Girija, Shabnam and the colors of life

Yesterday was a day partly of working with Gary in his garden reminding him how to lift iris to separate them, then persuading him to wait till after frost to prune the butterfly bush. It's an easy way for me to garden -- I tell and point, he digs. Then I say "we" gardened.

Lovely walk, after that, this is being a marvelous October, best I can remember

Then a great surprise -- text arranging for two old friends to visit early evening. That was the greatest time, just laughing and catching up.

I'm five foot three and I tower over them! Left to right Shabnam, Moi, Girija.

Girija brought Diwali gifts

Tealights since Diwali is the Feast of lights, candy, scarves, an embroidered wallet, such treats.  

I served lemonade and paneer cookies, they were  impressed I'd made paneer (!) they both being great cooks, that was good to  hear. 

Girija particularly, when she lived across the street educated me on today's Indian food and spices.  And they're happy to hear that Amitha, my next door neighbor, who with her husband bought the house from Shabnam, is keeping me supplied with curry leaves, since Girija did that when she lived across the street.

They ran about checking on what I'd made since they last saw me, and loved the denim vest. Neither of them does anything like this, so it's all a bit of a mystery, and the socks I showed them, too funny to see their faces, how is this done??

I'm so lucky to have such friends, literally my son's age. Looking forward to seeing them again, too 

And meanwhile here's the cardamom tea I made as the first tea experiment of the winter. Pretty good.

Speaking of colors, I did finally get the new Kindle working, it's used to my touch  and I don't have to stab at it now, and found a lot of books I'd forgotten I had loaded on the old one and now transferred them.

I had a whole lot of foreign books in translation, a freebie from Amazon to promote non English writers, so I embarked on this, translated from German.

Set I think in Bavaria, though it's not specified, it's touching and easy reading with a tragic theme of pediatric cancer and joy in spite of it. It's probably a YA book, for young readers, but not childish. I'm glad I rediscovered it lurking in my Kindle library. 

I did lose a lot of Project Gutenberg books I learned to download onto the old Kindle, because there's no Amazon pathway, so once the Kindle went so did they. 

I'd have to relearn how to load them. PG is the anti- Amazon source of free classic literature. You use Calibre software to access them and I think my tablet isn't up to it. I did it originally on my now almost defunct laptop.

Happy day everyone, happy Diwali, lights in your life, enjoy!

And here's dear Sister Corita Kent, nun and pop artist who pursued pop art and joy despite the angry opposition of her Cardinal, there's a back story. He tried and failed to extinguish her art and joy. Art won!

Photo AC 

Textiles and Tea, two socks in one and a Paperwhite

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured this artist, who for once didn't start from a math background, but from the Cleveland Institute of Art

Her work is very painterly and fluid, and she's lovely, but her sound system was almost unintelligible, so I just enjoyed the slides 

She's endlessly interested in new ideas and threads and subject matter, and exploring texture, as you see, as well as color and shape. 

She's written a book on Split Shed Weaving snd there's a terrific YouTube video you can find if you Google on her, where she demonstrates it, and I actually came away understanding the technique. 

It's a clever way of creating more than one shed, that's the space between warp and weft that the shuttle passes through, to make tapestry like designs on a floor loom. Her video shows how her design cartoon is set up behind the warp, just as in tapestry.

I fancy trying this on a simpler, home-made set-up, since you just have to figure out a way to separate the threads.  It's been a while since I did a bit of tapestry, or tapestry -adjacent work.

Meanwhile back in my own studio, aka sofa, I unfurl the main body of the two socks in one. 

No matter what this reminds you of, I swear it's socks. For feet..you see the toe of one sock and the cuff of the other. 

Today I separate the conjoined socks at that join you see in the middle, to move to the finishing -- a second toe and cuff and two heels. 

And speaking of ambitious knitting

I took Handsome Son's declutter to the thriftie yesterday, and, after handing the bags over at the donation shed, stopped in to the main store to see if I could find a cheap leather bag for turning into shoes, remember that plan? 

There were some lovely leather bags and I guess inflation has hit the thriftie because everything is priced much higher than I'm used to.  So that shoe idea will be on hold until I win the lottery.

Meanwhile Gary is home from Florida rattling in and out asking for his keys, couldn't find his key to the storage closet which somebody had locked in his absence because of bringing in parcels. 

Then he wanted to update me on his hurricane news, all good in the end. Then he was back again to give me green tomatoes. 

Then he decided to get new keys cut so he wouldn't have to rely on getting them from me. So no doubt he'll be back with the keys after that. Unless he forgets and I remind him.  Never a dull moment when he's in residence.

He also sat with me to try to figure out the clunky navigation on the refurbished Paperwhite reader that finally arrived, a special price I could stretch to, now that I didn't have to buy a toaster oven. 

The toaster oven is  a handy way of not heating up the entire stove to roast a few vegetables, all part of my attempt to hold down fuel costs this winter.  

Getting one on Freecycle which works a treat, yesterday roast potato to accompany quick quiche, freed up some $$ to get the Kindle.  My economies are a bit byzantine, but they do work.

I really thank the kind people who tried to help with the Kindle situation, since, as Mary said, reading freely is a quality of life issue around here.  

So I'll patiently try to find my way around the PW, which is not very responsive at this point. I think it's one of those situations where once you've finally got the damn taskbar to appear, the device learns that and it's more responsive as you go. 

It's configured quite differently from the ancient Kindle I had, which was so simple I only needed to learn how to locate books to download, because the process after that was intuitive.

And speaking of annoying things,  for people still interested in yesterday's  puzzle questions: 

A peacock can't lay an egg, so the situation doesn't arise. The peahen takes care of the eggs.

The yolk of an egg aren't white, it are yellow!

And you don't bury survivors. They get to go home, vowing not to use that airline again.

It's all about misdirection -- the quickness of the 'and deceives the h'eye. 

Happy day everyone,  Want to hear about the priest, the imam and the rabbit who walk into a clinic to donate blood? Clinic attendant asks the rabbit "What blood group are you, sir?" Rabbit replies sadly "I'm afraid I'm a Type O."

It may take a minute..

Just a note to my dear Russian readers: my steadfast support for Ukraine is not in any way a criticism of Russian people, dear friends, but of the actions of one man whom you're not responsible for.  Just to be clear.

 

Kindle, meet dust, Misfits box

Misfits box yesterday and you see my dining plans for the near future.  

Pasta to accompany sauce made with these accidental gardening cherry tomatoes, collecting in the freezer as they ripen

Fresh dates to be inserted into wholewheat pita for breakfasts, Granny Smith apples and dried cranberries for a crumble 

Yesterday I made a chicken broth using all the recent chicken bones I'd been freezing as I used them, handful of the parsley you see on the counter, usual suspects, carrot, onions, handful of basil, and sage, simmered all evening in water saved from steaming spinach and collard greens. 

Today I'm going to skim the broth for chicken noodle soup except it's leftover spaghetti, cut down.

Things are less rosy on the electronic side 

my ancient Kindle having finally given up. This is after charging all night. It's been failing for a while, not surprising.

 This is one of the very first, long since off the market and I can't seem to find the battery to replace. I suspect it's also gone, since all the replacements I've found are for later models. 

I'm not willing to spend money and find after all the work of prying apart and disconnecting the old one, that the new battery isn't the answer.  

I'm aware that I'm opening this backwards, since you're supposed to remove the face plate and work down from there, removing 376 tiny screws as you go.  It's so difficult to lift the face plate without the dedicated plastic prybar that I was hoping to bypass the usual path just to read the numbers on the old battery before shopping. 

I have now put into my Amazon (I know, but they're the only source) cart for consideration a refurbished newer Kindle.  

But with my income and savings shrinking, Brit pension paid in cratering pounds sterling, mutual funds also cratering, and my expenses rising, I'm very reluctant to buy anything right now. 

Meanwhile back in the jungle paradise, the parrot is starting to emerge

Happy day everyone, chicken soup will save us all

Photo AC