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.

Precarious

Dee left a comment on my last blog of occasionally being out of awareness of one's self. I realized at long last I am looking at a real and kind definition of my approach to the world since that bus accident on the mall in Washington. I'm often out of awareness of myself. Off in a reverie.

I seldom pile into my day, these days. I'm off smelling the roses and realize I need to put on the other sock to finish dressing. So although I faithfully get up at eight, it's going on nine when I'm dressed and it can be ten before I've finished breakfast. 

Settled into weaving I'm more reliable, a good thing. Even jobs I detest, I can stick to. And the other day I mopped all the grey tire marks of the walker from the bathroom floor. We're into another two foot snow dump, so I'm happy the first layer of dirt is gone.

I began tying the new warp to the old last Monday. I'm simply not fast at that, and it has nothing to do with daydreaming. I have aged into a serious case of fumble fingers. Back in the day we did this for a living, my sister could tie her way across 660 threads in a couple of hours. I would be an entire afternoon. 

This loom has eleven sections with 40 threads per section to tie. Nine are done, and the last two will happen tomorrow. I have tied nine sections in four days. These take me an hour each. Sadly, after two sections, my fingers refuse to make another knot! I almost don't blame them. 

At the far left, those are sections ten and eleven taped to the back beam. Section ten has 38 new threads taped to the beam, to be tied to 40 old threads in the heddles.  That means two threads are stuck in there, between sections. Stickers, we used to call them. There are solutions. I'll need to improvise, since this is the first time since the old days I've had the problem. All the fine tools we devised are long gone.