Ready for tomorrow

It's Friday, and what a week. I believe every day included a nap, thank goodness! I finished the emerald towels and they are cut and stacked to sew tomorrow.

I went for a much overdue haircut, and decided to go back to my no muss, no fuss, minimal hair. What a relief; the wind can whistle past my ears.

A woman was seated next to me. She left her little dog tethered to a chair leg, out of sight beyond the counter. The old fellow let out the smallest, saddest little yip, and with permission the owner went back and gathered him up.

It's a ten year old rescue who does not trust his person to return. How sad.

In other news, I've scheduled a booster Covid shot. At the beginning of the year, when vaccinations were somewhat of a mystery, I was all over scheduling shots and helped my sister arrange her shot and her husband's. This booster is a mystery to me, but when she announced she and Tom were done, I went to her site and scheduled mine for next Wednesday.

The other big news is discovering ready made meals, for pick up or delivery. There are so many options I believe I'll go a week at a time, checking them out. I've ordered six meals from a national company, CleanEatz, located in Cuyahoga Falls. The week's menus are posted every Thursday, for pickup Sunday. They will bring the package to my car.

The car turned out not to need a new battery.  I knew I'd replaced the battery recently; the clerk came out from the garage and showed me it was this past January. My battery merely needed an hour charge, to return it to normal. I do like the towing company that came to jump the car two days in a row, but I'd never buy a battery from them. It's just not their business.

While I waited for the mechanic last time, I took a look around at the old place. Kamaria has been so sidelined by her bout with Covid, maintenance has been furthest from her mind.

Blake offered to come help me with any jobs I wanted and I told him save his courage for spring. That garden desperately needs his and Hamilton's ministrations. 

Needs must

Been away a long time, it feels. Back now, and working up to a hundred percent. Had that long needled shot Monday afternoon; slept a lot since. Too much Novocain and dye. But I've been weaving, too, between naps. I'm about four bobbins from done.

I like to pick out the next color and put it to the end of the row of spools. Soon, I hope to use the color I picked!

I'd picked kiwi to be next, you may remember, and then the last of the "real" greens left the shelf, so I picked emerald instead. That soft melon color toward the center presented itself as a good color to go next, until the last of the blue towels left. So, it will be a blue next, probably the next to the last on the left.

Physical therapy is ahead, too. There was very minimal walking these last six weeks, and I will not be back to my cane without serious exercise. That begins a week from Friday.

Today I did put the walker in the car and headed to the post office with an order. It was not as cumbersome as I expected, and the clerks were happy to see me again, though they assured me my deputies had done well.

The car has not been started since the end of August! The door did not unlock by a push of the button. In the driver's seat, the engine had no intention of turning over. So, I sat in the warm sunshine and waited for AAA to come start it. The fellow told me I had about 45% of my three year old battery left.

There is a problem I still must solve. Food! Meals on Wheels will not cut it, at least not the food prepared for Summit County, Ohio. Portage County seems to produce better meals, but Summit is an abysmal disappointment.

Last night I had Salisbury mush steak with a layer of salt gravy, mixed veggies and cubed potatoes coated in salt and paprika. Even limiting myself to the potatoes and veggies, I had a raging headache.

Tonight I had ziti and two tray portions of veggies. Even scraping most of the meat sauce off the ziti, the salt content was overwhelming. My esophagus and stomach burn.

Last night I spent a lot of time investigating the delivery capability of local restaurants, and finally coming to the conclusion I could not afford that. I thought about it on and off today, and a phrase jumped into my mind: Ready made meals near me. Bonanza.

I found a dozen sites on the internet, and the meals look healthy. Something to investigate tomorrow, between weaving, having a car repair made and visiting with my sister.

Idle hands, etc.

These last six weeks have been long! I am a type A personality, I guess. It may be something you come with, but I also know I was raised to not be idle. I learned to pass my radio, and later TV, time with handwork. I didn't teach myself, my mother put something into my hands.

And now, this stultifying pain doesn't give a damn what I am. I defeat it in large blocks of time by sleeping. That generally follows a night of not sleeping, and then, no matter what my plan, I fall on the bed and sleep away two, three, four hours. 

I did that this morning. It put a serious crimp in my plans for the day, which were to pack an order, finish hemming the cerise towels and do the laundry, including changing the bed. In spite of three or four extra hours this morning, I got all of that done except bring the laundry back upstairs.

Dozing over my news feed this afternoon, who came in but Laura. After hugs and news, guess who lugged up the dry clothes and even made my bed. Laura, of course.

I did accomplish much of the rest, including this sort of victory lap picture:

This photo taken October 3rd, after the run of lavender was finished.

And this photo taken this afternoon, when I finished hemming the cerise and threw a few shots before leaving the studio. Two weeks. There is hope of accumulating some towels for the township's little show in early December.

I think this new color is emerald. I've had it for two or three years and can't match it well to the color chart. 

A day of happy surprises and nice memories

Yesterday a new commenter said a picture by Carl Larsson reminded her of me, but, darn, she could not figure out how to post the picture in the comment section. I googled Carl Larsson.  He is a Swedish painter in the Arts & Crafts movement. His painting, especially water color, is prolific, and in a general search for young weaver and her work, I went through hundreds of paintings, well worth the look, but not what I wanted. I asked Ann to send a link, and here it is:

The young weaver, hemming towels. Her costume is very working class. I wore such a skirt, blouse and jacket as costume to a costume show, and was rather miffed that the judges did not recognize the real deal when they saw it. The loom behind her probably is a counter marche; it already has the next run of towels on it. 

The weaver is hemming her current run of towels by hand, of course. Treadle sewing machines were available then, but no doubt completely unaffordable.  The furnishings of this room are a large table, a dry sink, a cupboard, probably a bed, plenty of common house plants and a bottle of garden jonquils.

This picture took me straight to 1988. Jan and I set up our studio and wove some towels. Our mother asked how we intended to hem them and of course we said "On the sewing machine of course." "You just give them to me," was her immediate response. And for the next several years our work that required hemming had hand felled hems. 

Some people recognized what they were holding; most said "Twelve dollars!  Who would pay that for a towel?!" This is a towel Jan wove. It's an overshot pattern called Dogwood, with Mom's rolled, hand sewn hem. You cannot see the hem. You can see all my sewing machine hems!

Today's mail included a little gift from a recent towel customer. It's name is Flat Rat, and it is a bookmark.

I turned Flat Rat over a few times, admiring all the knitting and crocheting involved in its construction. Its tail is I-cord. I didn't come on I-cord until late in life. So versatile, and far easier than spool knitting.

One interesting result of a brain injury and the memory hole it can leave behind, is the search for the memory. Looking at Flat Rat I remembered I knew a Flat Somebody once. Who? I thought I'd call my sister. My Sister! That's it. It was her Flat Somebody. But who? Sue? Kathy? No, Flat Carol! If that's not right, she'll tell us.

Jan and a guild of quilting friends were going to a mid-western quilting show, one of the largest in the nation. And then Jan's best friend in the guild, Carol, with whom she was rooming, broke her leg, and very reluctantly decided not to go. Jan and the rest of the gang decided they needed a Flat Carol, to go in her place, and show Carol all she missed. 

It indeed was Carol, Flat, red hair and all. She had a blue jean outfit for travelling, a practical denim dress to wear to classes and work on projects, and a lovely outfit for the final banquet, with black pumps peeping from the hem. Flat Carol came back with a stuffed satchel of hand outs and freebies, hotel soap and lotion, more pictures than anyone, and definitely less exhausted than anyone.

Good days, bad days, another week of waiting days

Yesterday I was so mizerble I was hard pressed to be civil. Today I stayed ahead of the pain and had a decent day. I wove off several bobbins, took a nap, visited with Laura, watched her make some pies.

And three little tarts. The pie is Jack Skellington, for those who know Jack. What do you think?

Tomorrow could be fun. A follow up appointment with my new primary care on the status of my hip. Between that visit to her and now, I visited my endocrine doctor.  He read my PC's notes and said he would like to be a fly on the wall at my next visit to her.

For years he has encouraged me to take bone density treatments. Once he got as far as scheduling me for an infusion and I backed out at the last minute. He says the PC's visit notes say she will encourage me to take treatments at the next visit. And considering my attitude all these years, he'd just like to see her convince me.

But I've changed my mind, and decided to do it.

The best news of all is, a week from tomorrow I have an appointment to have a cortisone injection in my hip. Hooray. It's been a long six weeks.