Afternoon and Evening

I went to the art class and had fun with watercolors. Since I had enough sense to eat before I went this week, I wasn’t irritable. Of course, it helped when the instructor was 15 minutes early! However, he still  irritates me when he says “pitcher” instead of “picture.” But he did a good job demonstrating and teaching today.

I have decided to make rye bread tomorrow so I went to check on the caraway seed situation on our spice shelf. I thought we had some but couldn’t find it when I looked. Fred was going shopping while I was at the art class so I asked him to look for caraway seeds. When he came back, he said he had looked but couldn’t find any. So, I got in my car and went up to the store. I didn’t walk because although it is within walking distance it is difficult to get there walking because one has to cross busy and dangerous Main St. So, there were no caraway seeds in the normal spice section but in the gourmet-this-costs-five-dollars-for-a-tiny-jar section, there it was. So I got it. I also go a zester because the recipe calls for two tablespoons of orange zest. We have the oranges and now we have a zester. I will probably never use it again!  

This reminds me of one time many years ago when my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me from England. At that time, the minute he walked in, my brother-in-law took over the kitchen. Now, understand I was thrilled by this. I hated cooking and Victor was a great cook and enjoyed himself cooking. But one day he asked where my zester was…  Well, when they got back to England, my sister mailed me one because she said every house should have one! I gave everything in my kitchen to my younger son when I moved and passed on the message. I wonder if he still has the zester and if he has ever used it…

Oh, and later in the afternoon, Fred asked me to find the sage, which I did, and guess what was right beside it? Of course it was caraway seeds!

My brother-in-law in England called this afternoon and told us that they have recently gone through a very nasty episode with my sister. She is taking chemo for lung cancer, and apparently, a few days ago she had such an adverse reaction that she told him she wanted to die. He totally panicked at this. He has Parkinson’s  and although the effects are under reasonably good contol, stress is really bad for him. He called the medical people and, as he said, threw a fit. He told them what she had said about wanting to die and in the next thirty minutes a doctor was driven to their house by the police. Apparently, although she had been given medication to help, some how she either hadn’t taken enough or had not taken it at all–it wasn’t clear from what he said. So, now they have got a lot more help. They have visiting nurses who come in during the day and what he called a “twilight nurse” who, apparently comes in for some part of the night and monitors her so he can get some sleep. She was much better today and for a couple of hours she was out of a bed she had not been able to leave for three days.

I got through most of the day with just a minor amount of physical discomfort from two evenings of dancing. I strolled up to the drug store this afternoon and didn’t try for another walk at all. I found myself yawning about half-way through the art class which lasts from 1 pm until 3 pm. I have another Netflix movie but I decided I would rather watch the boob tube {Stargate: SG1 reruns}

Tomorrow’s list:

• make gingerbread
• make a loaf of rye bread
• go for a walk definitely
• possibly go for a second walk.
• read

There! That all sound relaxing, doesn’t it…

Until later…