Fixing the chess pieces

Thursday February 17, 2011 Day 232

We had soy milk in our tea this morning and, while it isn’t the same as cow’s milk, it is a nice addition to the English breakfast tea we habitually.

While I was sitting around this morning, I cut out small circles of felt for Roger’s chess pieces. The pieces are weighted, and some of the weights have loosened. They press against the very thin felt on the bottom, and some of the pieces of felt have loosened and the weights have come out. Our plan is to glue pieces of x-ray film (nice, sturdy plastic - at last we have found a use for those x-ray films we walked out of our health exam with!) onto the base, then glue felt over that to provide a smooth, durable base. We intend to do all the pieces, not just those that have loose weights, as the Roger glued most of the loose weights into place last week.

This afternoon I rode with Mariannick out to Maggie’s house to see Frida, story of Frida Kahlo, an important artist in Mexico at the turn of the last century. For January, the book club read The Lacuna, which is the story of Frida as told by an imaginary cook in her household. I missed the book club meeting because we were in Texas, and didn’t read the book either, but it is on my list.

It was cold all day, and rainy as well. When Mariannick dropped me off, I still had a 10-minute walk to get home. It was drizzling slightly, and as I walked past a tea shop, I realized how good a cup of tea would be. I called Roger, told him I was five minutes out, and asked him to have a pot of tea ready for me when I got home. He, of course, obliged. How good it was!!!

The plan for the chess pieces was to do them on a Saturday evening or Sunday, since the chess club does not meet on Sunday. This would give them 24 hours to dry before putting pressure on the glued-on x-ray film and felt. However, there was no chess because of the rain, so Roger spent the afternoon gluing on the film and the felt, and the pieces looked very nice.