Today I learned that unless it's actully below the freezing point, it
is *not* too early in the spring to start carrying ice.
First I bought a jar of refrigerated Kim Chee. Okay, there's a bottle
of chilled tea in my insulated pannier for thermal mass, the cajun
sesame sticks provide a little extra insulation, an it won't hurt kim
chee to get a little bit too warm for a short time.
Then I stopped at Penguin Point, and had to pass up the fried-chicken
lunch box because there was no way I could bring left-over chicken
home in a non-toxic condition.
I had chile cheese fries, which I can eat in one sitting.
And it was good.
There was a sour end to a perfect day. After stopping at umpty-bump
garage sales, I got to Lowe's and Walmart too tired to shop for a
raised flower bed, so I decided to look over the shoes, buy a can of
frozen orange juice to cool the kim chee, have a pretzel pizza for
supper, and go home.
I did find an acceptable pair of sandals: very thick, stiff soles,
velcro straps at the toes and heels so I can vary the number of pairs
of socks, instep strap to hold it firmly in place. It was size ten. A *man*'s size ten, and I take a six in men's shoes.
After an hour spent inspecting every frozen food several times without finding anything closer to fruit juice than strawberry daiquiri mix, I decided to skip the pizza -- it was too late to linger, and I was too
grumpy to enjoy it -- fill my water bottle, and go home.
The water fountains were "closed until further notice".
I didn't notice until I'd committed myself to eating my emergency bar standing up that I was across the street from Zimmer Biomet's picnic
tables.
Sunday, 20 February 2022
"Today" must have been last Tuesday. I've been a bit busy this week.
When making my tea, I decided to go traditional and use molasses and
vinegar brine instead of honey and citrus juice.
"Switchel" originally meant water sweetened with molasses, then
vinegar was added to make it taste better, then other complications
were added as the drink spread to other cultures and cooks got bored.
Perhaps it was because switchel is a hot-weather drink and it was
freezing cold out there, but I concluded that I don't like molasses in
my tea.
This was partly because I used vineager brine left over from making
sour pickles, and I couldn't make the drink sour enough without
putting in too much salt. A half teaspoon of ascorbic acid and a
squirt of bottled lemon juice didn't help much. When I put ascorbic
acid in, I should use a whole teaspoon, the way it says on the
package. A teaspoon in a serving ordinarily makes a drink too sour,
but boiled-bitter tea requires strong measures.
By the way, a packet of seasonings that I didn't put into the corned
beef (I prefer whole spices that don't grit up the broth) seasons up
tea nicely when boiled with the leaves. I've been using home-dried
oregano of late.
It was a quick trip downtown to buy six yards of quilt lining, which
is as close to sheeting as one can buy these days.
On the way out, I took a lap around the comic-book shop and stopped at Carneceria San Jose` -- I'm pretty sure that "carneceria" means
"butcher shop", but I can't buy meat there because I don't speak
Spanish, but they have a full (if small) grocery and a lunch counter.
I also can't eat at the lunch counter because I can't read the menu,
but I frequently buy canned goods and produce -- no produce today on
account of the valve freezing in my water bottle -- and they sell
wonderful peanuts in the shell over in the dry-bean department.
Stopped at Dollar General on the way back, but didn't see anything interesting.
Thence to Kroger, where I spent an hour and filled up my other
pannier, but forgot the coffee creamer I'd come in for.
Somewhere along the way, I noted one of the "[bicycle logo] MAY USE
ENTIRE LANE" signs, an made a note that I must write a post about
"may" is not "must".
A shocking number of people, including our beloved mayor, believe that bicycles ride by different rules than all the other vehicles on the
road. He hasn't come out in favor of riding south in the northbound
lane yet, but he's a firm believer in putting straight-through lanes
to the right of right-turn lanes.
I chickened out of yesterday's Saturday ride because Boy's City Drive
was white, and I wanted to *finally* start making up the sheets I
bought on Tuesday. Got two edges pressed and one edge pinned; there
were lots of distractions. Including shovelling through a drift that
had closed off the walk I'd shoveled after the snowstorm. The drift
wasn't very wide, and the rest of the walk had been blown clean to the
layer of ice left by the rain the storm had begun with. Then I
emptied the cat box of corncobs onto the frozen puddle in front of the outdoor fireplace. Covered surprisingly little area. (I've also been throwing peanut shells around.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
Note: My Web-page updating computer died at the beginning of
February, and we are still trying to figure out what to do about it. I
have managed to load the February Banner into DOSBOX, and will
probably be able to mail it on time. I may even be able to learn how
to make Filezilla upload it to the Web so that I can validate it.
If I can assemble a few contiguous minutes to work on it.
I really, really hope that the new system can run WS-FTP; using
Filezilla to upload a single file is like planting tulips with a
backhoe.
Somewhere along the way, I noted one of the "[bicycle logo] MAY USE
ENTIRE LANE" signs, an made a note that I must write a post about
"may" is not "must".
A shocking number of people, including our beloved mayor, believe that bicycles ride by different rules than all the other vehicles on the
road.
On 2022-02-27, Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
Somewhere along the way, I noted one of the "[bicycle logo] MAY USE
ENTIRE LANE" signs, an made a note that I must write a post about
"may" is not "must".
A shocking number of people, including our beloved mayor, believe that
bicycles ride by different rules than all the other vehicles on the
road.
Given that most automobiles have a top speed in the 100+ miles per
hour, have 4 wheels, and can have people hold a drink in one hand
while driving, I would think that bicycles are different than
automobiles and should be judged differently. The fact that they
aren't is a testament to our disregard for the climate and our ability
to roll over the moment Detroit tells us to. (Good thing Detroit is
broken now, maybe we'll learn to ride a bus before gas gets to $20/gal.)
Of late I have been using date syrup or agave syrup which is found at the local Grocery Outlet chain of stores.
Don't know if you have that near you.
It's a chain that sells "factory seconds". So if you like what you find, buy all you can, it may not be there next time!
On Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:23:49 -0000 (UTC), pH <wNOS...@gmail.org>
wrote:
Of late I have been using date syrup or agave syrup which is found at the local Grocery Outlet chain of stores.
Don't know if you have that near you.
It's a chain that sells "factory seconds". So if you like what you find, buy all you can, it may not be there next time!Sherman & Lin's sold whatever other stores had left over, and there
was a large display of Red Gold factory seconds at the back of the
store during their going-out-of-business sale. I still have rather a
lot of canned tomatoes.
I think I saw some of the stuff I passed over at the sale in the
free-grocery aisle of Our Father's House, a charity second-hand shop
in nearby Lake View Plaza.
I used to find all kinds of interesting stuff at Sherman & Lin's, and
was upset when the supply line broke and they had to go out of
business. I wasn't as upset as the people in the housing development
between the store and the lake; being able to walk to the store had
been so convenient!
They had a small cooler of perishable staples, presumably bought
retail; I never thought to compare the prices since I didn't need that service.
Aunt Millie's Outlet had interesting breads until the supply lines
broke. One day I was passing by on my way back from Indiana
Restaurant Supply and saw a bunch of trucks parked around it, so I
climbed up to the parking lot and peeked in the window. The front
part was furnished as an office. The trucks suggest that the back
room is being used as a warehouse or distribution center.
********
I'm pretty sure that I've seen agave syrup at Kroger. Meijer also has
an aisle of exotic foods.
I should check for sweeteners the next time I'm in the carneceria.
They have cone-shaped loaves of brown sugar and many kinds of wierd
candy.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
I am trying to avoid any news so I am surfing obscure usenet forums as
I am Finnish and we have been threatened by our neighbor to the east.
So I went to your webpage and noticed you said you had trip reports from Warsaw. Well, to make a long story short, the families of my ex were from Warsaw.
(Kneppers / Enyarts) lol Small world.
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