Today's calendar

Every morning I look at my Google calendar. Once I figured it out, it's been lovely to have. I can pull it out and register appointments, make notes on things to do on the day to do them and so on and on and on.

Today, thanks to everything Google knows, it said Happy Birthday. It's right next to April 1, on which I have written Buy Zinnia seeds.  That could be a problem.

Otherwise it has been the same as any birthday in the last decade. My friends called and said Happy Birthday. We promised to have the celebratory lunch out when restaurants opened again.

My sister called, first thing. One daughter texted, one called. Ann called while I was falling asleep over bouts. I happily set that aside, and we chatted an hour away. Her kennel is a non-essential in this new world. 

When I sat down today to tie the ends together, there were six bouts to go. Now there are three. Hooray and hallelujah, I knew I'd be getting through ya! Another day will do it. I hope it's tomorrow.

I really feel less than cheerful today. I turned on the radio as I began tying on, and tuned in to the governor's daily Covid-19 update.  Ohio has fifty five deaths so far, ages from one to ninety nine. 

The strict regulations taken by Ohio have flattened the curve, but we have not faced the top of our bell yet. Two people have died in my least populated urban county. 

I know what will happen to areas that have not made guide lines, and worst of all, to the people who consider this a joke, and an inconvenience to be circumvented. There are far too many displaced high school and college students still gathering and looking for ways to pass their time socially and together.

Today USPS brought me a present from myself, a wall pocket by Marty Frolick, Old Patagonia Pottery.  I no longer see Marty at shows, but thanks to EBay magic, I see his work from time to time. I carefully selected a hook that would fit the pot, carefully nailed it into the wall and carefully hung the wall pocket, with the flags from my friend Hilary Cooper, Crazy as a Loom.

Pretty, isn't it! Today was not warm enough to sit outside to plant ranuculus, but their day will come, though not before the weekend, or even next week.

Bizzy, bizzy

Another short essay of little to nothing. I woke up determined to go shopping, and I did. After a short shower and a long breakfast, I was ready, and left before 10:30.

I decided to wear my mask all the time, out and about. My selfie ability has not improved.

The grocery store expedition was fascinating. Remember, Kreiger's is a grocery store. No paper products to be out of. Of my entire list, I had to substitute yellow split peas for green, and they were out of yeast. It's time to relearn sourdough. Or not.

There was little traffic in the store, but it did fill up to the usual volume before I left. Plexiglass dividers have been installed at the counters. I walked from aisle six to aisle one to find a cashier with no customers. I should have realized she always has few to no one checking out because she is such a grump.

I had bags, but she would not load them. It is difficult to load bags in the tiny space allotted, but I kept at it. The Grump several times informed me they had plastic she could use, and I simply smiled and said "No, thank you." 

Another customer came behind me and the Grump checked him out. She did a nice job of segregating our purchases and packing his while I finished mine. We finished simultaneously.

I came home with six bags. I only bought for two weeks, but more bags are lighter to lift.

This is all it amounted to. Oh, and I remember, the big plastic boxes of packaged spinach were not there. The whole section of prepared greens was mighty slim. I forgot to go back to the fresh vegetable section to find spinach and chard. There were no loose carrots this week, either.


I was back from shopping and the post office shortly after noon, but putting away all the groceries and making a loaf of bread took the rest of the stuffing out of me. 

I had a surprise package when I came in. I'd forgot all about the delayed shipment of ranuculus. 

They were back ordered from my original order of spring bulbs because, don't you know, they cannot be planted until spring.

That broader green leaf in the center probably is anemone. I wonder if carefully cutting away the brown tip of that very first bulb, by the black pole, will help it. It took a hit from freezing temps, freezing rain and freezing snow.

I hope this pot blooms paper narcissus. There are so many coming up. 

Sometime this week I'll plant up the ranuculus for pig to enjoy. It's way too early to put up mandevilla. You may need to keep reminding me.

A perfect weaving metaphor

Weaving has not been mentioned for a couple of days because it has been ignored. Winding the warp onto the back beam is the most strenuous and occasionally painful part of the job. I am pleased with the last warp, well wound.

Even and tight. You could bounce GI dimes from it. I walked off, abandoned it. That was last Wednesday.  No amount of boredom relief could get me back to the warp.

I last went grocery shopping the third of March. We weren't talking Corona virus then, except in passing. I went to the store with the personal challenge of shopping for a month, for no reason except to see if I could do it. Purchase carefully and eat for a month. I  wasn't inventing ways to evade boredom. 

The third of April is next week, and I will go grocery shopping. I have been out and about a bit, made some observations, drawn some conclusions. I won't go shopping at 7:30 in the morning, when all those old people are in there. Bless their hearts and all that, I'll still go when I normally do, after breakfast. Say ten in the morning.

And, I will not shop for a month. I can imagine being accused of hoarding. If it's even there. Beside, shopping is something to do to take a chunk off boredom.

Yesterday I set myself two tasks for today. I accomplished the first and headed down to the studio to begin tying the new warp to the old. As I passed the cat, and lightening split the sky. He literally 

evaporated, and I found him, hours later, under the bed. 

It was a striking show of nature, lasting a few hours. Hail fell a couple of times, and the thunder rumbled and rolled for hours.

Perfect weather to continue working on the loom. I pulled over the first of the old warp and began.

All these years later, I've figured out, tying on a new warp is identical to being quarantined. Boring. I made it through two of eleven bouts, constantly fighting sleep.

That's it, that's all I got done. I took a look around for Mr. Cat, to no avail. I put the recliner back and took a nap for two hours. Then I woke up and had supper. That's never boring.

Yes, it's Thursday

Checking the calendar this morning, it was Thursday. I would like to grocery shop, but had a few more important chores before the grocery store. Like buying and readying disinfectant before I lugged another month of groceries into the house.

So, I went to our Dollar Store. Across the street, gas was $1.65. I've been out and about the last two weeks on the same three quarter tank of gasoline. By the time I need a refill, it will either be down to a buck and a quarter, back to two dollars a gallon, or unchanged. We live in a very uncertain time.

While looking for Lysol I did pick up laundry soap and dishwasher soap pods. I've quit boycotting pods because toddlers eat them. Putting my money where my mouth was, so to speak. I've concluded that mothers can just keep them out of reach, because there are no plastic jugs involved.

And yes, toddlers can climb anything to get anywhere. So, put them in a locked strong box. That's what I had to do when I had a granddaughter threatening destruction. Not pods, they weren't on the market then. Every drug in the house, beginning with aspirin and all the way through old people drugs the three old people in the house took had to be locked up. We all still have the strong boxes.

Anyway, I went through checkout and asked about the Lysol. The clerk said perhaps it would be in tomorrow's shipment, but he didn't know how much would be required to for nightly disinfecting the store. So, I went back for a bottle of Clorox.

Boredom is hard to fill. I've done a decent job. I went to the store after breakfast. Now I need to go make supper. I also made Boston Brown Bread today, so I won't need to go to the grocery store until next week.

The sun shined today; the windows were open. It made us happy.

Sunshine tomorrow

The cold damp weather is more annoying than staying home. My phone weather bug says fifty percent chance of rain tomorrow. Weather channel offers warmer weather tomorrow and only ten percent chance of rain. And which did I pick?

There were six bouts to wind when I went to the studio today, and the goal was to finish all. But with the fiddling around to switch out the last several tubes of warp, I quit after two, and made a bowl of custard. I bet most men think it namby-pamby, but it is my go to comfort food, miles ahead of mac and cheese or stuffed peppers.

The custard came out of the oven before lunch, so I had it for dessert, and went back to the studio determined to finish.

Came close. That is bout ten of eleven started there. I do not understand my compulsion to finish. I started this only yesterday. Sadly, I forgot I started yesterday; I had to backtrack and look it up. Only one day ago...

I did write on my calendar another job I wanted to do today, a good thing. There it was this morning like a shiny new idea. I wanted to arrange my remaining towels in color wheel sequence for a picture for Instagram.

A wheel would be more fun, but then I would be removing "stuff" from my work table. Good stuff, like my bobbin winder, that's held down by a C clamp.

This was a good exercise in how much is missing. Here are some colors I could weave to fill in the blanks.

I have even darker greens I can select. Between the green and orange is a plum, I believe. I didn't look it up. It's OK. The purple on the end is a must, as is the yellow on the other end.

Well, time for supper and then I'll give Instagram another go.