Inside The Perimeter

Depending on when you check in this morning I am either dropping stuff off at CHaRM, or have already returned from my early morning chore.

Let them eat bread!

This was the finished loaf as it came out of the oven, sitting on a rack to cool, and I waited with bated breath for it cool completely before I could slice it. Though it looks enormous because the cooling rack on which it sits is small, the loaf turned out smaller than I thought that it would, and was a bit dense, but it still tasted good. In the future I will cut back the salt a little, but other than that this was a relatively easy loaf to make, the hardest thing was waiting for the dough to proof/prove.

As I still let my body recover, in part by not leaving the house, I have been using up more previously purchased food. The bread I baked yesterday used flour, yeast, butter, salt, and water. Dinner last night was a box of “Hamburger Helper”, lasagna style, which used up that box (of course) as well as some of the frozen spicy ground Impossible “sausage” I had in the freezer. Today’s meals will be leftovers.

I am currently reading the book “Strong Female Character” by the Scottish comedian Fern Brady. (Steve, any relation? hahahaha) I first encountered Brady on the tv show Taskmaster where she was maniacal force with which to be reckoned. The book is an autobiography about her being diagnosed as autistic.

Wordle: four, my starter was CREAM
Connections: perfect, Green > Blue > Yellow > Purple

Even with a good Friday evening drinking a couple of beers while watching Bob and Laura bowl, my weekend was frustrating. Why? Because of the rain and the pain I have been nearly constantly suffering for the past six months.

I was able to pick up a bag of trash prior to meeting up with Betsy for coffee and a breakfast sandwich on Saturday morning.

The rain wiped out any thoughts of trying to hike in a state park, and lowered my morale to the point where I didn’t even feel like driving to a far away brewery to they something new.

On Saturday night I made Nobody’s Grandma’s Meatloaf. To my fake beef and pork I added onion, a packet of onion soup mix, an orange bell pepper, breadcrumbs, and a ground powder made from dried mushrooms and dried shishito peppers. The resulting loaf was incredibly moist and delicious, even if it didn’t really feel as if I were eating meatloaf. With my meatloaf I ate some small potatoes that I boiled, and then roasted in the oven while the meatloaf baked.

My pain is diminishing my quality of life, and therefore I am going to try to initiate changes this week.

My curiosity on Friday evening may have possibly saved me from all of this. As I left the ITP Estate to drive to Decatur on Friday I decided to drive in the direction of a large plume of black smoke. I assumed a car was in fire on I20, but instead a car was on fire at a gas station, and I had to drive directly past it. By the time I arrived the car was in flames, but the fire department was already on the scene and putting it out.

If you think back a few months ago you may recall my lament that an old Flickr friend of mine, Dave, was shuttering his brewery, IronShield. Well, John (aka HamWithCam) informed me that Dave is the antithesis of me, and had already found something else to do, start a YouTube channel Dave in the Shop. Dave’s channel is nerdy, coming from me that says a lot, but if you are curious to help out a local, give his channel a watch since he needs the subscribers and viewing time for YouTube to bless him properly.

Wordle: four, my starter was WRIST
Connections: perfect, Blue > Yellow > Purple > Green

It was not a stellar day yesterday. My depression over my body combined with a few minor other setbacks sent me spiraling down so much that I canceled meeting my buddy Hank for beers. Instead, I filled up the M6 with gas at Kroger (screwing up by only saving 10¢/gal instead of 30¢/gal), and driving a bit around 285 before returning home.

I finished “The Elephant in the Room”. It was a good book, even if it struck a little too close to the bone for me.

Since I can’t drive fewer than four hours to find sunshine and warmth this weekend I will stay at home. I have plenty of inside chores to accomplish, hopefully I can jump all over them and that will improve my mood for next week.

Wordle: three, my starter was DUNCE
Connections: perfect, Blue > Yellow > Purple > Green

It wasn’t my greatest time on the trainer yesterday, but it was the best of the three efforts I have put in so far this week. I have a long way to go in order to be ready for Spring Tune Up, but I intend to persist.

There was no Betsy dinner last night. I considered making the dish I was going to bring over but in the end realized that it would be smarter to eat more of the leftovers in the refrigerator in addition to the slice of pumpkin bread I allowed myself. Man was it hard to stop myself from eating a second slice of pumpkin bread last night.

I am not very impressed with Kaiser Permanente so far. Last night I went into their app to pay my premium and constantly received error messages stating they were “unable to complete my request at this time, try again later.” I hope that their healthcare is better than this. [Update at 6:30am: Still unable to pay through their app, but was able to log into website and pay.]

This morning YouTube recommended a video from a 1988 episode of the MTV game show Remote Control. YouTube has made me thrilled that people have uploaded these, shocked that this was aired about thirty-six years ago, amazed how much I remembered from watching this show (knowing almost all of the words in the opening theme song), and saddened because I am old.

Wordle: five, my starter was GRAPE
Connections: perfect, Green > Blue > Purple > Yellow

Other than reporting that I once again failed to achieve my goal of sixty minutes riding the trainer, and making a kick ass batch of hot and sour soup, I have nothing.

It’s 6am, and I have decided to see if I can catch another forty winks before I (re)start my day.

Wordle: four, my starter was GAUNT
Connections: perfect, Green > Yellow > Purple > Blue

I have started binge watching am obsessed with The Traitors, but the UK version instead of the US version since it was the original. I’m glad I’m watching this on commercial-free Peacock, at least if number of times the show fades to black is an indication of how many commercial breaks are in the show. From an outsider viewer’s perspective these players are absolute idiots.

Yesterday I signed the death warrant for a small ceramic heater which once served me well. Last year, as in early 2023, its fan started acting up and eventually ceasing. Yesterday I took it apart to see if I could get the fan working again, assuming it was clogged by dust and hair, but alas the construction of the fan was not intended to have repairs made. I have clipped the power cord and put it into the growing pile of “Things Destined for CHaRM”. I have an appointment for Thursday morning, unless I cancel due to inclement weather.

For the first time in a while I went out for a good walk yesterday, covering four miles. Unfortunately my feet are bothering me again. On my walk I passed through Red’s Farm and saw the remnants of what I assumed was Busted Cherry’s Christmas Tree Burning Hash. I thought I saw him driving a load of Christmas trees into the farm a couple of Saturdays ago.

At the Waschsalon this morning, doing a few weeks’ worth of dirty laundry.

Wordle: five, my starter was GRASP (and luckily to get it at all because I played very poorly)
Connections: perfect, Yellow > Green > Blue > Purple

I had an interesting weekend of Wordle. Remember back to Friday when my starter was LAGER? Well, I veered away from that on Saturday by starting with NURSE, and lo and behold the solution was an anagram of LAGER, it was LARGE. I coulda scored a deuce, but instead got it in four. Yesterday I decided to reuse NURSE, jokingly thinking that I have been a day too early, and this proved to be a good strategy. I scored a deuce yesterday because the solution was NORTH!

This past week I have had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, of starting to read two books both of which deal with loneliness and love. As I have chronicled often in this space I have way too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter. For the curious the two books are “The Lonely City” and “The Elephant in the Room”. I remember that David talked about the latter previously. On Saturday I happened to stop in an aisle of a DeKalb public library in front of it, and it all but jumped off the shelf into my hands.

Yesterday was apparently National Cheese Lovers Day, which would have been far more appropriate had the Green Bay Packers managed to beat the “San Francisco” 49ers on Saturday night. Because it was a great day to use the oven and I was going to stay at home all day, I baked a breakfast casserole in the morning and then a pot of vegetarian baked beans for the rest of the day.

I managed a less-than-stellar forty minutes on the trainer, body be damned! I really need to start exercising and then have medical professionals figure out what the fuck is wrong with me.

Wordle: three, my starter was BEANS (even though rare is the plural noun a Wordle solution)
Connections: perfect, Yellow > Purple > Green > Blue

The latest jigsaw puzzle has been completed and the dining room table is once again arranged as if I were going to have guests over for meals.

For last night’s dinner I made a chili that I never would have made previously, nor would I have eaten as a child. To a box of Carrol Shelby chili mix I added a block of Impossible burger, a tube of Impossible spicy sausage, a diced onion, a diced green pepper, a can of black beans, a can of kidney beans, the remainder of the bottle of tomato passata that I opened earlier in the week, and a can of Sam Adams Hazy NA IPA. Talk about a cupboard/refrigerator/freezer cleaner! This chili may have tasted better with a less fruity beer like a lager, but I am trying to find ways to use up this NA IPA; it was delicious!

I think today’s major effort should be to once again work on cleaning/organizing/decluttering my house.

No great shakes planned for the weekend. I really should get some exercise, even if my body is less than cooperative. I may treat myself to a meal out, or perhaps a trip to a grocery store so that I can buy perishables for meals next week.

Wordle: three, my starter was LAGER
Connections: perfect, Purple > Green > Yellow > Blue

I am cold, in pain, and currently obsessed with a jigsaw puzzle that I started this week.

For the first there is heat.
For the second there will be chiropractor and doctor visits.
For the third there is time. Once I finish this puzzle I am going to take a break from puzzles in order to get other things done.

I didn’t leave the house yesterday until I went to Betsy’s house for dinner.

In a search to see when Winter’s grip will start to ease revealed a long term weather forecast which predicts thunderstorms next week with days that get as high as 70°F and go no lower than 60°F. Go figure…

Wordle: three, my starter was OPINE
Connections: one mistake, Yellow > Purple > Blue > Green (I think that I will not be the only person with at least one mistake today)

Brrr, fucking, brrr.

While I was working another jigsaw puzzle the ITP Estate suffered brief power outage last night. I remembered that for the ill-fated Black Rock campout in 2022, my last hash campout, I bought a portable heater which is safe for indoor use. I put on a headlamp and retrieved it from the basement in case the power outage lasted for a while. Fortunately its services were not required.

I am not looking forward to next month’s electric and gas bills. Oh well, it’s why I work. Oops, wait a minute…

Stay warm friends,

Wordle: four, my starter was DECAF
Connections: perfect, Purple > Yellow > Green > Blue