The Salt Path

Recommending a book with nothing except "it's really good" is not much of a blog. I wish I could say more. I decided to go read some reviews to try and get a feel of how to do it. More on that in a minute.

The reviews were overwhelmingly five stars of five stars. I read two or three of those, and then indulged in a string of below five stars. A great many people could not get comfortable with the subject of the book, and I found that interesting.

I find I can no longer write in genres, of genres, about genres, since the bus accident. The TBI literally sucked maybe fifty thousand books out of my brain. Even had it only stolen the format from me, I still could imitate someone. But there's no one left for me to imitate.

So, I only will say, it's about a husband and wife, together many, many years, who are robbed of home and livelihood by an evil friend (my assessment, not theirs). In the same week as the verdict, either before or after, they finally get the medical diagnosis to explain the husband's left side weakness and pain. It's a degenerative neurological disease that will kill him, probably six or seven years from onset. It now is seven years since onset.

The bailiffs come to change the locks on the door. They set out to walk the salt path. This is set in England. Here we walk the Appalachian Trail, some to find ourselves. I had no idea what the Salt Trail is. It's one small way to find yourself in England when you've lost all and one of you is dying. 

Suspend disbelief and read it for face value.

End of book review. 

Reading

Spending the day throwing a shuttle from hand to hand to hand could be exquisitely boring. I think back on Silas Marner and wonder what he did before Eppie came to him. Ever since I’ve been a weaver I’ve had some sort of feed to my ears, and a book playing on the current iteration of the Walkman.

I’m listening to a book so engrossing, so fascinating, I’ve listened to it straight through, twice. The book is The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn.

References to books of interest are everywhere, and I write the reference on my much abused desk note pad, and try to remember to follow through. The first time I searched my local digital library, The Salt Path was not even a twinkle in its eye, so I left my first ever, in many years of book downloading, lament for a book I’d love to listen to. Eventually it appeared.

Actually, I know nothing about the life cycle of a book. I suppose there is a longer time between the release of a book and the release of the recorded book. Finding the right reader, making the contract, getting a producer. And then the library must obtain a copy.

Another system beyond my comprehension is the lending of recorded books. They have a finite cycle, just like real books. The screen tells me how many recordings they have and how many are available. I borrow a digital book, and two weeks later the library virtually takes it back.

Once I had a hundred or more digital books, on CD’s. I donated all of them to the Peninsula Library when I moved from the big house. My reasoning was, they all were available to borrow. Here’s the mystery. Once I had the burning desire to have all my J.R.R. Tolkien collection back, just to have and to begin in the middle of the night, if I wished. I had no sense of thievery; I had donated the entire set once.

I began downloading, and my MP3 player ran out of room before I finished.  I released the recordings back to the library. So, I learned one or two obvious lessons. I also realized that once I’ve downloaded a book, I can go back and virtually return it, so someone else can borrow it. It still is mine on my PC for the lending period, and mine on my MP3 player until I run out of room.

The Salt Path engaged me from the first sentences. So many of its scenes resonated with my life and experience. Quickly I asked "Is this true”? When I asked Google, the question had been asked so often, its algorithm filled in the words.

That’s what I do when I weave. This is one book I did not set aside when I stood up to leave the loom.

Busy, busy week

In spite of everything, I've been able to give half a day each day this week to weaving. One day this week, a doctor appointment. Then a trip to the lab for a blood draw. 

This morning I took my neighbor to the airport. She has not been on a plane since the olden days. The person she's going to visit told her wheelchair transport was $25 per. She needs a wheelchair as much as I do, and of course I told her to get in the house and call her airline. She sent me a happy text later in the day.

Yesterday, when I had all day to devote to weaving, I spent half the day correcting two sleying errors. I saw them the first day, but left them to the end of the first run of towels. Anyone of you who is a weaver would see them at once. A bit right of center, see the two white "railroad tracks". The reed is threaded (sleyed) two threads per space, or dent. I inadvertently put four threads in those very white places, and spent the morning correcting the problem.

I persevered, and eventually carted a load of orange towel fabric off to the washer to be fulled. I came back and started in on the next batch, which will be blue.

The artist holding the open house wants high resolution pictures for her brochures. I've been turning that over in my mind this week. My phone doesn't make hi res. Then I remembered my camera, and decided between that and my little shooting tent, those pictures were the best she would get.

My sister called this evening with an accounting question pestering her all week, and when we resolved it, I tossed out my hi res photo problem. Would you believe, with the flick of a setting, her new iPad takes high resolution pictures! We're shooting on Sunday. I have a stack of orange ready, and certainly should have blue, and more.

So, the show will go on, and now it remains only to be seen, how many towels will there be.

Progress, nonetheless

I had an appointment with my cardiologist this morning, at 9:50. By the time alone, it is apparent this is an annual appointment and was set a year ago. 

I used to make subsequent annual appointments at nine, leaving much of the day open. Then I began making them at ten. Sometime this past year I moved to eleven. At the counter today, I hesitated, then selected one in the afternoon. How I've aged this past year!

There was an order for blood work in my hand when I left. Like many of us, I take a statin. It's not the responsibility of my cardiologist. However, my primary care physician left the end of July, and I still take the statin. The replacement PC ordered a refill without ordering overdue blood work. 

Then the replacement PC "left the practice". No idea. But my cardiologist cares about blood, so he sent me away with a fasting blood order. And yes, 9:50 was a good ninety minutes too late. I get out of bed to eat breakfast.

It was near lunch time when I got home. I looked at the loom, and went straight to the kitchen table to read some more weekend edition of my friend Lynn's New York Times. And lunch (a thick cucumber sammie), and an acetaminophen, because my back hurt so badly. If that appointment had been for one, I could have spent the morning at the loom!

I wove a total of four bobbins, about three towels, and quit at four in the afternoon. Progress, nonetheless.

My phone camera has a feature I'm supposed to appreciate, because it shows me pictures I took one, two, three, five years ago at this time. Actually, it irritates me when I notice it. And what was I weaving one year ago? Orange towels.

Isn't this pretty! Loops of threads, falling down from the back beam, as I as tying on. They resemble very long hair meeting a curling iron. Think Princess Kate.

Tomorrow is another day, as my elders used to say

It's only Thursday, thank goodness. I got up with the alarm and got to it. After cat business and my tasty breakfast, I watered the plants.

On the job! One earring is a feather, the other a turtle and a water lily, all from his grandmother's charm bracelet, according to the artist.

The mandevillas are still doing well, but this may be the last Gerbera of the season.

While I was out with the plants, the UPS fellow handed me up a package. The other day a sock went down to potential neverland.  I did find a yard stick to fish it out, but said Enough! and ordered a bridge gapper. Take that.

On to the studio. If you wonder what was the problem, the problem was all that stuff was scattered around the studio before this picture was made.

Then the winding of the bobbins. Fortunately only nineteen of forty needed wound. Still, they take time.

Then to the tension box. I'd left enough of the previous warp to tie on, and here I'm half done. It's near one in the afternoon, so I stopped for lunch, and to put supper together.

The rice is cooking for a stuffed pepper. I "parboiled" the pepper in the microwave. I also took a phone call from Ann. I realized a while ago, if I don't call her once a week, she calls me. "Just checking up" she announces, and then we exchange a week's worth of gossip.

I got back to work and ran into a problem turning the bouts onto the beam. The very first reed slot in the tension box is packing lint into the reed, and dragging on the threads. I will solve the problem; I'm pretty resourceful.

By five thirtyish I was pretty done, and retired for supper. That and taking the trash to the curb ended my day.

It's to bed in a couple of hours, and back on that tension box problem tomorrow.