No news

 That's it! I have no news, new or old. Or perhaps a little. My drug store has let me down! For years I have frequented the drive through window. The pharmacy is at the absolute back of a big box store, and I simply am not stable enough to make the walk in comfort or mental peace.

For the last six weeks or more the drug store has administered Covid tests. I have no idea what is the protocol; I only know it happens at the drive through window, with a line of cars winding around the building. For a short time they opened the pneumatic tube pick up, but it was impossible to get through the line of Covid cars, so I park and go in.

First I dry my feet thoroughly; I am terrified of slipping on the tile. Then I tap, tap, tap my way to the back, and then out, with a tiny bag in my right hand. As I passed the greeting cards this time, I remembered I absolutely must get some. I made a handsome selection, and started to the front again.

Heading for the counter, not the door, I had to detour a table of orphan holiday plants, quite reduced in price. My irritation at succumbing to an extra purchase because I was made to come into the store crumbled before a stunted and dehydrated amaryllis. I crammed the prescription into my purse, grasped five slippery cards and my essential cane in my left hand and awkwardly lifted the amaryllis and secured it to my chest.

The cashier had a go at me for being unable to find the real end of the line until she had yelled about proper distancing, retracing my steps and going down an aisle to find the end. Muttering "Spawn of Trump" into my mask, I did so.

Pretty little thing, isn't it. I believe there are four blossoms there, on one stalk, and possible two more stalks to come. I believe we'll enjoy each other's company for some time.

Enjoy welcoming the new year tonight. Be happy, stay safe. And a good new year to all. May joy be with you.

Two true stories

My mother returned to the work force when I was in seventh grade. I estimate that was 1956-ish. I added enough years to my birth date to come up with that, and subtracted some years from when I graduated, and both answers were close. So, I picked 1956-ish. No matter which I do, that makes my sister very young. Mom going back to work changed her life. Another story.

For a long time mom worked in an insurance office. Now she had stories to tell at the supper table. Exactly one of those tales stuck with me, the cat story. It's not great, and you may want to skip the next paragraph. Sadly, it's the core of the story.

One cold winter day the family cat of the insured crawled up under the hood of the family car, curled up on the warm engine block, and settled in for a good night's sleep. Dad started the car the next morning and the fan blade put the cat though the radiator and generally in bits all under the hood. Enough of that.

Now it's 2020, the year without end. My friend Ann in Wisconsin calls me about once a week. Checking up. Remember the week at Thanksgiving I was not answering my malfunctioning phone and the chain of phone calls sent my neighbor Cathy over to knock, first on my window, then on my door?

Once when Ann called and we were exchanging a week of news she suddenly gasped, and told me what she just happened to see from her kitchen window. One of the stray cats they've taken in this winter climbed a tire and disappeared under the hood of her car. Enterprising fellow, warm engine blocks beat cat igloos on the porch, paws down.

I told her the cat story. On her way back to the kennel after lunch, Ann called me and told me she'd opened her hood before leaving and eventually got the cat gone at the end of her snow brush. From Ann, that's a major threat.

One warm day in Wisconsin, at the end of last week, Ann called me. She was laughing too much almost to not speak. "You'll never believe! I'm on my road, just left my drive, and I heard such a thunk! What did I hit? I looked in the mirror for something flattened in the road, and there is Lonzo (all their cats have a "Z" in their name), high tailing it back to the house! First day I have not chased him off the engine. I didn't look because it's so warm today!"

At work she parked the car, a late model Ford mid-size, opened the hood and looked. The next time we chatted, she told me she could see Lonzo's escape route, from the warm bed to the cold road. Such a cat. With luck he learned a lesson. However, the neuter fee may not be wasted.

I perused the internet to understand the current configuration under the average car's hood. Nothing like they looked when I was a teen. There are no exposed moving parts I could see, and certainly not a fan blade. Thanks to Lonzo for a story I forgot half a century ago.

At the old house, mom and a pair named Toe-Toe and No-Toe. By the time she'd worked back to the crossword mom generally had relinquished her cereal bowl to the cats. I call this picture "Breakfast with Mom".

 

Take that, MIT

It's the end of December, it's a holiday week; eleven of the recent twelve inches of snow remain, and I am not about to go for groceries. All my fresh food is gone, save those reliable staples of garlic and onion.

For three nights I've leaned back and rubbed my tummy after one of my favorite soups whose secret to success is taking the potato masher to a can of white beans before adding the can of tomatoes. Yum. I could make another round of that, but then I could have doubled the batch, and didn't.

What to make for supper tonight, and the next couple of nights before I go shopping? Thumbing my recipe book, I stopped at Bruschetta Spaghetti. No, I do not have garden tomatoes or grocery Roma's on the counter, but it's winter, for crying out loud, and I'll try anything.

However, and essential to fitting the recipe into my small cast iron pot, the recipe calls for the spaghetti to be broken in half. I've made this stuff several times, and broken spaghetti in half, and spent five or ten minutes with the broom, after the mess.

This time I consulted Google. Yes, there are instructions on breaking spaghetti in half, with no accompanying mess. It was devised by MIT students, who won an ig-Nobel prize. However, they contributed to the study of force science, and have built a machine to break spaghetti one strand at a time, efficiently.

You must twist the spaghetti almost 360 degrees, then snap it.

My brain is not up to all the pain in my hands, doing that.

Nevertheless, I wandered down to the pantry. I don't know why. Sheer perverseness, I suppose. Standing with the package of spaghetti in one hand, looking to see if there is an empty jar to hold half a package of broken spaghetti, I looked down at the shelf. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I put the middle of the package on the edge of the shelf and pushed both ends. Ka-ching. Two halves. I looked closely, and I swear I can see or hear no little bits. However, I do not have a glass jar to store the spaghetti, so I will not open the package until I make supper.

Time to go tie on some warp ends. Here is a picture of a foot of snow in Boston Township, to play us out:

Aren't we amazing!

 Yesterday Jan came and stationed herself on the other side of the loom, and we began. The goal was to replace forty diminishing tubes of warp with forty new tubes of warp.

That we did. When a tube was near done, she warned me to stop, and I waited while she tied the new to the old. Her help saved me from going to do that job, too. She could reach over or through to get to every spool. Alone I would have to skinny around the loom to get to the spool rack. It's so tedious.

The result was I turned the crank 1,100 turns and filled all eleven sectional bouts on the beam in one day. Actually, in ninety minutes. Isn't that amazing! Every bout but the last has a new tube of thread.

And their chubby selves wait until I get to them. Before and after:

And on to interesting news. At the beginning of this month, I lost my credit card. Six decades of a plastic card, and I lost it. I know where it went; I dropped it into the bag, in an effort to end my transaction and get out of the way of the long line behind me. Later in the day I put the bag in the waste basket, card included.

A week later I missed it, reconstructed its demise and ordered a new card. It was a tough two weeks without a card. I have another, for which I have no card. When a new one comes for that account I shred it, on the premise I do not need and will never use twice the amount of credit I permit myself.

Watching the old card on my computer, I realized recurring deductions for the old card were appearing on the new card. Hold the phone! I had congratulated myself that a couple of recurring charitable donations would go away, but there they were. I called my mighty New York bank and asked What the Hell?

Oh, yes, that deduction I'd authorized for Tree Huggers Forever, and all the rest of them, has a teensy line that says the charge can "slide up", from a discontinued card to its replacement. Furthermore, I must contact the beneficiary, not the bank. And, the only phone number I can find for the most egregious cause is 555-555-5555. Try ringing that up.

In closing, I raise my glass to the close of the most egregious presidency I've lived through. I borrowed these pictures from my hometown paper, The Akron Beacon Journal. I subscribed, by the way, and yes, the charge "slid up". Here are two photos in tribute to the man in the Oval Office.

This is one of the two mail sorting stations that served the area. The other, of course, was shut down. Look closely. Every dock has a truck unloading. There are nine trailers to be unloaded. There are three or four more in the facilities' drive. There is a yellow cabbed truck waiting to turn in, a red cabbed truck behind, and four or more waiting behind. But wait. There is a white cabbed truck waiting on the other side of the street, to turn left. 

This is a still picture. In the video accompanying, trucks are lined up on all four streets of this cross road. And here is the inside of the facility:

I wonder if an envelope I'm expecting from Arizona, since December 2, has even made it this far. So, here's to you, Mr. President. Rather reminiscent of Grant through Georgia, don't you think.

Done with the past, the future has plenty of room for change (unknown author)

I worked to a deadline this week I just typed "weak" and laughed. But I did, just like churning out the budgets for five departments and getting them out and understood. Though actually that would have been done in November.

When I next warp, each of the forty spools will empty and need to be changed. That means stop turning the beam, make a note of the number of turns on the beam, get to the end of the thread on the spool, tie on the new spool and put it back on its peg.

I was not truthful! When I put on a new warp last November, I had to change out one spool, that one on the left, fourth one down. This is the only job I consider really ugly, far worse than tying on a new warp, and you know how I despise that.

The topmost spools are out of my reach! I stand on a little stool, which really isn't brilliant. But, my tall sister agreed to come help me during the two weeks she took off at year's end. She will be here tomorrow. But, not before ten in the morning.

And I have worked to that deadline! I finished the warp on the beam, then fulled the lengths of fabric, and cut them. Yesterday I serged off the ends of the towels. I missed a knot in the serger thread and let it go through the eyes. Of course it did not make it. It was too late in the afternoon for me to understand, so Jan came to rethread the machine. That last hook that is threaded from behind. Saved!

Today I finished hemming everything, and took new pictures. I almost titled this post, Cream Rose on Top! And, it is. I straightened up my shelf. I'm in good shape for next year.

I cleared off the last of the old warp and got the loom ready to begin the new warp tomorrow. Ready to go. And I promise you, I will not rush tying it on.

I read the fearless leader had promised a thirty day reign of destruction. I wonder if he may be frog marched from the scene before worse damage can be rendered. As if a massive intelligence breach is not damage. I wonder if McConnell has had enough.