There is a fine coat of dust on many of the surfaces in my house, at least the ones that I have not cleaned yet. And no not like dust in the Phillip Pullman books, that’s an elementary particle, the stuff of angels. This is plaster dust, fine dust that sifts in everywhere, and it’s in the house because we had to get rewired because while repairing siding & blowing in insulation they found an abundance of knob & tube in the walls. Even a lot of the new wiring was just hooking on to the knob and tube. It took 2 weeks, so first there was the dust from the electricians and then for another week and a half there was dust from the plaster patchers. Now finally most of the work is back outside where it should be.
Not that I’ve been home a ton this week to endure the dust. Fortunately. It was the first of my two consecutive weeks of two Jasper days – Mondays and Thursdays – while Emma’s parents are on a walking tour in Cornwall. Lucky them. I’d love to be doing anything with walking in the name, but I am still restricted. I actually got the crutches out this morning (Sunday) for going up & down the stairs, because my knee was hurting. More on that in a minute. So two Jasper days, plus a trip to Chicago on Friday.
Jasper eating parsnips and his bib on Thursday
Wednesday was my work retirement party. I was pretty nervous about it – being the center of attention and all – but it was pretty fun. In the morning I woke up by myself since Mark was in Chicago, and I took this picture. Two views of me, roughly 50 years apart. I guess so far I am still recognizably the same person I was at 18.
On Saturday, I finally made the leftover carrot risotto that was my first original recipe for this year’s CSA into arancini.
They have little cubes of this crazy hot habanero cheese inside, that I picked up from the basket at Metcalfe’s where they put small pieces of expensive cheeses so you can try them out without spending a lot of money – I think it was about $1.19. Willy Street has that basket, too. Anyways I thought the butter and cheese and rice in the risotto would tone down the habanero, but it still had a kick even in the balls. We ate them for dinner with leftover-from-mothers-day asparagus tart, and marinara sauce that didn’t make it onto the Saturday before’s pizza. I also processed a lot of rhubarb Saturday: rhubarb crumble muffins that came out too soggy (they got composted later in the week); chopped, and a big batch of puree using some of this year’s fresh rhubarb and the last bag of frozen from last year. I refilled said bag with this year’s rhubarb & froze it. Maybe all the standing in the kitchen on Saturday was what made my knee hurt, rather than the walking in Chicago on Friday – oh, wait I know – cumulative effect!
I was kind of auditioning the rhubarb crumble muffins and the asparagus tart as possibilities for my originals for CSA recipes, but I had the night to myself Monday (Mark was in Chicago, again) and I made asparagus salad instead, based on Ottolenghi, sans green beans.
Kinda flat and soggy rhubarb muffins
I guess I spent so much time writing recipes on the weekend, that’s my excuse for not finishing this post. I started writing this on Sunday, and it is now Wednesday and I am finally following up.
Besides food and house construction, the main event is I had my sportsmed visit yesterday, and rather than being pronounced cured, the sportsmed doc said he was sorry but doesn’t have the diagnostic tools to be able to tell if the fracture is actually healing. If I do nothing, aside from the pain, the big problem is that little pieces of the bone could get loose and cause trouble. The MRI at the beginning of April didn’t indicate that there was anything loose, but I guess it could still happen. The new knee words were spoken. He referred me to an orthopedic surgeon, with assurances that just seeing this guy doesn’t commit me to surgery, but the surgeon should be better able to tell what’s happening.
Mark said, “well maybe when you go in you should ask them about your other knee, since the right one is going, it’s probably only a matter of time till the left one goes as well. After all, you don’t want to be surprised”. I didn’t hit him.
We had almost full English breakfast on Sunday – no blood sausage, home made baked beans and bread for toast
On Saturday we biked to the farmers market and I was allowed to walk one side, then I waited at Colectivo for Mark to go round the rest. He brought back nice flowers.
And I guess that’s all the news for now.