A revelation

For my last birthday, way back in March, my sister stopped by with a gift, a quilt she made. Now I own three quilts! One is a light cotton, my summer quilt, one is flannel, my winter quilt, and the new quilt is cotton, but the batt, the lining in the middle, is wool. She has steered her customers to this new wool batt of late. It is light and it is warm, she says.

When she came, way back in March or April, I put the quilt on the shelf for the next season, spring being around the corner. And Laura was packing to move and I was packing to move and it just wasn't the time.

Yesterday I finished my changeover to winter, including changing out bedding. I threw my pillow back on the new quilt.

The pine green that looked nice with my old quilts is a jarring NoNo. I rummaged back on the shelves and found the second case of a pair I used twenty or more years ago.

Now, that is perfect! Jan knows I like green. Purple is her color, though in my dotage I find I'm owning more and more of it. And for the quilters out there, the new quilt is strips of flying geese.

So, last night I slipped under a quilt with a wool batt. It is feather weight, like it's barely there at all. Then the warm turned on. Hard to explain. Years ago a friend picked up a handspun wool sweater I'd made for her husband. He was ill and on the sofa when she went home. She laid it over him and he told her several times how warm it was.

Wool is a different kind of warm. I can explain the reason, but not the feeling. My sister calls the quilts with wool, the ultimate snuggle. 

Lacking motivation

I have a lovely shopping bag of towels for the artist open house. There are 42, a bit less than twice as many as last time, if my math is working properly. I also turned a new warp on last week, and it looked to be the nicest to date. Then I began tying it on, and devised story after story for the extra two threads I seemed to have picked up.

There is no short explanation here, except I should have investigated the problem before I had the entire warp tied on.  All is well on the business end, the other side, as long as my Rube Goldberg repair holds up, and the cat doesn't sit on it.

The artist open studio draws nearer and nearer. I know the little tag on each towel for the last open studio was a little fold over paper I printed myself, but six months later, I cannot reconstruct how I did it. The real solution is to apply myself tomorrow and put together the art work for a new card! And then, call it in to the card company.

In the meantime, I have an apple mandolin! All my previous encounters with mandolins have not been good. My craftsman brother made a mandolin for my sister that he eventually made a guard for, to end accidental bloodshed, even stored safely out of a drawer. That mandolin sliced potatoes paper thin, and they became potato chips!

I keep an eye out for good recipes, and I saw one for an apple custard cake. They got me at apple and custard, though I was not comfortable with the instructions for slicing the apple. Basically, cut off the four sides, pitch the core and fine slice the apple. My fine motor skills are gone, and most of my gross, too. But way at the bottom, in the credits you never read, it said or use an Apple Mandolin. I found it on Amazon, of course.

There you have it. A cored apple, in twenty four slices, for lunch!

The custard cake was more cake than custard, and I made two changes for the next time. I changed a third cup sugar to a couple of tablespoons, and two teaspoons of vanilla to one. As to the dessert that did not impress me, I cut my eight inch pan into four pieces. I ate two for lunch and two for supper. So much for inviting a friend over, that time.

The book I'm reading there is The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd. I have no idea why I bought it; but it was there on my book shelf. Shortly in I recall seeing a TV movie, or perhaps a theater movie on TV. I can't remember the movie, only that I've seen it. The book is compelling in the way the recitation of this vile part of our history is.

Another week off to a decent start

I saw yesterday how close we are to the next election. When I went to play cards,  the election day dinner already is advertised. November 3rd is hard upon us.

Last week I placed first and this week I placed last. Such is cards.

Today I went with my neighbor to see Downton Abbey. We were quite early and our theater was very empty. Toward the end of the trailers, two other women came in, and sat down next to me. Four people in an empty theater. Strange. Didn't stop Cathy, or me, from laughing out loud and blowing our noses.

A mystery is solved. Some time ago I found a flyer on my door.

I asked at the office and they had no knowledge. Neither did the maintenance fellows, until one mentioned to Cathy recently, "That painted dresser is in the school bus shelter. No books left in it, though!"

Now that I know, I have an armload to take up tomorrow. 

The last Gerbera of summer, and Mandevilla, too

Tomorrow I will clear the plants from the deck, in recognition of the change of season. This is the first year I've been aware of the possibility of over wintering a Mandevilla, and actually doing it has been the subject of much internal debate.

I've scoured the internet. Almost. I only will bring in the red Mandevilla, and that for the reason that I've had red Mandevillas several times, and this is the first time it not only has bloomed, but has done so prolifically.

I also must repot it, as it was transferred to a hanging basket lined with some moss stuff or the other. I hope I have a pot in the shed! I must think this through tomorrow. I really would like to overwinter the white Mandevilla and have the window, but no stand. We'll see.

Yesterday I had the one year check of my reverse shoulder replacement. I was pronounced far better than the average, and dismissed forever on that score. On my way down the steps yesterday, I stopped to photograph the Mandevilla's and the Gerbera.

Charming, no? The pink Mandevilla made its way across, and seems intent on equaling or besting the white. At the bottom of the steps I stopped to investigate, thinking I had a pot. It seems I do not.

The Gerbera daisy has one last flower coming up. This daisy is red, and I do like it. I've resolved in future to buy only red Gerbera's. And if there is not an extra pot in the shed, I will buy one, rather than sending this new little fellow to bed early in the compost pile. 

The rest of yesterday, some of today

Yesterday actually began well. Lots of sunshine, and my list of errands was falling like autumn leaves.  

First a trip into Akron to have a hearing aid repaired. It's still the big city, but not nearly so intimidating as when I walked and rode the bus. Especially not after daily and weekly trips through never ending construction, with Laura, to some of the oldest, trickiest parts of town, where all the hospitals are still located.

Then back on the freeway and north to the Verizon store in Hudson. We tinkered with my phone and agreed the on line technician was out of her mind to think the salesman could solve the app problem I have. I did leave the store the owner of a free tablet for a mere $10 extra dollars monthly to my contract. Say what you will in the comments.

Next stop was to be due west to Peninsula, and north to see what was being done to Boston Park. As I approached Riverview Road I said to myself, go the other way on Riverview to the library, two doors down. Use the restroom, say Hi to the staff, then go take on the National Park.

Who did I run into than John and Kathleen, friends for more than thirty years, but out of touch these last three years since they moved across the valley. We all piled into a car and went to lunch and a two hour catchup.

The operative word was "piled". John had a massive, debilitating stroke more than twenty years ago, and my mobility issues are only a little behind his. I met them when they had The Crooked River Herb Farm in the valley, and took in rescued sheep, goats, llamas, dogs and cats. Chickens, too.

Then I went the other way on Riverview, down to Boston Park. Here are two pictures from yesterday, to refresh your memory.
Looking west to the park:

Looking south toward the old end of the Boston Park:

That's the old park, with two cedars in one corner and a sycamore in the other. Now, here is a postcard that came in today's mail:

Two cedars in one corner and the sycamore in the other. I spent the afternoon on the phone with a trustee. I told her, the joke's on us. When the two of us are dead and gone, so are those cedars and the sandstone walks.

Talk is good. In the course of the conversation I wondered, since that green rectangle is not a parcel, how did the Park get permission? I learned the Park is required to meet county drainage requirements, and those hills and valleys I saw yesterday are drainage holding ponds.

Those of us who live here and have fought the park for our rights, all these years, know what the park wants, the park gets. That pretty much was the reason I ascribed to their grabbing an acre of land to develop. That grey area past the sycamore, by the way, is for RV's.

So, if the Park actually was made to do something; i.e., put in holding ponds, it's time to stir up public opinion again. I need to learn how the Summit County Engineer gave up the right to the road right of way. It needs to have been done in writing, or it won't be legal. Although "legal" has never bothered the Park.

I think my biggest and best opportunity to preserve that little square of cedars and an old public water fountain will be some national recognition, such as tying the CCC to it's existence. It probably will do me good to go relentless again.

And the reason I got the postcard? I was invited to an open house for local government officials, toward the end of the month. Hell will freeze over before I set foot in the new CVNP Visitor Center.