Take Joy!

Complaining

I just finished making covers for a couple of old ratty quilts that belong to my sister's kids—basically, a bag with the quilt inserted and the end sewn up. I did sew all around the edges an inch or so in, so the quilt would stay put until they get them tufted.

However—it's a good thing I didn't charge her for making them. Any price that she would have been willing to pay would have been far, far too little for the aggravation involved. (Mostly because I have no large open space in which to spread them out, and one cover was made of upholstery fabric, which weighs a ton. Not to mention that I stabbed myself with pins repeatedly.)

I know better than to do sewing for anyone else. Why don't I ever remember how much I hate it when someone asks me to make them something?

Alright, I'm finished whining. Now I'm going to dispense cat food yet again, set the clock forward (damn DST), and go to bed. We're going down to the river trail at daybreak tomorrow.

EDIT: More complaining—I went to Wal-Mart yesterday, in search of (1) a bag of trail mix; (2) a smaller, strapless case for my camera, so I can stick it in my vest pocket while we're walking and not worry with the extra little pocket and the strap, both of which are fine if I'm hanging it over one shoulder, but in the way when I put in a pocket; and (3) a couple of T-shirts to wear out in the woods and working in the yard. I wanted v-neck, short sleeves, women's size 2x so they'd be loose enough to be fairly cool and long enough to not ride up when I bend over to investigate stuff on the ground. Now, I don't shop at Wal-Mart with any regularity, chiefly because I don't agree with their politics or corporate policy, but also because it's a HUGE store and it kills my bad knee since what I want is invariably in the far corner or requires wandering around because it isn't where it was last time I was there . . . but T-shirts? I knew where they were; no wandering required. Besides, I saw what I wanted in a JMS catalog that came last week, but those were $18 apiece, and I really don't fancy spending 50-some dollars for three shirts that I'm just going to get dirty and sweaty and covered with cat hair and god knows what else.

So, we foray out to Wal-Mart (on a Saturday morning, but the parking lot was not very full at all). And what do we find? A camera case, alright, which turned out to be about a quarter of an inch too small when I got it home, but I'm not sure whether getting my $4.95 back is worth going back. I may just save it and use it for something else. Especially since the returns desk is on the other side of the store from the entrance, probably to discourage cranky old ladies from returning things. Trail mix? After going through the entire food section, finally we did find some highly overpriced bags of not-very-appetizing stuff, most of which contained things like dried mango and bananas, both of which we don't like . . . OK, forget the trail mix. (If I ever have to do my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, I may as well just stop eating.) I have to go to Ingles for milk and butter, and some cigarettes for John anyway. (And, BTW, cigarettes are nearly $5 more a carton at Wal-Mart than at the grocery store. Go figure.) But, I think, I've done the hard part. All I have to do now is go over to the women's section, grab a couple of shirts off the wall of athletic stuff, and head for the check out.

Wrong.

Last time I was shopping for clothes in Wal-Mart, they had an entire section of plus-size women's v-neck and crewneck t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, and shorts, all in nice little piles on nicely organized shelves—JMS or Fruit of the Loom or something like that. Granted, they keep moving the plus-size clothes from one of the women's clothing section to the other, possibly on the theory that if you walk past lots more stuff you'll see something you can't live without. (Doesn't work that way for me; I just get fed up and leave without buying anything, even what I came in for. But whatever . . . I'm no marketing expert, just an annoyed customer.) When the t-shirts weren't where they were last year, I went to the other end, but they weren't there either. So I made several circuits of the entire women's clothing section, sure that I'd find them. . . Nope. Lots of satin blouses, and t-shirts with sequins, fringe, beads, and similar practical work-oriented decorations, but nothing I needed. (Why do manufacturers think size 4x women need Sponge-Bob t-shirts, anyway?) No, wait, there was one shelf with t-shirts: either long-sleeves or sleeveless, and not very well made, and nothing but spring-y pastels, either.

So I did what I usually do—I went to the men's section. Four men's 2x T-shirts, Fruit of the Loom, nicely made: dark gray, light gray, navy and olive green. (Not v-neck, but I suppose one cannot have everything. If only because one's closets are not big enough.) Plenty long, and only $6 each. So I bought some new socks, too, and went away happy. Until this morning, when I got up to go  down to the river, and my knee will barely work. Damn concrete floors! But I'm going anyway. Thank heaven for Ben-Gay; I may smell interesting, but I'll at least be able to walk.

bleah

Not feeling well today, at all (despite the new yarn)—my blood sugar is up, but I can never decided whether I feel bad because it's high, or it's high because I feel bad. Nonetheless, I think my primary New Year's intention must be to return to my diabetic diet and adhere more closely . . . let me give thanks that the holiday cookies are mostly gone, and that I didn't eat most of them.

I think we'll have salad for supper. Even if it did come in a bag from god knows how many miles away, I feel the need of green stuff. And radishes. Lots of radishes. And maybe a pepper—but probably not; the last time I looked, they were going for something like $2 apiece.

And lentil soup tomorrow—I like the looks of this recipe, and I have everything to make it, including a big jar of chicken broth from cooking the chicken for yesterday's chicken pie . . .

Just So You Know

This is the only time of the entire year when I might possibly commit mayhem to have air conditioning for a couple of weeks. It's hotter in July and August (and September, for that matter), but it's bearable—but right now, the chestnuts are blooming, and I wish I could just shut the windows! If you've never smelled chestnut flowers, they have a sickly-sweet, vaguely mousy odor that I hate . . . and we have a huge tree in the front yard. There's just no escaping it.

I've had a stopped-up nose for the past month, and suddenly now I can smell things.

Life is just not fair sometimes.

That's all. I just wanted to complain.

Daylight Savings Time

“I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.”

-Robertson Davies, in The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

(I ran across this at Abbey of the Arts and unblushingly stole it—it was just too perfect a description of the way I feel about this thing inflicted on us every year.)

May I Just Say . . .

that I am getting very tired indeed of cats throwing up in the house? On the house's single piece of carpet, on the ironing board (the cover needed washing, but still . . . ), on my sewing table (thankfully missing the machine) . . . those of us who eat our morning catfood and promptly regurgitate two-thirds of it should do on the kitchen floor (preferably not far under the table, so I have to move it to clean up), and those of us who absolutely must go out and eat grass should remain outside until we have finished throwing up.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I am going to go and find another roll of paper towels now. . .

NOTE: Yes, of course it's my fault for indulging them. I still get to complain: after all, it's not as if anyone is going to pay attention . . . We're all suffering from a touch of cabin fever here; thank heaven it's going to be a bit warmer this week and everyone can GO OUT! (including me)

Complaints

I have had a migraine headache all day. My neck aches. My ears are stopped up. My stomach is upset. My blood sugar is too high (not in the dangerous range, just too high). I am either too hot or too cold. I forgot the clothes on the line until they were damp with the evening dew, and now I have to put them in the dryer.

I think I'm coming down with something, and I have a dentist's appointment on Wednesday.

I tried crocheting today, since I felt too awful to do anything useful—just some simple ribbing. I managed to drop stitches all along one edge, so I had slanted ribbing. I ripped it back and tried again. This time I added stitches . . . so I just unraveled the whole thing and rolled it back up into a ball.

Bah.

Thank you for listening. I think I'll go fix a bowl of rice and some miso soup, and find a nice trifling book for the evening, and resolutely not look at the yarn basket . . .

A Glorious Monday To You All . . .

in spite of the damned daylight saving time. (It looks to me as if it would make more sense to let it get light earlier so people wouldn't have to get up and start working in the dark, but what do I know?) I'm just bitchy this morning: it will take me the better part of a week to get really functional again. Widget has eaten something that didn't agree with her and has diarrhea. Jesse is constipated (I think; it's difficult to tell with goats), which means he must probably be Dealt With. The chickens, which have now been let into the goat lot preparatory to fencing them out of the garden, keep escaping up into the yard somehow. I had intended to put a card table in the space between bookcases in the "library" room, so cats can nap in the afternoon sun somewhere besides my rocking chair and the bed, and said table is precisely 3/4" too wide to fit, and of course I don't have another one. (So I just put it in the hole cattycornered, and let it stick out into the room. And baited it with catnip.)

Bleah. It's definitely Monday!

On the other hand, John has retrieved Roger to help him sink the plastic pond down in the goatlot, so I don't have to. The bees are out . . . I've seen several working the crocuses. Seeds are beginning to arrive. Garlic we planted last fall is coming up, and so are tulips (which means the voles haven't eaten them—at least not yet). There are daffodils everywhere! I have two big bags of stuff ready to go to Goodwill, so there's that much less in the house. (Though I don't see any holes . . . ) I began to sort and press my satin/silk/velvet pieces yesterday (necessitating a trip to Office Max for a couple of plastic boxes, so as to keep at least some cat hair out), and there are many more than I'd thought. I have plans for a crazy quilt someday, in all my copious spare time . . . but for the time being, I'm planning to make a couple of pillows, or something, for Emma and Eliza. I have a box of assorted fiber-y things, and a big box of vintage lace and trim: enough to keep me happily sorting and pressing for several days.

And in the meantime, there are these in the yard:

And these down at the end of the garden:

And, even though it's cloudy today, tomorrow is supposed to be blue-sky all day, and I can hang the laundry out! (The clothesline is on the north side of the house, and if there's not a lot of sun, things just don't get dry in the winter.)

Flu Shot Blues

So I had to go to the doctor yesterday for a diabetes-diagnosis-followup, and I thought, well, I'm here anyway, maybe I ought to get a flu shot this year. . . bad, bad idea. Now, I've never had a flu shot, because I'm allergic to chicken feathers. (And, no, we won't go into the fact that I have chickens and interact with them, and their feathers, on a daily basis. . . I'm not injecting feathers into my bloodstream, am I?) But now they have a version that apparently is OK for people like me, so that's what I got.

I should have been suspicious when the nurse directed that I hang around in the waiting room for 15 minutes, to see whether I had any adverse reaction to the shot . . . what sort of thing should I be looking for, I asked?  Oh, throat closing, trouble breathing, that sort of thing . . . OK. Do I really want to have a shot that may make it difficult for me to breathe?

But, like a good little soldier, I said, oh, alright and proceeded to do as directed. Fifteen minutes later, still breathing, I left. And I was fine until a few hours later, when I started feeling . . . well, not very good. Just achy, flu-y . . . joints hurting, maybe a bit feverish, vaguely nauseated. No big deal. I can handle this . . . except that this morning when I woke up, everything hurt. Especially my mouth; in fact, the entire right side of my head felt like it would be much better if it simply fell off. I have an upper four-tooth bridge on that side, and I can't eat because the slightest bit of pressure on it makes me want to jump out of my skin. Both of the anchoring teeth have had root canals, and the bridge itself is new this year, so I don't think it's a tooth problem. . . especially since my sinuses on that side hurt. Whenever I get a cold, my teeth hurt . . . they're my weakest area, and I suspect this is more of the same. Only worse.

By now, many aspirins later, I am down to just the bridge hurting. We'll see how it feels in the morning. (Why do these things always happen just before a weekend?) But I'm thinking that this may be not just my first, but my only, flu shot. And, yeah, I'm just a little bit annoyed that my doctor didn't mention anything about side effects . . . I probably should have asked, but shots never bothered me before.

All right, I'm through whining now. I'm going to go and take some more aspirin, and hunt up the heating pad . . . but I have a new book, so all is not lost.