First, I want to thank everyone for their kind condolences for the death of Padre. I appreciate them.
It is quiet now at Casa de Madre.
Last week I stopped by Madre’s house with my pair of steel-toed shoes. I bought the shoes a couple of months ago from Sears, which had them on sale. As they were 10½ wide, I thought they would fit well. And they do, for the most part, except that they rub my toes hard. After a day of wearing the shoes, my toes are bruised. Being diabetic, I cannot afford bruised toes, lest they become no toes at all!
Anyway, I brought the shoes (after Madre called my cell to remind me), so that my brother Bill can try them on. The shoes fit, so he got them.
Madre is sorting through Padre’s clothes, including his shoes. I chose two brand-new or bearly worn shoes that happen to fit my feet. All his shoes are 11 wide; but to shoemakers, ‘wide’ is a relative term. Padre has a pair of dress shoes which he wore only once (to his sister’s funeral). These are labelled 11 wide; but the shoes crush my feet, so I cannot wear them. Most of the other shoes are well-worn, and I already have shoes like that!
As for the rest of his clothes, neither Bill nor I can wear them: He is too tall and thin, and I am too fat and my arms too long.
I also got back the Braun blender I got for Padre as an XMas present in 2004. Padre had used it a few times. Then it was put back in its box, put under a table in the dining room, and forgotten until it made its way onto a shelf in the garage.
I ordered two items during the past two weeks. One was for two LED lamps like the one I installed over the kitchen sink. It has not come yet; when it does, it will go in the space under the stairs, where is little illumination.
The other order was for sugru, described by the customs sticker on the package that came today as non-hazardous silicone domestic repair material
. Its Web site, from which I ordered the stuff, describes it better.
Its use is simple. It comes in five-gram sachets, six to a package. Open a sachet to find a blob of sugru the size of a man’s thumb. Work it in your hand and apply it to whatever you want within thirty minutes of opening. It cures into a tough, firm material.
I am putting sugru to the test on one of my pairs of SAS shoes, which has developed hollows in their soles from extended use. I have filled those hollows with sugru to see if it will further extend the life of those shoes.