A Day in Three Halves

I went out walking after I got home yesterday from the vax shop,  because the weather was going to be much hotter today, so i seized the day. 

I saw the first daylily out, and a bed of them in bud, waiting to open.

On the way home I was surprised when a deer stepped out of the trees in front of me, studied me for a moment, then moved off 

This is a first. In 35 years of living in this development I have never seen a deer. They're in  different parts of town, but have never made it across the highways that surround my neighborhood. There are roads closed for repair and I wonder if he slipped across one of them.  

Yesterday being a COVID vax day, by evening I was so tired, usual aftereffect, that I went to bed around eight o'clock. Halfway up the stairs I seriously wondered if I should just lie there instead of struggling on. 

I did make it into bed and woke at 2am, wondering why I was hurting head to foot and shivering. Ah, yes, the vax, nothing to be alarmed about. Too tired to go down and find a snack and eventually did sleep again. 

That was part two. Got up at six feeling wobbly and nauseous and needing to sit down quick, legs gave way. This passed and I made it downstairs for a bite to eat then I slept on and off all morning.

So when the Misfits arrived -- I heard the arrival, got a picture of Jeff, and the box he left -- I was up to the third half of the day and things were starting to go better.

I managed to wrangle the box, gosh it was hot.  Also note the humidity 

And here's the doings 

Cans for three bean salad, currently a favorite, lovely yellow potatoes for roasting, must remember to keep a couple to plant, Envy apples, big ones, and they've been great lately, brown eggs for quiches, 

Bananaz to ripen in a day or two, mixed greens for salad, weather appropriate, lazy Bloggerlady bread, and yogurt for all seasons. Scallions hiding in there to go in salad and quiches.

I did manage to catch a picture of Jeff, and after my incessant moaning, the delivery map has been improved. 

They did start out saying delivery was in about 15 minutes, before 7:30am, clearly ridiculous because the driver was in Philadelphia, over an hour away at the best of times, and with numerous stops between there and here.

It showed up about 1:25 pm, about what you'd expect. But at least they've stopped giving endless updates, every  15 minutes for hours. 

And the box was reasonably cool, order complete and accurate. So I'll stop moaning. For now.

And I may continue sleeping. I do get a significant reaction to the COVID vax, which I like to think is my tough immune system saying you lookin at me huh? My vaxxed arm isn't up to much, so weaving has to wait.

Happy day everyone, try to get all the way upstairs before you nod off. It works better. Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.

Cheering lunch, thistle and Misfits

Today I couldn't face making and sending pictures to the HOA, but I did make an interesting lunch.

Shrimp, with rice seasoned with shawarma spice blend and minced ginger. Yogurt beaten with lime juice and cane sugar with blueberries.

And I think this is a thistle 

I believe they're good for various pollinators and butterflies so I'll leave it alone. Unless a person who knows better tells me it's a dangerous wild thing.

The sock is coming along. This is nice yarn to work with 

The heel is turned and I'm off up the leg now 

Misfits arrived, Ramon in charge, in a nonpink van, but the food is fine 

Before he left, he spent a minute checking his great new do in the side mirror of the van! 

Small order this week, because I'm well stocked. Cans mostly for the food pantry, lovely Envy apples, strawberries and yogurt to go together, plenty of sardines for my favorite supper, sardines on seedy bread.

Bananaz, for shakes and other exciting things, chunked mangoes, which I like better than taking my chances with fresh,  diced chicken breast, which I'll roast all at once and have available for salad and sandwiches. 

Red lentils, now a staple. Some will be a soup with carrots and pumpkin puree, some probably tofu. Maybe flatbread, depending.

Now for afternoon tea and a lace cookie. One's enough, they're rich, very buttery.

Happy day everyone, remember to do your bit for May Day, support the worker against the billionaires. 

But first, remember it's okay to support artisans, including lovely Sally Pointer, the Stone Age researcher and reenactor of textiles and other daily use items.  

You're too late for this great Stone Age sewing kit! Bone needles, natural threads, clever Stone Age tools.

See you Saturday.

Doing my bit here

 

Misfits, Haptic and Hue

I listen to several podcasts regularly, some because they're accurate news reporting, in the absence of balanced mass media coverage, some for other reasons. 

One textile-related one is the great Haptic and Hue, created by Jo Andrews, a weaver and textile historian, a monthly event you can follow anywhere you find your podcasts. I use Spotify again, now that they've stopped running ICE job ads.

Today's episode is a moving account of textile scraps used to identify foundling babies in the eighteenth century. 

The illustration is the general purpose one, not specific to this month's episode. 

And it's Misfits day, rainy, not fun for the driver, Jeff.

Here he is, a bit wet, unloading cheerfully. I notice the van is scraped and dented all along this side, maybe a casualty of icy weather. 

There was a great price on strawberries so I stocked up, one for the fridge for smoothies and sauce, note the sugar there, that's why, two for the freezer, maybe frozen dessert, who knows.

Cans to share with the food pantry, I have a heavy bag to take in, must get onto it, Bananaz for breakfasts and smoothies. 

Flour, finally, so I can bake bread, no whole wheat available but I have some to mix in, and I'm planning on baguettes, from Baking on a Budget. 

Yogurt, my staple, with fruit, blueberries or strawberries, no other veggies because I have various greens in the freezer.

I'm well stocked now. I'm planning on red lentil tofu, already have supplies, including the soy sauce and ketchup I got recently. 

And I have rice, which I keep forgetting to use. With tofu cubes and green vegetables, and a sauce, that's an easy meal or two. Next week there will be shrimp and tuna. I seem to have lost my taste for chicken just now but there's plenty of protein in my plans.

This afternoon is about listening to rain and reading 

Which I've been awaiting for ages, an epistolary novel by an old woman corresponding with various people. 

That's about all I know of it, except that I like the epistolary, letter,  form a lot, love reading between the lines. 

My favorite part of Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon is the opening chapter of letters, full of different perceptions of Harriet and Peter's wedding.

I have high hopes for this first novel which made a hit.

Speaking of hits, Ursula (means little bear) one of the upstairs bears, with Pink Rabbit, found out about Pony. Nothing would satisfy her but to have a ride. 

Pony's a nice character and was quite happy to meet someone smaller, because she's feeling a bit towered over by the downstairs bears.

So the result was a ride. And maybe a permanent home with Ted, Big Ursy and Pony, sporting pussy hats 

On a serious note, here's an explainer about why many women prefer the bear. In real life.

Happy day everyone, speak up! 

Still there, still fighting 

Fall trees, ivy and Misfits

Windy chilly walk on Thursday morning, the kind you tell yourself you'll be glad you did, which I was. There was what my weather app calls a moderate wind and I call a howling gale because I'm out in it.

I often like to bring home a souvenir of a walk if I didn't feel like going out, and in the middle of my purloined ivy, now taking root, is a new, paler, bit from a different area, this morning's haul.

I might develop a collection of ivy for hanging all over the house this winter. There's plenty growing in the trees, English, not the poison kind.

Misfits was having website issues today, a lot of difficulty getting in to track my box, and I noticed Rameer working endlessly on his screen when he came to deliver. 

So here's this week's food. Extra cans for the food pantry, carrots for soup along with the pumpkin still out on the step, very small potatoes, fine for my purposes, though, for roasting to go with mushroom omelette, mushrooms sliced in freezer, eggs you see here.

Apples and blueberries, staple fruit, yogurt to go in desserts, on soup, and maybe in a vegetable curry. Fair trade sugar for desserts and Handsome Son's tea.

All good, prices still manageable, organic food. And Misfits is now handling bananas, big news. I ordered for next week. I haven't had bananas in years, because I shop at Misfits and they haven't had any before. I hope they become a staple.

And here's beautiful fruit, and vegetables cooking ahead.  

I find that's helpful for making other dishes, when the vegs are partly cooked. They taste good, because not overdone, but they're easier to use. 

Partly boiled potatoes make great roast potatoes, crisp outside, fluffy inside. And partly boiled carrots make a rapid soup or anything else -- maybe mashed for cake.

Happy day everyone!  I now have the Bananaz theme going on repeat. Until they release the Epstein files.

Has there ever been a modern tv viewing mother feeding her baby a spoonful of mashed banana who didn't sing along Bananazzzz Dumdiddledumdiddledumdiddledumpty...?

My flag doing better now, more hopeful 

 

Misfits and more good news

I was up about five on Thursday, still dark and the full moon lighting up the street. I love to be up to see the day arrive while I drink my coffee.

 I'm still getting good news of elections from all over the country, typically too local to make the national news, but significant. Like Chris's report on the Idaho school board election, which I passed on via Spoutible.

Quite a few school boards have tossed rightist book-banning Moms and rejected new similar candidates, replacing them with blue candidates. 

Sheriffs, too, one local to here, Bucks county. Voters replaced the sheriff who had got into an agreement to assist ICE,  with a new younger man who plans to rescind the agreement as soon as he takes office. A Democrat. In red, affluent, Bucks county.  More and more news like this is coming in, a definite blue wave. 

I wrote to Schumer and my two senators urging them to hold fast, never surrender, and I'm hoping they won't give in to the emotional blackmail of hunger and soaring health premiums -- as you read on Wednesday, this is hitting my family -- but force accountability.  Election Day showed we're in fighting mode. Ooh, a pome! I'm doing my best to help on the hunger front.

And Misfits arrived. I messaged Haleem the driver warning him his usual entrance road is up for repairs, finally, and giving him a heads-up about another entrance to the development.

And here's the doings. Extra canned goods for the food pantry, this is a permanent part of the planning, apples for mid morning, blueberries and yogurt for desserts, yogurt also for sauces and maybe a bit of pastry.

Chocolate chips and dried cranberries for granola to happen today, tuna for tuna melt, peanut butter to sub for tahini which I don't like. This works in sauces and hummus with the chickpeas you see there. 

The garlic paste you saw recently is working well, anywhere garlic is needed. I'm making some good garlic bread -- garlic paste and butter toasted on whole wheat bread. I chunked that up to add to spinach and scallion salad. Some garlic roast potato dice. Maybe garlicky game hen. Hm. 

I expect I'll use it, too,  in the hummus I'm thinking about. Maybe I'll make crackers, using some yogurt, to go with. 

Lunch Thursday was raw spinach torn up, with roasted potato dice, mushrooms and scallions with garlic paste, olive oil and  feta cheese crumbles on top. Dessert was one of those apples, crisp, juicy, just right. 

And I made granola, oats, walnuts, dried cranberries, chocolate chips 

And as usual I'm reading a lot at once, just taking a look at Marc Freedman, How to Live Forever

It's about old people leaving a legacy of teaching, and encouraging younger people.  

I think it's a good thing in itself, but I wonder if that legacy thing is more a male idea. What do you think? I don't think in terms of legacy, and I don't know how commonly women do.

I'm noticing in other books that nonfiction, other than science,  from more than a couple of years ago, doesn't fit with our social reality. Quite a few assumptions don't work any more, in this age of fear and chaos. 

So when I see a publication date a couple of years back I read with a bit more scepticism. So much has changed, not for the better. Our optimism has taken a big jolt.

But this one doesn't date

Just started this. The cat, on loan for two weeks, is prescribed by the unusual therapist as a treatment for burnout in a Japanese corporate job. We'll see how it goes. It's very popular -- long wait. Hm, wonder why..

Out walking, I met a little black and white fluffy barky wagging puppy. That was a Good Thing. 

Happy day everyone, anyway, for now let's never mind legacy, just enjoy today!  Here's a nice picture, sez