morning. 13 June 2006 Not as much done today, though my new hat is back together. I cut an inch and a half off the band, which was only half an inch too loose -- in addition to the stretching, I used narrower seam allowances -- and it's still a tad loose. I think this is because I stretched it mightily to make it fit the brim, so it should tighten up a bit. [It did] But I think it's also because the brim is too wide, so that it feels lower than it is. I wore it when I went out for supper this evening. While poking about the fridge and cupboard wondering what to cook, I felt an urge to go to the ice-cream shop for lunch, and on the way, I decided on a banana split instead of a malt. I'd noticed that "banana split" was merely one of the flavors under "sundaes", but thought that they were classing a banana split as a kind of sundae. Instead, what I got was a banana-split sundae. It's like the difference between a taco and a taco salad: all the ingredients are there, but the experience is entirely different. And I don't like the hard "waffle" that the deep round bowl was made of half as well as the wafer-like "cake" that ordinary ice-cream cones are made of. Al is asleep on my T-shirt in progress again. Next step is to sew on the pockets and sew up the side seams, then all that remains is to finish the tail and sleeves. Haven't decided whether to hem the sleeves or put on a band like the neck. 14 June 2006 Al is still asleep on the corner of the bed -- I must not have napped as long as usual. He doesn't get in with me when I take a nap when Dave is home. Every night when I unplug the computer, he's on the ironing board behind me. He has a snack while I'm brushing my teeth, then spends the night on the corner of the bed beside my feet, and when I wake up he's washing himself. Then when I get up, he has breakfast. I expect that if I got a suitcase down from the attic, it would freak the poor little guy right out. 16 June 2006 And later that very day I did get a suitcase down from the attic. I needed milk and fancied a long walk, so I got my carry-on backpack down and tried the empty milk jugs in it for size -- they fit nicely -- but chickened out and went by bike yesterday morning. I got a bit more of a ride than I'd planned on. I was planning to go through the interurban tunnel, but, distracted by the heavy traffic while turning left onto Winona, I went past the turn. So I decided that as long as I was headed that way I'd tour the pawn shop, but they were closed, so I went on to the grade crossing just beyond Dalton Foundry. Which led to passing Save-Mor first, so I went in to look around, and bought a pound of pasta and a dill pickle. That's the second time I've found a single pickle in a discount store -- the first time was at Aunt Millie's, where we get most of our bread. I wonder whether I'd see them more often if I frequented convenient stores. And were the pickles Mom used to get when buying lunch along the way in bags like these, or do I date back to the pickle barrel? The carry-on is lying beside the bedroom door, under my attache' case and the clothes I took off yesterday. When on my way to get ready for bed last night, I stepped on something in the doorway, and paused, wondering what in that pile was fuzzy and cylindrical. Then Al said "rrrh!" rather calmly. I presume that my bare foot hadn't hurt, but he realized, after a split second, that it was a good idea to let the clumsy human know there's a cat down here. 17 June 2006 ???! I just heard on the scanner that an adult female shoplifter had just been detained -- at Dollar General! Finally got to the farmer's market. There were blank spots and a fellow who had sold out was folding up his table when I got there. But there had been tomatoes earlier. There were some vegetables left, but most of the remaining vendors were selling flowers. Also maple syrup and freezer beef. Drat. I forgot to read the sign to see whether to come back on Tuesday or Wednesday. Stopped at Ace Hardware on the way back and bought a "Tommy Yellow" tomato. I was thinking that despite the lack of "potato" leaves, it might be a cross of Tom Thumb -- after paying for it, I remembered that the tomato I was thinking of is called "Tiny Tim". At any rate, it's in the center of the raised flower bed. I must get around to getting marigolds to plant around it. I've got the concrete lawn edging around the herb bed around the raised flower bed more-or-less in place, and am now in the process of putting the dirt back into the trench. Once that is done, I can plant some dill. The volunteer fennel in the raised flower bed looks a lot like dill. I may get into trouble planting dill and fennel in the same bed. But if I can't *see* the difference, I can bite a leaf. I looked over the herbs at Ace too, but the only one I didn't have was salad burnet. It's a pretty plant, but the label said it adds a delightful cucumber flavor to your salads -- and I HATE cucumber. I don't think much of borage, either. Yesterday I looked at the rose next to the lamp post and thought that it was so open that it would never hold until Dave got home. This morning, I looked out and half the petals had fallen off. You'd think that a "bush" that never has enough strength to send up more than a single stem with a single blossom on it would peter out after a while, but what there is of it looks beautifully hale and hearty. 18 June 2006 I accidentally called Alice this evening. Dave and I had just finished trying out his Skype connection, and for some reason the computer dialed Alice after I hung up -- and closed the program. Perhaps I only closed the window, but I never came anywhere near clicking "dial Alice". Poked at the weeds a little after the rain stopped, and made the piles noticeably higher without making the lake noticeably cleaner. There are downsides to living on the east side of the lake! At least this time there was lots of stringy weed that held it together so it could be picked up with a fork. But not many times. My back has been giving me subtle hints, and I'm trying very hard to keep the hints *subtle*. I'm going to have to cultivate the beach again as soon as it drains off from the heavy rain this afternoon. And to think that when packing, I thought that I wouldn't have any use for the cultivator after we started gardening in raised beds! But one of the raised beds is big enough to run a tiller in. One thing I wasn't mistaken about: there is plenty of lake weed to fill the beds with! We haul most of the weed off to the community compost pile. The fogger trucks have begun spraying poison around. I find my long-sleeved linen shirt more effective. But next time I go walking in the bike trails, I'll wear my linen neckerchief too. And take a good look at the map before going in; I didn't this time for fear of frightening the deer. (I want them all shot and stored in freezers, but I don't want to frighten them.) Said deer was still there when I found my way back, though on the other side of the road. She (or he -- do they have antlers at this time of year?) looked up and went back to grazing. Two of my potato plants have been nibbled. I suspect deer. 21 June 2006 Saw fireflies on my way back from knitting class today. We hauled a trailer of muck to the brush dump before supper. 23 June 2006 Our new stainless-steel range hood has just been installed. Dave was very unhappy with the service from Sears, and when Roger Bruce started to install it, he found that some of the parts listed in the manual had not been in the sealed package. But Dave has a large selection of screws and bolts, and Mr. Bruce figured out how to do without the vent adapter, so it is in. I made tamale-pie polenta for lunch. Browned and broke up a hamburger patty in my shallowest cast-iron pot -- the one that takes the same lid as my largest skillets -- then made tamale-pie filling the usual way, except that I measured the fluids that went in, and used enough veggies and seasonings for a whole pound of meat. Also added a Knorr beef cube and a dash of soy sauce. Didn't think of getting one of Dave's cayennes out of the freezer, and I didn't have corn and didn't want beans. Then I added a cup of polenta corn meal (coarser than corn-bread meal, but not so coarse as grits) and simmered for a while. Dave came home just as it was ready to eat; I said "you can have some if it smells good"; he said "This is a sneaky way of getting me to eat mush." Well, it's not as sneaky as making tamale pie! 26 June 2006 Busy weekend. Audrey and Jacob got hitched on Saturday, and on Sunday the church got together to give the preacher who married them a little momentum. (Old joke.) I still haven't the foggiest idea what all the secrecy was about, but we've got to do our best to make things easier for the new pastor. All I can do is to move the knitting class to the parlor -- which I've been wanting to do anyway; I don't like hassling the pastor to unlock his study, even though he usually does it before I get there. I've been not-doing-anything for weeks about making a new black slip to wear with my skirts, and today I've begun not doing anything about making a linen dress. I've been postponing it until I get around to polishing my new sloper, but I wore my pink floral-basket shift to church yesterday and realized that, really, there is nothing wrong with that pattern. I think maybe I should lower the bust darts half an inch. And make it at least an inch shorter; I plan to cut the floral basket on the crease of the hem and put in a one-inch hem, which will make it an inch and a quarter shorter. Went to check whether I could let out the hem on the white floral basket enough that I wouldn't need to wear pantyhose, but couldn't find it. I gave all my floral-basket shirts to the Goodwill because I hate ironing that fabric, and may have taken the shift too -- there isn't much point to a shift that you have to wear pantyhose under! 29 June 2006 I'm right pleased with Reinhold's service. They said that they would bring the new loveseat between 9:00 and 11:00, and at 9:20 we were sitting on it. And the two boys heaved the old sofa into the truck with a lot less fuss than we'd employed getting it into the garage! We moved the sofa that was in the parlor into the living room. I imagine that Alice will want to sleep on the new one, which unfolds into a single bed. I got all ambitious and dry-cleaned the green sofa before we moved it, and vacuum as I might, I can't get the perfume of the cleaner out of the cushions. 5 July 2006 Last time I tried to use it, the clothes dryer made alarming noises. We are undecided whether to have it repaired, buy a new one, or do without. I suppose that the last is out of the question, since I use the dryer to make up for having nowhere to stand while I shake my blankets. I must get around to visiting appliance stores to see what is available now. I most *definitely* don't want any push buttons, but that seems to be all the rage nowadays. I expect I'll have to get all kinds of "features" that I can't use. I read David Friedman's blog while postponing nap time. Today's entry notes that the same ads appear on right-wing talk shows and left-wing talk shows, and wonders what they have in common. What *don't* they have in common? Right Wing vs. Left Wing is like a knock-down drag-out between the people who believe the tribal totem ought to be a ground squirrel and those who believe that it ought to be a chipmunk. There are no differences that go any deeper than the color of the shirt both think we all should wear. Said shirt is much too tight in the neck, and hasn't any pockets. Dave has had a busy day. In the morning we went to the brush dump to get rid of the lake weed in the trailer, then we installed new wheels on the now-lighter trailer. When I got up from my nap, I found a newly-assembled telescope in the living room -- it had been "out for delivery" the last time he checked the Fed Ex page -- and after a while he turned up with a new dryer in the back of the truck. I helped get the new one off and the old one on, then we went back to Lowe's to leave the old one behind a semi-trailer -- the salesman had said we'd need to leave it *in* the trailer, but the door to the semi-trailer was bolted and the employee who answered his ring at the back door said to leave the old dryer on the pavement. Then we came home and he tried to install it, but decided that we need a new vent hose. Were it the dead of winter, I'd try it out anyway, but I don't want hot, wet air blowing into the house now. I did turn it on long enough to see that the fan fans and the drum turns. I don't think he golfed any, the lazy creature! He did take a walk after walking with me to knitting class. I got a little walking in too, as I walked the kid to Sweet Dreams for recess, and after her mother picked her up, I walked back to the church to take down the signs and pick up my books. I do believe that she's getting the hang of it. Good thing, too, as the exhibits have to be turned in Tuesday. Why must they hold the 4-H fair when the kids have barely had time to get warmed up? I guess the gardeners can exhibit green onions. Speaking of which, we still have some of the onions Darryl brought to the fireworks party. I served a couple with the hamburgers I served for supper tonight. And as Dave was crawling into bed, he remembered that he'd meant to call the vet today -- Al is due for a checkup etc. 7 July 2006 Past time to mail the June Banner. Dave hooked up the pump this afternoon, and we watered the garden, the azalias, both raised beds, both herb beds, and filled the Rubbermaid trash bin Dave bought for a water tank. While watering the garden, I noticed that deer have mowed off the potatoes about knee high. Al's appointment is next Thursday -- Dave's is Monday. I ran two loads of wash today, but neither included anything to tumble in the dryer. Yesterday I tumbled two blankets just to fuzz up the lint filter. I've been fiddling with the linen I mean to make into a Sunday shift, and I ironed the five yards of gauze that I plan to underline it with. 8 July 2006 Just when it looked as though we might be getting ahead of the lakeweed, some guy on the other side mowed his water grass again. Shortened my pink "floral basket" shift one inch today. Didn't get it ironed, so I'll be wearing my short-sleeved ankle-length "villa olive" T-shirt tomorrow. Took the pattern for the linen shift off the nail, then put it back up on the wrong nail. (I need a stool to reach the correct nail.) 9 July 2006 We took yet another load of lakeweed to the brush dump today. I think Dave re-filled the trailer later on; I saw him out there with a spading fork anyway. [He had been piling up wet weed to drain.] Urk. The clock just struck midnight -- and I just remembered leaving a blanket out on the line. And there is a thunderstorm predicted; perhaps I should turn off my computers before going to bed, because if we get any wind, the broken limb -- bigger than the trunks of several of the trees in our yard -- on that tree in the park is sure to come down on the wires. We should have thought of calling the police sooner. As soon as a *cop* reported a dangerous situation, the park board agreed to do something about it. 10 July 2006 A couple of guys came out, parked -- rather rashly -- in our driveway, looked the situation over, then one of them unfolded a cell phone and made a call and they got back into the car and drove away. The upper split has broken open. While I was out looking at it, Dave's new golf club arrived. The tree didn't make any loud cracks while I was talking to the UPS woman, but there were a few small but ominous pops. We did *not* stand in the lane! Had a turn while hunting for the sleeve pattern I used for the pink floral-basket shift. Still haven't found it; I think it's in the envelope underneath the forty-eleven variations that includes two long sleeves and one three-quarters sleeve, but no short ones, and I'm really *not* looking forward to taking them all off the nail again. All the pieces for my button-front smock (which I've never made up with buttons, only snaps or hooks) are marked "March 2003 floral linen-cotton". Now I don't recall ever *seeing* a linen-blend print before buying that lovely chickenfeed-sack weight border print that will someday become a fall suit, let alone making one up, and if I'd had such a critter in 2004, I certainly would have taken it to Australia. The dime finally dropped: my linen-blend suit has a white-on-white flower pattern woven in. As Dave was starting the truck to go to his appointment in Fort Wayne, the limb gave a mighty crack and settled down enough to scrape the top of anything driving under it; Dave turned and went out through the park. Cutting the limb looks like a risky and highly-skilled job; the parks department may decide that it's cheaper and safer to repair the data lines after it comes down by itself. But it just might mix the nearby power line into the mess. And I've heard only one of the plethora of children in the neighborhood warned to keep away from the willow tree. When I got up from my nap, the limb was gone and our TV cable was down -- which is also our connection to the internet. I dialed up on my old account, which we haven't canceled yet, and checked my main account by Web -- which Comcast doesn't make easy. I managed to log in, but couldn't find any button to click to get to my mail -- finally decided to click on "edit my web site" just to see what was there, got a message that I have no Wizard-created pages -- nice to know there is no chance of the Wizard messing with my hand-crafted pages -- and *that* page had a button to click to get to my mail. The Comcast people are to come to day, but the telephone repairman the tree crew called by mistake said that *she* wouldn't touch that cable: there's an electric wire across the cable it's broken off from. This is being pushed down by a limb the willow limb broke off our tree; why the guys who removed the willow limb didn't take it, I don't know. They also left a piece of willow in our tree. They did clean up all but a scattering of sawdust of what was on the ground. Hope I remember to pick up my fenders today -- the Trailhouse has had them for weeks. I haven't been riding much -- and after ordering them, I figured out how to cut down what was left of my old front fender, so it hasn't been preying on my mind. I took all that stuff off the nail again, and there wasn't any short sleeve in the envelope. Since I have the long-sleeve pattern, it will be easy enough to draft a new one, but I like to use a pattern that has been beta-tested when I'm cutting into linen! Got so far as to try the two main pieces on the fabric; frustratingly, it is just one inch too narrow to cut them side-by-side. Oh, well, when cutting them end-to-end, I can cut with the nap -- though this fabric is carefully designed to be used either end up. Also busy enough that I don't have to worry about matching the pattern. I've decided to make pocket slits instead of patch pockets. Now there's a cherry picker and two pickup trucks from a tree service out front. They seem to be starting work, rather than making an estimate. Oops! Dave says the people taking down the willow say that the limb in our tree wasn't taken down precisely *because* it is pressing down a power line. I should have thought of that! But this means that we don't get our cable service back until Nipsco gets around to a repair that is very low priority from their point of view. A yellow cherry picker just turned down Boys City. I thought the Sprint truck was following it, but it went straight. Getting crowded out there. The yellow cherry picker came back and turned out to be NIPSCO. He waited for an intermission in the rain of willow branches, and is now at work. Four in the afternoon -- everybody gone, Dave happily reading funnies on the Web, the paper just arrived, I just got back from Owens with (among much else) two pounds of Great Northern beans to use up the bacon pieces. Time to sort out the freezer. I'm *sure* I had a pound of Great Northerns in there. Found pinto beans, but Dave rejected them. I rejected the garbanzos. 12 July 2006 The bean soup was excellent. I don't have any bread corn meal -- only polenta corn meal -- so we had it with tortilla chips. I got the front and back of my linen shift cut out. Rained all day, so I didn't take my bike to the shop. Knitting class met in the ramp room for the first time --and on Wednesday for the last time; we're changing to Tuesday, and changing the name to Sewing Circle. Nobody showed, so I did some much-overdue row counting before starting to knit. There are more than ninety rounds, so I'll be starting the toe decreases Real Soon Now. 13 July 2006 Al got his shots today. He takes it better than any of our other cats did, but went willingly into the cage when it was time to go home. I cut the underlining for the back of the linen dress, but haven't taken my bike to the Trailhouse yet. Hope they don't send the fenders back! I think I put too much paprika into the yellow rice we had for supper. I browned a couple of patties of hamburger and mixed it with salsa left over from our last batch of spaghetti -- so there was also a meatball or two in it. 14 July 2006 In the morning, yet another load of lakeweed to the brush dump -- which was largely occupied with pieces of willow tree. Then I rode my bike to the Trailhouse and left it, saying that it was fine to keep it overnight since I had no intention of coming back in this coming rain. Which showed up several times through the afternoon, but cleared up in time for our after-supper point seven. Lakeweed production, knock wood, seems to be slacking off. Last summer, we didn't even know where the brush dump was! The tiger lilies are starting to bloom. The rosebush in that bed seems to be done for a while; the remaining blossoms are ratty and there are no buds. 15 July 2006 This last rain seems to have put an end to my freedom from land weeds. And the guy on the other side of the lake has mowed his water grass again. I'm catching up on the wash today, wearing my last clean bra. My last *dry* bra now, there being a string of clean ones hanging on the line. And I've put the new dryer to practical, routine use for the first time: it shook the wrinkles out of two of Dave's shirts and two of mine. The new dryer has a larger door than the old one, and the inside is painted white, so I can just look in to see whether I've taken everything out. 16 July 2006 On the way back from the 4-H parade -- which still hadn't started, but I heard the calliope starting to play before I got out of earshot -- I noticed a sign in front of the police station saying the bike auction had been yesterday. I wonder why I didn't notice it on the way to pick up my bike? I think it was already too late then, though. Bike not ready; I'll pick it up Monday. Every fire company in the county sent apparatus, and all the tractor collectors were there. Lots of Farmalls, but if there was a C, I missed it. Some of those "antiques" might have been at the fairs I attended when I was in 4-H -- in the latest-tech display. An omnibus surrey -- well, it had a fringe on top -- had been refitted to be pulled by one of the antique tractors. There was also a wagon with seats on leaf springs. 17 July 2006 The bike was outside, leaning on a Village at Winona sign, when I arrived about noon. The new fenders match the paint! Al has thrown up every night since his visit to the vet, so we stopped the antibiotic prescribed for his belly sores. And I haven't heard any retching tonight. Had to run to Owen's in the evening because we were out of apples. I got a steak for tomorrow's supper while I was at it. I hope I don't forget to dig some potatoes ahead of time. It's a little before two a.m. tomorrow. Before going to bed, I check the radar: funny, it doesn't *sound* like it's raining like crazy. Went to bigger window: no rain. Turned on patio light: dry as a bone. But there is almost continuous lightning in the north. Thunder is seldom and faint. Closer look at radar: we are in a notch in the storm. West edge of notch is rapidly approaching, but we are to get only the green edge of the rain. 18 July 2006 We got .85 inches of partly cloudy last night, and it's still coming down. 21 July 2006 Finally got to the farmer's market Wednesday, and the only vendor with tomatoes didn't have any ripe ones. Then I discovered, while crossing a street, that my back quick-release hadn't been tightened properly, allowing the wheel to shift in the dropouts and jam against the chainstay. Thought I was going for a trifecta when a young rabbit ran across my path, but he was running just fast enough and I didn't hit him. I not only ran a load of wash today, I remembered to hang it out *and* remembered to bring it in again. But I forgot to have Dave help me check the quick releases on my wheels. To line the wheels up properly, one needs a third hand to hold the brake closed. Tomorrow is the last day of the county fair. I'm not going. Bought some rather poor tomatoes and a fairly good muskmelon at Aldi's yesterday. Then came home to find that we are almost out of chips -- what happened to that freezerful I bought for the Fourth? 24 July 2006 It isn't uncommon to see Al, tail twitching, watching the squirrels. But this morning I saw a squirrel, unsure of the efficacy of plate glass, watching back. I got a couple of real tomatoes Saturday morning. We had smoked-bacon and tomato sandwiches for Sunday supper. 25 July 2006 My wallpaper is back. When I finally got around to copying the damask swatch I'd used on the old computer, I was dismayed to find that the "appearance" section of the control panel of Windows 98e doesn't have any "set as wallpaper" button -- just a "convert display to HTML" button, which I don't want to mess with for fear that it's one of those "helpful" features that won't let you get back to where you want to be without starting all over from scratch. ("HTML" is now its own, seriously-flawed graphics-design thing that has a very thin and tenuous connection to hypertext.) But a day or two ago Dave told me that I could set wallpaper with Firefox -- Firefox calls it "background", and, really, that's a much better name for it -- so I tried it and it worked, and when I went after the file on the old computer, I found that it was already on the sneakernet floppy. Phoenix Textiles (fabric.com) no longer posts those huge swatches, alas. I miss being able to examine the threads of fabric I'm about to buy. I wonder how complicated it would be for them to blow up one square inch of fabric to fill the screen? The thumbnails, swatches, and enlargements are all the same shot at different resolutions, so making a detail shot would be a separate step -- and they have thousands, if not millions, of swatches, so anything that can't be automated isn't going to happen. It would be easy -- assuming the resolution is there in the first place; it could have been a change of cameras, rather than a shortage of disk space, that made them abandon the humongous enlargements -- for a program to filet out the upper left corner of a photograph, but writing the program and integrating it into their system is another matter. 29 July 2006 I got up early enough to buy three tomatoes, half a dozen ears of corn, and a quart of peaches. 31 July 2006 Then I forgot to serve corn Saturday night -- we did eat one of the tomatoes -- and Sunday night I went to an ice-cream social at the church, so I made corn fritters for breakfast. MMM . . . hot buttered skillet! As I was putting the scraps of flowered linen away, I realized that I hadn't cut flaps for the pocket slits on my shift. I've got gathering stitches in the sleeves, but haven't pressed the underlined pieces yet. (Pressing after underlining makes the fabrics cling together, and shows up any flaws in placement.) The tiger lilies seem to be peaking. We have deduced that the waves of water grass are chopped off with propellers during the weekends. 5 August 2006 I got to the farmer's market just a few minutes late -- when I rolled in, a man was walking out with two bags of corn, and he'd got the last of it. The vendor says she'll be back on Monday. Yesterday, I took another new-patient form to Snider's office; the first time I'd specified a doctor who wasn't taking new patients. Which annoyed me because the only reason I'd circled a name was that the form told me to. This time I wrote in "no preference" and the receptionist told me that since Dave is a patient, I'm automatically a patient, and gave me an appointment for next Tuesday. I'm not at all sure what for. I suppose that, like Al, I'll get some shots. 11 August 2006 Got a lot of cycling in this week. Went to the farmer's market on Monday, where I did get some corn -- we had the last of it in fritters for breakfast this morning. Then I rode to Snider's on Tuesday. I prefer the bike when going to the hospital complex, because it's a lot easier to navigate the place if you can step over the boundaries between parking lots. After the exam, he told me to come back for blood tests and an X-ray, which I did on Wednesday. I think I stayed home yesterday. Today I walked to a garage sale on Boy's City Drive, and bought two books and five bits of old linen to clean my glasses with. Monday it's back to the hospital for a mammogram, then on Thursday Alice will pick me up for a trip to Bonneyville Mills and on the following Tuesday it's back to the hospital campus to see Dr. Jensen about scheduling my last test. Tell a doctor you haven't seen one in ten years and he gets carried away. Between all these appointments, a NetFlix copy of "A Night at the Races", and my regular Tuesday night hour of needlework, I've got two pairs of freshly-darned socks in the drawer and I'm almost done with the socks I've been knitting. I finished the toe of the second sock the Tuesday before last, but the first sock was too pointy, so I frogged the toe and now I'm about halfway through re-knitting it. 12 August 2006 Got tomatoes and corn in the morning, peppers and eggs in the afternoon. And some frozen tamales much better than the kind that come in cans. Steamed them together with two ears of corn. 13 August 2006 I totally dig today's "Pickles" comic strip. Opal got a cell phone so that she could find her purse. Yesterday we each had two tamales and an ear of corn for supper. Tonight we had two ears of corn and a tamale. If Aldi is still selling tamales the next time I go there, I'll buy some more. [There was no more beef, but I got two packages of chicken.] 16 August 2006 Got my mammogram results back before I got around to writing about the visit, which was Monday. That fits the theme. I'd been advised to turn up half an hour before my appointment, so I took my sock-in-progress out of my bag, because it's only a tiny bit of knitting left to do, it's attached to a huge ball of yarn, and it's got to the place where I have to *think* about it. Not to mention that during the Sewing Circle on Tuesday, I took my shoe off twice to check the fit. I went through the basket of darning -- it's one of the baskets Sherry made -- and picked out all the socks that can be darned with white yarn, then I noted that the skein of white Medici in my purse was half used up, so I hunted around until I remembered where I'd put the big skein and broke off another little skein. This took a bit, because it had somehow gotten tangled into the next little skein. Then I went to the cupboard to get a snack bag to put it in, and found nothing but sandwich bags in the box labeled "snack bags". Appeared to be packed the way the factory puts them in, too. But though the old skein shares a snack bag, the back-up skein filled a sandwich bag, so I guess that was all right. After that, I reflected that conditions don't always permit needlework, so I put my copy of _Sue Ellen's Heyday_ in the bag. This is a thin little book; really a novella, so I also stuck in a paperback mystery. [The books were still in my purse on the 29th, and Dave got halfway through _Sue Ellen's Heyday_ while I was having my innards photographed.] So I showed up half an hour early, waited about twenty seconds for the information clerk to deal with another patient, she handed me a folder and pointed to a sign that said "Women's Imaging"; the clerk there gave me a form to fill out; when I'd done that, she directed me to the dressing room, I took off my shirt and tried to figure out how to put on the gown so it would cover something without being clutched*, sat down and reached for a magazine, the mammogrammist came back to call me to the imaging room, and there was no check-out afterward so all the time I had with my book was a couple of minutes while she developed the films and made sure they were good. And my watch said that I was out of there a minute before my appointment, but it's three or four minutes slow. So the moral of the story is, show up for doctor's appointments *thoroughly* prepared to wait! I had plenty of time to go to the farmer's market, but I blew that by getting sucked into a copy of _Deerskin_ when I stopped at the library to return _The Misted Cliffs_, and barely made it home in time to warm up supper. That may have been when we had the "egg rolls". They were actually burritos, but quite good, and I'll buy more of them if Aldi still has some. [They did and I did. And I got the other flavor too.] *I had learned, earlier in this adventure, that the secret to keeping a hospital gown closed is to cross the ties and wrap them around the neck, but the ties on the mammogram gowns were too short to do that. 22 August 2006 I'm doing all my cycling on Harrison Street -- took ten minutes to get from here to Dr. Jensen's office today. And now I have an appointment for a week from today for the test itself, and a follow-up appointment the Tuesday after Labor Day. When Dave told me they'd expect me to bring someone to drive me home after the test, I thought I'd ride in and have him come for me in the truck, so he could throw the bike in the back and pour me into the passenger seat. Despite being so high -- or maybe because it's so high -- the truck is easier to get in and out of than the Buick. There are two flaws with that idea: one, there isn't any safe place to leave a bike at the hospital. Two, they want me to come in at 7:00 A.M. 23 August 2006 I twisted my back getting off the bike at Jensen's office, perhaps as a result of having sifted cat litter in the morning -- when I tried to do a little more before putting the tools away in the evening, it hurt. Yesterday I thought it was a slight injury that would quickly go away if I was careful not to aggravate it, but I'm stiff this morning. On the third hand, I'm not quite so stiff as when I first got up. (My back became resigned to the upright position while I was typing this entry.) I've started moving the compost heap -- a chore I left *much* too long; it's all full of tree roots, which makes it difficult to lift a forkful of compost, and the roots snatch the compost off the fork once I manage to lift a chunk. But after turning it into a grooved pile, with a narrow wall of moved compost on one side of the groove, I realized that there was a *lot* of sand in the compost, which was autumn leaves that had washed up on the beach in the spring. So now I scrape up a pile of sand with the hoe, which easily breaks the roots, shovel the sand onto the screen with the edging spade, scrape back and forth with the flat-ended spade to make the sand fall into the Rubbermaid tub we keep cat litter in, then scrape the compost into a pile and pat it onto the wall. Even though I'm careful not to widen the wall, the groove isn't getting any wider -- but I'm getting the litter tubs filled up. And sifting sand out of compost is easier than breaking up lumps of spaded-up garden dirt. The church was locked up when I showed up to lead the Sewing Circle yesterday evening. After trying every door, I sat outside the door to the ramp room working on the toe of my sock until after 6:30, then tried the main door again and went home. The next time we have a Fellowship Committee meeting, I must bring up the topic of *keys*. I made a side trip to look at both sides of the Chestnut House, and the newly-rebuilt little house beside it is almost certainly part of the bed and breakfast: there are dining tables on both porches, and there's a path leading from the back porch of the Chestnut House to the back porch of the little house. I thought perhaps the Chestnut House doesn't charge so much as to make it unreasonable to use it for a spare bedroom, but all the lodging lists -- including the Kosciusko County Chamber of Commerce, which ought to know better -- still list the B&B that used to be where the ice-cream shop has been through two changes of owners. And if the Chestnut House has its own web page, my Google-Fu is inadequate to find it -- chestnuthouse.com is a place in Minnesota. Or some place that's definitely not here. During our trip to Bonneyville Mills, someone said that Amish houses have lavish displays of flowers because flowers are the only bright color permitted to them. Something struck me as wrong about that statement at the time, but it wasn't until much later that I remembered tourist photographs of homes in Germany -- the Amish displays are toned way down from what's in the culture they came from. 25 August 2006 My back bothered me sitting on a picnic bench at the Back to the Days of Koscuiszko meeting yesterday, but I wasn't stiff when I got up this morning. My devilled eggs were well received at the preceding carry-in dinner. I've been thinking of making handkerchiefs from my blue plaid shirting, so when my blue plaid shirt developed a big hole in front, I thought I could get a nice, soft, much-washed furoshiki from the back. But when I went to cut it out, I discovered that the shirt had done a creditable imitation of the one-hoss shay. I did get two 12" spectacle rags, drawing threads and zig-zagging around them with two-ply basting thread. 28 August 2006 We had two volunteer muskmelon vines -- which I discovered when I wondered why our two muskmelons didn't match; I'd cultivated one sprout that came up, but when I traced the vines back, there were two side-by-side. I suppose the second one came up after the first had leaves. A deer, I judge by the tooth marks, broke the ribbed muskmelon off the vine trying, in vain, to bite into it, so I scrubbed it up and put it into the fridge. Yesterday evening Dave cut it open -- there was half an inch of bright-green melon around the rind, but what was in the middle was *delicious*. I was careful to dump the seeds in the garden. I gorged on it, because I'm not to eat at all today -- and fruits and vegetables are particularly forbidden, along with whole wheat and everything else that's good for you. I'm having a boullion cube and a packet of gelatin for breakfast,but after that it's all sugar water in the form of apple juice. Lemonade was also suggested, but all the lemonade at Kroger's had added pulp. Grumbly gripe -- when I boiled up the boullion, there were bits of herbs in it; the diet list had expected me to use a cheaper brand. So I poured it into a refrigerator dish; it will be something dainty for me to eat when I come home from the hospital tomorrow. I started another packet of gelatin soaking, to be hot tea with apple juice. The nastiest part of this test is going to be getting up before six o'clock in order to get there on time. I spent Saturday at the Smelzer's, making drawstring skirts and T-tunic bedgowns for the Back to the Days Festival. When I accepted the invitation to do a "seamstress" act the day before the festival, I thought I'd borrow from the costumes we were working on Saturday, but I'm going to supply my own. My broadfall skirts are made like petticoats, save that the pockets are sewn in -- which the Gentle Guests can't see -- and the fabrics are no more hopeless than the fabrics we were using. I didn't see any "bedgowns" that wouldn't clash horribly with my skirts, I adamantly refuse to wear a late-nineteenth/early twentieth mobcap, and I already have a nice linen scarf. By good luck, one of the members of 18th-Century Woman posted a very simple pattern for a cap: "This one is a 5" x 21" band, and a 10" square, with 2 corners curved, then the curve gathered, til the band fits around it." But I'll have to wing a pattern for a bedgown, since there isn't time to send off for a pattern. 4:00 -- yuckers. "Phospho-Soda" tastes like saccharine. And, like saccharine, it doesn't rinse out. 30 August 2006 Read the label later: it tasted like saccharine because it *was* saccharine. (I didn't know saccharine was laxative!) They didn't find anything alarming in my innards, but I have to take a purple pill every day for a while. 60 in the bottle, and the label says "one refill"; I'll know more after my follow-up consultation on Tuesday. Got the cap cut out and made on Monday; it came out cute and I'm going to wear it even though a cap is supposed to be made of fine linen, not unbleached muslin. Looks rather Dutch, but that's better than a style that won't come in until very late in the nineteenth century. Alas, it also gave me an idea for a better cap. I'm going to try to keep my mind on the clothes I actually *need* for a while. My summer dress has just gone onto the back burner, and I've cut out a winter slip. Then I need some T-shirts; I have some more fabric like the T-shirt I just wore out. The black T-shirt I made a while ago came out underwear. I'm not going to buy any more knits that stretchy. But my black "interlock" (I suspect it of being one-on-one ribbing) will make a lovely winter slip. 1 September 2006 Time to wrap up August and send it on its way. Meta: I miss PC-Write's automatic entry dater -- but not enough to copy and paste the Banner. Come to think of it, I copy it anyway -- to get it into PC-write so I can edit it into hardcopy format and then import it into Writer to print the paper version. But Thunderbird will save into a file as easily as into a draft, but won't open a file. At least I haven't stumbled upon that feature yet. Another olde-tyme last-century obsoleteness that programs have dispensed with is providing a *manual*. Time to start packing for our trip to Michigan on Sunday. It's Jim and Nancy's Golden Wedding party. We were tempted to take the anniversary clock we bought for Dave's parents, but reflected that we'd probably get it back eight years from now. And Evelyn found a fairly inconspicuous place to keep it. Sewed the darts in my new slip yesterday. I hope to get the major pieces attached today. We finished the muskmelon yesterday, and Dave picked the other one. Haven't cut it yet. Last Monday, I was surprised at how little not eating bothered me, and I didn't quite finish the second pitcher of apple juice -- I'd thought four cans a skimpy supply. Killed two or three bottles of seltzer, though, and I couldn't sleep at nap time -- my bod was saying "get up and forage!". 1 September 2006 Yesterday, while walking down the street that had been torn up all summer one year, we tried to remember how long it had been -- it had been somewhat, ah, exciting while they were digging, but they did such a good job that the pavement still looks brand new. This morning, "Road Construction Ahead" signs went up in the middle of the new stretch. Nobody has a clue as to what is going on. Further toward the entrance, Dave says, there are "shoulder work" signs -- streets don't *have* shoulders! They have gutters. (And very nice gutters which work very well.) Dave finished _Lucy Ellen's Heyday_ tonight. He complained that the story just stopped instead of ending. 5 September 2006 A fairly exciting afternoon. I had an appointment to get the results of my enteroscopies at 2:45, and thought I would go to the library afterward, eat downtown, and go directly to the Sewing Circle, so I made a tossed salad to leave in the fridge and chopped up the remaining pork loin to make pork salad -- and forgot to lay some bread out to thaw. While I was crossing Center on Harrison, one of the clips holding my wire pannier jumped off -- there were no bumps or anything; it must have come unbolted long ago, and popped almost off during some previous jolt. This allowed the pannier to rotate into my back wheel and bring me to a sudden stop. I think the driver of the car right behind me had seen the pannier coming loose and knew what it meant, because he or she stopped in time and only embarrassment resulted. So I carried the bike out of the intersection, rearranged things so there was no strain on the unbolted clip, and continued to the appointment. The consultation didn't tell me anything I didn't know before -- there are some small erosions in my stomach, for which I've been taking Nexium, but everything frightening has been ruled out. While putting my bag back on my bike, I suddenly changed my mind about going downtown -- in a flash, you might say. Or a flash rumble-rumble-rumble. (Actually, it was drops of rain that first got my attention.) So I dropped off my mystery magazines at the emergency room and hurried home. As I was cruising down Harrison Street, the bulb popped out of my headlight. I caught it and pushed it back into the black rubber without stopping, and worried about bumps thereafter. Got home before the rain started in earnest, and found a wrench in the bike cupboard that fit the bolts on my light -- since I haven't used it in five or six years, I'm not sure the battery will still hold a charge, and I don't trust it not to pop out again, I'd decided to take it off instead of trying to repair it. Just as I was putting it into the bottom shelf of the bike closet, there came such a loud crack that I thought I'd somehow done something wrong with the light and made it explode. A follow-up rumble-rumble-rumble explained what it had been, and I came into Dave's office to say "That scared my fur off!" He said "It hit our tree; there is wood all over the lawn." Then I went back into the garage for some reason, and there was another crack. I came back to find a bunch of green stuff on the lawn and a spectacular split in the tree. So we thought it had been hit a second time, but Barbara was on her porch when the limb came down and it had fallen by itself. She also saw that the second strike was to the west of her house, which is west of ours. I suppose the falling limb tore off the missing bark, or had concealed it up until then. We are pretty sure the whole thing has to come down; there are flakes of outer bark blown off all over the main trunk. When I was just starting to write this, Dave brought in a leafy twig off the tree to see whether I could identify it. We repaired to the living room, where he took _Trees and Shrubs_ off the shelf, which destabilized the row of books, they knocked over a tall wooden statuette, and that knocked a candlestick and an oil lamp off the shelf. I saw it coming, but couldn't move in time. The candlestick bounced, breaking only the candle, and the lamp -- a cheap reproduction, not one of the two antiques -- landed chimney down in a basket of nuts, breaking only the chimney, which was a frosted chimney I'm glad of an excuse to replace. There was lamp oil all over the chimney, but none appears to have gotten elsewhere. (You should have seen the two of us suspiciously sniffing the basket of nuts!) I still haven't found the piece that broke out of the chimney. The tree, by the way, is a blue, white, or black ash. We ruled out green. 6 September 2006 Dave cleaned up the road yesterday, and this morning he and I picked up the splinters on the lawn. It was such a spectacular mess that I didn't want to do it, but we couldn't leave splinters on Brent's lawn. It took very little time, and made a surprisingly small pile, but we left the big pieces for Clay to take care of tomorrow. Those all fell close to the base of the tree. 7 September 2006 It's raining ash. We never did determine which ash, and I didn't think to ask Clay. Naptime: After working all morning, they have gotten all the small limbs off. Clay & company are certainly earning their $1400. 9 September 2006 I marveled at the spiral split in the tree, and wondered whether that was the way the grain in ash trees runs. Later on, Clay remarked that he'd never seen a split twist like that. But all the evidence is now firewood. The "road construction" signs turned out to be the Greenway, which I had thought we'd be spared until next summer. I got my first look at it today, and learned that when it's finished, it's going to be harder to get to Southtown than before they started. Where the beaten path wandered back and forth to stay on top of the ridge, the road is driving straight through, which creates a series of short, sharp hills. Climbing just one left me out of breath. I suspect that giving all one's attention to climbing will be rather dangerous when there is two-way traffic. Why on why couldn't they have spent all that lovely money on another boardwalk? While I'm griping, our grapes aren't ripe yet, but something has eaten most of them. When we got back from the golden wedding party, our tomato had a blossom on it, and now it's covered. It's going have to work fast if we get any tomatoes before frost. I got two at the farmer's market today, and a half dozen ears of corn. Also stopped at the health-food store for dried fruit and nuts, and I bought four nuts and bolts at Ace hardware. I suspect I got the wrong size; being helped inhibits my dither. Pretty close to two weeks since I had to empty my innards, and they are still too pooped to poop. Starving didn't bother me much, and there wasn't any discomfort from the purgatives -- save for having to stay home -- and the worst part of the procedure itself was getting there on time. But if I'd known how long I would be passing deer pellets, I might not have done it. 16 September 2006 Another trip out the bike trail. They've got it torn up and muddy from Roy Road to Boy's City Drive, and have the new path cleared of trees more than halfway to the road along the creek. Eric said that he's seeing to it that none of the mulch and firewood is going to be wasted. He was working hard at getting vines out of the grove beside the old boy's-camp entrance; it's going to look really nice when he's finished. He's obliged, unfortunately, to destroy a bittersweet vine that is endangering the electric wires. I rode out to Roy Street, then, unwilling to face the mud and the steep hills again, came back by Packerton and Pierceton, then checked out this end of the trail. Saw a young deer twice -- or, more likely, two young deer. If the town and DNR had any sense, they would close down the whole bike trails for hunting season, mark off areas that are too close to houses, and tell the hunters to take as many as they can eat. Indeed, DNR should pass a general rule that deer taken inside city limits don't count against your bag limit. I read the rest of Lucy Ellen's Heyday just before naptime. It does end -- but hasn't much structure. I got tomatoes, peppers, peaches, and corn at the farmer's market this morning, and ran into Lois. 21 September 2006 You can't see Union street from the new roadway, but you can see one of the orange stakes on the new roadway from Union Street. That streak of woods looks as though it has been a road before. 24 September 2006 I drove through the Farmer's Market Saturday morning, but I was late for my gig at the log house and couldn't shop. And we've eaten nearly all the black walnuts, too. I don't want to do schoolteacher again; I'm not at all good at it. Sitting there answering questions, and talking about the old books on my desk, and that sort of thing was fun, though. Didn't get my "bedgown" finished until Friday night. Doesn't look all that bad, somewhat to my surprise. I'm starting to think naughty thoughts about making linen petticoats and the like. Maybe even buying a book and finding out what I'm doing! 25 September 2006 According to a recent thread on 18th-Century Woman, the book I want to buy is "Whatever Shall I Wear". Buying a book won't go over big with Dave. We have a knee-deep pile of books in the parlor to be gotten rid of. I need to get boxes and sort them into attic, shelves, Goodwill, and other. Of course, to put books on shelves I need to dispose of books already on shelves, which are pretty much where we jammed things when we unpacked. But Dave recently cleaned out the bookshelves in his room --which is where the knee-deep pile in the parlor came from. Books in my room are pretty much sorted: the Burroughs collection on two shelves, my needlework books -- separated by category and alphabetical by author -- on two shelves. And two shelves and a pile of "gotta put it someplace". Plus shoals of sewing supplies. I'm sure I'd find a *lot* more room on those shelves if I took everything off and put it back again. Particularly if I sorted out the stuff I'm never, ever gonna use and gave it to Goodwill. I did unload a box of cotton prints on one of the quilters teaching patchwork across the room from my schoolmarm gig. When the Gentle Guests aren't very thick, it's much more pleasant to have history and patchwork and sewing and schoolteaching all in one room than it would have been if we each had our own shelter. They are hoping someday to have a one-room schoolhouse in Redbush village. The Greenway now connects to the dirt end of North Union Drive, but the pattern of mud-churning (and three trees with orange ribbons) suggest that they mean to make a right-angle turn there in order to keep plowing into virgin territory. I hope I've misread the signs -- but there are tracks of heavy machinery on a driveway off Boys City that points toward the mudchurn. I didn't get anything done today except a little laundry. Back to the Days must have taken more out of me than I thought. Didn't help that I missed my nap yesterday. Cain't think what I did to make my back sore; nothing I did was physically demanding, nor did I ever sit or stand longer than was comfortable. Our microwave died in the middle of preparing supper Friday, forcing me to stir-fry my stir-fry vegetables. On Saturday, Dave ran out and bought a new one. The screen on the window is painted white instead of black, which makes me think something is wrong whenever I catch sight of it. I haven't yet zapped anything I want to peer at, so I don't know whether it's hard to see through. 26 September 2006 We heard crashing and banging this morning, and went out to see what they were up to on the Greenway. Noise came from the intersection of the trail along the creek and a new road driven through to Boys City Drive -- the right-angle turn I'd been fretting about. This is such an obviously-insane place to put the Greenway that Dave is convinced that they are merely using an old right-of-way to avoid dragging heavy machinery through the whole length of the mud road. I sure hope he's right. On the way to Sewing Circle tonight -- nobody showed, but I finished darning my bike socks -- we went through the park and found that some more sea wall had been demolished. Not a lot of sea wall; it seems to be a tough job despite the miserable condition of the sea wall. The good news: the font that vanished during my "upgrade" is on the old computer, which is running Windows again. The bad news: Z-tree isn't on it, and Explorer doesn't do file copying. It did offer to copy the entire directory; perhaps I should have let it, to see whether it would get to the file I wanted before the floppy ran out of space. 30 September 2006 A strange nightmare woke me this morning. I was seen running away from the scene of a crime wearing my older, worn-out, Villa-Olive T-shirt. In the dream I reflected that it wouldn't do me any good to dispose of both shirts because people would wonder why I'd suddenly stopped wearing them. Waking, I realize that getting rid of every scrap of villa-olive fabric in the house would be quite impossible. But in the dream, I was living in an apartment -- appeared to be part of a nursing home when I made it to the outer door (but not quite to where I could change shirts). I think it odd that -- except for the occasional dream in which I dream that I'm waking up -- I never dream that my home is any place that I've ever been before, waking or dreaming. The chase went on too long to remember the crime, except that it involved stealing a complicated-to-detach part of a machine which, now that I'm awake, wasn't all that much like a motorcycle. Whether I wanted the seat I was trying to detach or the rest of it is among the things I've forgotten. 1 October 2006 I tried to wear my newer "Villa Olive" T-shirt yesterday -- I'd forgotten about the dream by then -- but couldn't find my red raw-silk shirt to put on over it when it got cool, so I switched to my red turtleneck and blue vest. When I undressed that night, I found that I'd put the vest on inside out. Found the raw-silk shirt hanging on a coat rack at the church today. I was wearing my long-sleeved Villa Olive dress at the time. (I bought a *lot* of Villa-Olive jersey!) September had a happy ending: a weenie roast at Alice's house. 4 October 2006 While I was parking the car after coming back from grocery shopping about noon, a truck went by hauling a couple of pieces of earth-moving equipment. By which I deduced that whatever they were doing with the contents of all the dump trucks that went by yesterday and this morning, they were done doing it. Yesterday I also saw a couple of loads of big logs leaving Boys City, which puzzled me considerably --they'd finished clearing out the right-of way some time ago. I wasn't quite alone during Sewing Circle yesterday. The fellow who is repairing the heating system passed through the ramp room now and again. I left a few minutes early, having finished darning my socks. 5 October 2006 The dump trucks are passing by again. Looks to be dry enough to go out that way after they quit work this evening -- but "no trespassing" signs have gone up on the bike trails. 8 October 2006 Aster moved out yesterday. "No Trespassing" signs still up. In the evening, I got to level 21 at Crystallize before I got bored and quit. Well, not before I got bored, but before I quit. I'm not going to set it for "easy" any more! (All levels above four are the same level over again, so I suppose there is no upper limit on the levels.) There's the seed of a very good game here; I wish someone would finish writing it. Forgot to come home from church the usual way, and missed meeting Dave. Washed my hair before my nap, and sifted a little sand afterward; one of the two rubbermaid tubs is about full. Steamed tamales for supper. 11 October 2006 Another Tuesday, another pair of socks. But this is only holding even, because when I hung up the socks I had worn on Monday, I found a weak spot just above the reinforcing on the heel. It's small enough that I could have repaired that Tuesday night too, but it was still damp when it was time to leave. In addition to darning a sock, I tucked in ends and plucked out markers on one of a pair of brand-new socks. I don't know where all those ends came from -- the sock is all the same yarn, and if I run out of yarn, I splice, I don't leave ends. Tonight, we're having poached pork chops. The last time I did this, I liked the gravy so much that tonight I'm cooking them in the iron saucepan instead of the one-egg skillet. Rained all day. We're both getting a little grumpy from being locked in all day, but I finally printed out the June Writers' Exchange Bulletin. And I heard Dave chuckle while trying out Opera Voice Command. 12 October 2006 Looked out the patio window, saw some flakes of snow, dashed out to bring in the compact marjoram -- probably away too late. Went in to tell Dave it was snowing just before a dense flurry came down; someone on his scanner said "All units look out the window: it's snowing!" Doesn't seem to be any accumulation -- save for wet spots on west-facing windows -- and now the sun is out and the lake is steaming. 17 October 2006 The radar shows a dense clot of weather that has just pulled off us and is now all along the east coast. I'm still drying the clothes on racks in the parlor -- according to the wind sock, it's a mite windy. 18 October 2006 Candy Wolkins brought a problem to Sewing Circle, and we knitted together for a while. I've got to go through the contents of my knitting bag item by item -- there's black Medici in there *somewhere*! And I need to start a new pair of socks so I can have some mindless knitting for general occasions. Darning and working toes takes too much concentration. And there aren't a lot of places where I can haul out a pair of slacks and start sewing hooks and eyes on the waistbands. Indeed, I chickened out of taking them to Sewing Circle. We have to turn the fluorescent lights on in the ramp room now. But we decided to leave our chairs there; they really aren't in the way. Not much progress on sorting the books in the parlor. Part of the problem is that I haven't anywhere to put them. I did come across a couple that belong on the hall shelf with my antique children's books. Instead of the piles getting more orderly, the books destined to go to Alice next Sunday are getting mixed in with the rest. (A certain furry critter jumping onto the cedar chest where I'd piled some of them didn't help.) 19 October 2006 Dave spotted a truck carrying a roller turning onto Boy's City Drive. Don't know whether they're pounding down the roadbed or paving; if paving, we should see other signs Real Soon Now. 20 October 2006 Just spotted another dump truck headed up Boys City Drive. Looked like crushed stone. When I went to Aldi's I caught a glimpse of people smoothing concrete near the entrance. What the? That sidewalk was in *pristine* condition! Dave took a walk during my nap that day, and reported that the new walk is wider than the old one, presumably part of the Greenway. I cut a new T-shirt out yesterday. At least I thought I did. While putting the scraps away, I realized that I'd forgotten the pockets -- finding my pockets where I expect to is my main reason for making my own T-shirts! And then in the middle of the night, I realized that I'd cut the neckband on the lengthwise grain. It would look nicer with the stripes running up and down, but it just won't stretch in that orientation. ------------- One in the morning tomorrow: Finished cutting out the shirt, and marked the notches and darts. Nary a stitch therein. The deviled eggs came out a tad off. We said too much horseradish, too little horseradish, and too much cream cheese, but when I had one for a bedtime snack, I realized that I had left out the black pepper. I boiled a few extra and dropped them into a jar of pickle juice. 26 October 2006 More cement trucks going into Boy's City! Whatever are they doing in there? We didn't see anything new on yesterday's walk, but I think they have been running the roller back and forth on the proposed roadway. Certainly some of the tracks it leaves had been made after the rain. (It's raining again, by the way.) Dave says that they've taken a grinder to the sidewalk at the entrance, to make the old and new concrete match. They are still building forms -- probably have reached the gazebo site by now. 28 October 2006 Got on my bike in time to reach the Farmer's Market twenty minutes before closing time, but there was no sign they had ever been there. Nothing left to buy anyway, since I don't want pumpkins or flowers. I got some chocolate at the Mexican grocery -- made some pudding tonight -- and a bunch of stuff while picking up pistachio nuts at the health-food store. Considered and rejected a side trip to the library. Got home after one -- to be reminded that flu shots had been available at Dr. Snider's from 9 to 12 today. Dave remembered in time to get his. It will happen again next Saturday; hope I don't forget. On the way home, I rode on the sidewalk they are making into a "bike path" so as to observe the construction. Hope they don't try to make me use it after it's finished. We took a walk around the island after supper. Dave had done the point seven earlier, and also a two-mile walk around the hotel. There were no unlocked doors at the church last Tuesday, so I left as soon as I'd tried them all. 30 October 2006 The patio is covered with enormous leaves. The sycamores have been dropping leaves all summer, but today one of them has gotten serious about it. It doesn't seem to have many left, but the other still has a full set. 31 October 2006 Dave ran over the sycamore leaves with the mower a couple of times, and they went away. There aren't a lot more down this morning. Still no students at sewing circle, but because there were so many people around for Trunk or Treat, I had a few visitors, one of them a clown who burst out laughing at the sight of me. It's surprising how good a halloween costume you can come up with just using stuff found around the house. I wore my "wizard" gown over my long black T-shirt slip, and the matching hat. Since the neck of the slip didn't look as good as I'd hoped sticking up through the too-low neck of the wizard suit, I pinned a black bandanna that happened to be on my dresser around my neck. This looked rather classy. I couldn't find an appropriate pin in my jewel box and resorted to a safety pin -- quite by accident, it was completely concealed by a fold of the cloth. One of these years I'm going to have to make a better hat --though this one does have the advantage that I can fold it into a watch cap for the walk home. The stripes of green eyeshadow washed right off, much to my surprise. I'd had to scrub and scrub when I tested it a few days ago. 1 November 2006 It's pretty near too cold to hang clothes outside today. This morning when I went to spin out the socks I'd left in a bucket last night, I found that I'd forgotten to wash the sheet and a few other whites that I'd put in to soak just before my nap on Monday. So I've been washing most of the day: The whites, the socks, a load of blacks and reds, and a load of light colors. Haven't unplugged from checking my morning e-mail yet, and it's time for lunch. 5 November 2006 And this morning, I'm tempted to go back to the sofa and read the epilogue to _The Final Key_. Things in Scolia were getting very tense at bedtime, and I didn't put the book down until after three. Woke up when Dave did anyway. They continue to work and work and work in the bike trails, with no progress visible. Dave walked to Roy Street during my nap one day -- probably Friday -- and noticed that concrete had been poured around one of the drainpipes under the road they are passing off as a Greenway, and forms had been built around others, but that was nowhere near enough to account for the countless cement trucks we've seen, and they don't make enough noise to assure that we'll notice them passing, so there must have been many more that we didn't see. My theory is that the truck goes in there, fills a wheelbarrow, and takes the rest of the concrete to the sea wall or the sidewalk. They widened the sidewalk about halfway, then broke the old walk and swerved a wholly-new walkway to the lake shore. Then they swerved a short curve of new walk to make the stub of the old one meet the Greenway at right angles. This forces people using the sidewalk to go around two sides of a triangle, which nobody will do except when the beaten-bare dirt is muddy. Not something you want right in front of the super-luxurious condominiums you are trying to sell. I was quite offended when I first saw it, and thought many hard thoughts about the designers who didn't consider it possible that people might walk on a walkway. Then when Dave and I walked down there, and saw it from the other side, we realized that they *don't* expect people to use the old walk; the connection was just put in to finish off the broken end so they wouldn't have to dig it out until after the Boathouse Restaurant gets permission to expand its parking lot. This is also why they swerved the walkway instead of widening the old one the whole way. Kidneys, man. Expanding the parking lot into the park would have been seen as a bad thing; expanding it over a sidewalk nobody uses any more is only logical. The town council -- or whoever -- also managed to include the construction of badly-needed sea walls along the canal in the budget, so not all of the money spent has been wasted. Did I tell you that the hills I mentioned after my first trip through the Greenway have been dug off and filled in? No doubt this is a first step toward turning the "greenway" into a roadway that will funnel all the Southtown traffic through Park Avenue -- at a very small savings in distance and a large increase in time, because the bypass is straighter and has only one stop sign. But it's good that a fire truck could use it if something blocked King's Highway. Grump. I was all caught up on the laundry -- and it's time to change the bed. I've got a lovely day to hang the sheet out. National radar shows a big blob of weather in Illinois that might sweep over Alice's place and interfere with the well-digging, but it will go south of us. Seems queer to be hoping it won't rain on her because she has no water. 1142: Wha? A load of *sod* just went down Boys' City Drive. Goes with the load of topsoil I saw headed that way a few days ago. (That was even queerer, because a road-building project has topsoil to get rid of, but you can't re-use dug-up sod.) (Grasping at straws) Maybe they were taking a roundabout way to Stone Camp. 10 November 2006 Yesterday, with the T-shirt I'm making down to the hems, I decided to devote the whole day to cutting out so I wouldn't lose momentum. I cut out two patches, and sewed one of them on. The one I sewed on was an impromptu: I'd found a hole in the knee of my worse pair of ragged pants when I was getting dressed. Despite having completed the job, I'm wearing my better pair today: that's where I left my pocket knife, lipstick, etc. The other is a four-piece patch for my black linen slacks, which have been hanging on the to-do hook for over a year. I've still got six pairs of slacks on that hook. (It's a "giant storage hook" I'm using for extra closet rod.) Two of them are "oakwood" twill; being out of oakwood-colored scraps, I'm thinking of sacrificing one to patch the other. Al had a very nice nap on the interlock I'd got down to make my short slip with. My previous project was an ankle-length slip from the same pattern and fabric. May not cut it today either: today's plan is "get something done outside". Al says I may begin by emptying the cat box. Dirt needs changing every day, and it's been two or three. One book added to the Goodwill box. A thousand or so to go. 11 November 2006 I've finally cut out my short slip. I have six or seven yards of black interlock left -- how much of that stuff did I *buy*? Ten days, I think, until our Earthlink account expires. We had a little problem that forced MasterCard to assign us a new number -- which hasn't come in the mail yet -- so instead of telling Earthlink the new number, we told them that they are fired. I may have to change my fabric.com account; I don't need to check until I buy something, though. I *think* I type in my card number every time. The day the card crashed, the Deal of the Day was wool gabardine. I doubt that I'd have bought any anyway, since they didn't have black -- and I have two pieces of wool *and* a nearly-new wool suit. 13 November 2006 Fellowship committee meeting tonight. I brought up the matter of a key, but nothing was done about it. The lake has a long way to drop yet, but has noticed that the dam is open. I think this started Friday. Dave found a web site that said that there are very few bi-level lakes in the state, and each has a different reason. On ours, it's to protect sea walls from ice damage. Dave and I both went tank-lid hunting, but couldn't find it. I find it hard to believe that a trash-can lid on the lake side of the house could blow clear off the property; Dave accused me of having put it away. I've dumped the water out of the bin and put it in the garage -- I plan to dump used litter in it when it's too nasty out to go to the garden. One of the tubs of clean litter is full and the other nearly so; I should dig some more tomorrow, but _Harald_ has arrived at the library, so I'm going bike-riding instead. Hung two of the three loads of wash out today, but it didn't get dry. Left what I had on the rack on it, and set up the other one. Draped the king-sized sheet over the shower rod. 14 November 2006 I got rained on, but not wet. Thought at first that I should have worn the Capilene tights instead of the cotton ones, but didn't get cold. Both the books that caught my eye at the library were on the seven-day shelf, so I left them to look for when I bring _Harald_ back. While I was looking at the space-opera anthology, the loudspeakers announced that an alarm was going to be tested in five minutes, so I left hastily. I'd forgotten to put my power bars in my pocket, so I stopped at the health-food store for a macaroon. And also almonds, dried figs, and sesame sticks. Got a double whammy when I paid for Dave's prescriptions: it was a hundred ten dollars instead of the eighty I'd expected -- and when I dug out the fifty-dollar bill I'd brought in case of just such an emergency, it was a twenty! Still had enough money left to buy the shampoo, calcium chews, and milk -- but I had to count carefully. They poured the last square of the new sidewalk while I was gadding about, and when I came back a man was troweling a little triangle of fresh concrete at the junction of the new and old walkways. When I passed the canal, they were pouring the sea wall, but Dave wasn't home when I got here -- perhaps if I'd stopped to watch the pouring, I'd have seen him. [He had been there, he said when he came home, but probably not when I was passing.] I had sesame sticks and a pickled egg for lunch. The egg wasn't very pickled, so I suppose I'll hold off for a while before eating another. Grump. Come salad-making time, I realized that "lettuce" should have been on my shopping list. Then after supper we walked to the church, I tried all the doors, and we came home. I don't mind knitting all by myself when nobody shows, but being locked out is getting *old*. Come next Fellowship meeting, I may serve up an ultimatum. 16 November 2006 I've got to get another pair of socks started so I'll have some portable mindless knitting -- the socks I'm repairing are down to the toe shaping, which makes them incompatible with meetings and movies. So for "After the Thin Man" last night -- Dave got it from NetFlix -- I unwrapped The Afghan of the Century for the first time in months, and left it on the sofa after the movie was over. Al-the-cat has been sacked out on it pretty much ever since. It's been so dark and gloomy all day that I felt like joining him, but I did get the darts sewn in my new knee-length slip-with-sleeves. It's way past time to replace the ratty old rag I've been wearing under my old winter dress. My next project ought to be a new Sunday dress -- I've a border-print linen blend that will make a lovely salwar kameez-ish outfit -- but I feel more like making pajama pants to go with my twinkle-twinkle shirts. And I *don't* have any decent pajamas. 18 November 2006 On the other hand, things are going to start falling out through the gaps in my bull-denim wallet pretty soon, and the black linen-cotton canvas I bought before deciding to repair my old cycling knickers after all is perfect for making a wallet and the purse I put off making because I couldn't find suitable fabric. This summer we bought a big plastic trash can to hold lake water for the flower beds, and the summer turned out so wet that it was of very little use. Some time back the lid blew off and I dilly-dallied about hunting for it; when we did get serious about finding it, it was nowhere to be found. Yesterday Dave found the lid on Boy's City Drive just past Chestnut Street. It's very thin and might have blown that far, but we suspect that the neighborhood children found a very large frisbie on Park Avenue. ----------------------------------------------------------- On the day his father died, David Friedman's blog post was the same quote -- from the Edda, I think; the book doesn't say -- that ends _Harald_: Cattle die, kindred die, Every man is mortal. But the good name never dies Of one who has done well. 21 November 2006 Got four "unknown user" messages from Earthlink this morning, deleted four accounts from Thunderbird. Ah, this means I can use the broken-link detector to find any overlooked links to my old web sites. Now I have to remember where the broken-link detector is. While hanging out the sheet this morning -- didn't change the bed yesterday because of the bike trip -- I heard heavy-machinery noises from Boys' City Drive and commenced thinking about the road-building project. Near as I can make out, what they have been doing the past few weeks is hauling in loads of yellow dirt, spreading them thin with the grader, and packing them down with the roller. This, of course, doesn't show much change when you walk past --though I noticed, when we walked down Union Street a couple of weeks back, that it was farther above the terrain than it had been. After a while the heavy-machinery noise got louder and the leaf-sucker hove into view on Boys' City Drive. Finally found the little piece of sanded plywood I use for an iron rest and, sometimes, as a lap support for the mouse pad: some idiot put it where pieces of plywood belong: leaning against the wall behind the footlocker of notions. Interesting lecture about weather spotting at the Mentone firehouse yesterday evening -- Dave came home with a rain-and-snow gauge and a folder of papers. Still no mindless knitting in hand, so I dug out my emergency back-up tatting shuttle and discovered that the ball had started to disintegrate and I had begun to re-wind it. So I spent most of the meeting winding thread, which was a good concentration aid. I brought home two Pratchets from the library. I meant to get _Going Postal_, but I wasn't sure I'd read _Night Watch_, so I looked at the front; sure enough I'd read about the assassin in the cesspool before, but it was a funny scene so I read on to the end, at which point I started getting into stuff I hadn't read, and after a bit I'd gotten hooked, so I brought both books home. And didn't stop anywhere but Owen's, having fiddled around long enough to get hungry. At least this time I'd brought my Snickers energy bar. Which tasted like sawdust; how do they do that when the main ingredient is peanuts? I think that the first time I read the cesspool scene, it was from the assassin's point of view. I rode out Pierceton & Packerton, and got rather lost finding Roy. Forgot that I'd meant to see the tree farm while I was out that way. Took about an hour to get to the library. We have an appointment with our new financial adviser this afternoon. I forget what's on tomorrow. Busy week. ["Tomorrow" was a telephone appointment with an insurance company.] 27 November 2006 Read the end of _Night Watch_ last night -- skipped all the tense events leading up to it and may leave them skipped. Then I couldn't stir up any interest in _Going Postal_ -- I knew at the time it was a mistake to check out two Pratchets at the same time. Got into the church last Tuesday and finished one sock; finished the other during the Thanksgiving party, and wore them Friday and Saturday. (It's a good idea to wear new wool socks two days in a row before washing them, to set the shape.) Still haven't started a new pair. Hope I remember to steel-wool the needles first. We saw a sparkling rain of spiders Thursday afternoon. When Sara Lee got home, she called Alice to report that she'd driven through another cloud of them. There were webs on the front of her car when she came for the shopping trip Friday. 28 November 2006 When we walked to Roy Street on Saturday, there were paint marks on the dirt, which suggested to me that it was the final layer. Lots of trucks and machinery going in and out of Boys' City today, but the only one that looked like asphalt was going away. (The rest, I didn't see from the rear at all, and you can't see the load from the front or sides.) Changed the bed & washed clothes today -- didn't get much else done. I've cut up vegetables to bake the garlic pork roast that I bought at Aldi's yesterday. 29 November 2006 Left for Sewing Circle a quarter-hour early, so we walked to the end of Boys City and came back by Union. No work done on Oakwood, save for a narrow ramp to allow machines to get over the cliff they'd made the day before by chipping back the edge of the pavement. So we were a bit surprised to see that the parking lot had its first coat of asphalt, as did the trail from there all the way to Chestnut street, including the part of Union that had been a street before. I hadn't seen any signs of preparation in that part; Dave says that there had been pavement, rather than gravel, under the dirt. Dump trucks are coming and going frequently, but I can't see what's in them. And, great shock, when we got to the church, the ramp-room door was unlocked. So I went in and darned a pair of socks that really aren't worth darning, but once one gets started . . . Stayed an hour and still have two thin spots to darn. Just before eleven, I saw the pavement roller departing on a flatbed. Dast I assume that that means the top coat is in place? 30 November 2006 It isn't. Dave thinks they be letting the bottom coat firm up. Or, rather, it wasn't at walk-time yesterday. It rained all of today and I never set foot outside -- not even to empty the catbox, come to think of it. Hope I don't forget in the morning. Finished the slip, all but the bottom hem, which I sprayed with starch and hung up to dry. Then I put on the old slip for a nightshirt and took my nap. I've started cutting out a new wallet. Found the wallet-making manuscript I started writing once -- filed under "articles" instead of "needlework" -- but there is no salvage in it. 2 December 2006 Finally a dry day to return my books in -- and I don't feel like going out. I guess I'll just ride straight there and straight back. But I could stop at the health-food store for some soy sauce. And I have to stop at Owens for some milk. 3 December 2006 And I hit CVS too, for some calcium chews. Lovely day for it. They were working on the sea wall when I passed, but I couldn't see what they were doing. I rode out on the newly-completed sidewalk -- it will look better when the new concrete splashed onto the old surface has weathered a bit. I came back on the street, which is smoother. I'm wearing my old dress to church just so I can wear my new slip -- it turned out so well that my new project is going to be a long-sleeved mock-turtleneck T-shirt cut from the same fabric even though I have two or three factory-made black shirts. Perhaps I'll take those to Goodwill. 4 December 2006 So I poured milk on my slip while I was eating breakfast and reading mail at the same time. I mopped it off with a pressing cloth -- I keep a stack of them on the computer --and wore it anyway. Plan for today: change the bed, wash the clothes, and cut out the mock-turtleneck. It's freezing cold out, so I don't think I'll hang anything outside. Evening: I got no further than opening out the dining table and carrying the fabric and patterns to it, but I *did* --perhaps for the first time -- remember to finish washing the last load of clothes after I got up from my nap. *Long* after. When I'd planned to do it, I was hiking to Roy Road along the Greenway. The round trip took less than an hour. Nothing new save that there were some piles of dirt in the gap between the turn-around at the end of Oakwood Street and the Greenway, which gap had flooded during the rain. I also saw the excuse for paving Oakwood. (The reason, of course, is that it will put at least one more building lot on the tax rolls.) One of the two houses on the neglected end of Union was cut off when they made that street into a Greenway forbidden (temporarily, I'm sure) to motorized traffic. In compensation, they have been given a nice asphalt driveway onto Oakwood. The other house is right at the corner, and has been accommodated by the simple expedient of putting the barrier beyond their driveway. Oh, yes,they are also installing posts which suggest that they plan to build fences to protect cyclists from the horrible sight of running water. Perhaps the rails won't be exactly at eye level, as they always are on motorways. 5 December 2006 Got the T'neck cut out, pockets and all. 6 December 2006 And now I've marked all the darts and notches, and sprayed starch around the edges. Went down Union on our point seven after supper. (We're going to have to start calling it a point nine.) They appear to be building a fence between the Greenway and the house it cut off from Union Street. The holes for the four-by-four wooden posts are absurdly close together. (Perhaps the row of posts *is* the fence?) There is also a trailer full of heavy-duty steel posts among the road-building machinery, the kind you would use to stop a runaway car with extreme prejudice. We have no idea what they plan to do with those. A workman told us that the round wooden posts going up on the sea wall are a decorative way to tie up boats. [It turned out that those posts *were* the stout steel posts, wrapped in black cloth.] He also said he'd a heap ruther do that sort of work in warmer weather! 7 December 2006 Just checked that the stretch in my off-white waffle-knit is about the same as the stretch in the black interlock, so it can be cut by the same pattern. On the other hand, my black shirts fit a little sooner than I would prefer if they were white. I could cheat a bit at the side seams, perhaps. Been thinking about making black windpants. The best I've found so far is polyester lining fabric, and that is a re-orderable fabric, so I can afford to wait until I'm ready to cut it to send the order. Just saw the mysterious trailerload of heavy-duty posts leave Boy's City Drive and head north on Park Avenue -- both the sea wall and the exit from town lie in that direction. 8 December 2006 I have the darts in and the pockets sewed on; may do the shoulder seams after my nap. Al helped me tie up the bundles of recyclable paper I sorted out this morning. Judging by the "Oh, Al!"s I hear, he is now helping Dave do something. 11 December 2006 The greenway fences going up have four one-by-six rails --paint 'em white and you'd think they were keeping horses. Dave's impression was "stop bulls". I had an old picture of the Beyer Trail bookmarked: the new fences look like taller versions of the three-rail fences on the boardwalk. I devoted Saturday entirely to food. Overslept and arrived at the church too late to help much with the set-up for the Christmas dinner, went to Aldi soon after getting home. There were so many things I can't get at Aldi that I nearly filled a new pane on my shopping list while crossing them off, but I still managed to pile up the cart and spend more than eighty dollars. Been a while since a major shopping, I guess. They were out of multi-color peppers, which were my main reason for going to Aldi instead of Owen's this time. Got home from Aldi's late for lunch, got up from my nap just in time to make a salad for Dave and dump some fruit in a box for the dinner. All there was on the diabetic table was my fruit and a small pumpkin pie -- but neither was entirely gone at pack-up time. A predictable result when everybody brings a dessert! We had Penguin Point cater the dinner, and the food was very good. I brought home as much fried chicken as I thought we could eat before it spoiled, and filled a click-together disposable salad bowl left over from Pastor Doug's going-away party with broccoli salad. After church yesterday, I met a member of the committee carrying out a bucket of gravy, and she said that someone had found a charity to dispose of the rest. The left-overs all fitted into the refrigerator, save that we didn't have a container big enough to save all the gravy. There was more than enough saved for the mashed potatoes that were left. I hope somebody took home the foam coolers the chicken had been packed in. As usual, the committee had a lot of help with the clean-up. 13 December 2006 In effect, Dr. Snider prescribed a trip to North Webster to buy shoes. He said I should walk at least a mile a day, and my shoes are rubbing sore spots on my feet. I wore my sandals for our after-supper walk, since the whole route is paved. Just got a notice that fabric.com has shipped the order I placed yesterday. And while walking to Roy Street -- right after putting away the groceries I bought on the way back from Snider -- I realized that I really, really need two yards of polyester lining to make wind pants. I'd searched for black nylon, didn't find it, but the poly is really cheap and there are only four pieces in wind pants. Good to make a beta version before buying the good stuff anyhow. But when you add in shipping -- which wouldn't have happened if it were in a box with the linen and my new yellow "soft silk" scarf -- it's too much. "Soft silk" was called "raw silk" until everyone caught on that they mean noil. Dave took his GPS to Roy street, and discovered that when we take Union instead of Boys' City on our point seven, it's eight-tenths of a mile. I had *said* we'd have to stop calling it "point nine" after measuring it. 19 December 2006 The tuner is tuning our piano, and judging by the rumble of trash cans, Dave has just returned from, among other things, mailing our Christmas cards. They are so late mainly because I'm lazy and dilatory, but it didn't help that when I finally got started, we discovered that our Christmas list didn't make it to the new computer. I found an old version and updated the changed addresses. I hope I got all of them! I also noticed a cousin had been left out -- after counting the names and printing exactly enough letters. Windows got very snippy about letting me use the printer again, and I don't know how many times I rebooted before getting a copy. I wonder who else has been forgotten? This time I stored the Christmas list inside the file of addresses for letters, which tends not to get lost. Though I'm not at all sure I know how to address an envelope with it any more; everybody I know has e-mail. One thing I didn't mention in the Christmas letter: suddenly, I have fingernails. As long as I can remember, my nails have broken very easily, it was noteworthy to have more than one or two that were neither lopsided nor down to the quick, and the only time I ever had ten at a time was when I went on a long bicycle trip and never touched anything but handlebars and food. For the last year, I've been filing for length more often than I file to remove a rough spot, I've found out what the coarse side of an emery board is for, and I've been using the middle of the board, not just a thread-wide strip along the edge. And as a curious side effect, I'm using emery boards almost to the exclusion of clippers. Finished my "soft silk" scarf yesterday. It looks and feels like a very cheap poly-cotton flannel, all pilled and rough. My other raw silk stuff doesn't pill much. It may have been a mistake to use the full width of the fabric just because I had it -- it's nearly a shawl. The embroidered linen has large sprigs at the centers of squares and small sprigs at the corners of those same squares -- or the other way around, depending on your point of view. The sprigs shrank when I washed it and created such an interesting pattern of wrinkles between sprigs that I don't want to iron it. It will be quite a while before I need to, though. I expect it to flatten with less fuss than the continuous embroidery on the linen-rayon blend. That embroidery got much easier to flatten after it had been ironed a few times; perhaps I should wash the linen again before cutting it. But whether that is a good idea depends on what I decide to make. 22 December 2006 The scarf proved to be very warm, but I have to pin it on; it doesn't tie worth a nickel. But when pinned, it covers head, neck, and shoulders. 23 December 2006 I used white flour and white sugar in my apricot cakes. This was a mistake. I made apricot cake and dried-cherry cake yesterday -- put candied pineapple in the apricot cake, forgot it for the cherry. This morning I've got a batch of date cake started. I'm leaving candied pineapple out on purpose. All three based on Mrs. Stanley's Spice Cupcakes, but I left the spices out of the apricot cake. Next year, I must try harder to find dried apples. Since I'm going to mail this after New Year's Day, it's safe to say that last Wednesday, we went to Krider's Meat near Columbia City to buy gifts for the Loveless side of the family. I spotted a package of peppered-bacon scraps and said "Yum, bean soup!" then Dave found the display of smoked bone-in pork shoulder; I started to put the bacon back, but he reminded me that soup meat freezes beautifully. The pork shoulder is about the best ham I ever et. Dave remarked after lunch one day "We are definitely buying more of those smoked pork shoulders!" 26 December 2006 -- Boxing Day at home We went to Joe and Lois's for Christmas dinner. Three of the five children were there, plus grandchildren & spouses. It rained all the while, but nobody noticed. During a pause in the rain that evening, Dave and I took a point eight instead of eating supper. Dave opined that it's really eight-and-a-half tenths of a mile, but hasn't measured it yet. We came back slightly damp. This evening most of the roads were dry and, having been inside all day, I peeled off at Boy's City to walk to Roy Street and back, leaving him to finish the point whatever alone. I ran a few times on the way back, but it wasn't safe to run except when going uphill, and the trend on the way back is down. Not to mention that I'm fat and out of practice and never knew how to run in the first place. And about ten, I remembered that this is Tuesday. I don't suppose anybody came to the Sewing Circle anyway. For some reason (winking smiley), I haven't been too interested in my mock-turtle T-shirt the last few days even though it's been down to the finishing for some time. Good thing I read this over before going to bed: one of the entries reminded me that I had a sheet in the washer. 28 December 2006 I just learned that one can buy paper napkins pre-origami'ed for fancy dinners! Meant to walk to Owen's today to buy eggs, but when I realized that the suitcase in the garage was *not* my backpack & I would have to move the truck to get into the attic, I started dressing to drive the Buick. But my pants protector was lying on my shoes, which reminded me that I could cycle instead. Took longer to get ready to go than it took to ride there, buy everything on my list plus a quart of yogurt, ride back, and put everything way. While putting stuff in the fridge, I discovered that there was already an un-opened quart of yogurt in the fridge. Dave put up a shelf in the hallway, and I put paperback SF from Alexander to Hambly on it. That's surprisingly far into the alphabet in proportion to what's still lined up on the parlor floor, so I suspect that the books weren't *quite* in order. We haven't pigged out on Christmas goodies *too* much, and after supper, we hiked to Roy Street and back -- the straightest way. Dave had taken a "superloop" during my nap. He reports that there are tank cars of asphalt on the siding. Weather continues unseasonably warm. 29 December 2006 Walked around the island after supper. I put the spanish rice on way too early, and we had to warm it up in the microwave because I had been afraid of burning it and turned the fire out. Having run out of cinnamon capsules, Dave tried taking some from a spoon and found out why they put it in capsules. Whereupon I sprinkled some on my spanish rice, and found it not at all bad. Finally felled the side seams of my new shirt today. Then I tried it on, made the wristbands, and sprayed all raw edges with starch to make it easier to apply bands and stitch the hem. Think I'll do it tomorrow? We watched Song of the Thin Man tonight. Myrna Loy's evening gown made me want to get on with my salwar-kameezish outfit. 30 December 2006 Something new every day: I've just learned that one can read Science News on line: http://www.sciencenews.org/