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A View From the Field |
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November, 2012 November 30 I went up to the north end at a reasonable hour last night, but then I started looking at the book I took with me that has some good ideas about knitting socks, and it was after midnight when I went to bed. It wasn't until sometime later that I remembered I was supposed to wash my hair last night. Oops.
Anyway, it took me a little while to get to sleep. I wanted to turn over, but as soon as I got in bed, Grayson jumped up and settled down behind my knees and I couldn't move without bothering him. Eventually I fell asleep. I was only up twice, and I got up around 10:00. I knitted two repeats on the scarf, which was good, because I forgot about it tonight and only got one repeat done while the talking was going on.
I didn't do a lot today, but I did get a bunch of cat food into the house (and out of the car) so we are set for a while. Everybody was so interested in the new big bag yesterday that I filled that bowl, but when I opened the small bag, it had a piece of paper in it saying that Purina had stopped making that kind in June. We are all disappointed. Well, at least I have almost 16 lbs, which should last me for a while. Usually I don't refill the bowls until they are all empty so that the guys will eat some of the varieties they don't like as well. I keep hoping they will decide they're all right anyway.
It was another dark, dreary day. I guess there was some snow between 8:00 and 9:00 this morning (couldn't prove it by me) but that was all. The temperature rose very slowly all day from 23º at midnight to 31º now. Again there was almost no wind - around 5 mph from the south all day. It was so cloudy that I was very surprised to look at the pictures from Montreal Harbour (Microsoft thinks that's wrong, but that's how they spell it there), Ontario and see that it was clear over there. No fair. However, it was also a whole lot colder over there. I just looked at the MODIS imagery and while it was clear at the east end of the lake, the clouds over us were very thick. It's supposed to warm up over the weekend and maybe rain. I'm sorry about that, but maybe it's a good thing. I haven't gone out to pull down the shutters on the porch because there is a lot of snow piled up against the screens and I'd have to shovel it. Maybe it will melt so I can batten down the hatches. I should have done that last week, I guess, but I hate it so that I always wait too long.
Nothing much to report with the guys. They are still negotiating. Sometimes Grayson will go after Louie, but lately when Louie tries to go after Grayson, he's been going away someplace safe, like behind the toilet or under my feet. I'm not sure what's on his mind, and neither is Louie. They'll get it straightened around sometime. The only sad thing is that Grayson jumped up on the bed sometime last week when Louie was all settled in and Louie hasn't slept with me since. That's not fair. It's a big bed and there's room for all of us. Louie has been sleeping in the window seat, which is fine as long as the wind isn't blowing, but when it's cold and windy, it can get pretty cool over there. I hope he moves back when it gets cold again. I guess cats don't have much of a sense of fairness anyway.
Now I will read for a little while before I go up to the north end. It's another dark, cloudy night in the field, but it's warming up. And November is over.
November 29 I turned out the light at 10:30 last night, but I had some problem getting to sleep - I don't know why. Once I made it, sometime after 11:30, I did fine, and I got up around 10:00. Between 8:00 and 10:00 I had some vivid dreams about food. I don't know why that, either, because I wasn't particularly hungry, or at least not more than usual.
Anyway, I got up around 10:00 and I actually knitted two repeats on the scarf. Add to that the two more I did tonight during the talking, and I'm about two-thirds done. I'm knitting a bit more quickly these days, and if I pay strict attention to what I'm doing (and count on the backside rows) I find I haven't been making as many mistakes. I still split the yarn occasionally, especially on the decreases, and I occasionally knit in the row below on the garter stitch part, but not very often. So it looks like I'll be done in plenty of time to get it blocked and off to Deb before Christmas, if I keep at it.
The next project is going to be socks for Johanna. She likes the green stripe a lot. So do I. I think I'll probably knit hers plain, but I'm thinking of knitting mine in some pattern that makes waves. The colorway is called "Aquarium", so having the stripes be wavy would be appropriate, and then I could be knitting socks and lace at the same time. After that, I'm not sure what the next project will be, but it will most likely be more lace. I can't get enough of that.
I'm very happy to say that the NWS station got fixed around noon, so I have some official temperatures to report. It was cold again. The high was 24º, around 1:00, and it dribbled off after that, to 22º now. I'm happy to report my thermometer agrees, which has not always been the case over the summer. The wind was from the east, but it wasn't very strong. We had snow showers all day, but only the one this morning was heavy enough to register as moisture. I should also report that the Keweenaw Road commission reports that we've had 16" from the 24th through the 27th (they're behind), and 19" so far for the month, which is quite respectable for November. I guess it's supposed to warm up over the weekend and maybe rain, so we'll lose some of our snow pack, but John Dee is hopeful that it won't be too much. Needless to say, it was dark and cloudy all day.
Besides that, our days are down to about 8¾ hours, so it's still quite dark until 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning and it starts getting dark at or before 4:00 in the afternoon. Even at noon, if we could see it, the sun is only 21º above the horizon. I know there are places where it's worse, but I come from spots to the south, so it impresses me. Well, there are only about 22 days before we start on the upward leg. We just have to endure this.
I went to the post office this afternoon where there were six or seven packages, including one heavy one I could not figure out until I opened it and discovered they had stuffed a 13 lb bag of cat food into a long thin fixed rate box. Oh, that's why it rattled. There was underwear, pills, and some things to play with.
The guys weren't particularly sleepy today, which was surprising. That box with the cat food in it really interested Louie. First he tried to get into the box, not successfully, then he sat down on top of it for a while. Then he discovered the bag of cat food, which was in the studio for a while, and he tried at least six times to get at it and tear it open. It is his favorite flavor, but I did not want him tearing a hole in that big bag. Finally I took it out, and I discovered why he was so interested. The warm floor had warmed it up so that it smelled (to him) most sentimental. I just thought it was smelly. I dumped it outside the door to the breezeway, and I'll take care of it tomorrow when I get all the cat food in. After dinner, Louie did come and sit on me and purr and try to go to sleep, so he doesn't hold it against me that I kept throwing boxes at him earlier. Cats are that way, at least usually.
So now it's another dark, snowy night in the field again, and I will be trying to get to bed at some kind of reasonable hour.
November 28 I made it into bed by 10:45 last night, and I slept well. I woke up around 8:45, and I was trying to get back to sleep when Louie started talking in his sleep. That woke me up enough to know that I had to take a walk, so I got up around 9:20. I knitted my one repeat. I must really get more done on that scarf, but by the time the talking starts, it's so dark that it's hard.
I didn't do anything, now that I think about it. I was going to go to the post office, but I forgot I wanted to mail some things and by the time I was ready to do that, it was too late. Tomorrow.
The weather was just about the way it's been for the past five days, except colder. It was 18º (by my thermometer) when I got to the studio, and as best I can tell, it never got over 21º all day. And there were the usual occasional snow showers. The wind has been shifting between north and west. It was from the north all night, and now is from the west again, but at no time has it been very strong. Of course, it was dark and cloudy all day.
The guys haven't done much to report. Louie did insist upon getting on my lap when I was in the middle of something, but he didn't stay long. Grayson has been sleeping inside the kitty condo in the afternoons - close to me, close to the warm floor, and enclosed. Louie is content to sleep on the warm floor, but then, he has plenty of padding to keep him warm.
Louie wanted to sit on me when I was in the middle of trying to resolve my problem with printing return address labels on this computer. I don't understand why Microsoft would stop using the Avery templates they used in 2001, but then, I don't know all the ins and outs of corporate associations. At any rate, I finally - finally! - resolved the problem by downloading a template from Avery. Unfortunately, it only works in Word, so I had to copy my name and address 79 times after I got it the way I wanted it in the first box, but then it printed correctly. I tried something, so the address came out a bit small, but maybe the next time I have to make labels, I can fix that...and copy it 79 times. Publisher was better, when it worked, but at least i can print labels again!
Now it's a dark, cold night in the field. There is a penumbral eclipse of the full moon tonight, but we wouldn't get to see much of it here, if we could. The full moon will make it nice and light out tonight. I think I will read for a while and try to get to bed early again.
November 27 i was in bed by 10:30, but not surprisingly, I didn't sleep very well. It took me forever to get to sleep, and once I did, I kept waking up with weird dreams. Tonight should be better. I got up about 9:15, and I knitted a repeat on the scarf. It was nice to have a fairly long day.
I didn't do very much with it. I finally got the last bunch of stuff out of the sink. This was one big pot, the platters and the broiler pan. I emptied the dishwasher, finally, and started loading it again. Now things are getting back to normal looking. Once the last stuff is dry, I will be able to put it all away and then I'll be almost good again. Oh, yes, and I filled the dry cat food dishes. Those two guys really eat a lot - probably a lot more than they should.
The weather was just about like the last few days, dark and cloudy and with some snow showers. The wind has shifted around to the west, and according to my thermometer, the temperature has risen to 31º. There was hardly any wind at all.
The guys were themselves, so nothing new to report there.
In fact, nothing much new to report at all. Tonight i need to wash my hair, and I'm tired again, so I hope I'll be going to bed at a reasonable hour. It's a dark, cloudy night in the field again. Winter is here.
November 26 I was in bed by 8:30 again last night, and I didn't get up until 10:00. I was up several times, and I have to keep remembering that anytime I get up in the night I may be awake anywhere between 10 minutes and half an hour or more, so when I stop and start doesn't determine how much actual sleep I get. That was the trouble Saturday night, and I probably didn't get nine hours. Last night it was probably more like 10 or 11, so I do feel a bit better today. I'm still not very hungry and I'm tired again, but it's better than yesterday.
Not that I did anything. I did knit this morning, and I'm now halfway done with the scarf. That was about it. I did my surfing, played games and read. That's all.
The weather was about like it has been for the past few days. It was dark and cloudy, and every so often there would be a light snow squall. The wind was from the north and sometimes it got gusty, but it wasn't exceptionally strong. According to my thermometer, the temperature was about steady again, around 25º. Typical winter.
Grayson was full of energy this morning. Since attacking Louie usually backfires, he's been attacking the rug in the bathroom again, and while I was washing this morning, he attacked my leg and left some bleeding scratches. As I get older, my skin, especially in places like my legs and feet, gets much thinner and more fragile and it's easier to scratch. He knew I wasn't pleased. He also attacked the hem of my nightie, which always makes me laugh, but it also makes it a bit difficult to move around. Louie wasn't as energetic. He came for his daily loving, and he wanted to sleep on my lap, but I had to move him.
I am happy to say that my legs are getting back in shape again, although my feet are still a bit sore. Maybe by tomorrow, that will be over, too. I didn't do any Cyber Monday shopping, except for one place, where I couldn't do anything because their server was so overloaded I couldn't get pages to load. Besides, all my real Christmas shopping done, and I haven't decided yet whether to pop for a Kindle Fire or not. Reading is so much part of me that it's a temptation.
Now I think I will totter up to the north end and try to get another good night's sleep. It's another dark, cold night in the field, except that with the moon nearly at full, it's not all that dark at night.
November 25 Well, I was in bed before 9:00 last night, and I slept quite well, with a couple of wakeups, until about 6:00, and then I just dozed until the alarm went off. I would like to have gone back to sleep. However, I got up and did my thing and got off to church about 9:15.
I would like to have been earlier. it apparently snowed off and on all night long, and I have to say I was disappointed in the Keweenaw Road Commission. I guess they didn't think anybody would be driving around today, so they had not done a good job on the roads. They had hardly used any sand and no salt at all (that was all right) and US-41 was a skating rink all the way to Mohawk. I wanted to go faster than the guy I came up behind around Central, but I was able to pass him. Then at Kearsarge, I got behind a plow. Ugh. I wasn't late for church, but I was a little later than I like to be.
We celebrated the end of the church year today, and also the end of the blue hymnal. Next week, we'll be using the new one. Yeah!
I had to get gas. I think I've mentioned before that I don't like to let the tank get too empty in the wintertime, because you never know, so I did that. My trip home was at least as long as my trip down, and it wasn't that there was any traffic, because there wasn't much, but I was just a little reluctant to go too fast on those curves that didn't have any sand on them. A guy came toward me at one point with his headlights on, and I could see them glinting off the ice. I can only guess that it must have rained a bit Thursday night before it started to snow. I got home around 1:00.
And I didn't do anything. I think I am fighting a bug. I want to sleep all the time, I'm not very hungry, and I had indigestion from my breakfast this morning. Those are pretty good signs that my bod is in fighting mode.
I definitely did not want any more turkey today. In fact, I'm not sure I want any more at all. I had a little gout attack in my toe last night, which is a good indicator that I've been eating too many purines, and besides, I had indigestion last night, too. I'm not sure what I will do with all the rest of the turkey. I may make up some TV dinners. I have all the stuff i need for tetrazzini, but I'm not sure I want it. So I don't know. I may offer it to Ron. We'll see.
It was a windy day, and there were some lake effect squalls. I think, without having the NWS station to check it with, that the temperature was around 26º all day. The wind was out of the north, with gusts that got up to 41 mph at 6:00. Oooh, goodie! Another gale! Actually, the sustained winds have only been in the upper 20s. Of course it was dark and cloudy all day.
The guys were sleepy again. Louie got on my lap and went to sleep, all stretched out, but this time he had his head on my left arm, so I could sort of do my crosswords and I could read but I couldn't do much else.
Now I think I will read a bit more and try to get to bed very early again. That's about all I can do on a cold, windy, snowy night in the field.
November 24 Oh, well. I went up to the north end early, but then I picked up the book, and it was nearly 1:00 when I got to bed. I was only up once, amazingly enough. The second time I woke up it was around 9;00, and by 9:30 I knew I was going to have to take a walk, so I got up. I knitted and I started the wash before breakfast. Sometimes I think my mother was right. She always said that if she got too much sleep, she never got anything done during the day - and she was the type who had to have something to do every day.
Anyway, I washed, I washed dishes, and I washed up the first sink full of pots and pans. The second sink full is soaking now, and since it includes the broiler pan and the turkey rack, it will take a while. The guys couldn't figure out what I was doing, walking back and forth between the kitchen and the laundry room. Now, they've seen all that before, but evidently they forget. Anyway, the last two loads - and they were big ones - are just about through in the dryer now. So that is done. I filled the pill dispensers down here, and when I go up to the north end, I'll fill the ones there. And I'll be trying to get to bed early tonight. In spite of the snow, I want to try to get to church tomorrow.
It didn't snow any more, or if it did it was so light I couldn't be sure if something was coming down. According to my thermometer, the temperature was about steady at 25º all day. I emailed the NWS in Marquette, and they actually thanked me for telling them about the station here. They said somebody will be up to check out the problem this week, but I don't know when. I'm not sure of the accuracy of my thermometer, mostly because of where it is. It seems to read high in the summer, but the times I've checked it since it got cold (before the power failure) it seemed to be all right. It's attached to a deck railing, though, which is wood and may change what it's reading. Anyway, there was a little wind overnight, but it was nearly calm all day.
The guys were sleepy again today, except that my perambulations kept waking them up and they wanted to see what I was doing. Grayson slept at (or on) my feet while I was knitting this morning, and both of them spent some time on my lap in the studio. The only problem is, they keep walking back and forth in front of the computer screen, and most of the time I want to see what's on it. Now they're both zonked out.
So that is about all I know, and I don't expect to be up very late tonight. It's a calm, cloudy and cold night in the field.
November 23 Well, happy day after Thanksgiving. I hope you're all recovered from yesterday. I'm not. I hurt.
I didn't get to bed until midnight. I just felt the need to unwind a bit before I went to bed. Once I got there, I did very well, thank you. I was up a couple of times, and when I was up around 4:00, I could tell that the wind was beginning to rise and the lake was beginning to howl. It was even louder at 7:00, and the wind was banging against the house, even though it was from the north. Later on, I found that around that time, the wind was gusting to 52 mph. Oh, no wonder it was noisy!
When I woke up again, the clock was blinking. Oh, shoot. A power failure. What annoyed me most about that is that the wind didn't peak until around 10:00 this morning, and we'll never know how strong it was here. Apparently the power failure happened around 8:45, from the clocks. I do know that Stannard Rock, which always has the highest winds, reported 72 mph gusts around 11:00. Now, that's strong! So under any circumstances, we have had our first gale of the season. Even here, before the power went out, we had sustained winds of 39 mph, which is gale force.
So I knitted a repeat on the scarf, with some difficulty, which let me know I wasn't doing quite as well as I thought. Needless to say, I didn't do anything. I couldn't. My feet were so sore I could hardly walk on them, and my calves and ankles ached. Every now and then I get a twinge in that muscle in my back that tends to cramp up. So I did nothing.
The power didn't come back until around 3:30, I think. I got an automated call around noon saying it was back, so I had to call them again and complain that they didn't know what they were talking about. The lady I talked to was very nice but she sounded a bit harassed, so I guess there were a lot of calls. Now the NWS station is reporting wind but no temperature. The wind has died down a bit, but we're still having 43mph gusts.
Besides the wind, we had what is apparently between 3" and 5" of snow, although it's hard to determine because of the blowing. The wind was swirling around the house so much that every window in the house had snow on the screen, and of course there was lots on the window in front of the camera.
Speaking about the camera, it hung up when the power went out. The computer rebooted, but it came up weirdly, and for some unknown reason, Windows didn't want the camera software to access the network. I guess that was all right, because Norton didn't come up right either, so I had to reboot to get everything settled down. Not that there was anything to see between 8:00 and 11:00, just a lot of white.
The temperature was only 30º when the power went out (down from 41º at midnight), but it has fallen slowly all day, and now, according to my thermometer, it's about 26º (thanks, RIck). So the snow is quite wet and heavy. The trees and bushes were just beautiful this morning, and it's sheltered enough in my side yard that not much snow had fallen off everything. It was dark and cloudy all day and it got dark early.
The guys were sleepy all day, but the wind and the roaring of the lake didn't seem to bother them a lot. Grayson has taken over the pink chair, now that it's a bit too cool for him under the windows.
I had my second Thanksgiving dinner tonight, and it was good, although the turkey is dry, as I suspected. I'm not really hungry still, so I just had a little bit, but I enjoyed it. They say the day after Thanksgiving is the worst day for gout attacks, but I bet it's also about the worst for gall bladder attacks. All that rich gravy and other stuff. If you had both gout and gall bladder trouble, you could really be miserable.
So now I think perhaps I will read a little bit, and then I'll totter up to the north end and crash again. It's a dark, windy, noisy night in the field, so the roaring lake will sing me to sleep.
November 22 - Thanksgiving Day I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I didn't get to bed until 11:30 last night, but I slept fairly well and I got up at 9:30 this morning. I didn't do most of my morning stuff, but I did have a little accident, so I had to change my underwear.
Then I got at the turkey. I got it into the oven by noon. I discovered that hauling a bird of that size by the netting around it is the hard way - it's a whole lot easier if you can grab it by each end to move it around. I decided to try it in the convection oven. Well, it worked, but I didn't realize how much faster it would cook, so it was overcooked. It didn't have a pop-up thermometer in it, and I didn't realize I should have started checking it at about 2½ hours. Next year I will know better.
Anyway, it came out so early that I had all kinds of time to do everything else, and we could probably have eaten at 4:00. It was good turkey, though, very tender, and the breast wasn't nearly as dry as I was afraid it would be.
I got two extra wings, and I simmered them and the neck all afternoon, so I had lots of nice broth. I threw the extra fat into the bottom of the pan, and between that and the drippings, I had some nice brown stuff to make gravy out of...lots of gravy, like about two quarts worth. Since I had all kinds of time, I decided I would try making my gravy using a roux, which I haven't done in over 30 years after I had a lumpy gravy disaster one Thanksgiving. I also used the proportions I had written down in the notes in my cookbook. Well, it turned out great.
We didn't have the broccoli, because there were just the two of us, so I have all of that left. The stuffing turned out good, nice and herby, the way I like it, but I don't like that Brownberry mixture very well. It has whole wheat bread in it, which has a lot of flavor itself, and I like white bread for my stuffing. I'm not sure they even make Pepperidge Farm anymore, and I've had a terrible time finding it.
Ron helped clean up, and all that's left is to wash up the pots and pans. I've never had very good luck washing my pots and pans in the dishwasher, so I don't, but besides that, they need to soak. I forgot to turn off the heat under the gravy, so you can imagine what the bottom of that pot looks like.
So I guess it turned out all right, and I learned something about using my convection oven. Apparently that's an appliance that hasn't gone over very well, because I never read or hear any recipes that say how to use it. I'll do turkey that way again, believe me, but the next time, I may spend more time trying to use the automatic probe, so I'll know when it's done. It's sometimes hard to use the probe, because the cord on it isn't very long, but I think it's possible.
The weather was pretty nice. The high temperature was 55º, for a couple of hours this afternoon. It was rather breezy, with west winds up to 20 mph until noon, but then the wind shifted around to the north and dropped to nothing. It was cloudy all day, with only a ray or two of sunshine. However, we had a very nice sunset. I was just too tired to go out and take pictures, but it turns out that the webcam got a really nice one. I'm sorry you can see the shadow of the door, but I had the lights on in the great room so we could see to eat, and I just forgot to close the door.
Louie disappeared when Ron got here, but Grayson was in his element. He and Ron like each other. When we started to eat, he sat in the cat box that has been in the dining end of the great room forever until we stopped eating. I guess he did try to get on the table once when I wasn't looking, but Ron caught him and made him get down. Now they are both asleep. Nobody begged for people food, thankfully. I suppose eventually they'll get interested, but so far nobody is. It's a relief.
So it was a very busy day and I'm really tired. I may read a while longer, but I have no plans to get up at all early tomorrow, so I might as well unwind. It's snowing in Duluth and we are under a winter storm warning, so we may see our first significant snow of the season, after the rain goes away. When I went out with Ron as he left, it was clear as could be, and the moon and Jupiter were shining brightly in the clear sky. So we'll see what happens in the morning.
November 21 I was so annoyed by the pie that I almost forgot I had to write. More on that later.
I was in bed by 10:00 last night, and I slept well. I got up just before 9:00 and petted a cat and knitted. And that was all I did. Sigh. Maybe I will get done what needs to be done for tomorrow. I just don't have any energy at all.
I did go to the post office, where there was the usual bale of catalogs and pleas for money, and I went to the store, where I got whole milk (once a year - and potatoes are much better with it) and celery, because my plan is to make tetrazzini.
The weather was nice again. The high temperature got to 50º, and while there were some 20 mph gusts this morning, it was nearly calm this afternoon. There were even a few ray of sunshine, and after dark, it cleared up enough that the half moon is shining brightly in the windows. According to the NWS station, we had just a little rain between 10:00 and 11:00, but I find that hard to believe. I didn't notice any rain, and I was up by that time.
The boys were their usual selves. Both of them got loved, and Louie's only problem was that Grayson went to sleep when he wanted to play, so he got on the desk and got into stuff, including trying to chew on one of the pegs of my yarn swift, which is still there. Then he had to try to chew on a big plastic bag. Geez. Maybe I should get him a bone.
I had to make two trips to the basement. I came up the first time with the pie and the ice cream, and then i remembered that the real reason I went down there was to find out if I had any squash. Well, I do. Some of it is a bit old, but I think it will be all right.
I decided that it would be a good idea to bake the pie tonight, partly because I couldn't get it into the freezer up here, and partly because I have enough to do tomorrow. Well. It is out of the oven now, but the directions on the package apparently are for a freezer that is not very far below freezing, not -20º or lower like my basement freezer is. It took 20 minutes longer than the directions said for it to get anywhere near done. I hope it's all right, but I think so. The crust is nicely brown and I used the thermometer on it, and it seems to be hot enough inside, even though it didn't bubble like they said it should. I didn't want the crust to get too brown. So that is done. I was only a little suspicious because I couldn't smell it, but maybe it doesn't have as much cinnamon in it as the ones my mother used to make. I never worry too much about Ron and Trevor anyway. They'll eat most anything. The ice cream is good. I tasted.
So that was a quiet day. Nothing got done, but that's the way things are. Now I need to wash my hair and I need to get to bed. I have to get that turkey into the oven by noon at the latest, so I can't dawdle around tomorrow. It's a clear night in the field, at least right now.
November 20 i read for a while, but I have no idea when I got to bed. I do know that I didn't wake up for the first time until 6:30 this morning, by which time I was sore from sleeping in the same position. When I went back to bed, Jupiter was shining in the windows, but it was fading in and out, so it was partly cloudy. The next time I woke up was 9;30. I knitted a repeat on the scarf. With what I did yesterday, I've now completed 11 repeats - a bit over a third of the total. I didn't knit during the talking tonight; in fact, I forgot about it until it was almost time for dinner. Oops. I need to get this thing done.
I didn't do anything else but empty the dishwasher. Sigh. I just don't feel that robust. I'll be able to cook, but barely.
the weather was nondescript. It was cloudy all day. We actually had the high temperature, 49º, at 5:00 this morning, and it dropped slowly but steadily all day, until now it's 36º. There wasn't a whole lot of wind, and what there was came from the north. Blah.
The guys thought so, too. Some of their food came today, as well as the catnip toys I ordered from them. They acknowledged them, but then they started wrestling with each other and ignored the toys. Unfortunately, with each other around, and with an occasional mouse or shrew, these inert toys, even when they're full of catnip, just don't interest them too much. They do like catnip. Louie took his toy and immediately started rubbing it on the top of his head. They sleep a lot. Knowing them makes me realize just how unusual Buster was. He was 11 years old or more before he started sleeping anywhere near as much as these guys do. I don't think they've defined hyperactivity disorder in cats, but Buster was sure the poster child for it. It's just as well for me that they are as laid back as they are. I don't think I could handle another Buster anymore, even though he was funny to watch.
So it was a quiet day, and I'm going to try to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. It's a cloudy, warmish night in the field again.
November 19 It was around 10:30 when I got to bed last night, and I slept well. I was awake around 7:30, and that was too early, so I went back to sleep and got up around 9:15. That would have been all right, except that Johanna called and we had a long conversation. Then, after I ate breakfast, I had an accident, so I was a bit late getting to my massage. When I got there, we had another long conversation before my massage, so it wasn't so long today. That's all right - right now I don't have any particular problems she needs to address.
I will be making her a pair of socks once I get Debbie's scarf done. I ended up with enough green and turquoise yarn for two pairs, and I don't need two pairs the same.
Then I stopped at the post office, where there were the usual catalogs and stuff, and I had a long talk with Ron and Mary Ann. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and my legs hurt, so nothing got done today. Oh, well. It doesn't really matter, because my other guest had to bow out, so it will just be Ron and Trevor and me on Thursday. They're going to get a whole lot of turkey.
The weather was nice. The temperature got up to 52º and the wind was from the southwest at around 10 mph all day. It was mostly cloudy, although it cleared enough that I was able to see the crescent moon after sunset. We may get some light rain overnight. but it's supposed to be warm until Friday, when it may snow. How many other years has it snowed the day after Thanksgiving?
The guys were themselves today, so nothing remarkable to report on that.
I had a long talk with Sandi this evening. She is so nice. They are here, but they have their daughter and her family with them, so they will be having Thanksgiving together. So I haven't found anybody else to share my bounty.
Now I think I will totter up to the north end and wash my hair. My hair problem right now is that washing it every two days is too much and every three days isn't enough. Or maybe I will just wait until Wednesday. By the time I get through doing my thing on Wednesday, I'll really need a bath anyway, and I'm not planning on going out much. Hmm...
Now it's a warmish (for November) cloudy night in the field.
November 18 Well, I was in bed by 9:00 last night, but I had a hard time getting to sleep and I didn't sleep very well. I did sleep, though, and I really didn't want to get up when the alarm went off. I did, and I got myself off to church on time.
Church was nice. Pastor's sermon was good, and we sang the litany for our prayers (which I have never done before). The hymns were really good, too. From the way he's been talking, I have the feeling Pastor is even more excited about using the new hymnal (Lutheran Service Book) than I am. We have Wednesday and next Sunday left with the old one, then we will start with the new. It will be a real relief. If we couldn't go back to 1941, the next best one is LSB. And he's started right out using it to its fullest, with some of the canticles for Advent. I know because Jan, our organist, was confused by some of the hymn numbers, since the real hymns don't start till #334, and Pastor had listed some with numbers in the 100s and 200s. It will be interesting. Like all the churches where I've gone, you can tell right away when there is a hymn or something else sung that most of the congregation doesn't know - it gets real quiet in the sanctuary. It was during the litany. I liked that, though, and I will have to check and see if it's in LSB. Pastor has a very nice singing voice, and he likes to sing and chant.
We were still out before noon. Then I changed my shoes (I've been taking my Crocs along when I'm going shopping, because my beloved New Balances have gotten too tight) and I was off to Pat's. Well. I almost forgot potatoes, I did forget I was going to lay in a squash just in case I don't have enough in the freezer, I forgot butter, and...well, the turkey is one of the biggest I've ever cooked: 17 lbs. I think I am going to have to try to find the big roaster downstairs...good luck with that. However, it was that or 11 lbs, or go back tomorrow and see if they had anything smaller in another brand. I was disappointed. It's not that I don't love turkey, but that's an awful lot. I guess I will see if Ron and Elsebet will take some home with them (as well as a lot of apple pie), make tetrazzini, and maybe make up some TV dinners. I love turkey, but according to what I read, it's not at all good for gout, and I've been trying to be careful about things like that. Oh, well. The holidays only come once a year. I may go all out and have a standing rib roast for New Years, too. I was able to get a couple of extra wings, so I will be making lots and lots of gravy. Yum. That's bad for gout, too. Yum. If I only ate what I should for all my ailments, I would be subsisting on brown rice, and that's not good for me, either. So I eat pretty much what I want, trying to go easy on the things that are less good for me.
I got home around 1:30, and I got everything packed away by 2:30, I think. The fridge is beginning to bulge, and it's not quite cold enough to start using the breezeway for an extra fridge. However, i did get rid of a bunch of stuff that needed to be pitched, so i am beginning to see where I'll put all the leftovers. Yum.
I was so tired that I didn't do much but get the dishwasher ready to go and fill the dry cat food bowls. I have a couple of chow hounds, for sure. They like the canned food, but they really love the dry foods. I stopped giving them one kind because Louie seemed to be having loose BMs, but they like all the other kinds, too. Of course, that's the kind that came with Louie, and I have a huge bag of it. I had to go out into Internet-land and order some more dry food today, but then I discovered I haven't ordered most of it since January, so that's not so bad. The only problem I had was the outrageous shipping some vendors charge. I ended up back at Petco, with whom I am not so pleased, but their shipping is reasonable, and they had a whole bunch of the catnip toys that the guys really like.
The weather was nice. The temperature got up to 51º this afternoon, although there was a rather brisk southwest breeze, with gusts up to 28 mph. It was partly cloudy until around 3:00, when it mostly clouded up, although I was able to see the crescent moon for a while, high in the sky outside the south windows. The barometer is dropping, which is no doubt why the guys have been so sleepy.
I finished reading First this afternoon and went on to Osara, although I'm thinking about hauling out some of the older stories in the binders, some of which are pretty good and add to the history of my characters. The only problem with that is, it gets dark so early (sunset is around 5:10 now, and getting earlier) that I'd have to turn on a light, which screws up the camera.
I also pawed through my stash of yarn this afternoon and found some that Johanna might like. I've sort of committed to knitting her at least one pair of socks. I started thinking about that because I inadvertently bought the same colorway twice (it's called Aquarium, and it's shades of bright green and turquoise stripes), and I really don't need two pairs of socks the same color. I found a couple of other colors that have a lot of orange in them, and you know how I feel about orange. Jo doesn't feel like that, so she might like them. I'll show them to her tomorrow. I also inadvertently bought two skeins of ruby-red lace yarn, but that's all right. I really like that color, so I will probably just make two red shawls, although there may be a hiatus in between them. I'm not thrilled about going back to socks, but it will be interesting to knit a pair for someone else. Besides, I like Jo. Maybe I should make a pair for Debbie, too - she wears a size 5 shoe, so they'd go really fast).
Now It's a cloudy, windy night in the field, but it's warm.
November 17 Last night I was reading First, so i was late again, although not as late as the previous two nights. I didn't get up until 10:30, and I knitted a repeat on the scarf. I was so late getting to the studio that I didn't do much of anything again. Sigh.
Late this afternoon, I finally got my Windows updates installed. I like to do that as soon as I get the notification (NO, I do NOT let them do it automatically. Never have, never will!), but I forgot about it yesterday. So most of it is done, except that I forgot about the optional ones for the laptop. Now that I can, I like to keep my software up to date.
The weather started out nice. it was clear when I was up during the night, and even at 6:00, I could see Jupiter glowing in the northwest. It was fairly clear this morning, too, although there were those high, hazy clouds again. Later in the afternoon, it sort of clouded up, and the clouds were thick enough that there wasn't much of a sunset. The temperature got up to 45º for most of the afternoon, but it got a bit breezy, with southwest winds up to 20 mph. I guess it's supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow, but more cloudy, and Monday it may rain. Well, it's not starting out to be a very good snow season.
The guys spent most of the afternoon with me, sound asleep, which makes sense, since the barometer is dropping. They look like such little angels when they're sleeping.
Now I will wait until the updates are finished on the laptop, and try to figure out why Norton didn't start at boot time, and then I will toddle up to the north end, bathe and try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's a cloudy but rather warm night in the field.
November 16 So last night it was the book in the studio - The Bluebird Effect by Julie Zickefoose. I've enjoyed her other books as well as her items on ATC (of which there haven't been any lately), so when I found she had a new book, I wanted it. It's a big book, and worth having in hard copy, because not only is she a wonderful writer, she is a wonderful artist, and if what comes through in her writing is valid, a wonderful human being. So I read, much too long. Oh, sigh.
I was only up once after I went to bed, and I got up around 10:30. I had to grab Grayson, but once he got on my lap, he was so happy. He put his paws up on my chest and purred and purred. I got to brush him some, and I'll have to do that a couple of times a week. His fur isn't quite as fly-away as Louie's, but he does shed continuously. After I got him to leave, I knitted a repeat on the scarf, number 7, and the first time in two days I've knitted. Tsk.
So I was very late getting to the studio, and what I had planned for today didn't get done (the story of my life), since I didn't finish my surfing until the talking began. Sigh.
The weather was all right. The temperature only got up to 36º, and there wasn't any wind. While it was clear enough overnight that I could see stars - including Jupiter in Taurus and Sirius. Why I couldn't see Orion, I don't know, but there could have been some patchy haze. It was partly sunny all day, with quite a bit of haze in the sky, turning it white, and for a while this afternoon, the sun wasn't very bright.
That had some good effects, though. We had a very lovely sunset. And I was really proud of the camera. It caught most of it, including the very last picture, when I was too busy broiling fish. In fact, to me it looked a lot darker than that, so the camera can see more in low-light situations than I can.
Tomorrow isn't supposed to be so clear, but it will be warmer.
The kitties were themselves, so no new reports.
I haven't mentioned the stuff I've been putting in my eyes at night. It's a combination of mineral oil and Vaseline, essentially, which, because it is formulated for eyes and dispensed from a little tube, costs around $10 for 3.5 grams. Geez. Anyway, as you can imagine, it makes it hard to see, so I only use it at night. It's gloppy stuff anyway. It gets in my eyelashes and when it melts, it gets all over my eyelids. However, I've been using it fairly regularly since I got back from Detroit, and it has been helping with my corneal problem, so I guess I'll continue to use it. There are fewer times when I wake up in the morning and can't see anything very clearly, and I haven't had any corneal flakes, no matter how long I stare at the computer.
Now I will endeavor not to read more than a little while here and not at all at the north end, and get to bed early (or earlier). I am tired. It's a cold, partly cloudy night in the field.
November 15 Bad me. When I got up to the north end, I started reading again, so it was after midnight when I got to bed. It was a night of strange dreams. I was awake around 6:30, and that was too early, so it was after 9:00 when I got up. That didn't leave me much time, because my meeting was at 11:00, but I made it not too late. We work on Keweenaw time around here.
It was an advertising meeting, and it went on for quite a while. Stuff is going on and we had to discuss it, even though all decisions are made by the CHIA board these days. I guess it took an hour and a half, but the result is that I have to go to the CHIA meeting on Monday, which is at 10:00. I hope I can make it.
Then I had a long conversation with Ron. His house is inching toward being inhabitable again, although the kitchen cabinets haven't arrived yet. That's supposed to happen tomorrow. After they get back in, they still have a lot of work to do, to triage the small stuff that was damaged by the smoke, like books and clothing. But at least they'll be back home. Then I saw Marty and talked to him about the road, so it was 1:00 before I got home, with very sore legs from standing so long.
I had a little something to eat and finished my surfing, but that took until almost 3:30. When the talking came on, I attacked the laundry room. I sorted all the clothes and put most of them away, except for the underwear, which I will do tonight. I had a load of miscellaneous linens to wash, so I did that, and in the meantime, I got all the old bags and stuff off the floor and swept it thoroughly. There was enough old kitty litter on the floor that Louie thought it was a good place to poo, so I have been keeping the door closed so he wouldn't do that. Now it is much neater, and the floor is much cleaner, which is rather important for a laundry room.
It was a remarkably nice day. The temperature briefly hit 51º, about the time I got home, and while it dropped off abruptly after that, it was nice. It was sunny and breezy, with gusts up to about 23 mph. They were from the west until around 1:00, when they switched around to the north. Oh, that's why it cooled off. It was so nice to see the sun and sit in the sun. The barometer has risen quite high, which is no doubt one reason my aches have subsided. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow, but warm up some over the weekend, and it's supposed to stay partly cloudy. Nice.
The guys were their usual selves, so I don't have much to report there.
I've enjoyed reading Geoff Nunberg. I've heard him enough on Fresh Air that frequently I can hear the words I'm reading in his voice. He uses some words I don't know (and I don't mean the vulgarities), but he writes extremely well. I had to go out into Internet-land to find out what some of those vulgar words mean. I come from a gentler generation when ladies didn't use words like that. I learned some of them in college and more when I lived in computer rooms with men, but there are words most men just won't say when there are women around, and back in those days, they didn't put such words in dictionaries. Now they're readily available. I always thought it was a mistake not to put them in dictionaries; people will hear and use them anyway and they might as well get a good definition of the words they're not supposed to use.
Now I think I will read a bit down here and try, try again to get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's a partly cloudy, cool night in the field. Maybe a northern light?
November 14 I took Geoff Nunberg up to the north end last night, so I was later than I intended in getting to bed. Oh, sigh. I slept well, as well I should have. Around 3;30, I woke up and when I got to the bathroom, I realized that the north horizon was very bright - ah, northern lights! Unfortunately, there was a haze of clouds - I couldn't see any stars - so I couldn't see anything but brightness up around 40º above the horizon - high enough to clear the trees. While I was sitting there, it did wane a bit, but it was still bright when I went back to bed.
At 9:40 this morning, I was awakened by the telephone. It was the plumber, checking back. I've decided to wait on the garbage disposer and see how bad the leak is, but we had quite a conversation about it. He admitted that I can get as good a price as he can for it, and if I get it myself, there won't be any tax. Good point.
By the time we were through with that, I was thoroughly awake, so I got up. Grayson wanted to sit with me, but he didn't want to sit on me and he didn't want to be petted, so I knitted. I had some trouble with the pattern, for some reason. I had hoped to get two repeats done, but I had to back and fill enough that I only did one.
When I got to the studio and started reading my email, I found some stitching stuff I wanted, and as it turned out, I spent the entire afternoon putting together an order to Nordic Needle. I should know better. However, I discovered that several of the charts I thought I wanted were things I'd already bought, and then I discovered that there were a number of charts I had never added to my data base. I try to do that as soon as I get new charts, because I just can't remember anymore what I've bought and what I haven't, even though I don't buy very many these days. There were some gadgets I wanted, too, and one series of charts for a large specialty stitch sampler (my favorite - The Drawn Thread) that were on sale. They were still expensive, but I doubt I'll get them any cheaper. One of the charts I hadn't put into the data base was also a Drawn Thread one, called The Menagerie, that I almost bought from the designer with the threads and fabric. Whew! Now all I need is the fabric and threads. It's a neat thing, with lines of all kinds of flora and fauna and a verse. She does the neatest borders, and she is wonderful about using special stitches to portray her things. The alphabet sampler that I have started (and stopped because I'm so put off by silk perlee) is one of her designs. Now that most of my former favorite designers have either retired or gone off on a tangent, she's about my favorite.
So I didn't do anything I was planning. Sigh. I did my surfing during the talking, which means I didn't listen to the radio much or pay much attention to the words on the screen. I did look at the pictures, though.
The weather was nondescript. The temperature got up to 42º, briefly, and there were very light winds from the southwest. It was cloudy, of course, and blah.
The guys were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a while this morning, but then they zonked out, as usual. Louie really wanted to sleep on my lap, but I kept having to move him. Grayson went to sleep on the desk, as usual.
I had to run the disposer this morning, and there was a little dampness in the dishpan, so I will have to watch it for a while longer and see what happens when I give it a real workout. The drain is running wonderfully.
Now I really should go up to the north end and try to get to bed early, but I'm not sure. There is an advertising meeting tomorrow at 11:00, so I really should wash my hair. We'll see what happens. what I had for dinner is one of those things that isn't enough for two meals and too much for one, and I'm still nipping away at it. It's another dark, cloudy night in the field.
November 13 I made it into bed last night by 10:00, and the first time I woke up was 3:30. I guess I was tired. Then I had an hour or two of wakefulness before I zonked out again. I got up around 7:45, and I had enough time that I knitted another repeat on the scarf - now I'm a sixth of the way done. It wasn't easy, because I started before sunrise, and it was pretty dark until after I finished. Grayson came in a couple of times, but he didn't act like he wanted to sit on me, so I knitted.
I was through with my breakfast when the plumber came. His helper was a very short woman, which I thought was interesting. I had some problems with that plumber, because he has a nasty habit of muttering to himself, and I wasn't sure when he was talking to himself and when he was talking to me.
That kitchen sink clog turned out to be a real mess. He tried reaming out the line from the sink to the east wall, and that didn't do any good, so he went downstairs and determined that the problem had to be in the line from there to the big pipe to the septic tank. I began to fear the problem when he noticed that the sump pump also went into that pipe. And indeed, when he finally had it opened up (there was an access point at the end), it was all full of caked kitty litter. He had to bring in his big snake on wheels - the one they usually use for sewers - to ream it out, and it took quite a while. Fortunately, I have a big wastebasket down there that they could let the water drip into - along with kitty litter and a whole lot of other sewer crud. Apparently when I wash out the cat pans, the litter gets pumped out of the sump and into the pipe, and the part that was clogged was mostly the dead-end that they use to keep the pipes from knocking.
Whew! But then, when he was putting the pipes under the sink back together, he discovered an apparent leak in the bottom of the garbage disposer. Oh, dear. So after talking to his boss (?) and somebody from the place that does warranty work for Insinkerator, I went out into the Internet and discovered that I can get one from Amazon for a very cheap price, relatively. I called Insinkerator to make sure I had the right model to replace my old one, and I can get that for just over $200 - $90 less than the warranty guy quoted me. However, tonight, when I looked under the sink, the dishpan was dry, so whatever leak is there, if any, it's not a big one. I will watch it for a while, but I might not have to replace it at all. I would be disappointed if I did - it's only 11 years old, after all, and all my other ones have lasted lots longer than that. So we'll see.
While the plumber was downstairs, he discovered that another one of my heating pipes had broken free of its brackets. Oh, not again! It seems that happens every year when the heat first comes on. He didn't have any brackets, so I gave him a few of my vinyl coated hangers and he rigged brackets for the one that was falling down and for part of another one. I'll have to try to keep an eye on that, and someday when I have my original plumber here (which I no doubt will), I will insist that he replace all the plastic brackets with copper - which is how those lines should have been tied up to begin with. Grr.
Then the plumber attacked the shower, and thankfully, that was easy. When he took off the cover on the drain, there was a wad of hair the size of my fist hanging right underneath. No wonder it wasn't draining well! So now I know. There are two or three little screws, and the cover pops off, and then it's only a case of having the right tool to fish the hair out. I can't use one of those things you put over the drain to catch the hair, because the water doesn't go down the drain. I only have about an inch of lip on the front of the shower floor, so I can't afford to have it back up very much. If I can find the thing again, I may try it, though, because it does keep the hair out of the drain.
So that took up my morning. Since I went downstairs twice, both to talk and to see what they were doing, I was exhausted when they left, but now all my drains drain again, and that's a relief.
Then late this afternoon, I went to the post office, where there was so much stuff - which I figured - that I took a crate with me. Most of it was catalogs, of course, including some I only get once a year. I sure wish I could afford that "Lake Girl" sweatshirt! All the little packages I was looking for were there, too. Now I have a light-colored knitting needle to use for the scarf, which will help a lot. And my calculator came! I went out to EBay a week or so ago, and there was one for sale, so I bought it, even though it was rather expensive, I thought, for a used item. It's great. It's just the same as my old one, except that there are more scuff marks on it. Whoever's it was squished it enough that the cover ground down part of the surface. But everything works, and now I have my calculator/clock for the bathroom again. One thing I like about it is that it does date calculations. I can subtract one date from another, or I can add or subtract days from a date. I've gotten so I rely on that function, independent of the rest of them. The little tunes play and while I didn't check them, I expect the alarms work, too. The stopwatch does. Now all I have to do is try to remember not to wash my pants with it in the pocket. They stopped making them in the early '80s and I don't know how many are still out there. At least I have mine, again.
It was a day to ignore the outdoors. Again the temperature peaked overnight, at 34º, and it dropped off very slowly all day, and now it's 28º. It blew hard overnight, but after about 7:00 there wasn't any wind. When I got up this morning, there was maybe an inch of snow on everything, except where the wind blew it away. They reported 3" from Sunday through Monday at Delaware, although we didn't have that much here. I think some of it must have melted during the day. It was dark and cloudy - the forecast clear skies never materialized - and damp and not very nice out.
The guys were really riled up by the plumbers. Louie took one look at them and beat it into the basement, and I didn't see another hair of him until a couple of hours after everyone was gone. Grayson was around all the time, his natural curiosity and his fondness for people sort of at war with his dislike of all the noise. Both plumbers petted him, and while I was paying my bill, he purred for the woman. Then when everybody was gone, he got on my lap and just purred his little head off and got a good head rub. After he went to sleep under the south windows, Louie finally came back upstairs, and he got a good pet, too. Now they're both asleep in the great room, on the floor, where it's warm.
So that was my active day, and I won't be up too late tonight. i'll take all my goodies up to the north end, plus the book I forgot to take the other night, and I think I'll be in bed early. Now it's another dark, cloudy night in the field and I have a kitchen drain again. Aahh!
November 12 i started out to go to bed early last night - I went toward the north end before 9:00. But then there was the drain. I needed to wash the dishes; all of the cat dishes as well as all of my cereal dishes, were dirty. So I fiddled with the drain for a while and it seemed to be running slowly, so I started the dishwasher, but then I decided it would be a good idea to monitor it, just in case it tried to overflow. I was going to knit, but Treasure Island called, so I read and every time the dishwasher spewed out some more water, I went into the kitchen to make sure it drained off. I guess it takes well over an hour to run a cycle, and with everything else, it was 11:30 before I got to bed.
I slept well for most of the night. The first time I woke up, I thought it was around 4:30, but when I got to the bathroom, I discovered that my little gray cat had stomped on the buttons again, and it was only 3:30. That's still quite a long time for me to go without peeing. I was up once more, and around 8:30 I woke up when Grayson sat down on the bed right beside my face and started purring. I really didn't want to get up. I had one of those headaches I get when I've been wakened too early, but I laid with my eyes closed and listened to the purring until the headache went away. It was around 9:00 when I got up,
Grayson wanted to sit on my feet and purr, but he didn't want to sit on my lap, so I knitted another repeat on the scarf - the fourth. When I finally got to the kitchen, I saw why he was so purry: all the dry food dishes were empty. Even so, he didn't like his breakfast, although Louie ate his half a can.
I checked the drain and it was still iffy, so my next task, after I had some breakfast, was to find someone to clear it. My usual plumber doesn't do that, which I guess I knew, so I called somebody called "Always Available." Well, they're not. When I finally called, they were already booked for the day, including several calls from restaurants who were overflowing. So he will be here tomorrow between 9 and 10. That's awfully early for me, but I really, really need that drain! He's going to ream out the one in the shower, too. I am stockpiling a bunch of stuff that needs to go down the garbage disposer. I don't do garbage. Never have, never will.
In anticipation of the visit from the plumber, I finally - finally! - got all the trash off the counter and into a bag in the breezeway, and I unloaded the dishwasher. It's still not lovely out there, but it's better. I'm glad this all took place this week. I once had a clogged kitchen drain on Thanksgiving Day, and that wasn't fun.
I was planning to go to the post office today, until I realized, with help from the PastyCam, that today is a bank holiday and it was closed. So I will go tomorrow, after the plumber leaves, and I hope I can take my trash with me. I have two bags now.
The weather - oh, the weather! The temperature dropped from about 35º at midnight to 26º at 6:00 this evening. The wind was mostly from the west, with gusts up to 25 mph. The combination of temperature and wind left it pretty cold in here. We had one short snow squall after I got to the studio, but it didn't start to snow in earnest until around 5:00, and now there is a light dusting on the ground. So far, we've had 0.09" of water equivalent, but I imagine that even more than the rain, the NWS station isn't completely accurate when it snows. I'll be interested to see what Keweenaw County has to say tomorrow. It was mostly cloudy, although after our morning squall, there was a little sunshine. It wasn't the deep, dark cloudy that it's been for the past couple of days, though. Lake effect snow squalls are that way. Above the big, puffy gray clouds, it may even be clear. Love it. As far as I can tell in the dark, it's still snowy.
Both cats were around today, but sleepy again. Louie wanted to sit on me a lot, but then, he hasn't done that very much for the past couple of days. I think they were both waiting for me to fill the dry food bowls, which I did this afternoon. The more I get to know him, the more I'm getting to appreciate Louie. If he's hungry, he'll eat what's there, even if he doesn't like it too well. Grayson is more particular. He'll go hungry rather than eat something he doesn't like. Louie keeps reminding me more and more of DC. He's not DC reincarnated, but he has a lot of the same traits. But DC was never as fat as Louie is. Boy, is he broad across the beam!
Oh, I've been reading sea tales too much. I'm into the last part of Treasure Island. It's a good yarn, but I'm just not able to suspend my disbelief as much as I could when I was young, and I'm finding the high-highs followed by the low-lows a bit unbelievable. I think tonight I'll take Geoff Nunberg up to the north end and read about the A-word.
I won't be reading long. I want to wash my hair tonight - I used the greasy shampoo on Saturday, and I want to look nice for the man tomorrow, as well as keep the dandruff at bay. Now it's a cold, windy, snowy night in the field (first time this season that I could write that!) and it's time to go.
November 11 - Veteran's Day I started reading Treasure Island and I had to tear myself away, but I did and i made it into bed by 10:00. I had a little trouble getting to sleep, and I was up a couple of times. I was up around 5:00, and I don't think I slept much after that. So I'm tired. I made it out of bed mostly on time, but everything seemed to take longer than it should. i wasn't too late getting to church.
Then, as I was pulling up my pants after going to the bathroom, I realized that my wallet wasn't in my pocket. Egad! It wasn't in the bathroom and it wasn't in the car, so I went into church, assured that it was at home. Church was lovely. We are celebrating the end of the church year in phases. There were some good hymns and the sermon was a very good one. And there was communion. Oh, yes, and at 11:00, we all stood in silence while the bell tolled 11 times, in honor of our veterans. My daddy was a vet - U.S. Navy - so I have a special feeling for Veteran's Day.
With all that, we didn't get out until noon, but that was all right. I made it home as fast as I could. It's really nice that there is almost no traffic between here and Calumet on Sundays anymore. I did have a couple of glitches coming home. There was a guy coming out of Kearsarge who insisted on going about 45 mph in the 50 mph zone, but I turned onto Cliff Drive and got away from him. Then, someplace out of Phoenix, I got behind an empty logger who wasn't going nearly as fast as those guys usually do. There was a guy in front of me, too, who I thought was going to go fast, but he apparently never passed the logger, so I passed them both. Whew.
I made it home, and the wallet wasn't in the powder room. I stopped to read the papers - I was interested in who won the Grant Township races and whether any of the ballot proposals had passed (none did - keepa you hands offa my constitution!!). When I went into the closet to change clothes, there was the wallet, on the floor. I put it in my pocket when i put on my pants, but then I had to put on my shoes, and obviously, it fell right out again. So, much as I hate it, I will be carrying a bigger purse from now on, where I can get my checkbook and my wallet. The pockets in those ready-made pants are just not deep enough. Redoubles my desire to make some pants of my own, but there are problems.
All of my coming and going was not helped by the weather. It rained until about 5:00 this morning, with some relatively strong south winds and some lightning very far off. The temperature rose steadily. When I left for church, it was 55º, and it peaked at 57º around 1:00. According to the NWS, it didn't start raining again until 1:00, but that's bunk. It rained or drizzled all the way to Calumet and all the way back. Then, after 1:00, it rained in earnest, and the temperature started dropping very abruptly. It went from 57º to 46º at 3:00, and then it began dropping more slowly. There was hardly any wind all day, and it's calm now. We are under a winter weather advisory from tomorrow at 7:00 until Tuesday at 7:00, and there will almost certainly be some snow. Well, it's time. If we're going to have a good winter, it has to start snowing soon. I remember one memorable trip when I was wintering in Detroit, when It blizzarded all the way to the Big Mac., and that would have been right around now. And that was with two howling cats in the back.
The kitties were sleepy again today. Louie slept under the east windows for quite a while, but he wanted to sit on me and he wasn't happy until I let him and scratched his head. The only trouble with him is that he wants to use my right arm as a pillow, and he's so heavy it makes my arm sore and my hand go to sleep.
While I was doing a little cleaning up last night, suddenly the kitchen sink drain clogged up again. I ran hot water into it, and it seemed all right, so while I fetched the Drano in, I didn't use it then. This morning, it seemed all right, but it clogged up again later in the day. Now I have to go and run hot water into it again and hope that half a bottle of Drano did the trick. I was going to use that Drano in the shower. If it doesn't look any better tomorrow, I guess I'll have to call the plumber (shudder). I guess eleven years is long enough to go without a couple of clogged drains, but it really annoys me. The one in the shower is full of my hair, of course, but the one in the kitchen is probably a horrible mess, with grease and all the other stuff I put down it. Oh, the joys of the happy householder!
I spent the afternoon, after I finished my surfing, reading Treasure Island, but I can only take a little bit of it at a time. I guess I've lost most of my patience with long-winded books. I was thinking of tackling Robinson Crusoe, which is another one I've never read, but I'm not sure I'm up to anything like that. Treasure Island is certainly a good read - even more exciting than some of my other favorites - but oh, that language!
Now maybe I will read another chapter, and then I'm off to bed. I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night and I need to catch up. it's a dark, dank, rainy night in the field, with falling temps, and one of these hours, the rain will turn to sleet or snow and we'll be off into the winter.
November 10 Oh, well, I did it again. I fooled around and I kept going back to The Pearl Lagoon. and it was very late when I got to bed. Sigh. It was very late when I got up this morning, too, and I knitted a repeat on the scarf. After "breakfast" - really lunch or something - I had an accident, my own fault, and after that I did my surfing and read to the end of the story.
I now know what the name of the sequel is - The Derelict - but it isn't online and the cheapest I could buy the hard copy for is $25, which is a little pricey for something like that. I'll keep watching, though, and maybe eventually somebody will scan it. I finally found out how to get a copy of The Pearl Lagoon onto my hard drive, so I'll have it if I want to read it again. This is so cool - and it's free!
I was going to go out, but when it was getting to the right time I decided it was too nasty. It apparently started raining around 9:00 - couldn't prove it by me - and it has rained all day. It was still raining when the power went out around 6:15, so I don't have any totals, but before then, we'd had 0.86" of rain, 0.55" between 3:00 and 5:00, when we had some nice thunderstorms including one loud crash over Lake Lily. The last time that happened, Mike lost his entire very large network. I hope it didn't happen again. Anyway, there were some rather high winds and lots of noise. The temperature got up to 42º and stayed there for most of the afternoon.
The power outage happened right after a rather strong gust of wind came through - long after the thunderstorms were gone. I don't know what happened, but it apparently affected all of Copper Harbor. It's only so nice to have that generator! I didn't have to worry about dinner or taking my bath tonight, even though we're still off the grid. It's also so nice that both the Mountain Lodge and Brockway relays have backup power, so I'm still connected to the Internet.
The thing I noticed especially is that the clouds were so thick that it was as dark as dusk even at 4:00. I could have used the lights in the studio for sure. There was one ominous picture, around 5:30, which is after sunset, but before that the camera didn't do justice to how dark it was. It was hard to determine whether it was working right after the power failure, too, with no lights down the harbor.
The guys felt like the weather, although when it started thundering, Louie got off his pad under the east windows and sat on my lap for a while. I don't know if he was nervous or it was just that the thunder woke him up. Grayson didn't turn up until about the time I was going to get some dinner. For a cat who supposedly was outside for a while, he is surprisingly unaffected by thunder. But then things that bother a lot of cats don't seem to bother him anyway.
Now it's time to stop all this nonsense and toddle up to the north end and get to bed at some kind of reasonable hour tonight, so I can go to church tomorrow. It's a dark, windy, rainy night in the field.
November 9 Oh, sigh. I went up to the north end at a very reasonable hour last night, and then I started fooling around, first with the hymnals, and then I started reading my Bible, and as a result, since I had to take a bath, I was very late getting to bed. Of course, I slept well. Grayson had almost given up on me and settled down in bed beside me when I finally got up. He got his loving, and I knitted 18 rows on the scarf, so I am now at the beginning of the third repeat of the center pattern. So I was incredibly late getting to the studio, too.
Other than beginning to get the dishwasher ready, I didn't do much of anything. I still have a couple more days' worth of cat dishes, but I'm running out of bowls. For some reason, everything I've been eating lately goes into bowls (cereal bowl size) and I only have 16. So I might just wash dishes tonight or tomorrow night.
However, while I was surfing, I had a horrible experience. One of my daily emails offered a free ebook I thought I would like to have, so I downloaded it. When the download completed, I opened Explorer to make sure I knew where it had been stored - apparently Windows has "learned" that I store those things in a certain folder. Well! When I looked, the new file was there - and all the 6 years of ebooks I've downloaded were gone!! Egad! Now what? Eventually, after sweating for a while, I discovered that Windows 7 keeps several back-copies of practically everything, and within reason, it's possible to restore a file or folder that has gotten lost. Whew! That made me decide it was time to set up a backup schedule, which I did, and while the talking was on, I created my first backup to DVR. I'm not sure exactly what it backed up, though. I'll try to look at it tomorrow.
I wish I'd known about these shadow backups before, because I've lost a few other files over the past year that I would like to have had back. What I really don't know is where the @#$% the contents of that folder went. It was there last Sunday, and I think it was there during the week, because I looked at it to see if I had previously downloaded a particular file. So where did it go? It's really nice to know I can recover things I lose (since I've never, ever found anything in the recycle bin) but those files shouldn't go away at all. Some time ago, I lost the download folder the same way, but it didn't occur to me at that time to see if there was anything I could do about it. Really, really weird. Anyway, the outcome this time was good, and I have my files (a number of which I paid for) back.
The weather was nondescript. The high temperature, 43º, actually took place at midnight, and the temperature declined slowly all day. It's now 36º. There wasn't much wind again. It was cloudy all day. I guess it's supposed to get quite cold tonight and then warm up, maybe into the 50s by Sunday. Then it will rain, of course, and they say we could have a thunderstorm. The weather hear is so interesting.
The rheumatologist's office called this morning with an appointment - March 21! Geez! Well, she's the only one in the whole UP, so I guess my doctor and I will just have to cope until then. Then Jean called and said that her family was coming for Thanksgiving, so she wouldn't be coming here. And I got three phone calls from "unknown name, unknown number" that hung up on me - except that one said "good bye" before it did. Geez! I have always hated telephones, and that's just one reason why.
The kitties were sleepy again. Grayson got a good petting this morning, but Louie kept coming when I was about to do something else, so he didn't get his. He won't hold it against me, I'm sure. Now they have both gone off to where it's darker.
Since the sun has been setting so early, I've mostly been turning on the lights in the studio to eat my dinner and do my evening stuff. Rick changed all the burned out bulbs last summer, and they make it really bright in here. Nice, but bright. Non-working lightbulbs are one of the things that annoy me.
While I was eating dinner, after the talking stopped, I started reading Treasure Island, but I'm only to about Part Two, which is very close to the beginning. I think it will be a fun read, and I'm sorry I never read it when I was inhaling books as a kid. It's very nineteenth-century, and it would have been better if I'd read it when I had more patience with such things.
Ha-ha. In the middle of the last sentence, I got a notion in my head and went out into Internet-land and found a book my dad recommended to me as a kid: The Pearl Lagoon by Charles Nordhoff (half of the pair who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty). Well, I've read over half of it. It's just as exciting as it was when I first read it. I could stay up all night finishing it, but I'm tired. Nordhoff wrote a bunch of sequels to it, which I also read as a kid, but apparently none of them have been scanned or are for sale at the used-book sources. I could have bought a hardcopy for anywhere from $7.25 to $225, but I figured I might as well read it online. The only problem with the site I found is that I can't save a copy locally. Oh, well. That's a minor problem. I wish I could remember the other titles, or the titles of some of the other fun stuff I read as a kid.
It appears I'll be going on a reading jag, doesn't it? Well, it's time. I know my eyes are up to it and I sure do have enough to read.
Now the guys (and my eyes) are telling me it's high time I went to bed. There's a light east wind blowing and I can hear the lake muttering. It's a dark, cold night in the field.
November 8 I was really late last night. I stopped reading at a reasonable hour, when I was about to start writing, but then I started fooling around. Oh, well. As a result, I was very late getting up, and I knitted. I finished the border and got half of the first repeat of the center pattern done - with some difficulty. The pattern repeat moves around every two rows, and the lines showing where it moves are green and not very wide, so I was having a problem seeing the repeat. I think I have it down now - after all, not very long ago, I knitted a lot of repeats of this thing. I'm not doing the nupps. They don't show up very well anyway and it takes a lot of time and a whole lot more yarn to do them. It will still be a pretty scarf, and who's to know?
I didn't do very much else except to pay some bills. Tonight, I succumbed to Kindle for PC. Eventually, I want a Kindle Fire HD, but in the meantime, the app for PC is free. It came with three free books - Aesop's Fables, Pride & Prejudice, and Treasure Island. I'm not sure about the first two, but somehow, with all my reading when I was a kid, I'd managed never to read Treasure Island and I've always wanted to remedy that. What got me into this was an interview on Fresh Air tonight, with the author of a book on how the USSR clamped down on Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1956, and it sounded like something I would like to read. Will I? Who knows, but I've read part of the introduction, and I probably will. Maybe not until I get my Kindle, but I will. I need to get back to reading anyway. I have a bunch of books I want to read, and I haven't yet. I think I've said before that I'm running out of room (have run out of room) for hard copy books, so those things that aren't craft books are likely to end up in Kindle editions. I'm not overly enamored of reading on the PC, but it's OK, and if I really can't see, I can always enlarge the type.
It was a little bit nicer day than lately. We did have 0.06" of rain between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning - I knew I heard rain while I was falling asleep. The temperature got up to 46º, and there wasn't a lot of wind for most of the day. There were a few rays of sunshine here and there, which was nice. It didn't clear up as much as they were predicting, but it's been so long since we've seen the sun, it was nice.
The kitties were just as sleepy as ever. Louie had to get turned down, because he wanted to sit on me while I was paying bills. Before dinner, Grayson sat on me for a long time, even though he got a good loving this morning. Then Louie sat for a while, but he's now sound asleep under the east windows. Grayson slept under the south windows for most of the afternoon, but he's gone away now. We seem to be settling in nicely, and that's good.
So now it's a dark, probably cloudy night in the field, and I hope I'll be in bed earlier tonight.
November 7 I was late again last night, especially after I took my bath. I got up around 10:30 again, and I knitted. I've almost finished the edging on the scarf, and then I can start the center pattern. It feels good to be knitting with lace-weight yarn again.
It was a quiet day and I didn't do much at all. My oncologist has all my records online now, and there is a way I can access some of them, so I signed up for that today. There wasn't as much information as I'd hoped, but about eight years of blood tests were there, from which I discovered that my uric acid levels have been high since 2008. Huh. And nobody ever said anything. They also had a lot of my personal information wrong. There were a few other things that concerned me, but I will have to wait until I see my doctor here to pursue them. My eye doctor's hospital is going to have the same function in December, but I will have to wait until then to pursue that.
The weather was yucky again. There wasn't any rain, but when I got to the studio, it was foggy or something down the harbor. The temperature varied between 39º and 42º and there was no wind at all. It was dark and cloudy. Yuck.
The kitties felt it, too. Louie has been sleeping for part of the night with me, and he was sacked in when I went to bed. I was glad that my twisting around to get comfortable didn't seem to bother him. Grayson sat on me and got brushed this morning, and then he went to sleep by my feet. He seems to be shedding, for some reason.
So that's all I know. I'm reading the original Part 12, just to get the events right. About every page I roll my eyes. I wrote this episode early in 1973, right after I returned to Detroit. Sometime in the next year, all of a sudden I started writing a whole lot better, and in the intervening time, a lot of the background has changed, as well as my ideas about how much my characters should talk about themselves. There is a lot of talk in the original, which I will have to try to get rid of. However, I do want the events right.
Now it's a dark, cloudy, coolish night in the field.
November 6 I read too long again last night, and then I fooled around, so it was late when I got to bed again. I slept very well, however, and I got up around 10:30. Since Grayson didn't seem to want to sit on me, I got out the yarn and attempted to start the scarf. Wow. I finally got six rows done, but I had a terrible time, for reasons I don't quite know. Anyway, it's started.
Otherwise, the only thing I did was vote. While I was out, I got my mail - including a new bead catalog, which must weigh 5 pounds - and stopped at the store for eggs.
It was another dark, cloudy day, but all the talk about snow was nonsense. The temperature got up to 41º, so at least it was warmer than yesterday. When I went out, it was misting lightly, and that continued for a while, enough to dampen the deck. I guess it started dripping more after I got home, because we've had 0.07" of rain since 4:00. It was mostly nearly calm, but there were a few wind gusts up to the low 20s mph, from the south. Kind of an icky day.
The kitties certainly felt that way. Grayson spent the afternoon asleep on the desk, and Louie spent as much time as he could asleep on my lap. I finally moved him, so he's now asleep under the east windows with his head upside down. I still don't know why cats sleep that way.
When I went to bed last night, I'd finally gotten to Trine Part 12, which is the one I stopped on because I didn't know how to go on. I need to reread the original and at least notice the important events before I resume. So I started reading something else for a change. I ate so late tonight that I won't get to do much reading tonight.
It's a dark, dank night in the field, but the temperature is closer to normal than usual.
November 5 I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it was midnight before I got to bed last night. Boy, did I sleep! I only woke up twice all night long and there were no night sweats. I got up around 10:15. Louie slept at the end of the bed until I got up the first time. And Grayson came and while I had to snag him and set him on my lap, we had a good love-in, and when I started knitting (I always have a sock) he got on the table and sat there looking at me until I got up.
I was getting dressed when they finally called me from the doctor's office. They finally sent my information to the rheumatologist, but they warned me strongly that she is very busy and it may be a while before I hear from her office.
A while later, I had an accident, and when I went up to the north end to clean up, there they were, both socked out in the window seat, about 6" apart. Louie looked suspiciously at me, but when I didn't do anything, he went back to sleep. I didn't see them until late in the afternoon.
I was going to go to the post office, but since I have to go tomorrow anyway, I didn't. The post office and the polls are both in the community center.
Except to wash my soiled stuff, I didn't do anything much. When I finished my surfing, I read until the talking started. Then I got out my Quaker swift (a home-made thingie) and my ball winder and started winding the wool for Debbie's scarf. Wow, what a pain! I had to attach the ball winder to the edge of one of the cupboard doors, sideways, and the yarn kept coming off the guide, and a couple of times, I had to unwind it from the gears and other stuff - not an easy job. Then there was a break in the yarn, about halfway through the skein, so now I have two balls. And then the yarn got all tangled up, and finally, the last few yards came off the swift and I had to unravel it by hand. Geez! I may have to take the whole thing out to the dining room table to wind any more yarn, and I have a ton of yarn to wind. I have pretty much given up on an electric ball winder, but I may have to look for either one with a suction cup bottom or one with a much wider clamp.
Grayson was all ready to be really interested in the swift and the yarn, but I set him firmly on the floor and he didn't bother it anymore. Both guys were interested in what I was doing, but I managed to keep them away from the yarn. Now Grayson is sound asleep on the sewing chair, and i don't know where Louie is.
It was a good day to do something inside, although it was so dark, I could have used the lights. It was dark and cloudy. The high temperature was only 35º, and there wasn't much wind. It wasn't very inspiring out there. Tomorrow looks to be about the same, except that it might be a bit warmer.
Now that I have my yarn spun, I can start the scarf, and I'll do that tomorrow. Tonight I should really take a bath, but we'll see. Now I think I'll read a bit more before I go up to the north end. It's a dark, quiet night in the field.
November 4 I'm happy to say I had a better night last night, although it wasn't perfect, since I was up a lot. I did sleep in between, and I'm going to try to be more careful about taking my meds. I didn't get to bed too early, about 9:00 EST, but I had an extra hour to sleep this morning, so I got almost enough sleep. I woke up about three minutes before the alarm went off, and the clock is now set exactly right.
i had some problems getting out of the house this morning, including a problem fastening my trousers, but I made it, and since there was no traffic, I made good time. Church was nice. We celebrated All Saints today, and Pastor's sermon was a comforting one for all of us who have lost those we love.
I took my Crocs with me so that I would have reasonably comfortable shoes to do my shopping. I spent a lot of money, considering what I got, but a lot of that was boos. Pat's had a special box with a fifth of Maker's Mark and two interesting glasses in it. I seem to be collecting rocks glasses, two at a time, and these are quite interesting, although I doubt they're dishwasher safe. For most of the year, Pat's has had a low price on JD, but they raised it about a month ago, darn it. Only by a dollar or so, but still. It's still cheaper than the Gaslite has it.
Then I had to get gas, finally. It's amazing how much cheaper a tank of gas is when it's $3.53 a gallon than when it's $3.97. Besides, I had coupons for $2.40 off. That doesn't sound like much, but every little bit helps. I hope that the mess on the east coast doesn't make our gas prices go back up.
I got home around 2:00, very tired and with very sore feet. Then I had to get all that stuff in the house and stashed away. I have enough frozen stuff that I didn't get any of that, but there was lettuce and yogurt and a rotisserie chicken and stuff like that.
After I put everything away, I sat down, had a taste of a few pasta salads, and did nothing for the rest of the day. I have to run the dishwasher tonight, but since it's mostly loaded, that won't be too big a job.
It was not a nice day, weatherwise. Here, it was just cold and very dark, with not very much wind. The high temperature, 37º, actually took place early this morning, and it's been dropping off all day. Down in Calumet, though, there were some snowflakes and when I left, it was only 29º there. While there wasn't much wind, it was cold and damp. Yuck. I have the suspicion we may be in for a cold winter. It's rather early for it to be quite so cold. Well, as long as there's snow, I guess we can endure.
I hate to see the sun set at 5:30, but the truth is, my body never goes off Eastern Standard Time. I was comfortable getting up when I did, and I'll be comfortable going to bed when I do.
The kitties were very sleepy again today. Louie wanted to get on my lap when I sat down in the studio, but I was eating, so when I wouldn't let him sit on me, he curled up in the middle of the desk behind me and slept there until I got up to get some dinner. After I sat down in the studio, Grayson went away and I didn't see him until dinnertime, either. Zzzz...
So now I will read a little more, and then I will start the dishwasher and totter up to the north end. It's a cold, cloudy, dark night in the field.
November 3 I read for quite a while last night, but I got to bed around 12:30. Then I had another one of those nights. It was probably 6:00 before I really got to sleep, and then I was awakened around 9:45 by another robocall. Geez! I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't.
I sat in the bathroom and completely ripped out the mitten. It just wasn't coming out right. It was going to be much too long and much too narrow. So now I'll have to try to figure out how to get it the right size and with the right number of repeats of the pattern on it. However, if I want to make Debbie a scarf, I'll just have to drop the mittens for a while. I still haven't wound a ball, and I might not. I might just drape the skein over my arm and hope Grayson doesn't get into it. We'll see.
I was so wiped out that I didn't do anything but read today. I will be in bed quite early tonight, and with the time changing, I'll have an extra hour to sleep tomorrow. I feel like I need it.
When I got to the studio, I discovered one reason I couldn't sleep, although it doesn't explain everything. For the first time since I got my new pill dispensers, I forgot to take my evening pills, or at least the Neurontin and the gout pill. Dummy. It never occurred to me that I hadn't, because I've been so good about it. That made my feet hurt and my legs twitchy, which didn't help anything. I was hot and my nose was runny, too. It wasn't a good night.
The weather today was a little worse than blah. It was very cloudy and dark all day - very dreary. The temperature got all the way up to 35º. There was hardly any wind, but it was not a nice day.
Louie would have spent the entire day sleeping on my lap if I'd let him. He did spend a couple of hours there, until I had to get up. When I came back, he wanted to sit again, but I wouldn't let him, so he curled up behind the monitor - a weird place, for sure. And just now he wanted to sit on me again. Enough, already! Grayson went away to sleep, and he didn't come around until I started getting dinner. He better learn that if he doesn't sit on me, Louie will. Louie is a much gentler cat than Grayson is, which is why Louie usually has at least one scratch on his nose.
So now I will read for a very little more time, and then I will go up to the north end, change a bunch of clocks (boy, do I miss my clock/calculator!) and try to get to bed early. It's a very dark, dreary, cold and quiet night in the field.
November 2 I got to bed a little earlier last night, but not much. I slept well, and I didn't get up until around 10:30. I petted a very purry cat - he had annoyed me last night and put some large scratches in my thigh, and I think he wanted to be sure I still love him. I knitted for quite a while, too, so I was very late getting to the studio.
I didn't do anything. It took too long to do my surfing, and I didn't feel like going to the post office. Maybe tomorrow.
The weather was blah. Cold, but blah. The high temperature was only 36º (minimum 33º), and it was cloudy all day. The wind blew hard all night long, but it died down during the day, and it's now almost calm. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the lake quiets when the wind dies.
The guys were sleepy again. Louie wanted to sleep on my lap while I was doing my crosswords, but I was moving around too much for him. Late this afternoon, Grayson came and sat on me and went to sleep for a while, too. I guess I make a pretty good pillow, at least when I'm not typing.
Now I will read for a while and try again to get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's a dark, quiet, cold night in the field.
November 1 Unbelievable, to write that. Where has the year gone?
I read for too long last night, but I slept well. I would have slept longer except that I got a damnable robocall at 10:30. I will be SO relieved next Wednesday! The national election has more or less passed us by, as you might expect, but one of our candidates for state office, as well as interest groups for or against the candidates and the several (six, to be exact) items to amend the state constitution have been using robocalling. I'm about fed up with it. I wouldn't vote for that candidate even if I agreed with him, after all the calls I've gotten, and I have real problems with amending the constitution in the ways the proposals suggest. I will be in that voting booth a whole long time on Tuesday.
Anyway, I got up, and I knitted. Grayson didn't want to be petted, but he slept on the rug by my feet. I would be further along than I am except that I thought I was making the thumb gusset too big, so I ripped out five or six rows, before I looked at the directions and realized that no, the gusset wasn't too big. So now I've gotten back where I was, put the gusset on hold and I'm doing the fingers. The second mitten won't be nearly such a long knit, because I've ironed out all the glitches on the first one. It's going to be a nice mitten.
I didn't do much except start to load the dishwasher. I was so late getting to the studio that again I didn't finish my surfing until after the talking started.
It was another dull, gray, windy day. The temperature did get up to 41º for a while. The wind is still blowing hard from the north, and in fact, it picked up a bit from yesterday. The sustained winds were in the 25-28 mph range for most of the day, with gusts as high as 34 mph. It was mostly cloudy, but the clouds weren't quite as thick as yesterday, and there were a few rays of sunshine. It was rather clear at sunset, but it's supposed to get cloudy again and it might snow. The wind will be dying down tomorrow, which will be a nice change, although I've enjoyed the singing of the lake.
The guys were sleepy again today, although they both sat on my lap for a while this afternoon.
Now I will read for a while and I need to bathe tonight, so I hope I won't be too late. It's another dark, windy night in the field, and the lake is singing.
Last updated 12/01/12 07:02 PM
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