I went into tier 2 in electricity last month. Only a tiny amount but I always wonder what kicked it over when this happens. Gas stayed in tier one.

Yesterday I went on the hunt for a couple of ingredients to use in the making of vegan ice cream. I was thinking chocolate and coffee particularly, so I wanted semisweet and dark chocolate and instant coffee, plus full-fat coconut milk and possibly non-dairy yogurt and silken tofu. I went to Trader Joe's first because I was thinking maybe I'd find good chocolate there.

No. There are nice chocolate candies but I found no baking chocolates at all. Could I have missed them?

And no coconut milk, no non-dairy yogurt, no silken tofu. I did buy other things, mostly fresh vegetables. Then on to Costco because I was thinking of potatoes and thought if I could get bulk packs of the tofu and coconut milk that would be good because they keep. No such luck. Of course I got the potatoes. No chocolate even. I was getting a little worn, a lot worn, by then.

Then to Vons. got baking chocolate and semisweet chips, good enouigh, and finally found the coconut milk. Well hidden, I might add. No non-dairy yogurt, no silken tofu except in the tubs and I wanted the sealed packets that go on the shelf. Those are getting harder to find.

But enough, anyway, I did get to make a chocolate ice cream and a coffee ice cream or maybe mocha.

Sometimes I just get to feeling so very tired, though.

I bought potato chips yesterday, ate half the bag. Then ate another Tofurkey sausage. Not low-fat, these items. I also had good stuff - black bean soup and another subway-type sandwich and pomegranate juice with sparkling water.

I used wii fit plus for 30 minutes. I did a lot of short routines, a lot of them balance-oriented. Because of my knees my balance is not the greatest but it is not as bad as it was a few years ago.

I went downtown today to buy some fabric. As I was driving through town I noticed Woodstock's, a pizza place, and memories of its "wilde bread" came to me. I wanted some. I determined I would have some.

I bought my fabric, got in my car to see if I could find a space near the pizza place, and failed. As I was driving along Marsh, though, I thought of an alternative. Another pizza place across from a parking garage. I went there and had their version of wilde bread, which turned out to be not as high in fat but still with plenty of herbs, and I was satisfied. It's out of my system. For now.

I wanted to get out of the house today. I pretty much want to get out every day. I call myself a "nester" but in some ways I guess I'm not.

So I went to a coffee place, had tea and an orange and wrote emails and stumbled around the web for a bit. I was proud of the laptop sleeve I made yesterday, crude though it is:




I didn't even come up with this idea. I got it from Generation T, a book that takes recycling T-shirts to a whole new level.

So I went to the coffee place. From there I went to Subway, ordered a footlong veggie, sat down at the back of the store. For some reason the chip rack had been moved there, near my table. I grabbed my chips from there before I sat down. Then a worker hauled a large cardboard box into the space near me, opened it, and started refiling the rack. She came and went, grabbing other large boxes, throwing them around, slamming the chips into the rack. It seemed like it would never end but it finally did. Then she pushed the rack toward the front of the store. So that was why it was back there - to be refilled. If I had figured that out I would not have sat there.

She ran into a table - BAM! - on her way to the front, then came back later to straighten it out, and finally to put away the remaining boxes.

I had been drinking lemonade. I decided, when I was done, to refill the cup and take it with me. But the lemonade had run out. I grabbed some ice tea instead and left, feeling sour. The noise, the slamming of the table, the missing lemonade all made me think about never going back again. I know that I will go back but for me it takes so little to get into a bad mood.

Once again I stayed in the first tier for both gas and electricity last month. Good for me!

Today I tried out a trail I had not tried before. I discovered it on the Paso Robles city website, where a nice little pamphlet is available to download, that includes a map of trails citywide. I had been on only one of them. Many are just little paths inside parks, but there are others that look more promising. I chose one of those.

It is called the Watertank Loop and it starts at the intersection of Creston Road and Golden Hill Road and is described as "Just under 2 mile paved loop trail". It looked easy to get to but when I got to the intersection I did not find any trail signs. I drove the trail, as it happens, discovering that it is entirely a sidewalk, although the sidewalk in some places rises and falls away from the street. The best place to park is inside a shopping center at that intersection, so that's where I parked.

As I walked the path, nursing hip pain unfortunately, I was reminded of Einstein's theory of relativity. There is no doubt that this path taken at a walking pace (in my case, about two miles per hour) is not the same place as this path taken in the car. So yes, time is the fourth dimension. It isn't fair to describe a path that you haven't taken on foot for this reason.



It's a good path for runners and even for cyclists. Not much of a path for nature lovers like me. But I was okay with it simply because it was new to me. I enjoyed a large oak that was clearly protected by a rock wall on three sides and no building nearby. I saw a little bird that didn't look right - it let me pet it. It was moulting, I think, probably could not fly. I worried about it but decided to let nature take its course, whatever that might be.

I felt the sun on my body - I didn't even think of the vitamin D that I was getting! but yay! I also saw a tiny bit of nature on the corner of the shopping center, where a large drainage pipe cut under the road and where water was allowed to sit sometimes.

The path surrounds a relatively new housing subdivision. Across one street I could see hills so far undeveloped, and across another I saw older homes with farm implements and steep driveways and I guessed that the folks in those homes thought they were in the country...until recently.

My reward was the Subway sandwich (veggie, of course) that I had when I got through. Very convenient, right there in that shopping center near my car. It's unlikely I'll do this route again but I will write about it on the Sierra Club trails site: http://connect.sierraclub.org/community/trails.htm I have added sixteen trails here already and hope to add many more. Eventually others will find these trails and be glad I took the time. That's all I want.

There is a reason I do not attempt many home improvement projects. I am not good at them. However, I can usually put together a piece of furniture or a shelf that is in a kit. So I attempted to put together a shelf that goes on the wall.

The item is from Ikea. I bought the box of pieces Friday, July 17. I have wanted this shelf for some time. The following Monday I screwed together the shelf itself. Tuesday I installed the hardware on the wall. The way this thing works is that you hang the shelf from these hardware pieces that you screw to the wall.


The brackets on the wall

With a little bit of difficulty (it is much better as a two-person job) I hung the shelf on the wall. I slid the little posts into the holes in the shelf, but I did not realize that the next step was to insert little pins to hold the posts in place. When I started to load the shelf with books it came crashing down.

Fortunately, no harm done. I looked at the instructions again and realized my error. I got the shelf back on the wall and started to insert the first pin. And the shelf fell down again. This time with disastrous results. One end of the shelf had broken off. I could see inside, could see the construction of the shelf.



If these shelves had been simply wood all the way through the solution I came up with would have worked. My plan was to buy long wood screws and glue and glue and screw the parts together. I decided to screw in a bit closer to the center from the existing screws.

The first difficulty was in finding long wood screws. I ended up with lag screws that were fat and had to screw in. I got one of them in most of the way but discovered that it was pulling the inside of the shelf out. The inside was not attached to the frame of the shelf. A curse on these types of shelves!

I went back out to get shorter screws, because I realized I had overdone it. I found wood screws at the smaller size and I started to screw one into the far end of the shelf, where it would go into the solid particleboard corner. For some reason I kept running into blockages, like there was metal in there somewhere. I could not get it to work.

The shelf end was starting to look like it was diseased.



I thought of other ways to make it work: getting some kind of angle iron to wrap around the corner and...screw in...that didn't sound like it would work; and liquid nails. That might work but it's iffy.

My sister called from Ohio to chat about her visit to Ikea to get some things for her new house. I told her my sad Ikea story, relieved to have an outlet. Somehow talking about it made it seem not so terrible and made me seem not so awful, such a klutz. Cathy offered to pick up another one of these shelves the next time she was at Ikea. Her Ikea is a lot closer to her than I am to any of the Ikeas in California, so I said that might be a good idea. Needless to say, this is not one of the items available for shipping direct from Ikea.

Yesterday she called. She had the shelf! She is going to mail it!

Yesterday's walk:


I met a couple on the walk as I was just starting out on the boardwalk. Middle-aged or older, with hats for shade, sturdy clothes and shoes. Well, actually, it's the couple you see most often in the slideshow above. The man came by and asked, "Have you seen anything extraordinary?" He had a British accent.

"It's all extraordinary," I said.

He gave me a disbelieving look and said, "You need another drink." We continued on our way but kept passing each other as one or another of us would stop to look at something. I noticed the two of them bending over to look closely at a plant and I came by and said, "You probably know what you're looking at".

The man said something to the effect that there is no good spoiling a story with the truth.

I did this lovely walk yesterday.

I did the oak woodlands hike in El Chorro Regional Park today. It's 2.2 miles if you don't take the extra path to Eagle Rock, which I didn't. I always pay in my knees, my hip, but I don't feel too bad right now. We'll see how the night goes.

I was determined to get back into hiking and now I am doing it.

Yesterday I did the Portola Point hike, a bit over two miles. I wasn't sure how I'd manage it.

A view of the hike:

From Portola Point hike

It took me about an hour and 25 minutes, longer than it has in the past. I stopped frequently to catch my breath. Initially I felt some pain in my legs and knees but it wasn't terrible so I kept on. I came to a time when my legs felt almost normal, a bit stiff but no real pain. Toward the end I felt some twinges but again, not that awful. I felt stiff and when I went to a movie later I had to work my right leg a bit after, to release the pain, get on with it.

Last night I took a couple of acetaminophen tablets to help me sleep and I slept well. No cramps, no shearing pains. Encouraging.

Curses. I stayed within tier one for gas but went into tier 2 for electricity last month. I wonder what I was using electricity for. More than usual.

Yesterday I drove to Santa Monica. I am going, with Elaine and Ed, to WorldFest today, and we are staying together in a nice suite in a small inexpensive motel near the beach. Our rooms are up there:

From Santa Monica

Up the stairs to the left are blue gates. Through those gates, a little outdoor corridor with plants and four rooms, including ours.

I took a couple of walks while waiting for Ed and Elaine to arrive. One thing I noticed on the first walk, down Main Street, was this painting:

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

I admit I'm a sucker for the Tromp L'Oeil stuff.

Later I went in a different direction, down to the beach. The bike path was not overly crowded. It isn't yet the season and it was a weekday. I did see a variety, though:

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

From Santa Monica

We had food last night from Real Food Daily, picked up. There are many vegan restaurants here. Today it's off to WorldFest. Where there will be many stands of vegan food. And tonight, more adventuring in Santa Monica. I love this city. I could live here - if I could.

Reprinted from the pages of WorstPills.org:

 

Swine Flu: Important Advice from WorstPills.org

 

As of the end of April 2009, swine flu (H1N1) had sickened almost 100 people in the United States. While it’s normal to be anxious about the spread of this disease, taking medications to prevent or treat the disease without having a full understanding of the medications’ side effects could have a serious impact on your health. The most effective ways to avoid any infectious illness are safer and cheaper than any medication. To avoid disease, the CDC recommends:

 

* Washing your hands or using hand sanitizer frequently
* Avoiding sick people and surfaces that they have touched, sneezed or coughed on
* Not touching your nose, mouth or eyes

What drug treatments are available to treat swine flu?

 

You may be tempted to take zanamivir (RELENZA) or oseltamivir (TAMIFLU) as a cautionary measure to prevent swine flu. However, these medications are not very effective against typical flu strains. A 2006 Cochrane review concluded that for prevention of influenza, “compared to placebo, [these drugs] have no [significant] effect against influenza-like illnesses.”

 

Further, not everyone should consider using these drugs to prevent swine flu.

The CDC is recommending that only two specific groups of people take the antiviral medications RELENZA or TAMIFLU to prevent infection with the swine flu:

1. Household close contacts who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (e.g., persons with certain chronic medical conditions, persons 65 or older, children younger than 5 years old, and pregnant women) of a confirmed or probable case
2. Health care workers or public health workers who were not using appropriate personal protective equipment during close contact with an ill confirmed, probable, or suspect case of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection during the case’s infectious period.

The CDC also says that a limited number of other groups may consider using these drugs to prevent infection:

1. Household close contacts who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (e.g., persons with certain chronic medical conditions, persons 65 years or older, children younger than 5 years old, and pregnant women) of a suspected case.
2. Children attending school or daycare who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (children with certain chronic medical conditions) and who had close contact (face-to-face) with a confirmed, probable, or suspected case.
3. Health care workers who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (e.g., persons with certain chronic medical conditions, persons 65 or older, and pregnant women) who are working in an area of the healthcare facility that contains patients with confirmed swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) cases, or who is caring for patients with any acute febrile respiratory illness.
4. Travelers to Mexico who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (e.g., persons with certain chronic medical conditions, persons 65 or older, children younger than 5 years old and pregnant women).
5. First responders who are at high-risk for complications of influenza (e.g., persons with certain chronic medical conditions, persons 65 or older, children younger than 5 years old, and pregnant women) and who are working in areas with confirmed cases of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus infection.

It is not known whether these drugs would be more or less effective against swine flu. Although these drugs have been proven in laboratory tests to have an effect on swine flu, the drugs have, of course, never been proven in clinical trials in humans for this particular strain.

Patients should also be aware that RELENZA can cause asthma.

Stayed within the first tier of both gas and electric again last month. Yay!

I am going out of town for about a week tomorrow. I figured it would be a good time to get my xm radio working again. For several weeks it has been receiving no signal, which is a mechanical issue, not an xm issue. It's the radio, in other words. So I called the auto sound place and made an appointment for this morning at nine, to take a look at the antenna.

( And thus begins a tale )

Once again I have stayed within the baseline usage for both gas and electricity. I'm proud.