FRIDAY, Friday, fridayfridayfriday...

Hello all from the bowels of the Public Library.  I am a bit distracted, there is a gentleman even older than I am at the next computer over, being instructed in Twitter by a Library person, it is funnier than the circus.  "GO, OLD COOTS (AND COOTESSES)!!!" I say.

I have a solemn promise from my Personal IT Wizard that I shall have a computer all working and re-stocked with files etc. by sundown tomorrow.  It has been revelatory, confining my pointless self-distraction Earnest Inter-Webs Labours to an hour a day, in the meantime.  An instance of Involuntary Simplicity.  Beneficial, too, I think.

Reading Doris Goodwin's book on Eleanor and Franklin and "the Home Front" -- it is hefty, slow going, but interesting--gave me a running start on the NYRB review of Oliver Stone et al., The Untold History of ...  I didn't know anything about Henry Wallace.  Now I do (I think).

Re-reading The Virginian, which I love.  "A middlin' doctor is a pore thing," etc.  Words to be going on with.

Off to do some banking and make some appointments and then home again and consider the rest of the day.  I did some mending the other day -- I have a very nice cozy pair of Haflinger (sp?) slippers but I have worn a fuzzy hole in the toe of one of them.  The design is of a sheep, so I mended the hole with green embroidery floss and then added some more embroidered "grass" for the sheep to be eating.  If I can remember how to do the lazy daisy stitch I may include a few flowers.  The result is not unsightly.  Not as unsightly as the hole, at least.

Did some housework yesterday and it must have made a difference as I had to empty the "big" vacuum cleaner three times before I was done!

And so it goes...

Family Day

It is "Family Day," soi-disant, in Prairie Province -- cynics see it as "we needed a Monday off in February" and/or "Previous political figures attempted to compensate for inadequate parenting they provided by proclaiming a holiday in honour of families."  Whatever.  It is nice to have a Monday off particularly when the weather is not outstandingly horrid.

As it is a provincial holiday, not a federal one, the Post Office works, and we GET REAL MAIL.  Including some reading matter -- Jen Hatmaker's 7, or is it SEVEN?, and various magazines.  Also donation receipts to attach to the tax return.

Cleaning house, focussing on small areas i.e. about 18" square.  As long as I can see results heading to the curb on garbage pick-up day, I'm happy.

And doing some cookery -- made bread this morning from the sourdough basic recipe, with many modifications; the usual yield is two medium loaves, but this morning I made one loaf and a speculative quantity of long rolls suitable for hot dogs etc.  Came up with 10, of varying sizes, and I think 12 would be feasible.  This is basically white bread but it is mightily enriched with veg. oil, skim milk powder, wheat germ, wheat bran, cracked wheat, and quick (small-flake) oatmeal.  Sometimes sesame seed on the bottom also.  I'm well pleased with the result.  Makes good sandwiches, makes good toast, makes good French toast, and eventually makes great croutons and/or crumbs too.

Yogurt (home made) and granola (home made) for breakfast, very tasty.  I'll take a large jar of yogurt to #1 Granddaughter tomorrow, she consumes it at a great rate which is good for Grandma's ego.

Still computing courtesy of the public library (also open, this afternoon, predictably full of young'uns)...

Did not preach or officiate or do anything liturgical this last Sunday except to garb up and adorn the chancel.  Having worn out my alb to the "borderline disgraceful" stage, I regularly wear cassock and surplice.  Turns out this suits the African constituency in the parish just fine.  A delegation informed my Excellent Boss recently that "THAT one" (i.e. me) "is PROPERLY dressed"...which he found very funny, fortunately.

Reading Umberto Eco, a slim collection of essays entitled five moral pieces.  I acquired it for the sake of the essay titled "Ur-Fascism"; in other translations it appears as "Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt," which is wittier.  But there is also a gorgeous little essay in the form of a letter to Cardinal Martini of Milan -- title approximately, "When the Other Makes an Appearance."  Wow, can this man THINK.  (So can Cardinal Martini -- not surprising that their public dialogues were a very "hot ticket" in Milan.)

I'd better make a break for home at this point, company coming for supper...

Faint, but pursuing...

A very fast post here to say, "Still alive" but not reliably connected to the internet in ANY WAY except when I can get to the public library...for a once-a-day 60-minute free session on the computers here.

It is SOME tedious, but OTOH lots of opportunity to do all those things that normally are deferred until after I've "just checked what's on Facebook etc. etc. etc." --

Lent has begun well and quietly -- renewing some resolves and taking steps to make them easier to keep.  Considering installing bear-traps all over the couch so as to preclude the "I'll just lie down here for a minute" gumption-sink.

Managed to inventory both the little freezer upstairs and the big one downstairs -- my neighbour came over to retrieve his "turducken" which he had stored with me for lack of space at his house.  Of course it had migrated to the bottom of my freezer so it could go wibble-wobble in company with my (two!? how did that happen) "famine turkeys"...by the time we had made our way down to it, there was so much food spread out around the freezer that listing it right then and there was the beloved line of least resistance.

Now to make some sensible meal plans.  Came home from the BE with all my baggage PLUS an "airplance cold."  It's gone away now, but while I was laid low the things I had cooked and frozen in January were mighty welcome.

Reading various things, Tzeporah Berman on environmental activism, some William Styron (I don't get it, or I don't get it YET), and The Best Spiritual Writing 2013, including the New Yorker article on the "C Street House" -- whoo.

Granddaughters flourish, and the eleven-month-old has learned to blow kisses.  This makes conversation with Grandma quite smacky.

OK, library time is nearly up, time to pack up here and mount an assault on the supermarket.

Peace, all.