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.