Nautilus of Bloom

I talked to Queenie this morning, although she is traveling. I wasn't sure she would want to, but she did call, and gave me some lively descriptions of beautiful countryside as they barreled through northern Wisconsin en route to the UP. Every night I go to bed with the fond hope that maybe I'll sleep a lot and wake up feeling really great! That hasn't happened yet, mostly because I'm still coughing at night. A nap would have been nice, but it didn't really work out. We were out in the back yard for a short time, and it was a really nice day, but one of the neighbors was taking down a chain link fence with a saw that goes through metal, and the noise was truly intolerable. We fled back inside. One of these days, I'll feel like gardening, but the weather report predicts another rainy patch soon. "Doomed from here to eternity, baa, baa, baa . . . " (Kipling originally wrote "Damned from here to eternity," but I guess the Whiffenpoofs didn't want to get that eschatological.)

I boiled some potatoes and made potato salad, and had a chicken sandwich and potato salad for dinner. While I was laid up and doing a lot of random scrolling, I came across a woman who claimed that if you pare a single circle around the equator of a potator, when it's boiled you can take one end in each hand and squeeze, and the rest of the skin will just slide right off. Reader, this is not so. I tried it, and they don't peel off any easier than they ever did. I still had to clean up with a paring knife. Maybe some different and superior form of tater would do this neat trick, but mine didn't. Disappointment. For evening entertainment, we watched a free online lecture about the Queste del Saint Graal. This is our kind of fun . . .