Yesterday

I had volunteered at the county Democratic HQ to drive people to the polls yesterday, or deliver ballots to the election commission. I put a lot of miles on the car, had two really interesting conversations (one with a grade-school classmate I hadn't seen *since* grade school), delivered two ballots and performed two "agented ballots." The latter involved going to the election commission office, signing my name as an "agent" (we're limited to doing two of these per election so they record it), receiving and then taking the ballot to the voter, helping them if need be to fill out their ballot, then after they've signed (if possible; if not I don't know exactly what I would have done - called in for instructions, for sure) and sealed the envelope, taking the ballot back to the election commissioner's office.

I won't go into details about the voters I did the agent service for except to say it was an honor and a privilege, and if the droves of idiots who stayed away from the polls could have witnessed these folks's determination to vote, they would *maybe* have felt the shame they should have. One of them had sent in the application for the absentee ballot (and if this person didn't qualify no one would), but never received the ballot. The voter called up the EC's office and asked what happened, and was told by "a young woman" that "Oh, we were really understaffed that day and some of them just didn't get sent out." This young woman was lucky it wasn't me doing the asking. Her ear may never have recovered. Her supervisor was lucky, too, because shortly after that call I would been there, in person, screaming into said supervisor's face about how many hundreds of thousands of people have died for our right to vote and they have ONE JOB DAMMIT, which is to make sure everyone who wants to vote gets to vote and it is a sacred trust that they should be ready to die to ensure. OH my were they lucky it wasn't me on that phone call. It's elevated my blood pressure right now just thinking about it. I reported it to the party volunteer coordinator and she said she'd heard similar things about the EC office and would bring it up at the next Dem. party meeting. Not nearly as satisfying as screaming in a miscreant's face, but I suppose it will have to suffice.

They said I could go home (4:30 pm) because they didn't expect many more calls for rides/ballot delivery before the polls closed at 8 pm, but once I'd got home and had just sat down to eat dinner, they called saying they needed volunteers for a "special project" County Dem. HQ wanted - to go to the polls just before closing time and stand by the line (if any) and be sure no one left without voting, without being encouraged to stay and vote. This sounds like a) probably a good idea and 2) nothing I was remotely interested in doing at that point. So I turned them down. By then I knew I was really REALLY tired.

But, I feel it was a good day's work. Oh, and I had mailed in my ballot a couple of weeks ago so I could be free to do the driving thing.

No, your eyes were not deceiving you

I deleted Oct. 31st's post because it was nothing but whining about what is, after all, a minor infection. If I don't want to become one of those old ladies who only talk about their health issues, I have to nip this shit in the bud right now.

Here's a pretty picture of one of my cats:

The long and winding road

to making a temporary shelving unit out of materials I already have, for  plants, this winter, in the blue room upstairs (I found out last winter that once the maple tree's leaves have dropped, the light is EXCELLENT for plants.)

Is it my convoluted brain? Is it the 10 years I spent in the DEQ Planning Unit, despite the fact that I never had any course work in Planning (mostly biology and other sciences)? Anyway, every damn thing I want to do seems to have its own House That Jack Built complications.

OK, I want to dig up several begonias, a couple of the geraniums, the ivies, the little white and green leaved thing in the hanging pots, and also plant some free Wandering Jew vines I got via craigslist, and put them in pots to over-winter in the Blue Room. But there would be too many to just put on the sewing table like I did last winter. So: a temporary shelving unit.  I've procrastinated for weeks. Today, it turned out, was the day. But I had to Plan, first. So:

1. Draw up a plan for the unit, using materials I already have.

2. Build the unit, assemble it in place upstairs.

3. In the garage, assemble the plant pots: river rock in the bottom, a layer of gravel, and half the amount of potting soil (the rest to be sprinkled in once the plants are planted).

4. Pot up the plants and put them in a protected spot on the back patio. when the maple leaves have fallen, move the plants to the Blue Room for the winter.

Also, I need to divide the irises and replant them in bare spaces in the flower beds, and elsewhere depending on how many there are.  So, after potting up the first set:

5. Cut off iris leaves to about 6" high. Dig up the corms, cut apart and replant both in present iris bed and the spaces where the potted plants were before.

6. Also: Cut off Hosta flower stalks and leaves to about 6" high for the winter.

OK, so I had a Plan! I went out into the garage to commence to begin. The first thing I discovered was that I should have gone out there and checked my *actual* wood inventory instead of thinking I knew what I had. BIG SIGH. The plan called for 8" wide boards. I only had 3 1/2" wide boards - and I don't have the tools to butt boards together to make wider planks. So, a trip to Lowe's was added to my round of errands.

So much for using what I have. On the bright side, though, I could have the guy cut the planks for me, saving me quite a bit of work. There will still be some sawing to do but the lumber guy did help a lot. 

But as always, my ideas of what I could get done today were totally unrealistic. I wonder why I persist in doing that. Oh well, back into the fray tomorrow!

When will I ever learn?

I've committed myself to spending Monday afternoons helping a Certified Master Gardener do groundskeeping at our local branch of the public library (presumably through the end of the growing season). I arose yesterday feeling like something unspeakable rolled in sand (to paraphrase an old saying of my  mom's) thinking I'd call the MG and beg off, but by the time I got to the bathroom I'd decided to just go, and do it, and quit being such a wuss.

So I did. On tap for yesterday was the delivery of a dump truck-full of mulch to be spread over the two flower/ornamental tree beds on either side of the main library entrance. When will I ever learn that any given yard job is going to be MAGNITUDES more work than I think it will? Ye gods, am I out of shape. One and a half hours of that and I was utterly spent. I could hardly move. The MG guy is amazing - he's my age but he's never let himself go to shite like I have. I kept at it until I really thought maybe I'd have to stop the car on the way home (a five minute drive) and rest - and so I quit then. When he returned my wheelbarrow and push-broom this morning he said (when I asked) that he'd got the job done by himself, working there until 5 pm. I feel like such a heel. And what's sadder yet is that right now I'm in the best shape I've been since - oh, since I retired, let's say. I've been far more active and conscious of my sleep habits and physical exertions this year and I can really tell the difference in my strength and stamina - and yesterday's 1 1/2 hours was me pushing myself hard the whole time. WHAT a slug!

So, I know what I have to do. Will I do it? Probably more than I have up to yesterday. I do know that for today, I'm flattened, too. And my own yard is yelling at me about how the sycamore leaves (those the size of dinner plates, with 6-inch long leathery petioles) are covering the yard already. And and and other yard chores too numerous to mention. Egads, I'm in a hole today. Fresh air, exercise, and the exercise of civic responsibility is supposed to make you feel good about yourself - didn't work, this time. Maybe next Monday...for today, it's Tea and a Book (by Wylie Becket):

An unexpected visitor!

In my yard and my neighbor's yard yesterday! Since moving here in 1993 I've never seen one here. What a treat. And so dignified.

He went off down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace, looking around like a tourist. I hope he finds his preferred location without interference.

Coming up on an inactive period, I think

I generally have what I call "troughs." I think it's a mild form of depression. Not mild because it's weak; indeed it keeps me inert for days, sometimes weeks. But I call it mild because it's not really a painful depression. I don't experience severe emotional pain, or really, any at all. It's a state in which I just *love* not doing anything. Not going anywhere, not working on any projects. Maybe reading, watching my library of DVDs, or Netflix. Maybe knitting and listening to music. But not going out if I don't have to, not going out of my way to be with people. Just kind of shutting down like a clam. And I LOVE it. It feels GOOD. I can't imagine how I lived all those years not being able to go with this need, but I did, as does everyone: you have to go to work. You are obligated to attend to family and friends. Now that I'm alone, and retired, I can indulge this need much more than ever. And when the current trough is almost over, I know it because I develop the urge to clean, to cook, to visit, to get out and do things. To make ridiculously overoptimistic To Do lists.

But right now I just want to coccoon. Literally: I've started putting plastic over the windows for winter. There are some yard things I really need to do, too. Not that I feel like it but I'd better, if I don't want Spring to come as a horrid surprise (assuming there will be snow to melt and reveal the consequences of any neglect I perpetrate).

So if there's not much bloggity for awhile you'll know why. I'm being utterly boring and there's nothing to write about. You might want to subscribe by entering your email address in the box in the right margin, and then whenever I post you'll get a note saying I've posted. That way you won't waste time coming here when in all likelihood there won't be anything new.

Going to make a cup of tea, get a blanket, and a good book (I'm reading "Walkable Cities" right now.)

ETA: two hours later: I'm even contrary with my OWN edicts. No sooner had I posted the above than I had a sudden burst of energy and have been going up & down stairs, laundry, cooking, cleaning, changing the closet from summer to winter clothes...I've quit trying to figure out my own psychology. There is no rhyme or reason.

What REALLY happened

Reader, I drove.

Oh, I got up fully intending to walk to and from my dentist's office. It's a gorgeous fall day,  and I was looking forward to it. Then as I came downstairs, my left ankle ... weakened. Painfully, and almost threw me the rest of the way down the stairs. It had been bothering me all week, a little bit. Sunday, at the highway clean-up, it got more aggravating. It kind of ached all night last night - not enough to really worry about. Until the stairs.

I'm always telling other people to be sensible and take care of themselves. Always carry your cell phone as you do chores upstairs, downstairs, outside, because you never know when you'll need to call someone for help. Etc etc.  So once I got downstairs I sat down and took a good, hard look at my walking adventures and what my body was trying to tell me about them.

64 is not 46. I've been sedentary for so long, now that I'm really wanting to change that, I've been pushing it too hard. All of my joints from the waist down are sore, all the time. If I lie in bed more than 8 hours, my hip joints really hurt. I have to get up and walk around a bit before they stop.

I think I've been stupid. 64 is not 46. Those years and pounds COUNT.

So, I drove to my dentist's, and afterwards I drove to the grocery store and got some of the "heavy stuff" I've been worrittin' and worrittin' about all week. That's another thing - this experiment has made manifest more of the problems that going car-less in this society, in this city, cause people. You have to be constantly planning, analyzing, strategizing even the simplest of errands. No matter how tired or sore you are, some things HAVE to be done. You HAVE to go to work (if you're lucky enough to have a job). You HAVE to get groceries and household items like toilet paper and cleaning supplies and laundry supplies. You HAVE to get yourself and your family to the doctor's or dentist's. It must be just exhausting. *I* find it exhausting, frustrating and depressing. Depressing, because I have the choice: I can quit this game any time - until my car actually dies. Then I'll have to either go in debt for another one, or get back on the Mode Shift merry-go-round.

I think there are a LOT of elected and un-elected officials in this city who really, really need to try this experiment themselves. I think there'd be changes made to the transportation network in Omaha real fast if they did.

In which a decision is reversed

I was so exhausted and foot-sore last night that I went to bed thinking I am going to have to fail this car-less experiment. I just can't do it. Between the bulky/heavy items issue and the long distance between me and the dentist's office (tomorrow's my 6 month check-up), I just can't, any more.

Got a lousy 5 hours of sleep and stumbled up much earlier than usual this morning just to get out of bed which was not fulfilling its purpose of cradling me to blissful slumber. I had already dedicated this day to very little but recuperating from my uncharacteristically busy week last week. So I thought about how I was going to admit in this blog that I just don't have what it takes to be a car-less citizen any more. And to ponder how exactly I was going to muster the money to have on hand when the one I've got bites the dust.

Well, I thought, failure can be a valuable post, too. I have to be honest or this thing is worthless.

Then I thought, but if I'm going to be scientific I have to at LEAST do the comparisons between my different options for going to the dentist tomorrow. I'm thinking it's at least 3 miles there. No way could I walk 6 miles in one day at this point. But to figure out how much a taxi ride would cost, I have to have a mileage estimate. So the first thing to do for a mode comparison is find out exactly how MANY millions of miles away my dentist's office is. I use www.gmap-pedometer.com. I laid out the path and looked at the number.

1.7 mile.

Oh.

Heh heh.

I can do that. That's about how far the grocery store is from me, and I did that last week. There's a really mean 1-block hill on the way to the dentist's, and one or more milder ones, as opposed to the grocery store trek which is downhill all the way from home. But I can take it moderately and get there, at 1.7 mile.  I'm cursing myself for not having noted when I left the house on my grocery store foray, so I don't know exactly how long it took me. But I bet I could reach the dentist's in 45 minutes max. In fact, I'd say 30 because I can go the 1.8 mile to the Benson P.O. in less than half an hour, but that's almost completely flat. So, say 45 minutes to the dentist. And no outlay of money.

How about taxi? Well, the one home from the grocery store cost me $8.00 including a tip. So a round trip dentist appt. would be ~ $16.00. And would take just a few minutes each way.

And the bus. I laid out the bus schedules and figured out I can get there by riding all the way out to the Westroads and back in to midtown (Metro has no routes that go anything LIKE directly from point to point north & south in midtown) and it would take a little over an hour, one way. Round trip fare would cost me four pass rides if they won't let me get transfers (I seem to remember they don't allow transfers when you'd be transferring to a bus that goes the opposite direction from the one you get the pass on? That might be incorrect, I'll check). And if they *do* allow transfers for this journey, then just 2 pass rides plus 50 cents.

So: Fast, but expensive:       taxi.
       Slow but cheap:             bus.
       Equally slow but free:   walk.

What's the weather doing tomorrow? Looks like gray but not rainy, and mid-to upper-50s. Sweater & scarf. I can totally do this.

I love that picture.

Day 11, the end of a rather tiring week

A friend to whom I was bragging about all the walking I'd done this week kind of made fun of me because he regularly walks that amount (all my week's hikes) in one round-trip hike to his job and back. However, I'm still pleased with my achievement; I'm ten years older than he and I've been very sedentary the past few years and I'm way, way overweight. (Losing pounds, though, walking does help with that!).

However, I confess I've been having thoughts of keeping the car after this trial month is over. If I do I'm going to have to start saving scrupulously for its replacement because that necessity is, if not actually looming, inevitable eventually. So that will entail more planning and work. I intend to stick with my pledge for this month, though, because its benefits are so obvious to me. The Plan, With Car, will include mostly NOT driving the car except for things like trips to the pet store for bulk amounts of cat litter, and emergency visits to friends or family (like if someone's sick, or unable to leave the house but needing something). I could still consolidate all the distance and/or bulky errands in one or two days per month. It's not like I'd be losing money (except in the usual depreciation of the car's value) because without the car, I'd still be spending money on bus and taxis, etc. I don't know. This requires more thought and pencil & paper analysis. I wonder how you quantify sore feet...

Not surprising, I knew this, but...

ye gods are you ever punished for not owning a car.  Price-wise, I'm talking. And maybe only here in Omaha where there are a great many places you can't get to by bus without a LOT of walking. My practice of buying the 42 pound size of cat litter, for example, is truly endangered by not having a car. I can't find any bus route and walking schedule that is at all realistic for that. A taxi would negate the bulk price benefit.  I knew that people without cars have a much harder time of everyday things, here in Omaha. Now I'm experiencing it and feeling vaguely guilty that this is a *choice* I have. (Though to be honest, my car is now elderly and if it dies, I would have to rely on this current plan anyway - I cannot take on a car payment. And my experience with used cars - before 2011 when I bought this one new - and particularly for the $$ I have to pay for one outright - was not good. Egads, forsooth.) So - back to smaller sizes of cat litter, I guess. The biggest available in my grocery store, to be loaded into the taxi trunk on the semi-monthly Big Grocery List trip.

This economic factor is one that is quite well known in the alternative transportation modes world. It interlocks with all the other economic justice issues that keep people poor and struggling.  I am very lucky to have the income I have, small as it is. And the health I've got, iffy as it's been (cholesterol levels, I"m looking at YOU). Cutting down on my eating to stretch my money farther because it's just plain HARDER TO GET - that won't hurt me a bit, nor will the much-increased exercise. I have been affluentin' myself to death here. No amount of list-making, resolution-vowing, self-promising can put the brakes on a late-night trip to the store for ice cream like a mile-and-a-half walk to that store, and the walk back.

All that said, I'm sitting here grinning because Yah, I knew this would be a learning experience. And Yah, I had NO IDEA...

Second bus-riding adventure: achievement locked

Ha. That's what the cool kids say. I don't know that it's locked so much as I finally got home, and fell back against the door exhausted. Well, not exhausted, but footsore and tired. A nice sitdown and half a pint of ice water later and I'm feeling perkier.

Anyway - I shank's-mared it and rode buses downtown (almost) to Spielbound to play some table top games with the nice guys in Godless Gamers. It was all guys at our table, except me. The other table had more people and at least two women, maybe three. I wasn't doing a census.

I'm glad that I shed any pride many years ago. I only today figured out that when I'm going somewhere that requires two buses, I should be telling the first bus driver I need a transfer, then I get a special transfer ticket and it costs less than charging my regular pass for a whole ride. DUH.

Also, the #3 - this confused me because their "maps" are SO highly stylized they're almost undecipherable - only goes to 40th & Farnam, then turns west and goes through the MidTown Transfer Center (that means it stops at the glass box and waits for possible riders for five minutes) then circles around to get going south again, and instead of getting to 40th & Harney where I thought I could get off, it only goes to 42nd & Harney, before diverging from where I need to go. This added two very steep blocks to my walk to Spielbound, but I still made it at exactly 1 p.m. So I know that about that route on a Sunday now. What I need to do is practice reading those schedules better!

Case in point: I mis-read the going-home #4 bus schedule. Where I thought the #4 came by 40th & Cuming at 4:28 pm, two minutes after the #3 dropped me off there, it actually didn't come by until 4:58. So I had a nice half hour on the not very comfortable bus bench. Seriously, not only is the seat hard, it *slants* toward the front so I kept feeling like I was falling off!

But the exercise was good for me, the gaming was fun and the people were, as always, very nice and fun. So it was a good afternoon all around.

First round trip bus ride accomplished

I was gone from home right at 3 hours. The buses are on time, clean, and the drivers are friendly and helpful. Of course, they might get understandably tetchy in rush hours on the hottest days of the summer, but today, with a light weekend passenger load and perfect driving weather, all was serene.

I was astonished, on my last bus home, to be told by the driver that my State Driver's License does not serve for ID for my Senior 10-ride pass! This is the 5th driver - why didn't the other 4 tell me this? I was further astonished to learn that I actually have to go PHYSICALLY to MAT HQ nearly all the way downtown to get a MAT ID. So, I'll be going down there Monday to do that. I still have my game event I'm going to tomorrow afternoon, but it won't break the bank, just two rides.

I think I'm going to end up feeling like getting rid of my car (haven't done it yet, in case you're just now seeing this) was (will have been) the best thing I did since retiring. Already, today, I felt wonderfully free - though irritated no end at how human-hostile our streets and byways are.  But the idea of just locking the front door and walking out and *going* - not having to worry about gas, or parking or driving - feels very independent.

Stay tuned, we'll find out how long that lasts.

ETA: I know that this is a LOT of to-do about an activity that is utterly mundane for millions of people everywhere. It is enlightening to realize just how out of touch I have been, sealed up in my metal boxes, all these years. Out of touch with the world around me, the people around me, my own abilities ... I think this month-long test was an *excellent* idea.

It's Day One of playing "I don't have a car"!

And I realized yesterday that I'd screwed it up before I even started, by double-booking Oct. 12.  My Game Day friends and I set up that afternoon for a Game Day here, and then last week I got notice from Omaha Atheists that their fall highway cleanup is coming up, "so sign up and join us!" So I did - and THEN realized it was for 10 a.m. Oct. 12, and it's clear out west by the Platte River. NOT a walkable, busable or taxiable destination. Even the meet-up place would take me an hour or more to reach from home by bus - meaning it would also take an hour or more to get home, and there would be no guarantee we'd be done with the cleanup in time for me to get a ride back to the bus stop ... etc etc. So, Since my Game Day crew are my first priority BUT the commitment to the OA highway cleanup is a civic promise I made, I'm going to waive the No Car rule for that one event. I'll drive myself out there, and leave in time to greet my Game Day friends after getting cleaned up myself.

I decided, rather than feel like a doofus about this, I will think of it as one of the things this experiment is going to teach me: I'm going to have to be a lot more mindful about planning ahead, without a car.

AND THEN I realized that I ALSO had bought a ticket to a documentary film downtown at Filmstreans. It is a Spanish film about global transportation issues, one I greatly want to see, and last week at the Sosa documentary I told Lin, "I'll be back here next Thursday, too."  Then in the wee hours of this morning (after I finally finished William Kent Kreuger's newest mystery, Windigo Island), I realized I probably could get a bus to Filmstreams, so I wrote a note to remind myself to look up the bus schedule to do so. This morning, I went to the Filmstreams site to find out the show time. I am, I discovered, a day late. It was shown Tuesday night. Well, so there's THAT problem sorted! *dusts off hands, kisses that $4.50 movie ticket good-bye*

But otherwise, hey, everything's cool. My next adventure will simply be to get to the Swanson Branch of the library for their Friends of the Library Book Sale this Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 a.m. to find some more *little* kids' "scary" books to hand out at Hallowe'en for All Hallow's Read night. (Don't know what that is? Here's Neil Gaiman & friends to tell you.) I've done it the past two Hallowe'ens and I was surprised and delighted at the tricksers'r'treaters' responses - they loved it! Some of them went bouncing off my porch waving their books at their parents on the sidewalk yelling, "Look, Dad! I got a book!"  Now, you can't ask for a happier outcome than THAT. I went to the library sale the first Saturday in September and got 24 books, but very few for tiny tots, toddlers and preschoolers. I'm hoping I can find a few more of those this Saturday. The All Hallow's Read site also has a selection posters you can download. Here's the one I liked best, go see which one you like:

They also have bookmarks you can download and print out, and do whatever you like with:

And that's about all the thrilling news from here for today. Until I remember something else I screwed up...

Contemplating a big life change

I'm thinking seriously about selling my car, and doing without. At my age (64), this is scary. I live alone. Usually people my age are clinging tenaciously to their car keys, sometimes even in the face of actual, factual, decline in their ability to drive safely. It's famously one of a family's hardest moments: taking Dad's car keys away.

But you know what? As a car-owner, I think I'm in the tiny minority of humans who own a car. Really - there are billions of people who live their entire lives without possessing one of these metal and plastic and fossil-fuel and money-guzzling monsters.

I've stayed in my home past retirement because 1)  Good GOLLY I don't want to have to go through everything a down-sizing move would require, 2) almost everything I need (except a grocery store, and that may be changing somewhat even as I write) is within easy walking distance in Benson (a tiny old former small town that was engulfed two generations ago by Omaha), and 3) I have a great neighborhood with great neighbors. Having experienced life with horrible neighbors, I do not sell that feature short.

But now here I am, overweight, too sedentary, with some health exam test results I'm not very happy about. Here I am, I seldom leave the house more than twice a week for errands, and occasionally for social occasions, and my car, a 2001 Hyundai Elantra I bought new in July 2001 when some asshole rammed a stolen car into the trunk of my innocent Ford Taurus parked outside my house, is showing its age. It won't be long before the upkeep becomes too expensive. And here I am with a granddaughter, thinking about what global warming is doing to her future. 

I started thinking about all the alternatives to driving my own car that I have or could have. I can certainly walk, though not as far or as painlessly as in my younger days. A bus is one or two blocks away, and while Omaha's bus system is not ideal, they're working on it and if I plan ahead I could get most anywhere I need to go. I'm retired, so time isn't a problem (I can always knit on long bus trips). And I'm eligible for a bit of a discount for senior citizens now. We have taxis. And if I want to consolidate a lot of errands all over town into one day, I could rent a car. I hear one company delivers the car to your door, and will take you home when you return the car. And I checked - not having car insurance (because lacking a car) does not prohibit you from renting their cars. You can buy insurance for while you're driving it.

So I looked at how much not having a car would save me. Not a lot, it turns out. But probably enough. Dropping my car insurance would result in my losing a $300 a year discount for carrying both my house and car with the same company, but that still would save me about $80/month. And since I haven't been driving all that much, I figure I only put about $35 - $40 worth of gas in it per month. So that's about $90, let's say to be conservative, per month I could use for bus rides, taxis, and/or rental car. I can walk to the nearest full-blown grocery store - and it's all downhill! and could have a taxi take me back home for about $13 - or if I didn't have a huge bulky bunch of stuff to take home, I could ride the bus for much, much less.

And that doesn't even take bicycling into account. I'm thinking with what I could get for my car now, I could maybe get a decent used bike, helmet, and elbow and knee pads - not going to do without those!  Having a bike would greatly expand the boundaries of my carless world. Omaha buses all have a bike rack nowadays (yay!) so there's that.

It would be stupid of me to just sell the car without further ado. Therefore, I'm going to pretend during next month that I don't have a car, and see how I do. Maybe I'll have things to blog about the experience. In any case it's a good experiment! And I'd welcome tips you may have on how to live without a car.

Edited later to add: There IS a new grocery store just 4 blocks from my house! It's a tiny, storefront type place, carrying locally produced meats and vegetables and cereals, eggs, cheese, milk, handmade pastas - all kinds of goodies. It's a little pricey but I need to eat *better* and *less* so that's probably a good thing. Very friendly clerk. I got some organically-grown beef brats. Can't wait for dinner!

Getting ready for Fall

After seeing the movie "Ratatouille" a few years ago, I came home and hunted for recipes online, and found the very one they invented for the movie!

I've never even tried to make it as gorgeous - I was looking for the basics. And what I found just upended my favorite, spaghetti sauce.  Mine is more of a vegetable stew. The past couple of years I've made large quantities to freeze over the winter. It's cheap, delicious, nutritious, and versatile. The more authentic recipes, I think, use very few herbs or spices. Some thyme, maybe. So it's a great base for just about any ethnic variation you like: Italian, French, Near Eastern...

Anyway, I took myself by surprise yesterday when I got done loading the car trunk with grocery store groceries and as I got in and fastened the seat belt, thought: "Wenninghoff's." That's a multi-generational family produce farm in the north central area of Omaha. So I drove on out there and guess what, came home with eggplant, zucchini, red and green bell peppers, onions, plus a buttercup and butternut squash, a small box of tomatoes, and some little red potatoes. The squashes and potatoes will go into homemade TV dinners that I'll freeze, some with roasted chicken portions, others entirely vegetarian, to add some variety in the winter. Here's what I got:

$23.50.

This saves me incredible amounts of money in the winter, and makes sure I'm eating a  lot of vegetables. And oh my, do I love ratatouille! It's good just with garlic bread and some parmesan on top, or over noodles, or rice (I dislike the idea of having it with potatoes, for some unknown reason), or some cooked lentils mixed in. Some ideas for variations:

French: thyme, basil, rosemary, bay leaf; with of course a baguette hot out of the oven and butter, and a green salad
Mexican: Mexican oregano, a dash of chili powder, a teaspoon of cumin seeds, some fresh cilantro and shredded cheddar on top; serve with corn bread or tortillas
Italian: a tsp or 2 of fennel seeds, oregano, basil, and bay leaf with parmesan on top; over spaghetti or penne, garlic bread side with a lettuce & tomato salad
Near Eastern: I am not very well versed in this, but I do know that za'atar - a flat bread with lots of thyme (here is David Lebovitz's blog post that turned me on to za'atar) and sesame seeds and sumac - goes very well with it indeed, even my poor imitation of za'atar

Next month is soon enough to start thinking about sealing the house up with plastic over the windows. I dread that, for eventually the house air seems stale and I start getting stir-crazy. But, it makes a significant dent in the gas bill, so there ya are.

I feel so cheated

I went to a showing of the documentary "Mercedes Sosa: The Voice of Latin America" tonight at Filmstreams. I only found out about her 4 or 5 years ago, through a duet she did with Francis Cabrel on one of his CDs quite a few years ago. I immediately knew I had to find out about the woman with this astonishing voice. I got a CD -- but I've drifted away from listening to a lot of music in recent years. Seeing this film tonight has got me scrambling for more Sosa.

That voice! That face! That golden heart! If you get a chance to see this movie, see it. Find her music, listen to it. She was famous and loved around the world - except in the US. I'm sure the lack of Mercedes Sosa music here had to do with politics, plus mainstream white America having no interest in the music of "furriners." This would fill me with rage - except Sosa was not about rage, not at all.

The Spanish language web sites I found via Bing aren't very accessible to non-Spanish-readers like me. I recommend reading the wiki article  and look on YouTube - I'm listening to a jaw-dropping duet with her and Joan Baez right now. Maybe if enough US folks start buying her music, we'll get better English web sites? So more can find her?

One little project finished!

Last week I finally finished Sock Number - well, what number is it, anyway. Way back in the deeps of time, like at the end of 2012, I started a pair of socks in Malabrigo Boticelli sock yarn, a lovely blend of reds. This would be the third pair I will have made, so Numbers 5 and 6? I finally finished the first Boticelli sock (#5) last month.

(The reds are a bit deeper than this photo shows.)

In the meantime, in February of this year, I started another pair of socks, from Trekking 474 sock yarn in a lovely scrumptious variegated colorway. 

It will be the 4th pair I will have made (anyone remember the multiplicity of tenses one alien species practiced in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at this point?), so Numbers 7 and 8? Except I finished # 7 before # 6. So which should have which number?


It's not important, right. The important thing is, I finally finished the 4th pair! And they're the first that really fit! I'm so chuffed.

There is something very powerful psychologically in finishing something, for me, with my chronic Startitis and unfinished projects of all sorts all over my domain. It makes me want to get busy and finish something else! Well, er, um, really it makes me want to START something else LOL, just what I need. However, at this point, I do have that second Boticelli sock to start, so that will scratch that itch.

This weekend I bought a lovely set of four tan linen napkins and seven autumn colors of DMC floss, and I'm on the hunt for nice autumn leaves embroidery patterns to decorate the napkins with. I'm sticking to SIMPLE patterns so there is some remote possibility of these napkins getting finished before I die.

A lovely, slow summer doesn't make for exciting blog posts

For anyone who may wander over here occasionally, I apologize for being even more boring than usual. I've been enjoying a pretty serene summer, which means there's not been much of interest to blog about. How's this for excitement: I've been making a real effort to read more!

*and the crowd goes WILD*

I know how annoying it is when you keep going to a blog hoping for something interesting and new to appear, and it's the same old weeks-old post sitting there decomposing. So I finally bestirred myself to find and install a "Follow by email" widget on this blog. It's over in the right-hand column. If you put your email address there, whenever I get around to making a new post, it'll show up in your email. That way you avoid the irritation of seeing the same moldy old post alla time time time.

ETA: When you enter your email address, the program will send you an email to confirm that you really want to subscribe to emails from this blog. You can decline or accept; if later you want to unsubscribe, there will be an Unsubscribe option at the bottom of each of the emails. As far as I know, I don't get a list of who has subscribed, but even if I do, I won't use your email for anything at all. The subscription provider handles all the addresses and only uses them for this one task.

Yes, this is what passes for thrills around here. I like it because I dislike drama. Had enough of that, ready for peace. Oh, okay, here's something new: I made another personal journal last week. I covered this one with denim from an old pair of jeans. It's even less perfect than the first one I made, because like an idiot I thought I knew all the steps so I didn't bother to go over onto SeaLemon's YouTube channel and review them. Oops. It'll serve, but I've put a memo in the back of the new journal to go consult SeaLemon before tackling the next one!

Mistakes: used too few pages; the front and back boards are too wide for the text block; the bookmark ribbon could be 1/2" longer... 

general lack of precision and accuracy in cutting the boards and pasting the text block in.  Pluses: well, it serves, doesn't it? It's comfortable in my hands and

I had fun using old maps for the endpapers and

  I found some photos from catalogues of some space

 flights and auroras to doll the pages up a little.

Here are the videos I referred to:

How to make a text block

How to make a hardcover book

SeaLemon includes in-video links to skills used in each video that you may not have run across, such as creating your own book cloth for binding.

And here's a page that has all the basic bookbinding video links in a list.

I really like her bookbinding videos and I've bookmarked them because I'll be making various kinds of notebooks and pads in the future.

Infrequently,

you look something up you think is going to be pretty simple, and what you find is rather astonishing.  The viral video of the guy dancing on the walking machine in the gym to Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" caused me to wonder about the history of the song. The lyrics have always seemed a little - poetically mysterious? - to me, for a Rat Pack song about a mafia hit man, which was what I thought it was. Hoo boy, was I wrong...

Culture...it's what you're soaked in and don't even know it.

Lyrics:

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
      And it shows them pearly white
      Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
      And he keeps it … ah … out of sight.

      Ya know when that shark bites, with his teeth, babe
      Scarlet billows start to spread
      Fancy gloves, though, wears old MacHeath, babe
      So there’s nevah, nevah a trace of red.

      Now on the sidewalk … uuh, huh … whoo … sunny mornin’ … uuh, huh
      Lies a body just oozin' life … eeek!
      And someone’s sneakin' ‘round the corner
      Could that someone be Mack the Knife?

      A-there's a tugboat … huh, huh, huh … down by the river don’tcha know
      Where a cement bag’s just a'droopin' on down
      Oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear
      Five'll get ya ten old Macky’s back in town.

      Now, d'ja hear ‘bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
      After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash
      And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor
      Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?

      Now … Jenny Diver … ho, ho … yeah … Sukey Tawdry      
      Ooh … Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
      Oh, the line forms on the right, babe
      Now that Macky’s back in town.

      Aah … I said Jenny Diver … whoa … Sukey Tawdry
      Look out to Miss Lotte Lenya and old Lucy Brown
      Yes, that line forms on the right, babe
      Now that Macky’s back in town …

      Look out … old Macky is back!!

Perfect summer night!

Last Friday evening,my friend Doris and I went out to Fremont to show support for a friend of ours, Michael Jones, as he displayed his hot air balloon, Emerald City Express at a “balloon-glow” event for a church fundraiser, ice cream social/fun fair (I guess?). I took lots of pictures and even drew one! 

 A “glow,” I learned for the first time that night, is when the balloons are inflated but never leave the ground, and the operators shoot flames up inside them to make them glow - a lovely spectacle for the crowds.  But because of the winds, the four balloons were only vertical at one time for a very short period of time. The crowds - especially the little boys and the little boys disguised as grown-ups - were excited about it all anyway. I got a good upper-body workout out of it - when inflated, those things want to FLY DAMMIT and we had six people hanging onto the sides of the basket with Michael and his niece standing inside it. That was 20 minutes of strain, let me tell you. And the wicker basket sides are like a cheese grater - my knees show the evidence. But it was grand fun, I’m so glad Doris called me and invited me. I ate a hot dog, and an ice cream cone, so it was perfect. Good company, too.

(I told Michael to strike an intrepid pose. I think he needs an aviator cap, goggles, and a white scarf, don't you? Or maybe a top hat.)

Michael’s niece Heather Jones, Michael, his nephew Allen Jones and *his* wife, Kat - the ground crew that night.

These things attract attention even when they’re lying down!

The giants are awaking…that’s Michael’s beauty in the front; Emerald City Express! I was trying to walk and take pictures at the same time, dummy me.

Looks scary, but everything’s OK. You can feel that heat from 150 feet away, though.

Now there are THREE waking giants.

After that, I got busy trying (feebly) to help get Emerald City Express vertical, and keep her on the ground. The three balloons (the fourth was deflated before the other three got vertical) were only vertical for a few minutes; once they were standing up they interfered with the wind such that the middle one was bobbing around impinging on the other two, so there was only a brief Glow display and I wasn’t taking pictures. 

But it was a grand evening complete with hot dog and ice cream, what could be better? Oh yeah - a yard sale - and Doris and I hit the one on the main drag heading toward the fun fest on the way there.

Then on Sunday I hosted another Game Day for my buddies Linda, Sharon and Doris. We had a great time playing a new game that I got by supporting its Kickstarter campaign, called "paperback." 

As usual half the fun was figuring out how to play the darned game. I think some developers forget their customers aren't all experienced gamers. But we worked it out to our satisfaction and it IS a really fun game. Then we played a game of Forbidden Island - I think that's one of the group's very favorite, so far. Food was et, and a good time was had by all. 

Updating my US travel map

I've added a couple-three states since I last posted it in 2011:

visited 29 states (58%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Triposo world travel guide for Android

aughhhhhhh

Just wrote a check for over $6000. Having AC system and hot water heater replaced today. How kind of them to decide to fail me at the same time.

I'm going to escape into a book for the rest of the day.

A regretful admission

I am *not* going to get *any* of the books read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge that I so rashly announced here.

It was one of those impulsive ideas that I tend to sign on for and then beat myself up for once I realize it was never going to happen.

I'm trying not to beat myself up for this failure. I mean, it is of no consequence to anyone, not even me. So I shall apply my rational mind and put this behind me. No harm done.

*dusts off hands* Now off to that PhD I never even applied for... (not really).

First I fallen behind then I catchen up

Lots of putzy stuff going on in the umpteen days since my last post. Mostly house and yard-keeping. Some fun stuff, too.

I got the director's chair camp chair re-canvassed for my adventurer's bedroom:

I got low-cost (what I thought was) canvas from the Hancock's upholstery remnants. Turned out, it stretches a bit. I didn't know that until I sat in it. It's OK to sit in but I wouldn't bounce around much. It's mostly just for show anyhow. I was pleased with how it turned out.

It took me forever to get around to mowing my back yard (I love it long and going to seed but heh heh I don't think my neighbors do) but now that it's done (last Sunday!) it'll be easy to keep it mowed weekly. The front's looking pretty good. I planted a bunch of lavender Ageratum, white annual begonia with bronze leaves, some dark purple petunias and white petunias, in the little bare spots in the front boomerang and along the side of the garage.

I've been watching out for fireflies but haven't seen any yet. I wonder if the temps have been a little cool so far. It'd be nice if they'd show up for my son's and family's (how *do* you punctuate that?) visit next week.

I finally got to see "The Triplets of Belleville" on Netflix (meaning N. finally got it bought) - not at all what I was expecting. What an odd, weird, film. Still deciding whether to buy it for my French movies library... I also bought "The Night of the Doctor" off Amazon. I think that might be the best acting job Matt Smith ever did in that role, and that is saying a lot, IMO. It will require additional viewings, like all the big DW's do.

As for reading, I just finished The Way of Herodotus by Justin Marozzi:

I really enjoyed it. I knew nothing about Herodotus but now I want to get his "Histories" and dig into them like crazy.

I'm currently reading "Full Dark House" by Christopher Fowler:

It's the first in the "Bryant and May" London detectives series and I'm really loving it.

I'll be learning all about vegan cuisine while the kids are here, looking forward to that.

And that's about it. Lovely weather we've been having, all is well and I am among the luckiest people alive, rich in friends and family.

ttfn

And furthermore...

Seems like I just discovered I have a blog, LOL. But it occurs to me I should share a couple of fantastic women whose blogs and wonderful, amazing thinking and creativity has been enriching my life and world view lately. I'll go in chrono order of when I first came across their web sites.

Ada Palmer is a scholar in Medieval and Renaissance history, at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. She's also a genre fan, a writer, and composer and many more "-ers'."  Her blog "Ex Urbe" is fantastic. She has a series about Machiavelli that in addition to being fascinating, completely upended everything I'd ever heard about him. Her geekness is that period of history, and she's not only written music and blog posts - she did her PhD dissertation about it. And she's a science geek. This is a song she's written about real-life space exploration. Caution: may require hankies. I love, love love this, and she has a permanent fan in me.

My newer find is Felicity Ford, a soundscape artist (never heard of one? Neither had I. Wow, has she picked an enthralling career!) who is also a knitter and textile designer, and has one of the most infectious sunny enthusiastic attitudes I've seen in years. She lives and works in Reading, UK (I hope that's how you write that.) Just watching her Kickstarter video for her new book on designing knitting patterns had me grinning, as they say, ear to ear. (Of course I contributed, how could I not?) Her web site is The Domestic Soundscape and you must, must, must set aside an hour to go visit it. Luscious knits and sounds, and delightful creativity and humor.  (I'm writing this at 1:30 pm CST - there are only five more hours to go on the Kickstarter campaign so if you think you're interested, you'd better get over there! The book will be available once it's published, of course, but why not get in on the ground floor (with some lovely supporter rewards)?  She also (as if this all wasn't enough!) has a bi-weekly podcast called KnitSonik! It's available free on iTunes, too.

The few things I've said about these two women are just a tiny fraction of the areas they explore and the things they have accomplished, and the terrific projects they've got going.

ETA "Renaissance" to Ada's specialties.

They're falling like dominoes, I tell ya

Finished another book last night, this one for the mystery book club at the library. It's The Janus Stone, by Elly Griffith.

 

I really like this one a lot. It's the second of three (so far) in a series about a forensic anthropologist, Ruth Galloway, in Britain, called in to determine if a small skeleton found under the door of an old Victorian mansion, now being demolished for new apartment buildings, is modern, old, or ancient. I like Ruth a lot. She's an almost-40, not-thin, not-hot, professional woman with flaws and strengths (more than she knows), passions and prejudices. She's smarter than I am about when to shoot off her mouth (or punch some asshole) but when she does stand up, look out. Her relationship with her friend, Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, is a source of warmth and oh boy complications, for both of them. The book has quite a few laugh-out-loud spots, which are always welcome. The story line is dark, twisted, and sad, and there are excerpts from an unknown perpetrator's disturbing diary at regular intervals, steadily ratcheting up the anxiety level. 

So there's another book read and reported. Last night I picked up the most recent Flavia DeLuce novel, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches.  I devoured it the instant I got it home a few weeks ago, and then went back and re-read the whole series. This is my second, slower, reading. I love it as I love all of the Flavia books, but something - a rather major something - that struck me falsely the first time, did so even more this time. I won't write about it in my review because I don't intend to give out spoilers. I'm hoping to find someone who's read it who would be willing to talk about this point privately, though. 

Lagging behind with my reporting, here

Did a spate of sewing last week; this:

is the latest grocery tote project. Only two more to go and I'll have replaced all my venerable old (1985!) grocery sacks with these new, pretty ones. I'm finding that sometimes grocery clerks are hesitant to assume they're for my groceries, even though I plunk them on the conveyor belt ahead of my groceries. It's no surprise that female clerks commenting outnumber male clerks commenting by about 5:1.  I have to say, I haven't seen any prettier grocery totes than mine in any store I've been to. LOL this retirement gives one lots of time...

In the book-reading realm: Still none read for the Challenge (see right column and a few posts ago) but I have been working on my giant, teetering TBR pile steadily. I've re-read: Louise Penny's A Trick of the Light (for the library mystery club), and Alan Bradley's Speaking from Among the Bones, just because I love Flavia.* Well, and Inspector Gamache. I dearly wish we could get the Canadian Gamache TV specials series here on Netflix, sigh. I suppose it'll come around eventually, but really,  Nathaniel Parker as Gamache??? swoon

      

I've also partially read a non-fiction book that kind of disappointed me. I did get about 3/4 through before I realized I was Slogging, and quit.  Now, I loves me some biogeography - deeply, madly, truly I love it. So The Monkey's Voyage by Alan De Queiroz was totally my cup of tea. 

He discusses the ongoing controversy raging between the "far-flung species totally coulda rode accidental natural rafts to remote island sites" camp, and the "species on remote island sites got there when Gondawandaland (or was it Pangaea?) split up WAY before then" camp. It held my interest as long as it stuck with the bio- and the geo- - but it seemed to devolve into a certain amount of axe-grinding and personality conflicts (which engender so many of those delightfully entertaining shitstorms in Letters to the Editor columns in scientific journals) ego-stroking and petty bickering.  Ho-hum. Life's too short.

Yesterday, I finished The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman.  

       

I really enjoyed reading this thing. It reminds me more of The Club Dumas than what it's been compared to, or rather slotted in next to, which is Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. It interleaves descriptions of fifteen ancient objects that were stolen from the library of (an actual, historical) Muslim polymath, adventurer and traveler in the early 12th century in northern Europe. Latvia, I think, and/or Estonia. It gets confusing. Anyway, Those are alternated with a Today story of a young, kind of aimless small town reporter who haplessly crosses paths with the seriously dangerous people who are trying to find all these things, when he takes on the writing of an obituary of an old college professor at his alma mater. Naturally the flaky old guy turns out to be something other than what he seemed. Whoa Nelly, WAY Something Other. A mysterious and alluring woman a few years older than he, one of his own former professors, a likeable oafish but really brilliant cop, and of course the aforementioned Bad Guys make this a real page-turner. However ... after finishing it, some questions came to mind that made me realize that it could have been a lot *better*. It doesn't really fulfill its promise and potential, and that's all I say about that. I loved it while I read it, and maybe I'll entertain myself by imagining what *could* have happened. 

Last night, I finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.  

It's the first in a trilogy, the other two volumes will be published later this year. It's a science fiction mystery/horror kind of thing, and I have to say, the first couple chapters were seriously creepy. Readers have complained because it's so obviously the first in a series, but I don't care as long as they get those other books out here SOON! Fascinating, horrifying premise and if the thing is what it seems, it's a gratifyingly original take on what "aliens" could be like - nothing like any I've seen or read about before. Nothing like anything I EVER want to meet in person thank you very much.

So that catches me up on the reading front. And the sewing front. 

ETA: the pretty book cover pictures, and the note, below. 

* Please note, I'm putting live links to these books' amazon.com pages not because I'm an affiliate (I'm not) but because for the most part, I find amazon.com the most useful site for good images of the covers (and any interior images they may post in their Look Inside dealie-bobber) and because there are usually a good mix of reviews pro & con each book.

Ahem, well, yeah. About that

reading challenge. Haven't read a single book for it yet. But, I have plenty of time, right? Until the end or middle of May, isn't it? Yeah. No worries. Heh.

More immediately, Saturday is International Table Top Game Day, which I and my little band of brave ladies, will be observing. Observing, but not really "participating" in because the people running the web site with the big map, with the pins for all the locations all over the world that are participating? That web site is set up for people with 1s and 0s in their very DNA. It is damned awkward and confusing to access, for me, a humble individual who was NOT nurtured by the soil of Silicon Valley since conception. Also, the web site assumes you are a business who wants ALL THE PEOPLE TO COME TO YOUR PLACE and play games Saturday - so they REQUIRE your address. I'm not putting my address on there. I did leave a query to their help desk, saying "I'm a private individual hosting a private game day for some friends and I don't want my address on the WWW, but we'd love to have a little flag in the general vicinity of the place so we feel like we're being included and counted. And we'd post a picture or two of the revelry. JUST LIKE THE PROMOTERS CLAIM YOU CAN DO, by the way."  What did I get? An email signed by someone with only a first name, saying "No worries, just sign up and we'll take care of all that."

?

Is s/he fucking KIDDING ME???

So we won't have our little flag or be able to post a picture but we're going to play the hell out of some game/s Saturday and eat good food and have a blast and I'm even going to print off the little Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day standup cartoons, and a copy of their ITTGD trophy, and put them all on cardboard and have them around (and our winner will take the trophy home. She will not be given a choice. Get it out of here.)  And I'll continue to enjoy Wil Wheaton's Table Top Games web program. But I am disappointed in the annual event's web site. They should do better by the private folks they claim to welcome. You shouldn't have to have been on the internet before you were born to understand how to sign up, and there should be a "private party" option that doesn't require your address. Oh well.