I Can't Decide...

 


... if Aunt B is a good influence or a bad one.  This morning I hauled out the bottle of Tarn X, poured most of it into my smallest Pyrex measuring cup, and started dipping the silver into it, then using a paper towel to polish the middle that didn't make it into the smelly stuff. (I was forced to open the patio door for about 10 or 15 minutes to let the rotten egg smell dissipate a bit even though it was too cold outside.)  I ran a sink of hot, soapy water and got it all cleaned up, then scooped up handfuls to drip dry in the dish drainer.  Look at that beautiful shiny silverware.  I'm telling you, food tastes better when you use better tools.





When I put the latest bunch of bananas into the basket on Friday I noticed the aged and ugly Tupperware canisters that I've used for the last 35 years or so and thought,  "Aunt B wouldn't use such pedestrian and uninteresting canisters" so I toddled over to Goodwill this afternoon and spent a few bucks on these glass jars.  The two biggest ones are Anchor Hocking and are new, the swirled ones were in the "used" aisle. I like them a lot and they were cheaper.  I think this looks much nicer than the yellow plastic that has graced this shelf for the last 15 years.  As an added bonus I can see how much of each thing I have.  No more running out of flour or sugar in mid-bake.


Holy balls, it was cold today.  When I went out to run a couple errands (bank, clinic, ALDI, Goodwill) it was a whopping 9 degrees with enough of a breeze to make it feel like the wind was made of knives that cut right through my coat, hat, and especially my shoes.  I should have worn my boots but was too lazy to change, thought I'd tough it out but regretted it.


Because I don't have enough projects OTN I went downstairs and rustled up some ends of sock yarn, teeny tiny size US1 needles, and cast on a teeny tiny purse which is very handy for keeping a person's ALDI quarter in.  The pattern says to knit the body of the purse flat and seam it but to me that way lies madness when I can use the Magic Loop method to knit the body in a tube and just seam the bottom.  If I could figure out how to knit out both ways from the cast on I wouldn't have to seam anything but the handle but I'm not that tricky or clever.  Yet.

25 February--Tropical Obsession. 

They stood looking at him as he drove off the paved road onto the barely visible track that wound through the cactus barren to end at the caves at Onima. Jack had come to hate the wild donkeys that roamed the island, their wise dark eyes that stared down the brown furry muzzles seemed to be judging him. The rigid posture as they stood motionless radiated disapproval. Foolish women tourists cooed as if the beasts were cartoons come to life but Jack had rounded a curve in the coast road late one night and his headlights illuminated a pair of stallions fighting in the center of the road. The little mare had stood coyly on the verge fluttering her long lashes as the males reared and whinnied, gnashing their yellow teeth at each other’s neck. Jack had sat in his rental car watching the primeval battle unfold in his headlights, shaken by the raw power of the fighting males caught in his lights. These were no petting zoo residents content to nibble donkey chow from an outstretched palm.

I finally managed to get the laundry done today.  Yay, me!  All of my summery, go to Florida clothes are back on hangers and in storage until it warms up around here.  Eventually.  One of these days.  It seems like never when my toes are freezing and I'm sitting in the house wearing shoes and wool socks.  Tomorrow the cleaning lady comes so I need to vault out of bed to make a tidy before she arrives.  So she can see the surfaces I'd like her to clean.  I seem to have inherited Durwood's gift for covering flat surfaces with papers and magazines and mail and other assorted ephemera.  I need to work on breaking that habit.  Oh, and today's toss was yet another but smaller bin of cassette and reel-to-reel tapes from when Durwood had his hypnosis practice.  Into a black trash bag and into the garbage bin they went.  It's so satisfying.
--Barbara