A Little Drying Out

It's been a few days since the big rains but I'm wondering if this guy knows something we don't know. And did he have a cubit stick there?

I went to the gym today to try to loosen up my back which has really been hurting the past couple of days. As I walked past Westminster on the way back, I was shocked to realize that our poster was up, meaning the very next concert at Westminster is us, Baroque & Beyond. I'm sure we'll be ready, though it was a littl worrisome that Stephen, our cellist, missed the last rehearsal. We practice tomorrow and I think it will just be a touchup. Fortunately, Kathy is going to let me ride with her to Davis (we have to meet in Davis to accomodate Stephen who has a job until noon and a concert at 2 or something like that). Fortunate, because I can never seem to find my way around once I get to Davis. I don't know what the thing is with me and Davis, but should I manage to get there, I often get so confused it takes me 20 minutes to get out of town.
Of course, the reason my back feels awful is because we moved the bed to put the new rug in the bedroom. I really like the new rug -- makes the room look a lot bigger and without being so busy, it doesn't fight with the quilt Jan made. Mostly Mike and John moved the bed, which must weigh about 150 pounds without the matress and springs, and the rug itself was pretty heavy. Fortunately, the guy from the rug store brought it upstairs. I know he wasn't planning on doing it, but I just said, "it goes upstairs" when he got it out of the truck. I've been taking a ton of naproxin, and it's possibly a little better tonight, so I didn't take any more. We'll see how it is in the morning. . Of course, it's very convenient to me to blame the back trouble on moving furniture and rugs, but I suspect the real problem is weight gain. I've gotta get back to realistic eating

Good News and Sad News

This was a pretty exciting day -- well, you know, in comparison to the last few days which have been stultifyingly boring, no doubt due to the fact that I have been too lazy to do much of anything. Yesterday I did walk five miles, and that put me over 100 miles for January. I did another five-mile walk today, located the optometrist's office where I'm going tomorrow morning, and checked out the parking around Trinity Cathedral -- not good.
When I checked my mailbox, I got a pleasant surprise. I've won a ticket to Austin, TX on Jet Blue. I got a notice a couple of weeks ago saying I "may have won," and which looked legitimate and was from a marketing company -- which is how most contests are fulfilled, and besides, I really had entered such a contest. So today I got the formal letter that I can use whenever I want to in the next year. It's good for Austin to anywhere, so I'm contemplating FF miles to Austin, and then use this ticket to go to the Bahamas or something.
Later today, my good friend Alex Trebek came by, and I took the Jeopardy online contestant quiz, which I had signed up for a few weeks ago. They give you 15 seconds per question. I don't know how many questions there were, maybe 30? I think I may have gotten five. It's an initial screening test, so the questions are all over the map. I thought it was pretty hard, but then, there are SO MANY things I don't know anything about.
On a sad note, I found out yesterday that Patti Habel had died. I first met her when she worked on Leroy's campaign, which I think might have been her first political job. She was a wonderful person who had such zest for life and such a wonderful positive attiude -- not to mention she was really cute. And definitely too young to die of lung cancer (and no, she wasn't a smoker) at 49.
My final information today is that now Toyota has ceased selling all Toyotas in the affected period (again, not inluding my own personal death trap) whether they are new or used. So I will probably never be able to sell that car, because everyone will think (as I do) that it's one of the affected ones. It may very well be affected, but it's just one that they're not admitting to yet. If I had half a chance of getting my money out of it, I'd sell it in the blink of an eye right now. I do know that if I see any Toyota bearing down on me, I'm not going to be my agressive driver self, but just get the hell out of the way -- and hope that's not when my Toyota decides not to go.

A Couple of Days of Sun

Today and yesterday were mostly sunny, though we had a bit of rain both days. Not enough to really worry about. In fact, even though we've now had ten days in a row of rain, I have been able to walk every day and have, in fact logged 26 miles, most of it NOT in the rain. Yet, it's Sunday night (regardless of the date blogspot assigns to this post) and John's already worrying about what time we'll go to the gym tomorrow so we can go in the car. I'm equally adamant that there will be a big window of opportunity to go for a walk tomorrow. I've added a few more exercises to my workout at the gym, but I still hate every one of them. I'm obsessed with the idea that I can get less fat and more muscle. More importantly, I want to build up my bones.

Yesterday I had to go to a board meeting out in Carmichael, which meant I had to take the car out, so I decided to take it to the dealer and see why the tire light wouldn't go off. It came on when it was so cold, but every time (two different occasions) we tried to put more air in the tires, the light wouldn't go off, even though the tire gauge showed that they were properly inflated. So of course we drove it for a month and when I finally went in, they said one of the tires? all of the tires? who knows? anyway, something was at 24 pounds pressure (and they're supposed to be 30 pounds). So they probaby just put air in the tires and reset the button, but atleast now the light is off and it's one less thing to worry about. I liked this car so much when we first got it -- it's a nice bright red and the first actually new car I have had since I got out of college. But now I truly hate it and wish we'd never bought it. And we'll never be getting another one, unless of course that one gets in a wreck and kills us. I will never feel safe in it. Toyota has recalled practically every make and model except mine for accelerator problems. The problem they're admitting to is that the accelator sticks in the "on" postion and the car won't stop, while in my case, the accelerator pedal seemed to move, but there was no power and the car stopped. I HATE THEM ALL.

I'm a little low on interesting pictures -- actually I'm a little low on interesting life right now, but here are a few of the new shelves in the closet. As usual, I can't get it all in the picture. And haven't even begun to try to get the stuff back in the closet. We were going to paint the closet and do a little work on the walls where old things were -- like moulding and drywall and/or plaster, but I don't think that's going to happen or I'll never get the stuff back in there. And of course we did manage to keep the old ugly sink.

Another Rainy Day (Day 3 of the Rain)

Another rainy day today. It wasn't raining too much this morning, but enough for me to spend my time looking out the window, and examining tree branches to see if I thought any were going to fall out of the tree today, all of which caused me to forget thatI was supposed to go have a DEXA scan today.
Anyway, during my blissful ignorance of this responsibility, we decided to walk up to Temple Coffee which turned out to be a really good idea. First of all, it wasn't raining too hard while we walked up, and secondly, I had a really good pumpkin muffin there, which was probably only five or six hundred calories. Temple is a relatively new addition to the neighborhood, been there only about a year, if that, but is really cute and today it was very cozy and warm as well. As a bonus, by the time we finished our coffee, , it was just barely sprinkling, so I was able to get in a three-mile walk. This afternoon, though, it started raining quite a bit more. I could have spent my time usefully by finishing taking down those balls, or putting all the stuff back in my new shelves, but we decided to go see Sherlock Holmes. It was kind of okay, but much noisier than I expected. There were only 6 people in the theater. It was not your typical Sherlock Holmes story, but more special effects than I think were really required.
Maybe tomorrow I'll get a good start on repacking the closet. This is all the junk that needs to go into this closet. I'd like to paint the walls in there before I start, but everything is pretty irregular, and John wants to get the walls evened out, and frankly, he won't get around to it for another 6 months if past experience means anything.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be very windy and hard rain. I'm planning on walking over to get the DEXA if it's just raining, but I get kind of scared of tree limbs falling on me when it's windy.

Rainy Days in California

Since it was raining too hard to go for a walk this morning, I decided to take down the blown glass Christmas balls I had hanging in the window in the sunporch. They are so pretty, I really hated to take them down, but then it makes me happy to see them again next year. John is going to redo the board they are hanging from to make it easier to hang them next year. This year was a very tedious affair of stringing the fishing line up through the hole, and then looping it around a pencil or chopstick or bunch of toothpicks held together on a rubber band. And then I decided the holes weren't close enough together, so I had another string strung from hole to hole and then had a ball hanging on that one. With every one I took down, I just hoped I was holding the ball I thought I was cutting or removing the string to, and that it wouldn't turn out to be another one that would go crashing down on the floor. I didn't get them all taken down, but I have most of them down. You can see the raindrops on the window if you look closely.
We're getting ready here to have a couple of weeks of rain, apparently a couple of cold storms to be followed by a warm storm. Right now it's snowing in the mountains, so there's great joy among skiers and snowboarders and everybody who owns a business up there. And all of us in California think it's pretty nice when there's lots of snow in the mountains, because that means there will be some water this summer.
John and I managed to "thread the needle today" went out and had lunch and went over to the gym between storms. I walked, he took his bike. Managed not to go either direction in the rain. We had a really nice sunset tonight, though, during the evening break in the rain.
We are down to one car since he totalled his truck last May, and my goal is to drive less this year than last -- which I think will be a challenge because I think I had less than 5,000 miles last year. I know I didn't drive enough to get the oil changed last year and I only spent $260 on gas all year, so getting below that will be a challenge, especially since John wants to take the car every time he goes to the gym or the grocery store, which I think is a BIG waste of gas, and that's the most polluting time your car drives anyway. Lynda came over while we were rehearsing this afternoon and brought us this giant trout she caught. Good stuff for dinner tonight!!

Baroque and Beyond

Here's the very official picture of Baroque and Beyond. Most of the rest of this is just a little excuse to put up the "outtakes" of our picture session. It's really hard to get even a remotely decent nighttime picture in our house, because there's NO LIGHT. And when there is some light, the background is so cluttered, it's almost impossible to take a picture.

Yesterday we got together for our second full group rehearsal. This is a fun group to play with, and of course it was organized by Kathy, who has a real talent for getting people to do musical things. Kathy plays baroque and modern flute and recorders, as does Robin, who also plays baroque oboe, bassoon and bass clarinet. Phil plays violin and Stephen plays cello. The five of us are calling ourselves Baroque and Beyond and will be playing a concert on the Music At Noon series at Westminster Presbyterian Church on February 3rd. We've got the music picked out and have gone through everything about twice or three times,but right now we've got a long way to go and a short time to get there, as they say. Robin was supposed to play continuo on bassoon for one piece, but he left his reeds at home, so couldn't do that one. A likely story.
After the rehearsal, we tried to take a picture (because Westminster always wants a picture for the performers of the week). I think we'll use the picture at the top, but the rest of these are the outtakes. First of all, we had trouble finding a place where the background wasn't too cluttered. So we thought we'd do it on the stairway. Didn't seem to work very well, because there wasn't enough natural light and the flash didn't reach everybody. Then when it did, it reflected off everybody's glasses. Then we tried having John (our photographer) stand on the stairs and we'd look up at him. I thought this would be nice, because there are no visible double chins this way, but it didn't look all that good either -- again, mostly because of not enough light. Then we moved into the living room, but that move ended up with a really cluttered background from the big painting over the fireplace. Finally we got a sort of decent one around the harpsichord, though there are still two people in the picture with halos.

The Holidays are Really Over

I always hate taking down the tree, not because it's much of a job, but just because it means the holidays are really over. Of course, for us retired folks, that's not all that big of a deal, but I like all the lights and decorations and glow of Christmas. I think I'll leave the glass balls in the other window up for a couple more weeks though. They're not officially Christmas. They are Art.

I think I had already mentioned that Paula had found our boat -- that after what appeared to be an auspicious launch, it had come back into the backwater, bringing our hopes and dreams with it. She rescued it and suggested we make it bigger and better, and suggested this palm frond version. I bent the old boat a little and glued it into this frond, and it seems to work pretty well. I wasn't too sure how well it would do in the current, but it floated right along.

Had a bit of trouble on the land, because the lighter I brought only had enough fuel to light one candle, and since I had glued them down, I couldn't light another candle from the first one. And then of course, there was nothing dry on the ground to use. So I tried to use a napkin, I had in my pocket, with predictable results. And I only had my little cloth water shoes on, and I wasn't going to stamp it out. Fortunately, Zoe had real shoes on and stamped it out before we started a fire. This time, I had my water shoes, and I waded out into the COLD river -- not very far, as you can see, but far enough to freeze my feet. Also far enough to actually get the boat into the current. This is a much better boat, and actually floats. For a moment, it looked like these ducks might attack, but they veered off and left the boat alone. It made it out into the big current this time, and the last we saw of it, it was heading for the Howe Avenue bridge. It's been several hours, and I haven't heard of any fires downstream.

Bizarre vandalism a culinary treat and a culinary disaster

January 3rd, I managed to get in a 7-mile walk, including going to see Me and Orson Welles, which was a pretty good movie. I went with Zoe and Jim, and Jim didn't think it was too realistic, but since I know very little about Orson Welles, I thought it was enjoyable. I came home and decided it was a cooking night. I had thawed some chicken and had bought a butternut squash and an eggplant. So I went to the Internet. God, do I love the Internet. You put in the food you have and it gives you a recipe. I found this nice recipe for a chicken curry with coconut milk (which I had) and butternut squash and eggplant. Unfortunately, I will never know how this was supposed to taste because the last step was to thicken the sauce with cornstarch. Because of bug problems, and the fact that I don't do much cooking, I keep most of my flour-type stuff in jars, rather than in the original boxes. Unfortunately, for the first time in my life, I used the baking soda jar instead of the cornstarch jar to get the thickener. I should have realized my mistake when it bubbled up in the pan when I poured the "cornstarch" in, but it was only when it didn't thicken up and I went to get some more that I realized my mistake.

Yuck. No way to rescue that. I put the cornstarch in, and it did thicken up, but the whole dish was ruined. John was a good soldier and declared it edible. (It wasn't) We'll see later on tonight how that much baking soda in a rather raw way affects us.

We had a wonderful New Year's day, which included a wonderful tea at Doreen's house. She is originally from England, and is interested in Art Deco and old houses and every year on New Year's Day she has a high English tea. I always meet someone new and interesting at this event. We usually fix beans and invite people to stop by and have Hoppin' John on New Year's Day, but I wasn't in the mood for it this year, so we didn't get around to it.

I always keep my car covered since I hope to get good money for it when I sell it, even though it's a death trap Toyota.

January 2nd, however, I woke up to find that someone had vandalized my car -- well, sort of. There was a Christmas tree on top of it. Not mine, and I have no idea whose it was, but they thought it was a good idea to plant it on top of my car. Actually pretty funny, and much better than the graffiti that got sprayed on the car cover two nights in a row a few months ago. Still, seems like a really odd thing to do.

Also on January 2nd, Mike and Heather came over with Rina to bring us our Christmas present -- which is that Mike made dinner for us and we got to visit with Heather and Rina while he was cooking. He made a wonderful cauliflower risotto and roasted fennel. Everything was delicious, though it was an all-white meal. I was sorry I didn't have any white dishes to make the all-white presentation perfect. Rina made some new friends -- Raggedy Ann and Pooh, and Grandma found out that Rina doesn't like heaters or hair dryers.

A New Year Begins

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Even though this is my 2010 blog, I thought I'd show you all how we started the year with our best friends on TV

Today is New Year's Day, 2010. Zoe and I are at the river, preparing to send our boat down. We do this every year, sometime around this time of year. Zoe is not holding a mode of transportaion, but a launch pad, as it were. You can't see the boat too well, but it's made out of those hard seeds that fall out of maple trees. They're about half as big as a golf ball, and really hard, and if you step on them, they don't crush or anything. They also float. So I put them together by tying the stems together and then I poured melted candlewax over the whole sorry mess, stuck a couple of candles to the top and put a flower on it. (The decorations are mostly so you can see it when it gets a little farther away. Then we write down what we want to get rid of, and what we want to welcome into the new year on a piece of paper and float the whole thing down the river.

Here we are, ready to launch. In the past, we've noticed that you can't get it out into the current too easily, which means all your hopes and dreams just come back to the shore. So, we brought this rake along to push it out a little bit without having to wade in the river. This may be California, but that river is COLD.

So, we stuck it into the water, pushed it out into the current, and it caught the current this time and went sailing down the river. Whoopee!

For about 5 feet. Then it started to drift back o shore, which is what it always wants to do.

Enter the rescuer!! TAH DAH!

Paula saw it sneaking back to shore and waded out into the river to push it back out into the current.

I think she wrecked her shoes for this rescue, and it wasn't even her project.

The boat is the little white spot near the right edge of the picture.

As good a time as any to remember that we succeed because of the kindness of friends.