journal

A View From the Field

August 14

Of course I was late again, but it was only 1:30 when I got to bed. I didn't wash my hair; I was too tired. I got up around 10:00 and I didn't knit, because there wasn't time. Tomorrow.

I made it to my massage, and it was a good one. My shoulders and my lower back were extremely tight, and I felt much better afterwards. i stopped at the post office on the way home, where all of my packages - some of which should have been delivered here - were sitting. I am not pleased. I know it's summer and people are on vacation, but still. I was running around crazy last night looking for the packages that weren't here. Grr. So now I have a new curling iron and a new clock radio for the bathroom. I got batteries for the lovely watch i found in my stash of good jewelry, and now I know why it was there: it loses about five minutes an hour. That's a disappointment and sometime I may try to get it fixed. I don't know where it came from, so I guess it was something my mother got, and if it was free, it might not be possible to fix it. Too bad.

That was all I did. I fiddled with the phone a bit and learned a few more things. Now I think I can bookmark sites in Safari. When I opened Solitaire this morning, Microsoft wanted me to sign into my account! No way, guy. What I'm doing isn't any of your business and I'm not going to give you an opening. I'm a bit disappointed by how fast the battery runs down, and now I understand why people charge their phones every night.

The weather was better than yesterday. The high temperature, 82º, apparently happened between 4;00 AM and 5:00 AM this morning. I wouldn't know; I was sound asleep then. It was cooler during the day, and the high was 75º. It's still very humid, and while there was a nice breeze from the north, it died down by 8:00, and it's calm now. In the middle of the night, I woke up and had a bit of trouble getting back to sleep. In part that was because the wind suddenly picked up out of the northwest and the gusts got up to 30 mph! I thought that was pretty weird, and even more so when today was so much like yesterday. It was a bit less smoky than yesterday, though, so it was more sunny. And after dark, there was a nice little crescent moon setting in the west. The days are getting so short! They're down to 14h 19m already! Oh, it was nice while it lasted.

The guys slept again. When I woke up this morning, they were both in bed with me, Louie up by my head and Grayson down around my knees. I guess that was to make up for yesterday, when it was too hot for any cuddling. And they did. Grayson got some lap time before I left to see Johanna and then again when I got home, and Louie came and sat on me, too. That gave me a chance to get a picture of him, although it isn't good enough to show his two colored eyes. I showed Johanna the picture of Grayson and she thought he is a very nandsome fellow. He thinks so himself. Louie is more modest.

Maybe in the next day or so I can get the pictures moved around where I want them. They make it sound so easy, but I'm suspicious.

So that was my day, and now it's a warm, clear but smoky night in the field.

August 13

Today is my mother's 101st birthday. She died 25 years ago, but I've never forgotten that.

i was late again, but not quite as late as the night before. I slept fairly well, and I got up around 9:30, I think. I got right at the disaster in the knitting, which wasn't as bad as it looked yesterday, and I got it fixed and knitted up the repeats I had to unknit. So I'm back about where I was yesterday morning when I realized I had a problem. I certainly hope that none of the other places where I didn't have enough stitches were because I dropped something, but I think I inspected thoroughly enough that I'd know if I did.

I didn't do anything much else. Johanna called while I was still in the bathroom to postpone our appointment until tomorrow. It was already 80º at about 10:30, and that was just too hot for both of us. We would both have been sweating and sticky and uncomfortable. I was just as glad. I didn't even put on a bra. I am wearing shorts (my second pair of the day) and a camisole. It looks awful, but it's about as comfortable as I can get.

Today, finally, while the talking was going on, I embroidered. I must do that more often. I'm still having fun with this old sampler, even though it's all one color and all cross stitch. Under the rows of alphabets is a row of urns with flowers in them, and they are huge. I'm just working on the first one, and it's not even half done. The next part, though is curious in that it has deer sort of attached to the stems. I don't know what that's about, but it will be something different to do.

I didn't even turn on the phone until after dinner, when I finally got my solitaire games reloaded, so I had to try those. And I got one of those wrong numbers from Detroit that I've had since I had this cell number, but they didn't leave a message. So I got my voice mail set up and now I know how to use that (or I think I do). I also know how to delete the information for calls I don't want to return. All this stuff is very easy, but there is a learning curve. I was afraid that I'd have trouble with iOS, but so far, at least on the phone, I haven't. Most of it is fairly intuitive. My worst trouble is trying to learn Safari, and I don't have that down yet, but I'll get there.

The weather was, as I said, hot, at least Copper Harbor hot. The high temperature was 85º, and the humidity was over 60% - sometimes a lot over - all day. There wasn't much wind, at least officially, although for the past two or three hours there's been a nice breeze coming in the patio doors. Again today, our skies were white from all the smoke and again, the MODIS imagery showed it clearly. I haven't smelled anything much, though. Well - not smoke. When I opened the bathroom window this morning, the first thing I smelled was burned fusil oil from some ship out in the lake. That's enough to turn my stomach when it's empty. Polluting our pristine atmosphere!

I didn't see much of the guys all day, at least after I fed them. It was too hot for lap sitting, I guess. I don't know where they went, although they did turn up when I started dinner.

I discovered that my latest Amazon order was delivered today, and they said it was left at the front door, so now I will have to search for it. It has my new curling iron and my new clock radio, and I'm anxious to get both of them. I finally broke down and ordered a new clock radio for the bathroom. I was tired of the time blinking at me because it can't be set anymore. I bought a Sony because I thought it was a reliable brand, but believe me, I won't do that again. I hope the new one will be better.

So now it's a warm, humid night in the field and I'm off to bed, via the shower.

August 12

I was so late last night, and it was my own fault. I had to wash my hair, and I took my good old time about doing it, as I frequently do. I woke up around 9:00 and I could have gotten up, but I decided not to for a change, and it was after noon before I finally got out of bed.

I knitted, and I was doing fine for a while. But when I got to the fourth repeat, I discovered that all of a sudden, I didn't have enough stitches on the body to attach the edging to. I couldn't figure out what had happened, but I pressed on anyway, and just about the time I finished the repeat, I looked back again...and I had dropped a stitch in the body way back in the middle of the third repeat. Ugh! So I put a holder on the stitches I could see and unknitted something like 20 rows (they're not very long) until I got to the place where the dropped stitch (or stitches, I'm not sure yet) was. I decided to stop right there, or I would have spent the rest of the day, and I hadn't eaten anything yet. Maybe tomorrow I can get things fixed up, but I have a massage tomorrow at noon, so maybe I won't. I hate it when I do something like that, and I think this is the first time I've ever done such a thing. Or I hope so. There are several other places in this shawl where I didn't have enough stitches, but I thought I'd stretched it out enough to know that I didn't drop anything. I'll hope...

I was so late that I didn't do much but my surfing. I played with the phone for a while, and I took a couple of nice pictures of Grayson. I've only just begun to figure out the moving of files between the phone and the PC, though, so there won't be anything tonight. It didn't help that my internet connection was going up and down like a ping-pong ball all the time I was trying to download iTunes (yup, that's how to do it). I'm not terribly impressed by iTunes - it loads extremely slowly. I think it's another case where they tried to make a program do so much that it turned into bloatware.

The weather made me glad I could stay home. The high temperature was only 80º here, but there was no wind until just a while ago, and it's extremely humid. I guess you'd call it clear, but we are in the path of the worst of the smoke from the western wildfires, and it was so bad that it was hazy down the harbor, and I could see the smoke on the MODIS images from this afternoon. Too bad, because the meteors are still supposed to be flying. It's so smoky that we aren't even getting any good sunsets.

The guys slept. Grayson got his lap time, and Louie sat under my feet while I was knitting and unknitting, and he purred. He also got up beside my head when I went to bed last night and purred there, too.

Our worst problem right now is flies. For the past week or so, the house has been full of flies. They look like houseflies, but smaller. They aren't the September flies, which bite, and they aren't the cluster flies which are bigger and come later. I've never had these in my house before and I don't know where they're coming from. They drive all of us nutty. It's particularly annoying when they land on my skin and walk around, or when they buzz around my head when I'm trying to sleep after it gets light. Yack.

So it was a very quiet, truncated day, and I am going to bed early tonight. I'm sure I can sleep, and I want to get up early enough to work on my knitting before I go to see Johanna. Now it's a sort of clear (but smoky) night in the field.

PastyNet has been going up and down all afternoon, I think, so I'm not sure this will get published tonight.

August 11

Oh, sorry. Phil just pointed out that I didn't post last night's entry, so I did, but now I'm writing this one. My mind...

It was mostly that I was late and very tired. I find that driving 100 miles tires me out a lot more than it used to, but I guess that's to be expected, since I'm a lot older than I was when I moved up here.

I got up around 9:00 anyway, and I knitted, of course. This time it went well, and I progress, slowly but surely. For the rest of the day I alternately did my surfing and played with the phone. I am now in a pickle. I downloaded some games, decided I didn't want two of the three...and proceeded to delete the wrong two. Now the app store won't let me download them again, and I don't know why. Well, these things happen with a new toy, and I may have to call the store again. We'll see about that. Anyway, then I got to playing the online game I've been doing and time just passed. It didn't help that I wasn't hungry and I couldn't think of what I might want to eat. I finally had a hamburger, which wasn't it, but it did fill up the hole I didn't know I had.

The weather was miserable, in my opinion. It was mostly sunny, and the high temperature was only 70º, but the humidity was over 75% all day and there was no wind. Yuck. It's so humid now that the outside of the patio door in the great room is steamed up...or I hope it's the outside. I don't have enough light in that room at night to be able to inspect it carefully. I'll look at it tomorrow, and then we'll see. Anyway, it was a yucky day.

I was yucky, too. I had another nasty accident, although it wasn't quite as bad as the last one, and then later on, I wet my pants. Yuck.

The guys slept, of course. Grayson got some lap time, but it was too hot for him. Louie got his loving this morning and I haven't seen much of him since. None of us like this weather.

So that was a quiet day. I'm late, because I don't have to get up tomorrow. I do have to wash my hair - and my bottom, which is nasty - so I'll be late again. It's a sort of clear, warm, humid night in the field.

August 10

I was even later last night; it was 2:00 before I got to bed. I didn't get home from church until around 10:45 and that set me back. I got up around 10:00, I think, and I did my knitting. It's coming well, except that it looks like I'll run out of yarn, so I searched the internet and found a couple of skeins on Amazon, of all places. Not sold by them, but they had it listed. I only hope it will be the same dye lot, but it should be close enough that it won't matter. I hate it when that happens. The yarn hasn't been discontinued, or it doesn't seem so, but none of my usual online sources are carrying it anymore. Too bad, too, because it's one of the nicest lace weight yarns I've used.

So I did some of my surfing and then I set off for Houghton. I am now the proud - and poor - owner of an iPhone SE. I'm just beginning to learn how to use it, but I managed to get it connected to my wifi - with help - and I managed to send and receive my first texts - with Debbie, of course. It's small enough that it's taking me a while to be able to type on it, and I don't think I'll be able to use my thumbs, unfortunately. Maybe tomorrow I can visit the App Store and download some games. I also took my first picture - of my desk - so I know how to do that. I'm still learning how the browser works, but I can get to Google, my website and yourclassical, so I can search, check the webcam and listen to my kind of music. I'm making progress.

The traffic is horrible, and since a lot of it is tourists, it's slow and frustrating. There wasn't any construction going on today. i don't know why that was, unless they just don't bother to work on Fridays. It was the people going 15 mph under the speed limit and sort of diddling around that drove me nutty. I will be glad to stay home most of next week!

I was about to get up and get my dinner when Debbie called and she wanted to vent her frustrations with her job, so we talked for over 2 hours. She is a customer service rep, which is horribly underemployed for her, and she is working for a very poorly run company with a lot of jealousies among the staff. She is looking for a better job and I hope she finds one, or I will fear for her blood pressure. The problem, as it always is, is her age and her sex. Nobody still seems to realize that your brains don't drain out your ear when you're over 50 and a woman. I wish her luck. She has so much more in her than that!

The weather was warm and sunny. Oh my, this is summer! The high temperature here was 79º, but that was around 7:00 PM, so when I got home at 4:30, it was only 72º and it felt so good. The fog moved in around 9:30 and didn't move out until after 11:30, and it was humid all day. There was a bit of north wind - up to 16 mph - for a while, but then it died down and there hasn't been much since around 6:00. Of course, it was warmer in Houghton, and I used the air conditioner most of the way home.

I think the guys slept. Grayson got some lap time both before and after I went away, and while i was talking to Debbie, Louie clawed his way onto my lap and got his, too.

So that was my day. Not very productive, but at least I have my new toy. It's a warm, cloudy and humid night in the field.

August 9

I was late last night and I don't know why, but it was 1:30 before I got to bed. I did have to wash my hair, and that takes time, but still...

I got up around 10:30 and I knitted my four repeats. The last one took a while. I had cats who wanted to be petted or scratched, and I dropped something, which meant I had to unknit six or seven rows to get the last repeat back together. I hate it when that happens, but I have to admit, I'd been sitting there for quite a while.

I was so late that I didn't get to do much else. I got a call that my phone has come in, so I guess I'll be going down to Houghton tomorrow to get it. I hate to make two trips down there (It's about 50 miles one way), but while I'm there maybe I can go to Econo Foods and get some things Pat's isn't carrying anymore. We'll see how it goes. I won't be able to get a Schwan's order, but that's probably all right, except that they had a 20% off coupon for tomorrow, and I will probably need things in two weeks. Oh, well, we can't hit everything just right.

I found an interesting email in my inbox this morning. It knew a password I use on a number of sites I've visited for at least 20 years (things were simpler then) and it accused me of visiting a porn site and watching a porn video. It claimed that it had installed a keylogger on my system and not only recorded all my key strokes, it had turned on my webcam and taken a video of me watching the porn video! Well. The only thing right about that email is the password. I don't even have a webcam that looks at me, and I don't believe Norton would permit a program to be installed on my computer. I am going to send it on to my ISP, but otherwise, I will ignore it, because it is clearly spurious. Oh, yes - they want $1000 in bitcoin to destroy the video. I wonder how many other unsuspecting people they've sent that message to. I get really annoyed by things like that.

The weather was warm and humid. The fog moved in around 6:30 and it didn't leave until after 10:00. Then it got clear and lovely for a while before the next cloud bank came over. The high temperature was 75º here, but by that time I was on my way to Laurium and it was warmer there - over 80º. There wasn't much wind, and the humidity was over 70% for most of the day. Typical August, but not my favorite weather.

The guys slept, as far as I know. Grayson got to sleep on my lap for a long time after I got back from the powder room. When I got home tonight, he came to the door and yawned at me, which is usually a sign that he wasn't quite pleased. Louie is a different sort of cat, and I don't remember that he's ever yawned in my face like that. The longer I live with Louie, the more I appreciate him.

So that was my day, and now it's late again, and I just finished eating, since I didn't get home until 10:45 - Bible Study ran long, and then we talked to Pastor for a while afterwards. Now it's a partly cloudy night in the field, and I'm tired.

August 8

I got up around 8;00 this morning, which surprised me, but I did sleep well. I knitted my four repeats, but it was slower than usual for some reason. Sometimes my fingers move well and sometimes they don't. I think it had something to do with the humidity. I doubt I'll be so early tomorrow.

I didn't do anything else very much for the rest of the day, unfortunately, but I'm in funk mode, which means all I want to do is sit.

While my dinner was cooking, I got the dishwasher mostly loaded. This time, I used plates and not so many bowls, unlike the last time, when I used more bowls. I can't figure it out, because I eat just about the same stuff all the time. I have to finish the loading, and i have to wash my hair, but by tomorrow morning I will have clean dishes and clean hair, unless we have a power failure.

The weather has to have something to do with that, too. The high temperature got up to 78º in the middle of the afternoon, but not for long. The real problem was the rain. There have been "isolated thunderstorms" passing north and south of us all afternoon, and that has driven the humidity up to 93% now. It hasn't done more than drizzled here, but every so often I would hear some grumbling from outside - the house is open - and when I looked at radar, something was passing by again.

The guys were sleepy. Grayson got some lap time, but Louie is someplace asleep. He got some loving this morning, and I suppose he'll get some more tonight. His desire to sit on me is tempered by the difficulty of getting Grayson off my lap and him on it. They got some of their favorite canned food for breakfast today, and Louie sat down and ate half his bowl full, so I think he's all right. They don't like this weather any more than I do.

So it was a quiet day, and it was nice. This is the way I prefer to live. It's a warmish, cloudy and maybe stormy night in the field.

August 7

I made it into bed by about 11:00 last night and I slept well until 9:30 or so. The last three hours weren't really deep sleep, but they passed fast enough that I know I wasn't awake. I knitted my corner and I am now starting the third side of the shawl. Oh, will I be glad to be done with that thing!

I had time to do my surfing and pack my bag before I left for my afternoon. I stopped and voted on my way out of town and got my mail, which included a whole lot of pills

Then I was afraid I would be late at the doctor's, because of all the road repairs. They are resurfacing most of US-41 between Calumet and Mohawk, and it was a mess, but I hit every one-lane road just right, so I got to the hospital about when I planned and got my blood drawn.

My talk with the doctor went well. The kind of cancer I have is not too fast growing, and it is hormone-positive, which means they can shut it down by giving me something to stop estrogen production (not that I have much of that, because I have no ovaries and I'm so old). We talked about the options, and it sounds to me like mastectomy is the best alternative. I know it's serious surgery - I've been through it once - but there is a good chance that if I have it, I won't need any follow-up treatment. There are a few tests they need to do and they need to look at a number of lymph nodes to be sure, but he seemed positive about it. He seems very reluctant to suggest chemo anyway, for which I was glad. His reasons were somewhat different from mine, even though he did say he thought I'd been through enough of that, and I'm old. He pointed out that since I have rebuilt bone marrow (from the stem cell transplant), there is a finite chance that if I got into chemo, my bone marrow might shut down completely - and that's a death sentence, because there's no way to fix it. The only thing is, I won't get to talk to the surgeon until September 5, but I feel enough better about it that I can wait. I'm not looking forward to the surgery, but I know it's necessary and it will even me out, which I've always wished.

After that, I went off to Houghton and contracted for a smartphone. I don't have it, because they didn't have one in the store, but I should get it in a few days. I think it will be fun to have a new toy, and shortly i will be able to ditch my AT&T long distance, which is outrageously expensive.

All that took a while, because the guy had to put the order in three times before it took, and I went off to Bambu and had a very good dinner. I got home a bit before 8:00 and called Debbie. We had our usual long conversation (only 110 minutes this time!).

The weather was lovely. It was clear this morning and partly cloudy this afternoon. The temperature got up to 70º while I was gone, and it was around 73º in Houghton. There wasn't much wind. It was pretty humid, but only between 60% and 70%, so it was comfortable. Very nice.

I imagine the cats just slept while I was gone. Grayson sort of wanted to go out into the breezeway when I got home, but I managed to shoo him away. I haven't seen Louie lately. I found a humungous hairball in the hallway this morning, so getting rid of that should make somebody feel better. I think it must be from Louie, because I don't think Grayson's tummy is that big.

So that was my day. I am feeling better about this thing than I did, although it's still a downer. I can stand to put that on hold until I talk to the surgeon and go about my life as normal.

Now it's a clear, coolish night in the field and I'm going to bed.

August 6

I really was too tired to move last night, so it was 1:30 or so before I finally made it into bed - and I think it was 6 hours later that I woke up! That has to be a record. I wasn't through, though, and it was around 10:30 when I got up, feeling much better.

I knitted my four repeats, and tomorrow I will turn the second corner. Whee! I'm really making progress. This second side only took 12 days (including the days when I didn't knit), so I finally know the pattern well enough to go full speed. That's nice, because I'm only halfway done with the edging.

I had one of the nastiest accidents ever right after breakfast, but while I was back in the bathroom, after I cleaned myself up, sort of, I finished the socks I've been knitting for so long! The legs may not be quite as long as I'd like them, but those last four rows or so have made a lot of difference, and I like them. Since even my socks got dirty, I will be wearing them tomorrow. One of the things I like about socks is that they don't need any fancy blocking or anything, and I can wear them the moment I have the yarn ends darned in.

That was all I did, besides my surfing, but I didn't have a lot of time.

The weather turned out completely unlike what they were predicting. the high temperature was 69º, but it apparently happened between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM, and after that, it got cloudy and cooler, until now, it's 57º. Sheesh. There wasn't much wind, and when I left the bathroom for the second time, around 2:15, the fog had moved in, and it didn't go away until about 9:00 PM. So the humidity was over 80% for most of the day and it's been over 90% for the past two or three hours. Not good for my joints, for sure.

The guys didn't like it, either. They were in the bathroom with me when I got up, and then they went their ways. When I finally got back to the studio, Grayson came and sat on me for a long time, and at one point when I went through the great room, Louie was curled up on top of the kitty condo, which really isn't big enough to hold him, but he likes to sit there when the window is open, even though he had his back to the window.

So it was a nice, quiet day, and I have to take a bath tonight so I will be clean for the doctor. I would have to do it anyway, because of my accident. Oh, that was yucky!

Now it's a cool, cloudy, humid night in the field, and I'm tired again.

August 5

I made it into bed before 10:00 last night, and I slept well, although I was up several times. I woke up just after 6:00 and dozed for about 20 minutes before I realized I really did have to pee and I got up. I guess I will do just about anything to keep that alarm from going off!

I left the house just after 9:00, as usual, but it was a frustrating drive. I got three cars behind a guy on the covered road who was slowing down to 30 mph on every curve, and since he was the third car in front of me and there was some traffic in the other direction, I couldn't pass him until the place where the speed limit goes up to 55 mph - a long, frustrating drive. There were two motorcyclists in front of him, but when they saw me pass three cars, they pulled over - unbelievable! Really nice motorcyclists!

There was another slow guy around Phoenix, and I got around him by taking Cliff Drive. They've done some patching on that road, so it doesn't break an axle every time I drive it. But then there were other slow people from Kearsarge south, so I ended up right behind Mary Ann and Bill when we started toward church. Calumet is finally doing something about School Street, which is our usual route, and it has been closed all summer. It looked like they had gotten to the point of digging out and rebuilding the roadbed, but today they were 6' or so down in a hole, so it seems they must have discovered some more sewers that needed replacing. They were actually working on Sunday!

Church was good, and it was surprisingly cool until right at the end. Pastor doesn't wear his robe in weather like this, and I can't blame him. I didn't have anything to do in town today, for once, so I got home around 1:00.

I didn't do anytning else for the rest of the afternoon. I was tired - not enough sleep - so I just sat and played games.

The weather was part of it. The humidity was horrible, and the high was 82º, with a humidity of over 90% for a good portion of the day. There was a wind from the west for a while, but it died down late in the afternoon. Part of my trouble was that i forgot to open the windows, so it got very hot in here. I finally did, late in the day, and it's better now. Along about 10:30, when I was finally thinking about eating something, I began hearing grumbling from outside, but the thunderstorms passed either north or south of us, and while there was some lightning, it didn't even rain, it just upped the humidity.

The guys don't like this, either. Grayson got a lot of lap time this afternoon, and when I went to get my dinner, I noticed Louie on his way to the basement. I don't think he likes thunder, even when it isn't very close. Probably Grayson doesn't either, but he goes for mama rather than the basement.

So that was a very quiet day, for a Sunday, and I've diddled around too long. It's time to go to bed.

The thunderstorms are off to the east now, and the skies should be clearing, if they aren't already, so it's a clear, warm night in the field.

August 4

Zombie mode again. I guess I'd best get used to it, since I expect it will be happening a lot from now on. It wasn't as late as the night before, I don't think, but I don't remember. I was up any number of times. I think that was because I didn't get my water until dinnertime and I was so dehydrated that I drank a lot of it. That has to go someplace...

I knitted my four repeats, and I only have four more on the second side! So I am making progress! It was slow, though, for some reason, and I couldn't find a comfortable place to sit without my feet going to sleep, but I persisted. And when i went to the powder room after breakfast, I got the second sock to the same place the first one is. The bind-off I chose uses a whole lot of yarn - two rows' worth, at least - so I'm going to see tomorrow if there's another stretchy bind-off that doesn't use so much. Those 4 rows make the legs much more nearly the length I like, amazingly enough, but if I bind off now, I will have some yarn left and I want to use as much as possible. We'll see.

Let's see. I did a couple of things. I had a full load of dirty bottoms to wash, so I did that. I had to go out into the breezeway anyway, because I ran out of incontinent pads, so I finally brought in my bottle of detergent. The load is in the dryer now and I hope it will be done before I get to bed.

I made rice and had a regular dinner tonight, not a Saturday night special. And I did something in the studio that I've been thinking about for a long time. I have a big pile of knitting books beside me on the counter, and when I looked at the bookshelf over my head, I realized that there were a bunch of books that I don't use - that I'll probably never use. So I hauled them down and determined that probably I will never use them because of the way they are. They all are titled a something - "Bible," but they are all so simple as to be useless to anybody who has ever quilted, beaded, or knitted. There were a couple of others not in the series that are just as bad. I should really have sent them back when I got them, which I believe was in the early 2000s, because they are junk.

Anyway, they were taking up space that I could use to store my Barbara Walker stitch books, which are pure gold, so I moved them out. I will begin to fill in the hole soon, maybe tomorrow, and see if there are more I can move. I have a bunch of pattern books that are useful that need to be someplace where it's easier to get to them. Most are shawl patterns, but there are some socks and probably some other stuff, too. One way or another, it will get rid of one pile, and then I can start moving toward the sewing machine. Gee, I really did something in here!

The weather was conducive to such an activity. The high temperature was 74º, but it was cloudy and dull and after noon it began to rain. So far, we've had a quarter inch, most of it in the past two hours. So it has been extremely humid. The wind has been from the southwest, with gusts up to about 20 mph. Not a good day for joints. I think most of the rain has been south of us, though. We need this and more, although I'm sorry it had to happen on a Saturday in August.

The guys were sleepy, like the weather. Louie slept under my feet while I was knitting and Grayson slept on my lap for a long time this afternoon. Louie came by and said "maow!" several times, but Grayson wasn't going to move and he was here first. My lap can only hold one cat at a time.

So it was a nice, quiet day, and now it's time to totter up to the north end and wash my hair. I will be late, because it's already 8:30, but oh, well. It's a cloudy, warm and rainy night in the field.

August 3

I went into zombie mode in the bathroom last night, so it was 1;15 before I got to bed. I slept fairly well, though, and I got up a bit after 9:00. I'm afraid you're going to find me doing that a lot from now on. It's not exactly "mindful meditation" (whatever that is), but it's a way I use to clear out my mind from the annoyances of the day and settle down so once I am in bed, I can go right to sleep. I've done it for more years than I can remember, and it works for me. Sometimes I rehash what went on during the day; I used to do that a lot when I was working. I would go over the unresolved problems from work, which almost always set me up to solve those problems while I slept. Sometimes, I think about something else, like whatever story I'm writing. Sometimes, I just sit there witn a completely blank mind, which is a good way to get prepared to sleep. I did a a bit of both last night.

I knitted another four repeats of the edging on the shawl, so I'm making progress. and in a couple of days, I will turn the second corner. Then later, when I had an accident (not too bad, but I have to wash my bottoms) I took the socks with me and knitted as far as I could go on the second one. I think the next step is to knit the same number of rows on the first one and see how much yarn I have left. I'm afraid I will still have some left, because it looks like it isn't coming out even, but still, I'll have used more than I would have without all this fiddling around. I think, though, that when I make more socks out of this particular yarn (I have two or three more colorways) I will use the short-row heel, because that uses a lot less yarn and I'll be able to put it into the leg. They'll all have to be done toe-up. Next year.

I was about to leave for the post office when I realized there was a car in my driveway and a guy came to the door but didn't come in. So I opened the garage door and discovered that he had been sent by the mortgage company to check and see if I was really me and I really live here. What?? So when I got home again, I called them and they think they haven't received my declaration of occupancy. They have a post office box in Texas, which I am beginning to believe is a black hole. I sent it after the last glitch I had with those people. I guess I'm going to have to rifle through my papers and see if I can find the first notices they sent me and send them back - I think about five of them will do. When that mortgage company was in Michigan, they were so nice to deal with and I had no problems. Then they moved to Texas - I suspect they were bought out - and I've had nothing but problems with them ever since. I have to stay with them, because I can't afford to redeem the reverse mortgage, even to place it with some other company, but it's a continual annoyance. Grr.

The weather was much nicer than yesterday. It was cloudy until around 10:00 AM and it got cloudy again around 5:00 PM, but in between it was clear and blue. The high temperature was 69º and there was very little wind. The humidity actually got down below 60% for a while. Very nice.

Louie barfed someplace in the bathroom this morning, but he did eat. I don't know where he is now, but I assume he'll show up. Grayson got his lap time, until I had to run to the bathroom. I didn't have ham or chicken today, so he wasn't interested in what I was eating. They seemed to like their breakfast all right, but it's not their favorite. Well, they'll get more of that next week, when I bring in one of the cases I got. They like the stuff with gravy and cheese.

So that was a very quiet day and now it's a cloudy, sort of warm night in the field.

August 2

I don't remember when I got to bed last night. It was either 1:00 or 2:00, but I don't know. i slept fairly well, although I had a bit of a problem getting to sleep again and I was wakeful in the middle of the night, partly because I didn't start out right and my right shoulder was extremely sore, so I had to wait until it went back into shape. It's a good thing I don't move very much when I'm asleep, because I have to be very careful how I position myself.

I knitted again, and I progress. It's slow, but I'm making progress.

When I went to get dressed, I wanted a tee that I had washed, so I hauled all the clean, or supposedly clean, tees into the closet and began folding. When I was through, I had more that need to be rewashed than I had that I can wear right now. Eddie Bauer cotton tees have always been nearly impossible to get grease stains out of. So I have a lot of washing to do over again.

I was in the middle of getting dressed when Debbie called on her lunch hour to suggest the possibility that we could make a conference call out of my doctor's appointment. It was so sweet of her, and it sounds like she is really worried about me, but I think I can probably handle it. I did all the preliminary stuff for my lymphoma without anybody else, and I only took her to the meetings about the stem cell transplant. I told her I'd think about it, but I don't think that's necessary. There are only three questions, and I can usually remember what was said if it's a topic that interests me...frequently better than the people who said it.

So eventually I got something to eat, and then I got back on the phone. I called the clinic and complained that nobody had ever told me about the appointment on Tuesday - I had to find out about it online. Eventually I talked to the manager of the clinic, I think (or somebody who works for her) and a while later, I got a call from the scheduler, all contrite and upset. That was good, because she told me that they want blood work beforehand, which the online site didn't say. i haven't checked it since, but I will tomorrow, to see what they're saying now. I also complained that there were things in my "to do" list that expired on Monday, and they should have rolled off. If I have to teach people what a website should look like, I can do that, too. Grr.

I also called the heating people, just to make sure they haven't forgotten me. The floods apparently swamped them with work, so it will probably be after Labor Day before they get here. That's fine, as long as they don't wait until I need heat. I laid my cancer on them, too, just to make them understand that I'm not just being petulant. I will need comfort around here.

Whew! Then Mary Ann called, because I thought she might have called while I was on the phone with Debbie, and then it was after 3:00. So I did the rest of my surfing and put the phone away for the day. The only thing that saved me is that I have a headset, which saves both my ear and my elbow. In fact, the reason I got the headset is that every time Debbie and I talked, my ear and my elbow got too sore. Now I can talk until the battery in the handset dies, which is a good thing. I should check and make sure i can't plug the headset into the base module, which would let me talk indefinitely. Hee, hee.

Tonight was choir and Bible Study, and both were good. There is going to be quite a large choir for the anniversary service, so I won't be needed. I think they will be ready. After the St. John's people left, we sang the piece for Sunday and the one I fiddled with, as well as "Lamb of God," which I've been singing in my head a lot, even though I don't remember all the words.

I got home about 9:45 and had the rest of my Harbor Haus dinner. It's a bit overcooked when it's reheated, but it's still some of the best food I've ever eaten. Yum. I wish I could afford to eat there more often.

When I checked the camera, I discovered it had hung up shortly after 6:00 PM, and starting and stopping the controlling program and even unplugging it didn't work. It seems to have disappeared from the computer. So I had to reboot, which annoys me. That driver is a piece of junk. Restarting did fix the problem, though, so it's clearly a software problem. It's been several weeks since I rebooted, but I shouldn't have to do that at all. Grr.

The weather turned out nice, finally. The high temperature was only 61º (and they claim it could hit 90º on Saturday!) but the humidity was down until just lately. It cleared up by about 2:30, so it was pretty. It would be nice to have it a bit warmer in August, but as long as it isn't like yesterday, I can cope. Until it gets too hot, of course.

The guys slept. Grayson got some lap time, but Louie got his loving in the bathroom this morning. I don't imagine they were happy when I left, but hey, I do this almost every Thursday.

So that was my day. I hate having to talk so much. I've always hated telephones, and yet I don't know what I'd do without them.

Now it's a clear, cool night in the field and it seems like the unseasonable lows are over for a while. I hope so.

August 1

Geez, I hate to write that. It's time to reset the endpoints of the camera, too.

I wasn't as early as I'd thought getting to bed last night - when am I - and it was 11:40 when I turned out the light. I slept very well, though, and it was 9:40 when I got up. I knitted my four repeats.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I was trying to finish the second summer sock, and when I had the same number of rows as the first one, I discovered that the first ball of yarn was short - and I mean 5 or 6 yards short. So I unraveled the bind off, attached the piece of yarn I'd cut off (I knew that was a mistake after I did it) and sometime - not today, for sure - I am going to get both socks on a single needle (yes, you can), attach things right and work as many more rows as possible before I bind them off, so my socks are as long as possible and I use as much yarn as I can. It will be messy, but I'd hate to have several yards of yarn left when I know the socks aren't as long as I like them.

The rest of the day I did the usual stuff. My surfing took a while, and then I had to pay some bills and move some money around. After that, I got at the bulletin, and I discovered that Pastor had sent out the information for the next two Sundays. The 12th is our sister congregation's 125th anniversary, so that is pretty much set in concrete and he isn't preaching, so he had time to get it settled. I got them both out and made a few corrections.

Oh, I did have a little fun. There is a song we've been practicing in choir that has a verse with a soprano part that is entirely too high for either Barb or me to sing. It has several other parts, and I thought, after hearing Fay sing the second part, that probably the top part could just be erased and the actual melody was in the second part. So today I scanned the two pages into JPEG files, fired up Photoshop Elements for the first time in a very long time and proceeded to erase all those high notes, using a 3-pixel eraser. It took a little time, but in fact, I was right. Then, since I couldn't get both pages into a single PDF file (or I think it won't), I printed the pages, scanned them back in, and created a single file out of them. That took a while longer and spent some of my precious ink, but i shipped it off to Kathleen and I will take a copy with me to choir tomorrow. It actually wasn't an original idea. Barb has been doing something similar, adding verses to the scores of some of the hymns we sing, so that the people who have to sing parts have the music to go with the words. I won't say it was an elegant way of solving the problem, but it works, and we'll be able to sing "When Peace Like a River" with a very lovely piano part. Love that song.

How the weather can change up here! At midnight last night, the temperature was still 71º, and by 11:00 this morning, it was 50º, which is where it stayed, although it did go down to 49º between 4:00 and 6:00 PM. Hey, guys, this is August, for heaven's sake! Besides, it started raining about 4:00 AM and so far, we've had half an inch. So not only was it cold, it was damp - the humidity was around 90% all day. Not my favorite weather at any time of year, and especially not in the middle of summer! Yuck! I guess I didn't notice the forecast yesterday, so the east windows were all open, and the first thing I did this morning was to close them. It's still chilly in here, but maybe it only feels that way because it's so humid.

The guys slept, which was the best thing one could do. They both got some serious lap time, and I guess they were trying to tell me they were happy I was home all day.

So that was my quiet day, and now it's a cold, rainy night in the field. I have to wash my hair again, so I will go and do that and try not to be too late.

Last updated 08/14/18 11:03 PM