Halfway

 

I cast on a mitten in that white alpaca I made a hat with last week.  I decided that I wanted soft mittens even if they aren't the most durable mittens.  I won't use them for snow shoveling or snowblowing--which is coming.  Ugh.  Anyway, I got the cuff done and knitted the hand up to the top of the thumb gusset.  Next, I'll put the thumb stitches on a holder, knit the body of the mitten, then go back and knit the thumb.  Then do it all over again so I have two mittens.  I have the pattern on Knit Companion (a very handy app) on my iPad so I can keep track of how many rows of cuff, etc. I knit so that I can make the second one the same.  If I don't screw up the counters like I did for the last pair of mittens I made.  I hope I've learned my lesson.

This morning I saw a shape moving across the retaining wall.  I wasn't sure what it was but then it turned its head and I saw that it was a Flicker poking around in the spaces for ants.  It's amazing to me how camouflaged it is against the wall blocks.

The chipmunk was loading up its cheek pouches with fallen corn and birdseed.  I think it looks like it has the mumps, don't you?  It was very industrious and focused, except when a large black shadow crossed the grass, then it darted into the cover of the plants and stayed there.

You know you're getting old when you screw up Jello.  I made a bowl of Jello with peaches in it last week and must have put in extra water because it's barely set.  It still tastes good but I kind of have to drink the gelatin off the spoon.  Does this mean I have to read the directions the next time I make it?  Good lord.

25 September--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's. 

Officer Bates parked his truck outside Better Than Mom’s.  He noticed that Brady had replaced the broken planters and there were new geraniums blooming happily in them.  He also noticed, and approved of, the metal grids that had been bolted over the windows; the bars were far enough apart that customers would not feel like they were in jail but close enough together that Officer Bates thought that even he, skinny as he was, would have trouble getting through them.  He hitched up his pants and went inside, hoping that Fay had not gone home for the day.  As soon as he got through the door and dodged a clutch of gray-haired ladies leaving, he saw the flash of her piled up red hair and gave a sigh of relief.  He had wagered with himself that she worked through the lunch hour until the supper waitress got off from college.  He had stopped in a few days after the break-in to see Fay, but he was too late and too embarrassed to ask the girl who was his waitress when Fay worked.  A week had passed, and he could not think of any other way to bump into Fay so he could maybe ask her on a date.  A date!  He had not been on a date in years.  He gave up trying to find Miss Right when he hit thirty-eight years old and since then had settled for a series of Miss Right For Now’s, each of whom had something he wanted in a wife, but none of them came close to having it all.  Or maybe all his years as a cop had made him a cynic and he would never find the right woman to spend the dwindling rest of his life with.  He shook his head and found a seat at the counter so he could watch Fay work without looking like a stalker. 

She was busy at the cash register talking to some geeky-looking guy carrying a briefcase.  They sounded pretty friendly, he wondered if they were dating.  There, that sounded like an inside joke laugh.  Yeah, they were probably dating, even though the guy totally did not look like Fay’s type, that pals-y laugh made it sound like it.  He was sitting there brooding about maybe missing his chance to ask her out when she suddenly appeared right in front of him. 

“Well, if it is not Officer Norman Bates, the super sleuth.”  She slapped a menu down in front of him, the metal corners of the plastic holder sounding like caps when they hit the Formica counter.  “Rustled up any good clues lately?”  He picked up the menu and did not look at her. 

“Nope and call me Norm.”

(But nobody would ever call Norman Norm; he just looked too much like a Norman.  He had always been Norman in everyone’s eyes, and he would always be Norman until the day he died, no matter how hard he tried to get people to call him Norm.  Nope, he was a lifelong Norman and he was stuck with it.)  

Today's toss was a broken laptop.  It's been sitting under my desk for I don't know how long--2 years?--and seeing the box it came in yesterday motivated me to dig it out and toss it out.  I'll take it down to Cyberworks one of these days and recycle it even if it costs me a few bucks to get rid of it.

I took a little walk to the mailbox on the corner today.  I forgot to put some birthday cards out for the mailman so I strolled them up the hill and down the block to the box which somehow escaped the Post Office's sweep of removals.  Thank heavens.  Oh, and I mailed my absentee ballot too so it'll get there in plenty of time to be counted.

--Barbara