Category Archives: Food

7/14/2019 – tennis, pig roast, DOG, drinks with David Drake

Sunday

Oatmeal for breakfast. Sunday NY Times on paper. Ellen Feldman.

Tennis with Ted at 11am. Played quite well. Won set 6-1.

The wrist somewhat less troubled. Got to focus on remedial work to get it back in shape. Watched lots of YouTube videos about wrist pain yesterday. Clearly I am suffering from DeQuervain’s syndrome. Found diagnostic maneuver that demonstrates this. Eichoff’s Test. Lots of approaches to resolving this problem. Cold, massage, stretching, strengthening….

Drove out to Claverack to Anna (Rachminov) and Allan Chapin’s estate for a Bastille Day Pig Roast. Multiple barns, huge house. Two pigs roasted. Lots of people we didn’t know. Karen spent a lot of time talking with a new person Catherine Dodge Smith. She has a complicated history as an actress then photographer, journalist, activist. I caught up with Carol Rusoff and her 12 yr old grand daughter.

Got back to gallery by 4pm. Guy came in gallery looked around and then came back just before closing to buy a piece of fabric art.

Drinks at Swoon with David Drake.

7/8/2019 – web project, house, UTMH

Monday

Up at 6 in a rush. Karen discovered that the upstairs toilet had overflowed all night long flooding the bathroom and now leaking down, fortunately, onto the side yard sidewalk. What a mess. I had clogged up the toilet the evening before. The toilet has been running for years. Now stuffed up, it overflowed and continued so for hours. Took five minutes or more with a mop to get all the water up. Amazingly none of it had escaped into the rest of the house.

Karen went to her exercise class. Put laundry in machine. Looked at the leak in the roof that had caused the plaster in the cabinet over the washing machine to fall down. Got step ladder and opened hatch to attic. It was immediately obvious that the leak came from failed flashing around the cast iron vent pipe. Have to find name of roofing company.

After breakfast I put off doing much of anything for UTMH and HAL that I was supposed to be working on.  Brief conversation with Seth and a few notes was the entirety of that work. Sent note via Slack that I would not attend tomorrow’s team meeting. Only dealt with nonfiction book group matters. Recent newsletter outreach by Tina Lesem and Brenda had produced three new people wanting to participate in the discussion of White Trash.

Just before noon Mike Herman called and appeared almost immediately to look at the front fence. He will start work in a few weeks. His daughter, who looks like a teenager but is in her early 20’s, was with him. Karen came too. We settled on things including repairs to the brick in Bruce and Sam’s house. She came out and agreed to an off-the-cuff $300-$400 bill for the masonry repairs. Mike will delete the priming and painting cost from his estimate.

Went to bank to deposit my UTMH pay check.Had lunch at Chinese restaurant by the park. Spent time in the factory working on the consolidation project for this website. Karen and I talked about her birthday tomorrow. Settled on going to The School in Kinderhook followed by lunch at Cascades.

For some reason I decided to tear up the rear deck to repair the rotten flooring. What a mess I discovered.

The supporting joists, particularly the one close to the sun room are severely rotted. Karen came a looked, too. I sent a note to Mike Herman asking for him to return to examine the mess and make a proposal. As I noted to him, “This is beyond the scope and scale of this weekend warrior.” I covered the chasm up with a sheet of plywood.

Made coleslaw and heated leftover curried lamb with vegetables for dinner. We ate in the sun room. Need to do this regularly instead of in front of boob tube.

Read more of Grossman’s Stalingrad – up to page 106.

 

7/7/2019 – lawn care, DOG, drinks at Swoon

Sunday

Listened to more of the Bag Man podcast about Spiro Agnew. Lots of things we have not known about before. Shopping at Walmart because Karen needed to pick up some pills. DOG gallery sitting. Mowed back yard with push mower for first time this summer. Perhaps I should look for an electric mower?

Drinks with David Drake at Swoon.

Received the following via WhatsApp from Jonathan on Thursday. He is in Vietnam.

I asked today where it is was taken. He replied “Nghia An, central VN. Starting point for Ho Chi Minh Trail.” Then he added the following story: 

Well, we’re at this goat restaurant in Nghệ An, we’d been there a while, maybe halfway through the meal when an at first faint and then progressively louder cry of a young goat was heard until it was dragged right past our table by it’s two front legs…. the goat knew what was up, we were within ten feet of the set up… it was really overwhelming… I cleared the fuck out of the restaurant for the last part… then they got to work on it, with the carcass but not the workers just slightly out of view …

He sent along these videos:

7/4/2019 – Bantam, Harvey & Betsy

Thursday – 4th ofJuly

Both of us have colds. Nasty little coughs. Left for Bantam at about 11am.

Arrived to find Harvey on his back in bed in great pain from his back and nerve problems. He roused himself after a while and slowly staggered to the porch and a new reclining chair. We chatted away the afternoon. Big topic was Lena’s mental health problems, most accute in the last few days. She was in mental ward at local hospital for a few days, now enrolled in a six week outpatient program.

Harvey was in continuous pain with no body position proving real relief. Took Vicodin and muscle relaxants.

Carrot Mushroom Loaf in the oven

We had brought a mushroom carrot loaf so we had that with some other veggies for dinner. I didn’t stay up for the fireworks. Got in bed and coughed for a while. Karen and Betsy went down to the dock to watch.

7/3/2019 – web project, work, tennis

Wednesday

Mostly worked on furthering the consolidation of old materials into this website. Lots more to go. Contacted Harvey about going to Bantam Thursday and Friday. OK.

Any scratches??

Went with Karen to Home Depot in Catskill to buy some shades for the back room. Ended up spending $800 for two bottom up-top-down room darkening shades from Levelor.

Brief meeting with Seth and a call to SOMML. They are already on vacation.

Checked out the correct grip size for tennis. Reduced my wrap by one layer.

Played tennis with Ted for 90 minutes at 4pm.  92 degrees, intense sun. Sluggish, perhaps yesterday’s 3+ hours of tennis has its residual effects. Still managed to keep ahead of Ted, though I called off the set early.  New wristband is a help. But this wrist problem may become disabling and require a rest period. Really tired at end of session.

Karen made her signature dish of chicken chunks with chopped cabbage coleslaw. Watched several The Closer.

7/1/2019 – yard work, Russian translation for UTMH, shades, lamb dinner

Monday

Spent a good part of the morning weed wacking the back yard. Also trimmed rose bush. Also work on Russian translations for UTMH RPM app. Had to check lots of entries for current language common on the Russian web. How do you say PulseOx in Russian?

Went to Marigold Home in Rhinebeck to look into shades for the Sun Room which is now overwhelmingly sunny in the early morning. Hunter Douglas shades on display. Sales person worked up a quote for us. $450 of installation costs and more than $2400 for the shades themselves. This is obviously a no go. Next stop Lowes and Home Depot.

I found a container of roast lamb from David Drake in the freezer. Made up a version of roasted cauliflower and lamb curry. Karen declared it to be very good.