It seems like I spent the whole weekend mangling and macerating trees - and when I wasn't doing that I still had my hands on wood sticks. On Saturday we drove up to our airpark property, because we needed to cut down a few more casualties of drought and bark beetle. We've been getting more rain lately as well as snow in the high country, so I'm hoping these will be the last to die. Cutting down a dead tree feels like attending a funeral.
On Sunday there was even more fun with clippers and saw as we did a much-too-belated trimming of our pineapple palm. Even after stomping the assorted (lethally sharp) fronds and other tree parts down three times, they were heaped up so high in my pickup that we had to strap them down. Disposing of them at the town dump, where you back up to a ledge and toss your debris down into a dumpster, would have been a lot easier if the wind hadn't been blowing over the dumpsters and straight at us.
That wind got me a little more free time in the afternoon, though: I'd been scheduled to fly but my instructor called saying it was just too windy. The downside to that is that I haven't been up for nearly a month now. I filled in the time knitting, paying bills, printing labels for holiday cards and doing laundry. A wild life, it is. The conclusion from the bill paying is that I am still quite broke, between the missed paycheck when I transferred jobs, some money I owe Rudder from all our traveling, my holiday shopping,. I ought to be in better shape as I "borrowed" money from savings to cover the missed check, but in fact I have been spending like a fiend. My new raise would help a lot, except that less than half made it into my check after taxes. I think I may just have to run a balance this month and next on my credit card, a thing I usually try to avoid. However, I do still have the flight training reimbursement to look forward to and a bonus in February. And there ought to be a decent tax return, but that may go to replacing all our windows.
Anyway. On Saturday night I went to the local Stitch and Bitch group's sleepover at my friend Alison's business. (Alison was referred to as Pigtails in her rowing days, during the early years of this blog, but she uses her real name online so I suppose I can.) That was interesting - I never get out to S'n'B things due to lack of time but this one was at a time I could make and close to home. There were only about six of us there, but it was nice to meet people, and they seemed interesting. (Looking through someone's copy of Bust magazine was especially interesting as its content appears to be an odd combination of Jane, In Style, Ms., and Penthouse Forum.) I finally managed to get the eyelash yarn scarf for Rudder's grandmother untangled and completed, got a good start on another dishrag, and got some helpful advice on changing colors mid-row.
I also concluded that when subsituting powdered cumin for toasted cumin seeds in dressing, it's best to reduce the quantity by more than a little, and Rudder perfected his salmon-grilling technique (apparently a combination of butter and Jack Daniels is useful in getting the grill to flare up and give it just the right amount of blackening). Yum.
Posted by dichroic at November 22, 2004 12:39 PM