Slammed again

In the olden days, when I did a show almost every weekend, I made sure to get a flu shot the end of summer. Now that I have a show coming up on June 4th, I decided to have another covid booster.

It is so easy now. I guess there are more jabs out there than people to have them. I registered and made an appointment online. My arm knew it was stuck; all day it hurt to lift. By bedtime I was dragging. I spent an uncomfortable night. Mizerable! 

At 6:30 I gave it up, got up, stripped my bed and put it all in the laundry. Now I have clean sheets and my summer quilt.

Of all the quilts Jan has made for me, this is my favorite. It was a challenge quilt in her guild. All the participants made a block for one other participant. Jan's theme was summer gardens. There is lots of sunshine today, too, making rainbows on my floor.

That's the end of my news. There's plenty more news, all of it generated by off the ledge idiots who buy into "replacement" theory. There aren't enough adjectives to classify them. Malevolent, misanthrope, narcissist, and on and on. Haters. This is not a foreordained country of white people. Native Americans were here first, and the entire country was settled by immigrants from every country and continent.

My last name, Noragon, is derived from an unpronounceable name of one Hessian soldier sent by King George to fight the Revolutionary War. He had the good sense not to go home. His country of origin was that despised bit of land, Bohemia. Bohunks, they commonly are called. 

I think often of Ruth Bader Ginsburg these days. How she strived to stay alive, to be a voice of reason on the Supreme Court. Each one of us has the ability to help make change. All of us is a nonstoppable force. Here is a quote from this week's Americans of Conscience. I know I could not have put all the words together as effectively.

We have a vote and the ability to influence those around us who can vote.  We have values and stories.  We are connected through relationships. We already know that equality, dignity, and care are important in public life. We don’t need anyone’s permission to speak openly about what we want for the future of the country, our communities, our families, and ourselves. 

The vote is our sole solution to righting the out of control ship. It won't happen overnight; there are many dark days ahead. It may be a teaspoon at a time, but there are millions and millions of us wielding our voting teaspoon.

Time for a nap.

As ready as I'll ever be

Today I put the yellow towels on the shelf. Just over two weeks to the first show and I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Fourteen colors on the shelf, and I'll probably have one more set done before the show. Next up is khaki.

I've been busy with rehab beginning these last couple of weeks, too. I absolutely must do it. Two months on my back at age 79 was very debilitating. Too bad balance and strength are so slow to return.

In happier news, I've bought a new to me car. My faithful Dodge has succumbed to so many winters outside in the snow and ice. It's rocker panels are rusting away. Shame, because it's still a decent car.

But, it sprang another surprise on me; it has a serious power steering fluid leak. Probably also fairly fixable, but it's time for me to start over. 

The new to me car is a 2014 Subaru. I told it I would take care of it and it must take care of me, for the rest of my driving days. I think we'll be just fine.

Heavy eating and planting

I slept off several hours of yesterday and today. Earlier this week I bit the bullet and stepped on my scale. Down to 105. I know what my dad meant when he said he ate to live. After that awful head injury, food means nothing to me, either, though I did manage to keep my weight at 110 or a little more. Since I came back from breaking the other leg though, I haven't got the weight back up.

Yesterday I decided to just eat my way through, and started with a local restaurant's lasagna, delivered to my door. The side salad was as big as my head, and wonderful. I made it through half the lasagna, and put away the rest for tonight. And I dozed on an off until bedtime.

Today I enlisted my granddaughter, now the garden fairy, and set about the mandevilla project. I've already been weeding the front gardens a bit, so she and I set off after lunch to collect up the necessaries. 

We have red, pink and white, and a salmon colored that isn't a true mandevilla, though it looks very much the same. It took us only about three hours of her hard work and my feeble assistance. I came back in the house and took another nap. She's out with friends. 

Here's a mandevilla at another house. Ours could be that lovely by summer's end.

The silent generation

Those of us born before World War II ended were called War Babies, and fell into Nixon's "Silent Generation". I believe he used the definition. We were rather vocal in the sixties and seventies, to end a war, to celebrate women's' rights achievements, to celebrate civil right achievements. We felt we had achieved and were moving forward.

Not including Justice Breyer, who retires in July, I am older than any member of the Supreme Court. Last night I wrote an outraged blog about the need to fight again, and wondering how to go up against such blatant ignorance as Justice Alito, writing a majority opinion, equating women as not people and claiming babies for an adoption pool.

And then I realized I'd had an enjoyable Mother's Day, leave the blog for today.  Tonight I deleted that post and tried again. And again, the heck with it. There's no fixing the problem except at the ballot box and in a sufficient majority to make all rights the law of the land. Right now the focus must be on registering voters and getting them to the polls.

Do what you can. If you find yourself out of ideas, join Americans of Conscience for a weekly checklist of actions needed in the run up to the midterm elections. 

It's hard for me to believe another week has begun. Better yet, daytime temps will be high seventies, low eighties this week, and lots of sunshine. I have some garden tools rounded up, to work on the flower gardens around the house. There will be mandevillas, too, but not yet. I don't trust the overnight temps to be proper.

And then they came for us

If indeed the leaked Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade comes to pass, it will only be the beginning of the loss of autonomy. The next legitimacy to be erased will be same sex marriage. After that, or maybe before, the few freedoms secured by transgender persons.

I cannot believe I would live to fight again for my right to make choices for myself.

I want to believe the draft was leaked by a clerk who hoped the roar of outrage would change or withdraw the proposed ruling to overturn.

What to do right now? Write your Senator that the filibuster must be ended at once. Then the Senate, which represents the 80% of the people who support Roe v. Wade can take up stalled legislation to protect the right to abortion and pass it with a 50% vote.

Next, we must maintain President Biden's majority Congress at our mid term elections in November. No "get out the vote" effort has been this important in a long time. tRump's appointees to the court  lied when they said Roe v. Wade was settled law. Gay rights are fresh fruit to go after.

March. Make a great deal of noise. Write letters. Explain to new voters the importance of the protection of their own rights and how fragile that protection is becoming. It is their personal responsibility to secure rights they have taken for granted.

The calendar says spring here, but it's occurring so slowly. The flowers are slogging on through their appointed blooms. I had my first therapy session today. Lord, am I tired!

Lately...

The last book is up on my current MP3 download, The Kite Runner. The book has been recommended over and over to me, and finally I have it downloaded and queued. I loaded a lot of books last time around, going mostly for length. I listened to two Obama volumes, Barack Obama's volume one and Michelle's Becoming, each read by its author. Michelle has a sibilant S, and I love her all the more for it.

Another engrossing book was Know My Name, also read by its incredible author, Chanel Miller. Ms. Miller was the victim of sexual assault on Stanford University campus in 2015. She pressed charges against her 18 year old assailant, and two years later, after suffering a demoralizing and degrading trial, her assailant, Brock Turner was found guilty on all three counts.

Like many, I learned of the case when she wrote a victim impact statement that went viral within an hour. It was read eleven million times in four days, all thirty pages. Ms. Miller was known as Emily Doe from the time she was found unconscious, throughout the trial, and to the publication of her memoir. After the statement was read in open court, the judge read his verdict: ninety days in county jail, as anything else would be unfair to such an outstanding athlete and young man commencing his adult life.

Fittingly, the judge was recalled. The young man lost his scholarship and was banned from Stanford campus.

Know My Name was a compelling "listen". Actually reading it would have been the same--impossible to put down.

The books I downloaded lined up alphabetically, and so A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson popped up early. I bought and started reading the book a couple of years ago, and gave it up. Listening to it narrated was a much better experience, and I sailed on through. Light reading, but satisfactory.

Much further down the alphabet I came on Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.  On the whole I was going for length, and this is a long one. I remember reading it from my parent's book shelf, when I was a teen ager, but have not encountered it since. The entire length I struggled to place a time on the book. I simply could not place the novel in a context that included trains, soldiers with guns and a revolution. The Mao Zedong change of China was post World War II. A trip through Wikipedia reminded me of the 1911 revolution.

I did not remember one iota of my first reading of the book, sixty years ago. Definitely worth my time, though not a book I would read again.

And so I come to The Kite Runner. I hope it's as fascinating as has been claimed. A lot of good books these last several months and I have put a lot of towels on the shelf, as well as shipping more than a few around the country. It took me only a month to clear the last warp of towels, and I hope to weave off the current before the first Peninsula show, the first weekend of June.

I've made enough colors to make a decent color wheel. I've included a cream towel for some time, just to have a decent array. It's redundant, I think, with the cream rose center, and I probably will leave it out when the next towel is ready.

And it will be periwinkle. Also on standby, yellow:

Tiny home and schoolie fasciation

The idea of converting a van to a tiny home and travelling the country fascinated me years ago. Way back in the eighties, when my sister and I travelled together often, I had a rig like that. It was on a six cylinder Dodge chassis, with sofas that converted to beds, an ice box, a stove.

I reconsidered the whole idea several years ago, when I ran out of grandchildren at home and did not need a three bedroom trailer. I looked into a Mercedes camper van that could easily accommodate my loom and myself and my itch to travel. But oh, the expense. Even used camper vans were more than I wanted to spend for a reliable unit.

And then things began going wrong with me. I broke my leg. I broke my shoulder. This not only sidelined me; it challenged my physical ability. I have severe osteoporosis, probably genetic. In fact, my oldest daughter has suffered several broken bones in the last few years, and has the same diagnosis. So much for living on the road.

Then I discovered tiny homes, and in a lot more countries than this. I had fun on YouTube, finding them shown off, toured, self built, commercial, clever design elements. Their biggest problem, at least in this country, is zoning. When we built the storage barn on the property, to hold our weaving supplies, our building permit said it could not be converted to a residential building as septic would not be permitted. Yet its square footage exceeds many tiny homes.

After I'd looked at hundreds of tiny homes, I discovered van conversions. Hooray for YouTube and hooray for all those converters who made videos of their vans and travels and posted them. Then I discovered schoolies!

All sizes, all styles, travelling, travelling, boondocking, especially on BLM sorts of land in the west. Very little or none of that east of the Mississippi, but still ample boondocking opportunities, with most of the comforts of home. And there's always a campground.

My daughter called one day when I was engrossed in tiny homes over lunch. I confessed. She said "I love schoolies, myself!"  We're both addicts.

Happy Day

Today is April 26. I came home from rehab for the broken femur on December 24th. Three months ago! I have spent the time using a walker, feeling like a feeble and pitiable old lady being grateful when someone held a door for me. And I was grateful; door mobility ends when both hands are occupied by a walker.

Yesterday I kept my appointment for a steroid injection into the tangle of arthritis in my right hip. I had this same treatment last fall, when the arthritis flared up, probably due to the exertion of the move. It was an abject failure, and I was reduced to the walker and even the wheelchair.

But yesterday was so different. There were three personnel in the room, not one. A technician monitored the laser screen. There was a student doctor who used the laser wand to locate the top of my femur, which x-rays showed involved with arthritis. The student administered the shot of ice, the doctor inserted the syringe and I could see the needle on the screen, headed to its target. Shazaam, it was done. 

They helped me off the table, patted my shoulder, told me it would be effective in a day or two, I might be back in four months for a replacement, and helped me to the door. And today, I'm back on my cane.

I went to the grocery store. I went to pick up my prepared meals. Now I need to look on Amazon for a little folding cart to haul my swag from the car to the house. I took the walker to the car and left it parked. It was a tough balance when I came home to get five packaged meals and a grocery bag into the house on its tiny frame.

Only in Ohio (?) or even the USA

A while back a lot of us had a round the blog discussion of the J. D. Vance book and later, movie, Hillbilly Elegy. I read the book a couple of times, and then caught the movie on Netflix. I was deeply engrossed by the book and the movie. I knew the characters; they were were my childhood neighbors who came north to earn enough money to retire to their mountain homes.

They were my sister's childhood friend, Starlet, whose family home was high in the Great Smokey Mountains, just west of the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee. They even were one of my brother's several wives and her children. He always had a soft spot for little women who needed help.

I was not the least surprised when I heard Vance, who had become an investment banker, had entered politics. I was surprised to read he had declared himself as Republican. Given his background, how could that be! He is running for the Senate seat vacated by Rob Portman, an Ohio Representative appointed by George W. Bush to the Senate seat vacated by George Voinovich . A long line of Republican dominance there.

But how could a self made mountain kid be a Republican? Well, he was a fundamentalist Christian, who tend to be Republican. More information trickled along to me. Vance characterized Trump as an idiot, and worse. Both Portman and Trump called Vance a R.I.N.O., a Republican in Name Only. I wondered if Vance was a flank move.

And this morning's news is curiouser and curiouser. Apparently Vance was speaking at an engagement when an aid brought him a phone to take a call from a Trump minion. Vance had apologized for calling Trump reprehensible, and now Trump was endorsing Vance, over five other well known candidates.

Maybe Trump is the flank move.

I'm sure every state has wonderful and not so wonderful stories of political shindigs. I'm sure big money is behind most everything, except possibly the election of Barack Obama. Most importantly, it is only six months to the mid term election. Vote. Encourage everyone you know to vote. Please support "get out the vote" programs to register teens and others.

Ideas, please

It snowed overnight. Worse yet, it is one-thirty this afternoon, and still snowing. I put off today's errands to tomorrow, and I cannot dodge them tomorrow. I have an appointment to be evaluated for a physical therapy program. It was another "First Available" appointment, and this one fell in April. I do not want to miss it.

Here is my dilemma. As most repeat customers know, I offer a discount eventually. It was easy to do when I managed invoices "in-house". But now I have bought a web site and have a very basic program to handle sales. The program comes courtesy of Square, the company that handles my credit card sales and provides the software on that site.

The software meets my basic sales needs; it displays my towels nicely, tells me what to ship and where, and puts the receipts in the bank. There are "add-ons" to the program, but, of course, they cost money. 

My grandson Blake helped me set up the program, and he is totally responsible for giving us the Where the Towels Live page suggested by Margaret of Camino Confidential. I asked Blake to look into a couple of add-ons I might use, and he dug down to the cost. There is no free lunch, as we know.

The cost of the programs I could use is $49 per month, after the first free month, after we've done all the work and have it up and running. That's the same as putting two towels in the trash can, every month.

How about this: when you buy the fourth towel, in the same order you can have one additional towel of your choice free, depending on availability, which you also can figure out. (When inventory drops to two towels, the program alerts the buyer to low inventory.)

Simply place your order, and send me an email saying you have now purchased four towels and want your free towel, and state the color. I will add it to your order.

Do you think this will work? Let me know in the comments, or give me any other ideas you can think of.

Whatever I decide to do, I'll advertise all over this blog, and on my web page, EverythingOldisNewAgain.shop.

Overwhelmed

The feeling of helplessness in the face of so much world turmoil leaves me on the whole sick in the pit of my stomach. The last time I was totally invested in change was the Women's March on Washington, 2017. Now I support so much with my money, and of course it helps, but the change? Barely perceptible. I just am overwhelmed.

Life goes on, we know. I am busy because it is all I know. I suppose I should thank the universe for my parents and grandparents, who only knew working to survive and prepare for the future. And then, my future is closer to closing than it has ever been. That's an amusing observation.

It was a busy week in the studio. Turnaround has been faster than I ever recall. Without the back and forth of changing out empty spools of warp I stayed focused on turning and wound on all eleven bouts of thread in three hours. Jan says it was two and a half hours.

I spent this week on some errands, and tying the old warp threads to new. My birthday balloons are being overwhelmed. Two have put down their heads. I wonder why they seem to be going down in order. The white was first, last weekend. Now the yellow. Blue next?

The warp is ready for weaving. One of the most uniform in some time. I spent an hour or more last night, retying each bout to the apron rod. I'm weaving the first set of towels in garnet, on the shelf back there.

Let's end the insanity!

Half and more of the population of this country is subjugated to the will of others. 

A woman in Texas was charged with murder following a miscarriage. The hospital where she had the miscarriage turned her in, when she said she had induced the miscarriage. 

This all happened according to Texas law. 

Everyone involved followed the Texas law. The hospital turned her in.  The grand jury indicted her. A sheriff arrested her. The woman went to jail. The county prosecutor dropped charges; the woman is freed. The prosecutor said he could find no Texas law under which to prosecute her.

This is insane. That any of it happened is insane. As insane as Republican gerrymandering maps still be thrown out for gerrymandering. As insane as voter suppression laws.

What will be made illegal next? Oh, wait. Being gay. Talking about human sexuality. Reading about it in books that have been in print for half a century. "Don't say gay" legislation has just been introduced in my state. In Ohio! 

The oppressors on the whole are white men, and some men of color who seem to enjoy the power of oppression. They are holding women in this country to their will. Progressive voters must clear higher and higher hurdles.  Children who know from the day they can tell a parent they want a ballerina costume, not cowboy, that they are in the wrong body.

The only solution I know is to convince all eligible voters to vote. Erasing the bigotry of powerful men will not happen over night; it will take time. But it's time for the rolling tide of enlightenment to overtake, sweep away the lawmakers whose laws punish most everyone except themselves.

2 1/2 hours--just normal, not a record

I set out to tell you about warping a loom. My sister came to help, switching out new tubes of thread for empty tubes, so I could keep on turning the crank and not have to attend to that end of the business. A friend of hers called, and when Jan mentioned what was going on, she heard "Oh, can I come watch?" People sat that a lot. Jan sent her some pictures, so I'll use them.

When Jan arrived, I'd just finished weaving to the end of the warp. My arms and back were pretty tired. On my own I might have called it a day, at eleven in the morning. But, my little sister had given over part of her day to helping me, and it wasn't her fault I didn't go back after supper last night and finish the weaving. So, we ate lunch and started in.

There are maybe twenty half pound tubes of 8/2 cotton thread on the shelf. To start, some of them must go on the empty pegs on the rack to the right. There are 40 pegs, some of which you can't even see.

OK, all thread loaded and pulled to the tension box. Three full spools are visible here and probably will make it through the process. All the rest probably will be replaced. Birthday balloons in the background.

Here is all the thread, from the rack, through the tension box and being wound onto a bout. The threads go through two reeds, and over a peg in the tension box. The reeds control the threads to 2", the width of each bout. The peg adds tension to the thread. You also can see thread guides on the bout edges. These keep the threads from inadvertently slipping into the bout on either side.

Now for the real work. There is a crank that fits one end of the beam, and there is a weaver, turning the crank to turn the beam and draw the warp through the tension box and into the 2" bout. There are 125 turns of thread on each bout. I have calculated the yardage and the shrink and know my material costs. All that calculation is in a little notebook in the other room. Someday I may think about it and share the information.

Here are all 11 bouts wound on and ready to tie to the old warp. Everything is easy after the beam is loaded, and I'll probably take some sweet time getting to tying. On the arm of the chair is the medium grey I just took off, and under that some more cream, to finish the warp.

Done! Left on the shelf: seven tubes of warp. Had I needed even one more turn, six of those tubes would now be on the spool rack and only one tube left on the shelf.

Looking forward to graupel

I've been busy this week, with doctor appointments I can't seem to shake loose of and a warp that has stretched. I would like to empty my loom of the current warp by Saturday so my sister can help me on Sunday, replacing spools of warp thread when they run out.

There is my spool rack, top to bottom. Some pegs are empty; I'm using the smaller spools to weave off the remnant of my warp. They will be filled with new spools when we begin. Most of the other spools will need replacing, and that will be Jan's job. There is nothing worse than walking around the loom to get to the rack to tie on a new spool of thread!

I guess spring is coming; there is a mass of green bulb leaves in the garden. And, the garden needs raked so badly; a job I still cannot tackle. Out in the back, near the woods, I see a single yellow daffodil, and several stands of daffodil leaves scattered about. I see the squirrels have been very busy these last several years.

The weather remains very unpredictable, swinging wildly from highs of sixty to highs of thirty. Today was mid fifties and then mid forties through the weekend. Those are the highs. Overnight lows still warrant an extra blanket. Therein comes the graupel. 

April showers bring May flowers, says the old adage. The falling overnight temps in the rain can bring snow. Graupel is not hail, it is not sleet. It forms when water droplets freeze on falling snow.

Over for another year

Ann asked how my birthday went and I said "It's over for another year!" Of course it's generally fun to celebrate another trip around the sun. This year, this las six months, have been a bit of a bummer. I need to be off this walker, but I'm still three weeks from a new physical therapy evaluation. My cane hangs on the walker and I execute short walks on it, when my hip isn't hurting too much. It's snowing at the moment, another less than stellar event.

Nevertheless, Beth and Ruth took me to lunch today. We went to Burntwood Tavern, a good central meeting place for the three of us. I had fish, Beth had salmon and Ruth had sliders.

The rest of my lunch went home with Beth to become a fish sammy.

Beth's lunch became history.

And those last two sliders went home with Ruth. We could just phone it in and meet the servers at the table. We each have the same every time.

My birthday present was marzipan. After some unkind soul at UPS scarfed down my Wisconsin marzipan, Beth sent Bill on a marzipan mission. We're talking serious marzipan, here. I opened the marzipan potatoes and thought I'd work through a row. By the end of the afternoon, every potato had crossed my lips. The rest of the haul is on a table across the room. It's probably safe for a while.

What to say?

 

It's been a long, long month. I borrowed this lovely picture from Allison, who does not remember where she found it. I've had it squirreled away for the last month; it's too sad to look at for long. Pray that President Biden screwed up the courage of the European Union to more vigorously support their neighbor, Ukraine, and more vigorously condemn their neighbor, Russia. 

Back at the studio I have nine colors in stock; ninety three towels total. I sold sixty five towels at the Peninsula Flea last summer. My downfall was my inability to make more. I was waiting to move my loom to the new studio; I had no more thread, and even if it arrived, I did not want to move a fully dressed loom. Just that much more weight, and the move was difficult enough as it was.

I certainly had more than nine colors! I am so looking forward to this event, again this year. Just for starters, I won't be looking out my window at snow! It certainly has become old.

It will be good to spend some time with my daughter again. Beth and her family used this past week of Spring Break to unite the family and visit Joshua Tree and the vast desert. She sent me any number of pictures, and had stories to share. Her husband opined he was pleased they had filled up the tank as there were no amenities.

Beth got to share the story of her mother crossing the Great Salt Desert with a broken fan belt. I hope she shared how without Uncle Walt we would not have made it. Peddle to the metal, go as fast as you can until you peg the temperature gauge. Turn off the van and coast for I don't remember how long. Start the engine, peddle to the metal, etc. It seemed like forever, and suddenly there was a service station and the wall was hung with every size fan belt on the market!

I would not have known how to handle that emergency if my brother had not been riding shotgun. I suppose I could have asked Mom, seated behind me. 

Moving on

Back from my favorite hip doctor. He had good news and bad news. I do not need a new hip; the old hip actually is in decent shape. The bad news is, if I ever did need a hip replacement he doubts any doctor would undertake it. He finally made me understand my bone situation. 

Bones look like bones on an x-ray, all white. Flesh is sort of transparent; on an x-ray you can see through it to the bones. My bones look like flesh, transparent. Any doctor would pass, from fear of breaking bones. I see why the fellow who fixed my femur was so happy the old hip replacement stayed so firmly in place and the worst of his job was to wrap the broken bone in a lot of wire and screw it down.

I guess I'll keep having those Reclast infusions, and stop breaking bones. So the plan is to reopen my physical therapy sessions at the local health center. Tomorrow. 

The order for the next round of thread has been placed. Except for yellow, I won't be dipping into it for a bit. I want to finish much of what is on the shelf, count my remaining inventory and know how many towels I will cost out at the current cost. How's that for a former accountant's accounting?

Blake is still helping me with my web page. We're up to SEO's. Search Engine Optimization. Those are words people are most likely to search looking for kitchen towels. They're tucked away behind the scene and help the web page appear higher on a search list. I also told him he can have the last of my kitchen gizmos and gadgets for the new house.

So, that is me, as up to date as I possibly can be. My life will be weaving and physical therapy for the foreseeable future, and hopefully a lunch or two with Beth and Ruth. Right now I'm weaving Denim Blue.

There is little left to weave of my old colors and old warp. My estimate is one more new warp on the loom and the old thread will be gone!

Adventures in food, and more

The internet has a decent habit of finding things I've expressed an interest about and sending me ads from every variety they can locate. Remember the food business, and my struggle to find someone local. That turned up a restaurant in the next city south, and the next week's menu available every Thursday.

The good news was, no obligation. Order some meals or skip a week. The not so good part was that the selection became sort of boring after three or four weeks. The good news was, suddenly meal delivery services began popping up.

I ordered from a service in New York City. The deal maker was that all the packaging was recycled and recyclable, and they took it away. The fine, fine print was that they took it away if your meals were delivered to NYC. The rest of us had to empty ice packs (not down the drain) and schlep plastic to a plastic recycler. They did package with padding of recycled denim that is touted to be usable as stuffing or quilt batting. We'll see.

The other problem with the out of towners is I become a "subscriber" once I've ordered. If I don't place another order in a week, they place one for me. So I have a list on my desk pad of who I must cancel. But it's been nice to mix up my local kitchen with another provider. If I only find one whose meals I could eat for the rest of my life! I'd be in pig heaven then.

In a week I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to see if I need a new hip. The right one, not the left that was replaced 19 years ago and did not shift when I broke my femur! If I could only resolve this nagging pain in my right hip, I'd be a new person. I know it's getting close to my summer show season, but I think these new hips are good to go in a month. I think I'll ask Nancy, who used my walker to have her hip replaced.

 

Enough sunshine to light every corner

Our last six inches of snow is melting with dispatch. I will be able to get my car to the shop with little or no interference from the weather. My steering has a problem; it seems to bind in all directions. Perhaps I just need steering fluid; perhaps I'm not going to like hearing what I need. I need new wiper blades, too. This winter has reduced them to rags.

When my occasional Loom Fairy said Good-bye this weekend, she said she would not be by the coming weekend. "I'm rock hunting!" How my rock collecting father would be pleased. I'm sure his starry heart skipped a beat.

I told her about the six foot high, ten foot long bank of industrial shelving, loaded cheek to jowl with peck baskets of rocks yet to be inspected by dad. "What kind of rocks?" The baskets were filled with street gravel, headed for the tumbler, garnets from creek bottoms, headed for the tumbler, geodes to be broken open for amethysts. After dad died, my brother and friends emptied baskets in our flower beds, then in neighbor's flower beds, then in gravel drives all over Akron.

She was laughing hard. I started to say my punch line, but she was already there. "What will geologists say in a thousand years about the traces of African and South American minerals found in North Akron!"

A tumbled rock from the vast collection. He made it into a necklace for me, and I asked the Rock Fairy to turn it to an earring.

She actually is on a fossil hunt. There are lots of those in southern Ohio, in the great Ohio River valley. I was confused. "How will you carry them?" She volunteered a basket, a bucket, a pail. Still confused I said "Not on your back?" That confused her, until she laughed and said they were driving, not hiking. 

Meanwhile, back in the studio, I am weaving steadily toward the five shows this summer. Beth will be with me, and I am anticipating some happy days. If I sell out this year, it won't be for want of a loom, like last year.

I've studied my inventory carefully. I warped last on February 4th, my mother's birthday. That is half gone, and I have one warp left, and thread to weave into towels. Then I must reorder, both weft and warp. I bought enough of each last August to put four warps on the loom and weave it off. 

All the cream thread on the shelf will be used in the next warp, as will all the colors. Empty shelves, except for towels.

There has not been a price increase from Brassard in the two years I've been weaving and selling towels. That cannot possibly happen again. And freight! It has to be skyrocketing in the face of shipping problems. My price surely will increase this year!

I haven't been in front of the loom yet today, but I've accomplished a good deal of other things to be done, like washing, drying and folding laundry, cleaning cabinet faces, stuff like that. No glass, though. I'm afraid if I make one bit of glass sparkle and shine, I'll be straight down the spring clean rabbit hole!

  

It might snow!

She said, watching the white stuff through the window. I should not/cannot complain. I've seen a lot of March snow over the years.

This will be very short. I had the Reclast infusion Wednesday. I woke yesterday morning with unmanageable pain, except you must live with it. They said I would be sent away with some Tylenol in case of pain, but nothing.

My sister was coming to help me in the afternoon, so I shuffled through my morning routine, made breakfast, threw it up and shuffled to the recliner. I woke up about one when I heard Jan. We decided she should come another time. Back to the recliner, with a Tylenol and a blanket from K.

About 7:30 K woke me and offered to heat a dinner, which I happily ate. Then I read much of my blog roll and went to bed. I woke up this morning, and found most of the pain has settled in my neck. I spent the morning asking Dr. Google about bone and muscle pain after a Reclast infusion. I learned Reclast infusion pain goes mostly to the site of old bone fractures with nerve damage. Well, you can call me that.

I am very unhappy much of the pain has decided to settle in my neck, with my cadaver bone implant. Everything I read said if the pain doesn't clear off in three days, contact your doctor. So I shall.

The bad news is, I still have no Tylenol on hand. I had a doctor appointment this afternoon, my pain doctor, who was not interested in this pain. I intended to stop at the grocery and the drug store on the way home. I made the grocery, but it was pouring rain when I left, so I came home and ordered a three dollar bottle of Tylenol and added a three dollar overnight delivery charge. Lucky Amazon.

I have nowhere to go and nothing to do until Tuesday a week, when my car goes to have its steering problem investigated. In the meantime, thank you all for listening to my whining. I didn't realize this damn bone would turn into such a production, especially in light of how pleased the doctor is with its healing.

Doctored up, doctored out

Between missing a lot of regularly scheduled bi-annual sort of appointments from spending two months in rehab, and then missing a lot of rescheduled appointments due to being snowed in, I currently find myself doctored up and doctored out. 

Today I saw the doctor who set my femur last November for the fourth time post operatively, at three x-rays each time, plus who knows how many before, during and after the surgery. So when he told me he'd like to see me a couple more times in the next two months, I said "No". And he smiled and agreed. He mostly wants to point out to everyone how beautifully I recovered.

Last week was the endocrinologist and the podiatrist, this week the orthopedist, the pain doctor, next week another orthopedic surgeon (maybe the pain in my right hip is a degenerate hip) and today I had that bone infusion. And something is wrong with my car's steering column, and that has an appointment, too. 

The bone infusion: there was a certain smell to the antiseptic the nurse used to scrub my arm before sinking the needle. By tonight the taste of it has migrated to my mouth, and is not pleasant. She promised to send me home with some Tylenol, as I have none, but the nurse who detached me didn't provide them, and the taste in my mouth is being accompanied by a growing headache.

My sister is coming to visit tomorrow, hopefully with Tom. My Windsor chair's rungs are suffering a bad case of winter heat, and to properly treat them I need my longest clamp. It's in the basement, probably in the laundry room, or else in the garage in front of my parking place. I'm not up to those steps yet, and my sister is having ramps installed at her house for her wonky knee. Tom can't get on his knees any more, but still does steps.

At loose ends

I weave as much as I can each day, but my back does give out and more things to do are rather limited. I wiped down the bathroom windowsill this morning. Too much dust! This inspired a small amount of cleaning that lasted close to half an hour.

The weather is breaking freezing the end of this week. That was of absolutely no use Tuesday, when I woke to a couple of inches and a snow covered car. On the other hand, I no longer feel guilt at rescheduling a doctor appointment, and so I did with my Tuesday eye doctor appointment. 

Weather for the coming week should be beautiful. I have an interesting appointment scheduled for mid week. After years and years of declining all offers of bone strengthening drugs, the last break changed my mind. 

The femur is the biggest bone in the human body, and when I fell last fall, mine snapped like a small stick. So, I signed on for a twice annual injection. The day before I have probably my last visit to the doctor who set my femur. He says he is beyond pleased with how well my femur has mended. He probably will be pleased to learn I've become proactive in bones.

And best of all, I put new batteries in the  Netflix remote. Nothing happened when I pushed buttons yesterday. I checked all the plugs and they were secure. I tried the television remote, and it turned the TV on and off. Sadly it can only do that and change the volume. 

Removing the back cover of the down remote, I saw gas station batteries, and recalled this happened the last time, when I put in the Roku device and used the remote for the first time in months. I called Roku and described how the remote was not controlling the Roku signal. After a polite pause, while he probably leaned over and tapped his head against the wall, the nice trouble shooter suggested I needed new batteries in the remote.

That precipitated a quick trip to Marathon for batteries that solved my problem. I knew I had more AAA's in my stash, so I saved looking for them until today. I saved picking any program for later, but was so pleased to see a new season seems to be in progress. More to do while I wait for better weather.

Worked all day!

I got up at eight on the dot-ish and didn't quit until time for supper. I did lie in bed an extra six or seven minutes, trying to persuade myself I could go back to sleep, but I didn't. I've stayed up too late several nights, finishing a book. Last night it was The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a difficult to set aside book!

The sun is setting pink and blue and lavender tonight. That is fairly unusual, and may be a warning that although tomorrow is the first day of spring for some, it's not for we who count spring on the equinox. Tomorrow merely is the first day of March, and the first day of spring for people who like their statistics in four even segments. There is another storm coming for sure, kicking up those lovely colors.

 I took this picture yesterday, of sun on the ice covered trees. The trees have been ice covered since late last week, and all the sunshine has done little except make the ice sparkle. It will be cold and raining by mid week.

Over the weekend I did two things. The first, housekeeping on my blog. The second, reading a couple of books while housekeeping. I sent the bulk of my blog back to draft status, and read books while it executed. My blog is still out there for information that I may occasionally access. In the change over, I learned the hard way what happens to the blog rolls of followers. I see at least ten have left, to unclutter their reading list. 

It is my understanding the inundation is over. The conversion reset the post date of each blog to the day I designated  draft, which caused them all to come crashing onto your blog list as current posts, then be inaccessible because they are drafts. I am so sorry and can assure you it will never happen again.

The Dutch House is the story of a house built by a Dutch gentleman in the mid 19th century, and purchased by a builder just after WWII. He bought the house as the family homestead, and the novel follows the influence of the house on its owners, caretakers, children, casual occupants and probably even the raccoons in the ballroom. It was a hard read to lay aside.

The only additional thing I have to report is a full circle of towels again. The emerald is done, the black is begun. Towels are available again!

A post to end the flood

I learned something. Blogger populates the reading list with the latest blog posted. I've done some housekeeping to my old blog posts and they are "re-posted" as of today. With apologies for clogging up dear old Blogger, I am done and it should be gone tomorrow.

How many mud puddles in an all day rain?

It's just as well I went out today; a transitional day between yesterday and the brutal forecast for the end of the week. I'm still meeting doctor appointments rescheduled from my stint in rehab and then rescheduled from the weather.

Yesterday was the late spring day we relish every year. Almost sixty degrees. A joy to go out in or just be able to have your face out the door and your nose breathing it in. I had two doctor appointments, and enjoyed the day.

Today is the leading edge of winter storm Oaklee. I had one medical appointment today and a string of errands. One road is built between two sloughs. I've driven this road going on forty years. Back then, in a spate of heavy rains, the road would flood because of one or both of the sloughs. 

In that case the wooden sawhorses closed the ends of the road, with Road Closed and Road Flooded signs. Then came permanent signs: Road may flood in heavy rain. Those signs stayed up a long time. Then last year they were replaced: Road floods in heavy rain. The very event was near today. There have been more than a few Turn Around: Don't Drown signs at many roads over and abutting the valley's many creeks.

My errands today included a loaf of bread. For that little I used the walker's tray, not a cart. There was enough room left, I thought I go round by bakery and see if any paczki were left. This valley was settled by so many canal building Poles, the bakeries have paczki during Lent. However, they are so popular, I should qualify that to the first day of Lent.

There were no paczki, alas. I could have stopped at a "real" Polish bakery on the way home, but already I was very wet from rain and still had the post office on the way home. The kolaczki caught my eye. Walnut and apricot; mixed boxes packed in little containers. Then I saw a box of just walnut, which I do not particularly care for, and looked for a box of apricot, and added them to the cart.

When I finally got home I thought I'd earned a couple of apricot kolaczki and a cup of coffee. I opened the little container, and all I saw were walnut kolaczki. Another look at the label, and I'd purchased walnut and apricot! So I had one of each.

I have one more appointment tomorrow, and one on Friday. Tomorrow will be mid thirties, long way down from the last two day's fifties, but only cloudy. Thursday is frozen mix and Friday is snow. I may cancel that appointment again!

There's been a change in the weather

Our snow covering is diminishing. I was weaving this afternoon, and looking out the window. It appeared rain/snow was driving south to north, across the window. I refused to go outside. I did that yesterday, when it was fifty odd degrees. Warm air over frigid snow is not inviting, but it sure smells good. This did not look inviting at all.

I finished the bobbin and quit for the day before I went to look. It was blowing fog. Not snow; still too warm for that. But it will stay rain, then ice, then snow. My doctor appointment tomorrow probably will be cancelled, by me.

There has been precious little blogging by me these last many days. Here's a rundown of my state of affairs and state of mind. I cannot give up the walker; my hip hurts too much of the day. Next week I have a follow up appointment with the orthotist. I certainly have learned a lot of big words in this adventure.

They are the people I saw on a bad snow day a couple of weeks ago. The technician I saw agreed with my therapist that the leg length difference chiefly is the cause of my terrible gait, which is the cause of the hip pain. I believe I agree with her. Walking the halls of the office wearing a sample brace seemed to take the pain away.

I have an appointment (on a fifty degree day next week) to go for a final consult and fitting. And if this does not work, I'll have to pursue replacing my other hip. That was ruled out last August. I guess they could have been wrong.

Heigh, ho, heigh, ho, shut in by snow, we work and work to find a plough...

Once upon a time, in the far away fifties, my grandmother came from Cleveland to Akron for Thanksgiving dinner with her family. The weather was so balmy she wore her spring coat.

She did not go home for a week because the area had a thirty or forty inch snow fall. The city had front end loaders out trying to move the snow. Well, that was then. Once in a lifetime, eh?

One weekend, a couple of weekends ago, we had such a massive snow fall we could not move our cars without moving a lot of snow. The weekend my loom faerie appeared, I was stunned and grateful. It turns out a friend who was parked on the street went for her. Last week the same scenario, except K got her truck dug out enough to literally bull her way out of her corner of the drive.

The subsequent weekend, repeat. Our first six or seventeen inch fall acquired another eighteen inch topping. I recruited a young man from my trailer complex to work on the mess. The only appointment transferred from last week to this that I intended to keep was the hair appointment.

My hair would be cut or I would know the reason why. I called David, who had removed a good deal of snow by shovel, because his snow blower is in the shop, and explained lovely as the trail to the cars was, not wide enough for my walker. Nor flat enough on the bottom.

He toiled again, and I was able to get through wearing my ice grippers and using a lot of caution. We consolidated our errands to K's truck, and I got in grocery shopping and script pick up while she did her errands. The haircut was yesterday, and I've been urging on the sunshine all week.

Yesterday worked out very well. I slogged through the icy slush on the walk and got into my car. Once on our road, the way was clear. All the crews did their jobs, snow was piled high and away. From now to the end of the month, the only precipitation is rain! My haircut was achieved!

Even the dog was impressed. I think she found it better than crumbs on the floor. Easier to look at, at any rate.

Except for one day devoted entirely to reading my way through my three books, I wove and napped. The books are finished; today was simply weaving and napping. 

I'm down to two last bobbins. I'll finish tomorrow and start working toward towels.

Of the three books, I quite recommend two, Suzanne and Gertrude, and the much thicker volume, The Elephant Whisperer. The latter is Lawrence Anthony's account of founding his internationally known African animal reserve, Thula Thula. He was internationally known and admired for his environmental and conservation work. It is said, at his death, members of Thula Thula's elephant herd, which he had saved from death as "rogue" elephants, gathered around his home for two days of elephant mourning. I believe that.

What I did today

For two days I wove on the new warp. The color is plum, and I wove it a long time ago. I load the colors to the web from a file on my computer, and there is a plum towel file, March 2, 2020. I had just begun selling the towels in 2020. This should be plum towels by week's end.

There were some naps in the new chair this weekend. I could become overly accustomed to having my feet up and my head down.

I have a short stack of books on my filing cabinet that I ordered before I broke my leg. They began with Suzanne and Gertrude, a novel by Jeb Loy Nichols. It is very short, a 133 page work of very good fiction. 

It is the book I set out to order, after a small mention in, I think, The NY Times. Or else The Washington Post, both of which I have been strong armed to honor the pay wall. If you click through your cancellation email, to the last chance before NoThanks, they counter offer a year for $40, not $100.  I wonder what will happen next year.

So, Amazon got me, too. I ordered S&G, and it sent me a screen offering me a couple more books, since I liked that book. And I also ordered The Elephant Whisperer and Trooper. I have not tackled them yet, and wonder how they can interest me like S&G did.

It is a year in the life of a fairy non-verbal woman, except with her lifetime friend down the road. She is married to a man who intends to make the world better by doing the right thing. Suzanne cannot comprehend his plan of doing the right thing. Eventually he goes, to circulate among various refugee crisis centers, first in Europe and eventually hardcore centers, like Syria.

One morning Suzanne awoke to a donkey in her pasture. "Her days are a word-shy negotiation, caught between indifference and uncertainty. Into this world comes Gertrude, a wandering donkey. Together they form an unlikely alliance; each protecting the solitude of the other."

Other than that, it's the snow! We had another 18", and are not out, yet. Our snow remover needs to have a snow blower repair finished to unearth cars and the sidewalk. He estimates finishing tomorrow, and that will get me to my hair appointment Tuesday.