Friday 3/1/2019

Started the day with a run, which went well. Usual distance, felt good. Then began doin’ stuff. Started the laundry. Paid a couple of bills. Sorted the tax folder and made up a spreadsheet (based on last year’s spreadsheet) of charitable contributions.

Cleared out another shelf of things. One thing in particular is a large brown-glazed earthenware pitcher in what I believe is called “piecrust” style, a supposed family heirloom. I can just make out words on the bottom, “THE BUCKEYE POTTERY MACOMB ILL”. I will look this up and see if it has any value. Then see if either a nephew or a niece wants it. What it certainly was, was dirty, from sitting for years on a shelf beyond the reach of the cleaning lady who’s rather short. So I washed it. Also on that shelf, two brass-colored (pot metal) candlesticks of no value, threw them out. And two large pine-scented candles in tins which were last lit for Christmas… 2000? I think?

Then cleared off the spice racks. Back on Day 2 or 3 I realized, I’m never going to cook again. In fact I do cook but in a very casual way: fry up a couple strips of bacon and two eggs in the grease. Chop up some fruit for a compote. Height of sophistication: the other night I sliced up an apple and cooked it in a dish in the microwave, and sprinkled cinnamon on it.

But nothing that needs spices beyond salt, pepper, butter and, ok, the cinnamon was nice. But we had many many other spices. Here’s all the jars after I finished emptying them.

Note that one in the middle with a date on it? We would acquire spices for some particular recipe, and put the jar on the shelf until it was needed again. Every once in a while I’d get suspicious about the age of some spice and I’d mark the date it was refreshed. Here’s a couple I noticed. You can see how in 2016 I said, this allspice doesn’t smell of anything!  (And no wonder, since it was then almost old enough to vote!) So we got some fresh and I updated the label. Anyway, that felt kind of good, to get all those aging spices out of there. I also dumped the canisters of flour and cornmeal and put them in the dishwasher. Only one full canister left, granulated sugar. I don’t eat it myself but I need it to keep filling the hummingbird feeders.

With the laundry all dried and folded I took a short nap, then went to work scanning old slides. I believe I said, somewhere back in the several days of nattering about slides, that I was only keeping the ones that were emotionally significant, or were excellent photographs on their own. Here’s one of the latter.

The story here is that around Christmas 1979 Marian remembered how when she was a child the family sometimes went into the City to look at the store window displays. So we did that, walked the streets of downtown SF in winter darkness, and saw a display of Fabergé eggs in the window of Gump’s. I looked down and saw this girl and grabbed this shot. I don’t claim any skill here, but that is one of those fortuitous compositions that just works, every angle is just right, the line of shadow, the angle of her gaze, the line of the hair ribbon — it just all fits. And it has been sitting unnoticed in the slide box in the closet since… 1980?

I got a bit sidetracked at that point, spending the better part of an hour trying to get my printer to produce something like the color tones of the digital image, on some quality paper I have. (Shit, I wonder when I bought that box of quality photo paper? This millenium, I’m sure.)

Now, coming up on 5pm, I have the option of staying home to stream the SWBB game at WSU, or going to a Stanford baseball game. Well, I can keep in touch with the progress of the basketball on my phone, at the baseball game. But what’s the weather going to do? Answer tomorrow.