Minor mishaps

• June 12: Now edited with additional mishaps I forgot – and revised with a more optimistic ending!

All minor, but when there’s a lot of them, especially when we’re living during the Trump administration, where every new headline is ….. it’s hard to stay optimistic.

Anyways when I got back from Duluth last Sunday, I biked out to Middleton to get an extra stainless steel compost bucket and a combination to open the bin at the new food scraps drop off sites that Dane County is now offering. They take less stuff than the pick up compost service I already use, like only veggie scraps and coffee grounds, no leftovers or baked goods or meat scraps or chicken bones, though they do take egg shells, plus it’s a lot easier for me to simply put my bucket out on Saturday night for pick up Sunday morning than it is to shlep the scraps to a drop off site. But it was a nice bike ride after 5 hours in the car, and it’s a very nice bucket.

 

Probably the first mishap happened around then, after I got all unpacked from the Duluth trip, I could not find a Pact dress, on of my faves, that I have in two colors, dark green, and off-white. The only thing I can think of is that I got it out of the hotel room dresser, and set it next to my suitcase on the white hotel bed bedspread, where it blended in and I left it. Shucks.

Monday was a pretty normal day, except in the morning, I had to return the rental car I’d taken to Duluth. Mark followed and I had him drop me at the library for my regular Monday morning volunteering, then I walked home. It had gotten kind of hot so I felt kind of worn out when I got home, and didn’t feel much like biking to Susan’s to go to the gym, the other different scheduling ‘cuz we usually go Sundays. She was feeling lazy too, so I drove over, then made these rice bowls for dinner with CSA produce and tofu. Adapted from this Dishing up the Dirt recipe. The recipe recommends steaming the Bok Choy in a little water in the skillet you’re going to cook the rest of the stirfry in, and I was surprised how much I liked the steamed Bok Choy. It was really sweet. Usually to me the Bok Choy is another component in another dish like chicken with cashews, and not the part I like best. We got more Bok Choy in this week’s box and I think I will try steaming it again.

Monday night I tried making a Gateau Breton, using Ainsley Durose’s recipe. She’s an American who went to Paris for pastry school, and never came back. She has a coffee business with her French husband, and she makes all the pastries. I love to watch her little cooking vids on Insta. Anyways, it looked good but was way too doughy in the middle. I should have put it on the bottom rack for another 10 minutes. I’m going to try again, and I also found another recipe (by Edd Kimber, the Boy Who Bakes) with the same amounts of butter and egg yolks, but less flour. That might work better for me.

Tuesday I went to campus for a meeting (the person who’s the administrator for the Friends of the Libraries is retiring, and as a Friends Board member and book sale volunteer, I’m not on the search committee, but participated in stakeholder interviews with the candidates). Afterward, I went downstairs and brought in a donation, then biked over to the east side to meet a friend for coffee. We were having a pleasant chat, my friend is starting yoga teacher training, but it started looking darker and darker, so I decided to leave a little early and put my bike on the BRT – the new express bus. Which actually worked really well. The bus stopped really close to the place were we were having our coffee, and the rain did not start until I was on the covered platform. You just wheel your bike on to the bus from the platform, and there are racks, and big straps with Velcro to hold your bike in place which I didn’t figure out right away, until I realized the only thing keeping my bike in the rack was me and the silent but helpful person holding it. I got it strapped and we both let go, and after about 3 stops the loud kids in the back talking trash left and it was a fine ride in the rain. My destination bus stop’s about 15-minutes walk from my house, but I walked my bike holding my umbrella and only rode the last 2-3 blocks, and really did not get especially wet. On the sidewalk I was protected by both trees and my umbrella.

On Wednesday Jasper came over and we went to the zoo. By car to sort of keep ourselves out of the bad air. We looked for the tiger but didn’t see it. We saw the hippopotamus, and porcupine, and some kind of small donkey.

We leaned on the stone bridges and looked down at the goldfish. We played on the playground inside the zoo, but mostly everything there was too big for Jasper, so we headed for the playground outside the zoo, and ended up walking almost all the way around. Fortunately the playground side is near where the car was parked. And Jasper took a good nap that day.

Thursday there were two interviews, one in-person and one remote. After the in-person one, I dealt with one of my minor mishaps, the shifter on my old Giant had started slipping on the handlebars, making it really hard to shift gears. I had Ian tighten it up, but it started slipping again. I decided to take it in to the bike shop on my way home, and no shade on Ian, turns out it was cracked. I walked home from the bike shop and was in time for the online interview. I picked up box 2 of our 6 week CSA season, and made a stirfry with asparagus and shiitake mushrooms, that we ate with leftovers of the tofu bowls from Monday.

Friday we went to Chicago for a symphony. We split a sandwich from the food hall deli all too well where we’d eaten once before, and I thought we got the most boring sandwich (the Boatwich). This time I did talk Mark into the oh yeah. And it was nice enough to sit outside even though we had to go to the smaller, sculpture garden at the Art Institute because the larger, South Garden with the fountain is still closed. I think they’re working on the fountain, Mark thinks it’s just annoying. Someone was getting their wedding pictures done and we got to watch. They did the first look photos where the groom gets to see the bride in their dress the first time. 

When we were getting ready to leave Friday morning I peeked into the freezer and to my horror it was all frosted up. I thought what had happened, which turned out to be true, was the last time I opened it I didn’t get it closed all the way. That last time was Wednesday afternoon at Jasper pick up time. I bought a 4-pack of Costco plain cheese frozen pizza, and I wanted to split it with the kids if Jasper liked it. We had it for lunch after the zoo, and he did like it (I did too) so I ran down to grab the box with two pizzas in it for Emma to take. So the freezer was a crack open from Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning.It’s a roughly 30 year old freezer, so no auto-close or alarms. I grabbed all the meat and stuffed it in the three fridge’s freezers, and planned to defrost it Saturday. And off to Chicago we went. Even though I knew logically that leaving the door open a crack was the probable cause, there was plenty of time to worry that maybe the freezer door needed a new gasket, was broken, etc. Traditionally I defrost the freezer Memorial Day weekend but I forgot. So this got it done anyhow.        

Saturday brought another minor mishap. I went to the Farners’ Market early, and I was pulled up to the curb trying to get off my bike, the Liv that’s a little too big for me, at a funny kind of uphill bike parking rack, and I tipped over and ended up in the gutter with my bike on top of me, and scratched up and bruised my leg. I’ve parked there before – it’s near my former dentist and the credit union, which is why I was going there Saturday, to get cash hoping to buy strawberries at the market. I was so embarrassed, I didn’t notice that the handle bar shifter on this bike was cracked and the little plate that has the numbers fell off. And that’s what scratched up my leg. It still shifted just fine, but no numbers indicating the gear, the top was open and rain could get in, and it was a sharp thing on the handlebars.   

 

Sunday we went back to Chicago for the ballet. The Joffrey is doing a new production of Alice in Wonderland, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, who also did their Nutcracker that’s set in Chicago during the building of the World’s Colombian Exposition, instead of in Vienna, like the original. Mark heard about it and wanted to see it, and it’s only on until June 22nd, although it’ll probably get extended but we couldn’t count on that, and last Sunday was the only Sunday we could go. So two really close together Chicago day trips. It was worth it, a good show, and some amazing dancing, especially the red queen.

The bad air made an interesting sky on the drive home, visible rays because of all the crap in the air.

Monday started off pretty normal, went to campus for the last interview, and worked in the basement of the library selecting books for just a bit, then my plan was to drop the Liv off when I picked up the Giant. That all worked just fine. We were invited to a friend’s retirement party and the invite said bring appetizers. I had an abundance of radishes from CSA boxes 1 and 2, with more coming in box 3, and I made green garlic and arugula and spinach pesto, so I thought  I made focaccia and radish sandwiches with pesto. I’ve been trying to get this super easy focaccia recipe to work, and I keep flubbing it. Maybe because I mixed it Sunday night after we got back from the ballet, I didn’t put enough water in the first batch, so it didn’t rise so well. I over baked the second batch, but that’s the most recent disappointment. The mishap was while making the radish sandwiches, I shaved off a chunk of my thumb along with the radishes. Barehanded on the mandolin. Rookie move, I should know better. I didn’t have enough appropriate supplies to bandage it with so I wrapped it in a sanitary pad and drove over to Walgreen’s and spent $50 on band aids and gauze squares and tape. It seemed like it wouldn’t stop bleeding so I called the urgent care and got a triage nurse who recommended the ER if it really wouldn’t stop. And asked, “Did you sit down and put pressure on it?”  And I realized of course I hadn’t. I bandaged it and then put a glove on and finished the sandwiches and cleaned up and it bled through. I had Mark help me do a better bandage and we took the sandwiches to the retirement party and figured we’d go to the ER after. I went in to the party, congratulated the honoree, and transferred the sandwiches to one of her platters so I could take mine home. And realized that the bleeding seemed to be if not stopping at least slowing. So we went back home and relaxed and I kept elevated, and I really don’t think the ER was necessary. Though it was scary to change the bandage Tuesday night and see how much blood there was. The sandwiches are pretty though. 

 

 

 

And maybe my luck is changing. Last night we got a pretty heavy rainfall, and all parts of the basement are all dry. Yay!