Blue Moon

I just googled "Blue Moon" and learned some interesting things. Did you know that there are two different definitions of a blue moon? I didn't. Glad I do now. I am smart! And edjimacted!

So, here we are on a beautiful Friday in Geneva, NY - and I do mean gorgeous, and it feels like Saturday! That's because, Thursday night is my big night out on the town. I was supposed to get together with a person I know from OKCupid (our first meeting) but her allergies acted up so we have postponed our meeting. Instead, I did my usual foray into the dark underbelly of Geneva and had a beer at Microclimate! Living dangerously, going where the wild and crazy people hang out. That's me. I spell my name D-A-N-G-E-R! As usual, I had a decent time. Chatted with nice people who liked my friend's app - Fotovino - more than mine - Flippety - which makes sense since his has to do with wine and I was in a wine bar. Still...And I saw people I know. Geneva is getting smaller! Now, if only I can meet some people who will be part of my support system. Baby steps.

Other than that, not an exciting Thursday.

I got a royalty check from sales of Bar Dreams! Woo hoo! I think I spent it all at Microclimate last night...

I walked to the library and back. While at the library I reserved a couple of audio books and took a few more audio books out, from my current favorite librarian - who actually smiled at me. I guess she is slow to warm up to people.

I did do some food shopping and made a delicious dinner of hamburgers with sautees onions and mushrooms, green beans (a smidge underdone),  corn on the cob and another of my mom's favorites, twice baked potatoes. She sure does like those!

Ok, I am seriously tuckered out from writing (or at least posting) three blog posts yesterday.So I hope that my slew of pictures will make up for the brevity of the post. Paucity? Who knows...

The Check! Who is this Renotto Press? How am I going to cash this?!

Sailboats on Seneca Lake

Yummy dinner!

One picture of the blue moon

Blue moon over Seneca Lake

Getting Started, Every Day

One of my friends actually thought that I didn't like Tuesdays. That isn't the case, I like Tuesdays. Maybe he didn't actually read the blog post - though I think he reads them all! (Hi Al!) The post status was just something that popped into mind and was mainly supposed to be eye catching. I think I said No Tuesday is a Good Tuesday - or something like that. Oh well, a little ado about nothing. Yay!

Now, Wednesdays. Who the heck likes Wednesday? Who wakes up and says, wow, hurruh, another wonderful Wednesday?! Ok, I do. Well, sometimes I wake up saying, hello, uh, what day is it? But I do like waking up! Sort of. Sleeping is good too. I like waking up when I have gotten enough sleep. And waking up is better than the alternative of not waking up. I guess. I haven't, yet, not woken up...

Moving on. With what excitement was Wednesday filled? Well, you might ask! Chock full of good times indeed! Just a rockin' day! I, uh, sorted a bit of stuff - filled a lot of the blue bin in fact. Mom did some over the week as well. We are just a sorting and throwing away stuff sort of family!

Actually, where did the day go? Well, part of it was eaten by a nap. I have been waking up early (like 6 am) and working for a bit and then napping again until, well, later. And yesterday, I took it to a little bit of an extreme...And for lunch, I made tuna melts! My tuna salad needs some work - I haven't made it too frequently. But practice makes perfect. I made two different ones - one with cheddar cheese, one with Jarlsberg - which I think is a swiss cheese like cheese. One recipe called for the sandwich being baked - one broiled - one added a tomato - which I could see working - even though I don't like tomatoes generally. I think mom liked hers ok.

Later, grocery shopping briefly to get some spinach and some milk. I made alfredo sauce (easy style), pasta, mixed in some chicken, served with sauteed spinach and corn on the cob. Yum!

Today is a three-fer. Three blog posts on three different sites. (This one, the brewpubs one and the writing one.) One day there will be a four-fer - but I haven't found my cajones (left them at the laundromat) to actually post something on the political blog. 

Cheddar on the left, Jarlsberg on the right

What I didn't do on Tuesday

The Machine played last night near Buffalo. Not that far away, in the greater scheme of things. And I was sorely tempted to go. I actually timed it out and thought of ways to accomplish it - but in the end it was too logistically difficult to manage. Not because of me, but because of mom. Maybe she isn't as bad off as I think she is, maybe she could have fended for herself longer and better than I give her credit for. But I chose not go without her and chose to not go because of her. Sigh.

So, that is what I didn't do on Tuesday. What didn't you do recently? Hmm?

What did I do? I took pictures of the Chinese Chair and the Chinese Table and sent them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mom has been telling the story for years (and years) that her grandmother (my great grandmother) - I wonder how old she was when she died. Or what her name was. Hmm. Maybe it is in my genealogy stuff somewhere - wherever that is - it could be under the bed in the orange room - oh, I really need to make the bed in there sometime so that Mary Gerhart can sleep there while we are at Erich's wedding - which means I need to hide a key for her somewhere...where was I - oh, right, the story - that the Chinese Table had a twin in the Met. Which I take it to mean that she thought it was valuable. We think of things in museums as priceless or at least pretty darn priceful, don't we? Ok, I do. And I think my great-grandmother did. And mom does. So, I took a lot of pictures of both the chair and the table and emailed them to Sunny at the Museum. My expectations? I expect them to tell me that the table and the chair are each worth about $1000. Probably less...

Dinner was chicken and veggies - corn and asparagus. We hadn't had asparagus in a while - and I overcooked it. Sigh. The corn - well one ear had an unwelcome - at least at my table - guest - a worm of some kind. Yum! Extra protein! Except that I politely asked it to leave.

After dinner, I started playing my xBox game and didn't stop until, glarp, 12:30 am. I don't know why I like the game so much (Assassin's Creed) but I do. There. I said it. Now you can all stop reading my blogs in disgust!

Mom Monday

Much of my day was spent, figuratively, petting my mom. She woke from an intense dream and it took her about two hours to believe that it had been only a dream. Not fun. It reminded me of the time when she was on the higher dose of Aricept. Boy, that was a miserable month. I did get a little worried about her, because when she gets agitated she gets more tottery on her pins than she is at other times. I am toying with the idea of putting a gate at the top of the stairs - thoughts?

Other than that, I submitted Flippety to the app store. Now I just have to keep busy while I wait for the reviewer's comments. The only thing that I think might cause me trouble is that I didn't have the iAd animate on. If they insist on that, it ought to be part of the code they provide. Then again, there could be some HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) that I messed up. Or there could be any number of things...Just trying to not think about it as there is nothing I can do about anything until they tell me if I need to fix something. Not that I am thinking about it at all.

I didn't do much of anything yesterday. I did start a game on the xBox. Yippee! I don't think I have done more than turn it on once or twice (didn't even play anything) since coming back from the long trip with mom. Which also means that I haven't done much stealth sorting. I have been doing a little bit here and there and did some yesterday. Every little bit sorted is a victory in my book. The more I can recycle, the happier I am. More stuff out of the house, yay!

Mom and I watched The Man who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain on Netflix last night. It was pretty straight forward. Mom enjoyed it I think. An earlyish Hugh Grant effort. Definitely ok.

And Wegman's welcomed me with open arms! I didn't buy much - just some stuff for hot and sour soup I was making for dinner. It didn't turn out very hot or very sour and had way too much stuff in it - not nearly enough soup. Sigh. For dinner I also made mom some corn on the cob - I am happy that it brings her such pleasure - and a bit of rice glop to finish up two leftovers - some beef tips and some rice I had lying around. Yay for finishing leftovers!

All in all, a pleasant day was had! Yippee!

Another tasty dinner

Not Even 10 in the Morning!

It is not even 10 in the morning on this beautiful (though slightly humid) Monday morning in Geneva, NY. (It might not be before 10 am when I publish this, but that will be then, which isn't now.) Why is this of note, you may be asking? Well, I had a dream - not the same one that MLK jr. had, but I had one. It was about me uploading my game, Flippety, to the App Store. In my dream, there were no problems and the app just uploaded happily. Unfortunately, I had this dream several times. Which could mean that I will have to upload it several (more) times. Or it could just be the same upload happening over and over again in dreamland. Anyway, I woke up around 8:30 and launched xCode.

xCode is the Application Development Environment for making iOS applications. Yesterday when I tried to upload Flippety I got an error I didn't understand (which is neither new or surprising...). As is my methodology, I searched the internet for people who had the same or a similar question and read how they solved their problem. All of the answers seemed to me to be overkill - like zapping the PRAM - which, though sometimes a panacea back when I was doing tech support (1995) - and maybe a bit of voodoo - which sometimes works in the technological realm (heck, there be zombies in C programming) I honestly was overwhelmed by all the information. So I took the next step in my methodology and wrote my mentor, Bill, and asked his advice. He gave me the same sorts of answers. My decision: restart my computer and sleep on it. Which I did.

After my dream, I decided to just go in this morning and futz around a little before doing anything too drastic. In some things it is good to go backwards before going forwards. So I tried building the application again, but instead of for distribution, I did it for testing again. Which worked fine. So I went back in and futzed some more, with a little bit of guidance from the internet and got an error that finally made sense to me. The bundle identifier that I told Apple and the bundle identifier on my app didn't match. So I fixed that, rebuilt the app for primetime and tried clicking on the submit button again. And lo and behold, it worked! Flippety is now awaiting review by Apple. Fingers crossed that any problems they find are easily fixed by me in a timely fashion! Heck, by this time next month, I could have an app in the app store!

As if that wasn't enough to do before 10 in the morning. Next up was an issue that I have been working on for a long time. Not an issue really, a mom thing. I like to do mom things sometimes. This one was tracking down her elementary/middle school education. So I called Birch Wathen and left a message with their alumni relations person and we will see what will come of that.

Lastly, mom has always told the story that the Chinese Table in the living room, according to her grandmother, has a sister in the Metropolitan. So I called the Met this morning and, after randomly contacting some group, got through to the Asian Collection. I spoke with Sunny who told me I could send her some pictures and what I knew of the table's story and she would see what, if anything, she could find out. I guess I have some picture taking to do today. Mom will be overjoyed! Or not.

Anyway, that is what has happened before 10 am here in Chez Schoen-René. What happened with you before 10 this morning?

Yesterday, not too much to report. I spent most of the day frustrated because I couldn't get Flippety submitted to the App store. I cooked breakfast for dinner (plus a left over ear of corn for mom). And we watched an episode of Inspector Lewis on Masterpiece Mystery. It was supposed to be game night last night, but no one else apparently RSVP'd to Charles, so we gave up for the evening.

Mom's egg didn't fare very well

My egg was better on the other side

Flew the coop!

Late last night, I didn't look at the clock, but it must have been after 1:30 since that was when I turned off the light - I am guessing closer to 3 am, I heard the flapping of wings again. At first I thought that it was outside, but no, it was inside my room. So I got up, closed my bedroom door and turned up the overhead light - have I mentioned that I don't like the light from overhead lights, but prefer side lighting in general? Then I opened my large screened window and sat on my bed. After about three trips around me and the room, the bat flew the coop. Again. Now if only it would stay out of the house in the first place! But, if it comes back again, I will probably blog about it...

That was the excitement of the day.

I spent a large part of the day working on Flippety. Turns out that some of my graphics were in the wrong folders. I discovered this because there were two of the same graphic, seemingly, displayed at the same time! Eeek! They weren't exactly the same (otherwise the game probably would have messed up). One was full size, one was small. So I went through all of my graphics to make sure that things were all in the correct place. And the other thing I did was start to set up for selling/giving away my app. I decided to let it be free for the first 6 months and then charge $.99 for it after that. I mentioned to my iOS mentor, Bill, that I was having doubts about releasing it at all. He wrote back saying that it was worth releasing and that I should soldier on (or something like that). I have done the first bit - now I have to figure out how to upload a copy to the App store and get it reviewed. The review process takes about 10 days, I have read online. And many apps get rejected for many different reasons, so I am not overly hopeful. Another thing that Bill mentioned, after I had remarked that I probably wouldn't do much with the app unless I got at least 1000 downloads, was that 1000 downloads wasn't that many. And after doing a smidgen of research on the web, it looks like some free apps get 71,000 downloads. I will be excited if I get 1500. If I do, that will be the most of any of my products that are out in other people's hands. (I think I have sold 1000 copies of Bar Dreams - but I lost track...)

Food shopping went smoothly at Wegman's. I stocked up on things that we use quite a bit. Beer, bacon and eggs. Tonight is breakfast for dinner. Yippee! Speaking of dinner, last night was pizza (homemade) and chicken wings (frozen). Mom said she didn't actually usually like pizza (oops) but that she liked this one. Good thing I don't make it very frequently I guess. That is two things on the list now of stuff that mom generally doesn't like that I do - hot dogs and baked beans (one of my favorites) and pizza (another of my favorites). Well, live and learn.

After dinner, we watched a rented Netflix DVD of Antonia's Line a movie from the Netherlands. Dutch really is close to German. Lots of cognates at least. The movie was entertaining and worth watching. Not breathtaking, not depressing. It sort of had an Amelie feel in some respects. Not quite as clever and fun and bizarre as Amelie, but vaguely reminiscent...

I have finished season 2 of Lost. Yay! Only four more to go. Still don't get the massive appeal...

Yum, pizza!

Full Fun Friday!

Wow, two days in a row with lots going on. Now, it is time for a rest. Maybe for two weeks. Maybe not. One never knows what the future will bring, does one? And on top of that, welcome Wendy! Follower 48!! Two more to go to the elusive follower fifty, after which the sky will open and manna will fall from heaven. Or not. But I do have 48 followers for now! Yippee and thank you!

First errand of the day was picking up my check for services rendered to the Opera. I decided to walk, which turned out to be an inspired decision. First off, it was apparently the beginning of Freshman orientation. There were police barricades complete with policepeople helping the traffic flow sluggishly around the neighborhood. It might have taken me longer to drive downtown than to walk downtown with all of the traffic. Students everywhere! Eeek! And it was a lovely day. Nice temperature, low humidity. Just plain gorgeous, actually. I like the walk to downtown Geneva and try to do it as frequently as possible. Well, not like six times a day for no reason. But if I am going downtown, and have the time, I like to walk.

Picked up the check and cashed it at one bank, walked across the street to my bank and deposited it. I chatted with the summer teller, Hannah who will be leaving soon to go back to college - premed! Yay her. I love living in a small town! (Most of the time...)

After getting home, I checked on mom before heading to Walmart to do a slightly major shopping. We were out of a lot of staples: Swiss Rolls, Kit Kats, pistachios. And they were all less expensive at Walmart than at Wegman's. And I did get other stuff that we were out of or running low on, like maxipads, eye drops and pretzels. On the way up, I had dropped off a presecription with my phavorite pharmacist and picked it up before heading home.

Mom and I ate lunch together, interrupted by a little trip I had to take to help out on the Opera one last time. Sadly, by the time I got there, the issue had already been resolved - though I had received no call telling me not to bother to show up. Sigh.

I tried to get mom to come to Trumansburg with me, but she didn't want to go. It is actually a good thing that she chose to stay home as we ended up wandering around quite a bit. I got there and met Bill outside of the Rongovian Embassy. I had really wanted to go there, as the last time I went was 30 years ago. Maybe longer, actually. The thing I remember most about the place is that they had a list of Zombie (rum based) drinks that is pretty fun. Sadly, they were closed, with no sign of their hours. We checked on them several times while we were in town, but they remained closed. Weird. I hadn't realized that the Rongovian Embassy (Rongo for the locals) had changed hands frequently and was often closed. Oh well. We ended up at Gimme!, the coffee shop we had met in before. People kept sitting next to us, and I kept talking with them. None of them were excited about my app, but they all seemed excited by Bill's wine diary app. Yay for Bill! While we were there, he did help me solve a couple of problems I was having. Though I did also have a bit of an anxiety attack which did not fully manifest until I got home and was sitting in front of my computer again. The anxiety was about my app Flippety - which looks like poo and is cludged together - I know that people can't see under the hood - but I know what a mess it is in there. So, it is a kind of buyer's remorse - or programmer's remorse or something. Glarp.

After hanging at Gimme! for a while, we wandered around T-burg looking for a place to have a beer. Finally, found Ron Don's. Yay! We sat outside, which was the smoker's area, but luckily wasn't too horribly smokey. Very pleasant to sit and sip a beer and chat. It is great to have some adult time occasionally!

Back at the homestead, mom had made it through the day safely. Always a good thing. I made dinner - salmon for her and hamburgers for me. My hamburger turned out deliciously! I made two hamburgers and plan to have the second one for lunch today. Yippee! We also had broccoli - which I over cooked a smidge, and corn, which turned out well - though one of the ears I picked was not good. Mom got the good one.

After dinner, we watched Bottle Shock on Netflix through our Blu-Ray player. Yay technology. It was actually quite an enjoyable movie - though it had its quirks and oddities. I didn't know much about the movie - just that Alan Rickman was in it and I like him. Lots of other good actors in it as well. It was a movie about wine and the first time that American wines went head to head with French wines and actually won a blind taste test! Good stuff. If you like wine, like Alan Rickman or need a light interesting film to watch, I certainly recommend it.

A full on Friday! Rockin' it Augustus Style! :)

Our lady of Geneva in a park

The Closed Rongo

Where we eventually landed

Wherefore Bats?

I love the word wherefore. All the usefulness of why with a lot more letters! Wherefore say why, when one can say wherefore?

And why do bats keep coming into the house? And where are they getting in? I can't imagine that they are that desperate to get in that they crawl through teeny gaps someplace. And I haven't found a gaping wide open hole anywhere that looks like a bat entrance. The place where I closed up the hole in the ceiling is still closed, and the door into the room where that hole was is closed. Glarg. So the bat showed up before midnight last night and I didn't do anything about it. Well, I did close my mom's bedroom door and my bedroom door so that the bat wouldn't come in and swoop around either of us while we were or were not trying to sleep. I will look for it later today and hopefully put it outside before mom gets up and gets downstairs. I don't want her frightened by the bat and falling over. I wonder if it is the same bat that has come in the previous two times. I didn't tag those other two...sadly, all bats look alike to me (or at least these have all looked alike...). I think I will work on the blog for a bit before bat hunting...

Yesterday was a full today. Today will be another one. Yes, that means longer and slightly pithier blog posts! Lucky you!!

How full was the day yesterday? Three events (of sorts) and a bat! (See above). That is a full day. Thank you very much, thank you for visiting, happy Friday! Bye!

Sorry, just in a playful mood. Sleepy, but playful. And I have something still stuck in my teeth. I will have to work on that before long. It is getting really annoying. So, yesterday.

First off, the woman from the Ontario Council on the Aging came to visit. With a trainee. Both were nice people, which always helps. We spent a lot of time going over both fiscal issues (which was left until the end) and mom's needs. And, since one person was being trained, I got to learn more than I might have otherwise. Two of us asking questions instead of one. And deeper explanations of things than I might otherwise have received. Yay! They stayed for about two hours and we chatted a lot about this and that. Maybe even got two more tentative votes for my presidential candidacy. Maybe not. Hard to tell. And who knows who will be running also in 2024. But I digress. The end result was that mom is in the 15% bracket - meaning she needs to pay fifteen percent of the cost of the visits. Which means we get a lot more bang for our buck! Yippee! The original plan is two two hour visits a week, about 16 hours a month for less than $60. And the lead person was very aware of the importance of matching personalities as best they can. Mom and the home health aid that is. How likely that is and if it will happen, we will just have to wait and see.

She mentioned lots of other programs and I am going to look into those. Like HEAP (a heating bill helping service) and Respite (a service where someone comes in for four hours to give the caregiver a respite - once a month - free) and Epic - for the doughnut hole - which hasn't happened yet with mom, but would be there in case mom has some catastrophic illness - which of course could happen at anytime (or never happen - don't you love the uncertainty of life?)! Yay - baby steps forward!

That was the first appointment of the day. The second was mom's 6 month check-up, check-in with Dr. Ryan, her primary care physician. Mom thinks that he doesn't listen and doesn't care about her any more. I don't think that. He might be bored with her, but then again, he might be bored with all of his patients. Hard to tell. We only really see him for between five and fifteen minutes at a time. He seems to listen to her and put up with her asking the same question a few times in a row. Patiently. And he listens to and doesn't seem put off by me and my anti-drug ways. Oh, and he prescribed some different anti-anxiety medicine for mom. Hopefully, I will be able to give those to her when we are heading out to some appointment and she won't get an upset stomach. That would be pleasant. Anyway, we had a nice visit, with no new news. Her blood pressure was good and her cholesterol was a little high, but he wasn't too worried about it. She was 5'5" tall (wasn't she 5'8" at one point) and 152 pounds, which seems decent to me!

After that visit, we stopped at the library so I could pick up a book and drop off a book and then popped in at the laundromat to see if mom had left her New Yorker there - we can't find it anywhere in the house. Here's where I hope the Alzheimer's will kick in, but since it is a negative memory, I am afraid it will stick with her a long time. Sigh. Oh, and no, the magazine wasn't at the laundromat.

Fast forward to dinner - either I am getting better at taking pictures of food, which I guess is possible, or the food I am cooking is just getting more photogenic. In either case, dinner, though thrown together from the freezer and from left overs, turned out pretty well. Yay!

After dinner, I went to Microclimate for my weekly outing. Very pleasant outing it was too. Yesterday was one of those days where people are just looking inordinately attractive. It must be something to do with biorythms or something. Anyway, I made it there safely and snagged a seat at the bar. Too few seats at the bar, but then again, it is a teeny place. Anyway, I chatted with a nice man named Peter for a while. He coerced me into speaking German with him for a while. I got by. My vocabulary is totally gone and I am sure I murdered the grammar, but he put up with it. Later, a pretty young woman named Melinda gave me the time of day. I wouldn't mind running into her again somewhere sometime. No, I didn't ask for her number. I am not wired that way for some reason. Glarp. Then, a guy I met at court came in and we had a nice time chatting and drinking. I had three beers - one Pork Slap and two Moo Poops - no, wait, Moo Thunder? The first was supposed to be a farm house ale - but really wasn't much of anything. The Moo Thunder was a stout and a decent one at that! They are from a NYS brewery located near Cooperstown NY.

So, all in all, a good day! Yay good days!

Appetizing?

Not great

Not Bad! :)

Week of Wednesdays

I thought it was Thursday all day. Sigh. It has been a weird feeling week for me. Maybe because we have had appointments. Like the blood test on Monday. And today we had two appointments, about which I will opine tomorrow.

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! What a wonderful Wednesday! Ok, honestly, sad to say, nothing much transpired. We did watch Notes on a Scandal again - because I requested it from Netflix. Again. Sigh. I got it, again, because I was looking through Judi Dench movies for mom. Mom likes Judi Dench. Me, I can take her or leave her. Anyway, this is kind of an emotionally painful movie. Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy are both in it as well. I will try not to rent it again soon. Or ever. Not that it is bad, but twice is certainly enough for me.

I am on the second season of Lost. Still not seeing what the big whoop was about. Evangeline Lily is cute...

I also cooked some pasta glop for dinner.

I am terribly sorry that these last few posts have been so terribly boring. I just don't have anything going through my mind that is stressing me out, or especially joyous. And since we aren't doing much, I don't have much to write about. Not that I am complaining, really. I am glad that there aren't that many terrible things to write about (that I haven't already written about and am tired of writing about). And we do have things to look forward to. Like Erich's wedding in a couple of weeks. That will be good! Just kind of a lull point in my life. Tomorrow's blog will be filled with excitement from today (and boy was there, er, well, something at least happened...)!

Oh, I was surprised to see that NC declared the whole UFO club to be illegal. At least in NC. No more rewards for drinking. I wonder how that is going to affect UFO club membership and business in general for the Saucer there. I would think fairly dramatically. Less so in Charlotte, but somewhat. Very sad. And silly. Oh well, NC isn't really my concern that much any more. Hey, anyone want to buy a house in Clayton, NC? Please?

My mom got a letter from President Obama and she is very excited by that! My brother was kind enough to ask for a copy of the letter. Yay Karl!

Wow! Was that Tuesday?

Where the heck did it go? I blinked and it was gone. Now it is Wednesday. And part of me thought it was Thursday. Weird. Huzzuh! (Palindromic form of Huzzah).

Tuesday, oh, Tuesday, wherefore art thou, Tuesday?! (Wherefore, for those who don't know, mean "why" in this sentence...)

So, what the heck did I do on Tuesday? Oh, right, I fixed the problem that has been plaguing me for a long time in Flippety. After a bunch of searching on Stackoverflow.com and a long comment session with a poster named rdelmar, I typed in (or cut and pasted) some code that seems to have done the trick. I cannot say how excited this has me feeling. On the inside at least. I know there is always more to do - sounds to tweak, graphics to edit, but part of me just wants to try posting it and seeing what happens. I mean, Apple could just reject it. I can't see why, except for some Human Interface Guidelines issues. But there is nothing offensive in the game - no Apple images or copyrighted material. And it seems to work just dandily. At least on my 3G running iOS5.0. I don't have the mental energy to try and test it on all the various devices out there. (Ok, while putting off working on my blog, I redid all of the sounds and edited the one graphic that was egregiously erred.)

And that was the extent of my Tuesday. How was your Tuesday? Yup, no epiphanies, no great adventures. Oh, I did go to the grocery store and made some beef tips for dinner that turned out pretty well.

That actually looks pretty appetizing for a change! Yay!

Glop for dinner

Cooking is fun. And I do enjoy it. I know that I will never be a chef. What I mean is that I don't make meals that people would rave over. Sure they are tasty enough, interesting enough, but exciting, innovative? Nope, not so much. The food I make is fodder, decent fodder, but fodder nonetheless. Like the food I made last night - I baked some chicken, reheated some broccoli and made some rice glop out of fresh cooked rice (love my rice cooker) some cut up veggies and a few splashes of soy sauce.

My brain is full of stuff and I hope to empty it out here in the blog. Lucky you!

One issue is, of course, my mom. I try to deal with mom as if she were healthy, when I know she isn't. I don't know how much to do for her, and how much to let her do on her own. I don't understand the disease, though I guess that is where we and the scientific community are currently. Sometimes she acts like she can function normally, and other times she acts like there is little that she can do on her own or like no one is there in her head. As for the physical stuff, that has been an ongoing battle for as long as I can remember. She acts like she is feeble, and in some ways she is. In others she is hale and hearty. Sigh city!

Another issue is my game, Flippety. I am very proud of it and what I have accomplished. That being said, I am not as close to publishing it as I would like to be. I have one major issue, which I am working on, to solve. And even then, although I am proud of it and think it is fun, I know it is majorly flawed. And I fear (not a word I like) that it will do as well as so many of my other projects have. Which is to say, that the four people who get copies will say nice things and that will be about it.

Last issue for the time being - my oft iterated keening about the lack of companionship I have in my life. I know that it will happen when it happens. But that is only a mild analgesic for my migraine. Ok, migraine might be an exaggeration. I also know that the chances for me to meet a potential partner are 1 in 1000, so I keep struggling or straggling forward.

On OK Cupid, there are woman of interest - which comes in four different flavors:

Almost Interested - women I write to who appear for one reason or another and I write to them because they are there - I have expectations or even strong desire that they will right back or that we will ever meet or become friends or get into a relationship. For instance - a woman in England wearing a minni mouse outfit - sure she was appealing - but she lives in England and put "near me" as a requirement. Interestingly, she actually responded with a thank you note.

Somewhat Interested - women who appear and I think they appeal - I don't know if we fit or not. If they write back I am surprised - they almost never write back

Very Interested - people who appear who appeal and who I mostly fit their scribed criteria - if they write back, I am really surprised and pleased. So far, only one has - and she wrote - if I dated long haired freaks, I still wouldn't date you. Nice.

Crushed - people who appear on the list and I don't care whether or not I fit any of their criteria - well, of course I do - I hope that I fit all of their criteria and hope that they will see me and my profile and rush to write back in mere seconds from when I send them a message. Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha! Haha. Ha. Did I mention ha? Waiting for any kind of response is torture for about a day and then I let them go. Mostly.

Enough about that.

I know that there are probably some teetotalers who read this blog. Or maybe not. In any case, when I was growing up, like some kids, I experimented with alcohol - sometimes using the alcohol of my parents liquor cabinet. In my effort to clean my mom's house out of stuff, I am working through her liquor legacy - some bottles dating back to the 50s, I am sure. The other night I decided to try the Aquavit - only to discover that someone had added a lot of water to the bottle. I am thinking it was either me or my brother...very funny. At least I was amused.

Our super nutritious lunch

'Spection

Introspection and retrospection are probably the primary two 'spections of which I write. When I am not actively adventuring outwards, I have the time, energy and inclination to do some inward adventuring. I believe that both are important to leading a quality life. No real retrospection recently...

Right now, my introspection is focused on my right shoulder. It is hurting for no apparent reason. I think it is something that could be solved by Chiropractic, so I might look into that on Monday. Maybe caused by my work on the opera?

What else am I introspecting? My mom. She seems to be deteriorating. Today she asked me about Hobart and William Smith - and if there were two colleges and how separate or unified they were. My words, not hers. She has lived on this campus for 60 years. Sigh. But she can still fake being fairly competent. I don't know what to do. The good news is that I might be getting help soon. Subsidized help. That would be awesome. We are having a fiscal review from the Ontario County Aging people on Thursday. Always fun, fiscal reviews. Have I mentioned lately that I dislike the fact that so much of life seems to revolve around money? If not, consider it mentioned...

For those of you who follow this blog, you know that I am generally an upbeat person. I do try to, and usually succeed, at looking at the bright side of life. My mom often calls me Pollyanna (and no, this isn't because she has forgotten who I am). Right this second, though, I am a bit on the blue side of things. I just found out that my housemate will be leaving the house in Clayton, NC. Which means that I need to sell my house. Which wasn't possible 6 years ago and is probably a lot less likely now.  And selling the house is not easy 600 miles away.

Then again, I get two little offsets, and though the whole house thing is heavy and weighs on me a bit, my mood is lightened by a) finding out that the lab for mom's blood test is just drop in-able - and b) getting another little baby step forward on Flippety.

As for every day things, I make a pretty tasty cream of broccoli soup Saturday night for dinner. With a salad. The soup was especially tasty! I halved a recipe I saw in How to Cook Everything, added some cheese and called it soup! Sunday, we had breakfast for dinner: egg, hash browns, bacon and waffles!

With home made croutons!

No caption necessary

And it was game night again Sunday! Yay, we won!

A Day Like Many Others

We are not in adventure mode here in beautiful Geneva, NY. Instead we are in maintenance and routine mode. I think our next scheduled adventure is Erich and Shelly's wedding in early September. Though I might go to see The Machine play near Buffalo. I haven't decided yet. If the show were later in the evening and weren't outdoors and nearer (like in Geneva) I would definitely go. As it is...Right now the chances are fifty fifty. Well, maybe 51 go and 49 not go. Maybe 50.5 go...

So, what does maintenance look like? Well, just look back at the last few blog posts. Or here is a brief synopsis. Get up, work on stuff like the blogs, fix lunch, run an errand or two (or not), work some more, make dinner, do something in the evening, go to bed. Yippee! Oh, and we are up to 47 followers! Almost to fifty! How exciting is that! Welcome new followers! May you find a smile or two and nugget of knowledge here now and again!!

I finished watching United States of Tara on Netflix yesterday. Overall I enjoyed it and am glad that I found it and watched it. I think I have seen the actor (actress) who played Charmaine before. I was debating what to watch next, when it occurred to me to look to see if they had Lost as an online viewable show. They did! So I watched a few episodes. I don't get what all the hype was about. Looks like a standard science fiction drama. Oh well, I will watch it, cause that is the kind of guy I am.

I have added a lot of movies to mom's Netflix account for home delivery. The one we watched together last night was Mansfield Park. I thought this was either something mom mentioned, or maybe Netflix suggested at some point. It was a costume drama about the early 1800s - I like period pieces generally - and a romantic triangle sort of movie. It ended happily, of which I am a fan. The performers were all decent. Overall a good film to watch. Definitely rentable if you like that sort of thing.

One more bit to add to my online dating story from yesterday. Responses. I tend to write to more people first than others tend to write me first. If I am written to, I do my best to respond. Always. After the first response, though, there are no guarantees. I figure it is just polite to respond to someone who has taken the time to write me. Even if their note is something like "hey, I liked your profile." Better than nothing, right? My response is nice and open. And I don't say anything negative. I thank them for writing and wish them luck in their search. This last is a hint that I might not be all that interested in being the object of their search. It does leave it open for them to continue the dialogue if they feel so inclined. I mean, heck, I am on a dating site to meet people, not to reject them. Even if we don't end up as romantic partners, meeting new people, for me, is always a good enough reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Sadly, many women do not respond to the notes I "pen." It confuses and saddens me for a little bit. Then I move on, understanding that their not responding is more of a comment on them, than it is on me. I could write about all of the possible things about them that it is, but that would just be guessing. Sometimes, I do get a message that is filled with lots of negative energy. Love those! Did they take all night thinking of an answer that would be hurtful? Or was it spontaneous meanness? In any case, it makes me think, "phew" glad that they didn't respond in a positive manner. Rarely, I receive a polite, thank you, good luck in your search, which just seems the politest way to go when one isn't interested. Thank you to those that write those responses. Even more rarely, someone I write to first responds with enthusiasm of some kind. Maybe one day it will happen again. In the meanwhile, I will continue on, happily, with my life. Yay living! :)

I think I will make some soup today...

Wild flower bouquet for mom from Kelly

Yum - even sideways like this...

With a Daffy Duck Lisp

With a Daffy Duck lisp, many more things become alliterative with Thursday. Like Thuffering Thucatash! No, we didn't have succotash. We did have more corn. And some broccoli, which turned out just as I like it. Great consistency, nicely seasoned. I love it when I luck out with cooking. And I fried us each an eggroll from the freezer. Down to the last two, so I need to start thinking about make more again. Yay. Wow, how did I get to dinner without even going through the excitement of the day? Oh, right, lisping...

Well, the day started really early for me yesterday. It was court day. I wasn't particularly nervous. The officer (Hall) had said that they were fix-it tickets and would, most likely, be dismissed if I took care of registering the car and getting it inspected. Both of which I had accomplished. I got to the courthouse at just about 8 when the building opened. I didn't know how the whole thing worked and I like to be early in any case. Would there be hundreds of people or only a dozen? Would they do cases on a first come first served basis or on some other methodology? How intimidating would the whole thing be?

Since I was there so early, I got to sit and wait till they opened the doors to the courtroom (yes, Geneva only has one courtroom). While waiting, I made some new friends and also saw an old friend: Joe from Joe's Hots (a local hot dog eatery). He was there to see how a friend's hearing went in regards to a skateboarding incident. Joe is a huge advocate of skateboarding - trying to get a skate park built in Geneva for one thing. He is a very "hail, well met" sort of guy. And since the both of us are chatty, we get along pretty well.

Finally, the doors opened, and I sat in the back. I like to sit in the back sometimes. In the front sometimes. In the middle sometimes. Different places for different types of events and for my different moods. In front for educational things, in the middle for entertainment things and in the back for things when I feel I need to be able to observe the whole picture.

The DA went through a list of all the people who were supposed to be in court - some didn't seem to be there - alphabetically. He got to my name and stumbled a bit on the last name. Oh well - that happens quite a bit. I got up, he asked me if I had taken care of the issues, I said I had, he said he would ask the judge to dismiss the tickets and I went and sat down again.

It was very theatrical. I could live in a courtroom - as long as I wasn't the one being sued or tried or whatever. Fun stuff. I got my turn, the judge said, what was the formula she used - in order to serve justice - or something like that, dismissed the tickets! Woo hoo!

While I was downtown and only a block away from the farmer's market, I decided to buy a couple vegetables for that night's dinner. Ended up with hands full, I forgot one of my shopping bags - and turned down offers of other bags - too many bags in the world already - with four ears of corn, two heads of broccoli and a small container of four onions. Yay! Now I need to do stuff with onions, which usually isn't a problem for me.

I played one of my various roles today - the curmudgeonly Gus the Handyman. As I mentioned, I thought that perhaps the bats have been getting out of the belfry into the house, through a hole in the ceiling of the red room. Well, I found two acoustic tiles in a closet, and put them up over the whole. Go me! I hope they stay up and I hope that no more bats swoop into our lives! That would be nifty.

After dinner, I did have my rockin' Thursday night on the town. I headed to Leaf Kitchen to partake of one of my favorite beers - Great Divide's Yeti Imperial Stout! Yay! Chatted with nice people, drank yummy beer. A good time was had by many. I did not, quelle suprise, meet the woman of my dreams. Life is like that sometimes. 

And that was the excitement of the day. Most of the rest was the same fun stuff. I finished doing the graphics changes for Flippety. There is now nothing in there that is copyrighted that I can recall. Yay. I have two programming issues, which I don't know how to fix. If I can figure out one thing, I can fix all of the problems I think. It is a memory issue - how to dismiss from memory windows that are not being viewed. Doesn't sound that difficult, but so far, I haven't found an answer. That is today's mission. I plan to post another plea for help and hope I don't get answers that require rewriting the entire application, which is not in the cards at this point. I really want to try and post something to the Apple Store by September 1st.

The Courthouse - no cell phones or recording devices allowed!

My farmers market still life

The hole

The whole hole repaired

Wiggly Wednesday

I just realized that I called my yesterday post, which was about Tuesday, Woolly Wednesday. I am so confused. So if you are confused, you are not alone! I don't mind being alone, though it is better being alone with a partner, or so I have heard...

So about my woolly, wiggly Wednesday, there is not much to write.
Except in the darkness, in the wee hours of the night.
I heard a flap that I thought just might
be the wings of a bat to my right.
I turned on the light
and sure enough, there was the bat, flying around my room. It is not a big room - maybe 14x14. And though the bat wasn't huge, there wasn't a whole lot of space for me and it together. I closed the door to the hallway, so that it couldn't get further afield. Then I opened my screen on my large, almost french door window and hoped the bat would take the hint. It did. This is the third bat we have had in the house in less than a week! What is up with that?! I am not positive about where they are getting in, but I have an idea - which I will address today - the hole in the ceiling of the red room. I am open to other suggestions - except for the one that they turn into mist and seep into the house before re-materializing into bats again - or something worse. Hahahahahahaha! (That is diabolical laughter...)

Other than that excitement, the day was much like any other. I worked on blogs and Flippety. I actually finished a brewpub blogpost. Yay me!  I went to the grocery store and got some groceries. I did a chore - I finished hanging shower curtains in the bathroom - so mom can take another shower without getting water all over the floor - not that too much got on the floor last time - just now we have three shower curtains to accommodate her transfer bench. Dinner was tacos - though I kind of over cooked the two taco shells I had left and made due with flour tortillas instead. I actually think that is the way we are going to go from now on - they are a bit easier to eat than the tasty and crunchy corn taco shells. And we had corn on the cob. Mom loves corn on the cob something fierce!

While I have your attention, let me write about the anatomy of an online dating crush/session scenario. I go to the site and log on. I see a picture of a person who looks appealing. I click on her profile. Um, uh, not so appealing in a larger picture. Next profile. Oh, now she is more visually appealing. But wait, she lives in Brazil. Sigh. Next profile. Still visually appealing. And she lives in New Jersey! Tempting, but I will pass for now. Next profile. Ok, she is a bit nearer. Let's take a look and see what she has to say about herself...ok, good, all right, yes, oh, goodness, no, a smoker, politically conservative who has absolutely no interest in having another child. Next profile. Wow! She is gorgeous - though there is only one picture - this is a little alarm. Yup, a fake profile. Sigh. Hate those! Next profile - ok, she looks appealing. Nice profile. Not too horrendously far away - let's check - oh, darn, she only wants to date someone who is 1 year older and lives in the house next door. Not even going to waste my time writing. Next profile - attractive indeed, funny interesting profile, let's check - yes, near me is chosen - but according to the search criteria - near me can be up to 500 miles away, so...age is ok, non-smoker. Yippee! I will try. I will send out a hello message. Ok, at a bit of a loss where to start. The first communication is the first (or sometimes second) impression. (It can be second if the person sees a message from somebody in their mailbox and chooses to look at the profile before reading (or deleting) the message.) The note is short, pertinent and specific to their profile, funny if possible. Sign real name (like I would ever not do that...). There, done. Phew! Written. Hurruh! (sic) Now, the funner part - waiting for the response. Or, as happens most frequently when I write someone first - the lack of response. I start to think about what might be the reasons that they chose not to write. My appearance doesn't appeal to them (that happens). My profile didn't strike them as interesting (that happens). I am not in their age range or distance range (not much I can do there about the first - and the second isn't going to change anytime soon). Or they are really swamped with responses and might, possibly, get to me eventually (that happens). (Please note that I realize this is all their stuff and really has nothing to do with who I am and my value as a person.) Then, while I am waiting, I begin to make the sour grapes that Aesop instilled in my cranium so effectively - she isn't that attractive physically - her profile was a bit too something - precious, calculated, snide, whatever - she is too something - short, tall, sex oriented (not sex oriented enough). (Please note that I realize this is all my stuff and really has nothing to do with who they are and their value as a person.) Whatever. As time goes by, the grapes get sourer and sourer - eventually turning to vinegar right there on the vine. I mentally shrug, say "Next" and continue my search. Life goes on. Yay life!

Three shower curtains!

Doesn't look as good as it tasted

Time to refill my water bottles

Woolly Wednesday

It isn't cold or anything. I sometimes don't have a title leap to mind right away, so an old standby option is to come up with something that is at least alliterative.

Since I don't really have a lot of adventures or fun stuff to write about, I think I will write about blogging. And the dearth of comments going on. I mean, come on, comment people! Show me you are alive! Comment on all of my posts. Every single one! And tell all your friends about my basically boring blogs. So that they too can read them and fall asleep. It is way cheaper than a sleeping pill addiction. And they mostly probably won't do it while driving. While we are at it, tell your friends to "follow" the blog. I have been feeling abandoned ever since one person un-followed me. I don't know who it was or why they did it - but it makes me cry myself to sleep at night sometimes. (Ok, no, it really doesn't). (I didn't write this next part - just ignore it and pretend it never happened - the ad police are everywhere...) And, if I had ads on here, clicking on them would be a good thing. But I don't have ads on here, do I? See, I am nice and keeping this particular site ad free. Go me! If I ever get around to posting in the political blog, that site is going to be commercial! Heck yeah! I can already here the pennies clinking together in my wallet! Yea, baby! And I think for my beer blog, I am going to add targeted ads. At least it is worth a try. I made $.06 in July and I hope to double that in August!

Moving on - yesterday was a pretty quiet day. I spent most of it writing blogs and working on Flippety. I added and changed about 30 graphics, which is a start. I still have quite a few more to go. I still am way behind on my brewpub blog. There are seven posts that I have started and not finished. And there are a bunch more that I haven't even started. And I thought a bit about my first political blog to publish. I am leaning towards writing about mandatory national service. Heck, I would do national service now if circumstances permitted.

I did make a pasta glop for dinner that turned out pretty well.

We also watched a movie. Has anyone else seen Girl with a Pearl Earring? I was seriously underwhelmed. Scarlett was pretty to look at, but that was about it. Well, that and the glimpse of 1600s living. Other than that - ho hum, yawn. Rent it only if you like watching paint dry. Just my opinion...

Pasta glop and spinach! Colorful, n'est-ce pas?

Zip, Zoom, Zowie

I love the letter Zed (or Zee as we Americans call it). What a great looking letter! And the sound it makes (most of the time)! Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Love it!

Anyway, yesterday was a zip, zoom, zowie sort of day. I took Kelly back to her place in Connecticut and mom came along for the ride. It seemed to take a long time to get there. Mom was not comfortable in the back seat. Not surprising, actually. She doesn't like to take the backseat (if you get my drift...). But we did make it to CT eventually. We had planned on picking up a portrait that a family friend had done of Karl, but that didn't work out. So we just turned around and headed back to Geneva. Though the GPS had different plans. We didn't just turn around. For some reason, going back on 84 wasn't going to cut it, so again, it took us on a scenic route. I am not sure why one way's directions are good enough for that way, but not good enough to just go back on. But I do like my GPS and don't mind trying new routes. In fact, I like new routes, usually. This one wasn't so bad!

It made sense to me to make the return trip more of an adventure than it otherwise would have been because I had mom with me. That being said, I don't really know what sort of adventures mom now likes - she used to be very into museums and the like. Now, she just goes on my adventures with me. This adventure, to yet another brewpub. For those of you who don't know, I am working on a blog that will turn into a book perhaps, about brewpubs. I figured in a city the size of Albany, there had to be at least one brewpub. And I was correct. There are two. I went to the first one that popped up: C. H. Evans Brewing Company at the Albany Pump Station. I will post a full impression on my brewpub blog. Maybe even later today. We shall see. In a nutshell, it was a decent place that I might go to again, after I explore other places in the area.

The entire drive was really long, taking up much of the day, so I don't really have much to report. Maybe tomorrow will bring more excitement!

In all its glory!

Beautiful mackerel sky!

Random church spire picture...

Brinner

Most of my day was spent puttering around on Flippety. I know the game has issues, but they are ones that I don't know how to fix. Yet. So I am fixing what I can and going on with my life. Sadly, one of the things that I don't know how to fix is going to also get the game kicked back from Apple. (An iAd issue) The things I can fix, I am fixing: graphics - trying to cull the ones that are copyrighted and not sized appropriately; and sound - I have a few sounds that needed tweaking. I am still working on both of those though I accomplished a good bit. I also did get iAds working (for the most part). Turns out that there was a step missing that no one anywhere explicates (connecting the delegate to the ad banner). I found the answer where I find a lot of my answers - on Stackoverflow.com.

Other than that, it was a pretty lazy day. I did manage to put up two of the three shower curtains. Cleaned the kitchen a few times. Made lunch. The regular stuff.

Oh, I have been spending a bunch of time on OkCupid - thanks to Marie's suggestion. I like the site, overall. It does seem to promote creativity and curiosity. Sure, there are the slackers who don't bother to answer any questions. And there are a few of the scammers with fake pictures and profiles. But they are easily weeded out. So far, I haven't found anyone too exciting. Well, there is one person, but she is too young and I haven't written her. Yet. Probably tomorrow (which never comes).

What does one call breakfast for dinner? Brinner seems to be a good solution. Brupper? Deakfast? Anyway, that's what we had last night - a Sunday night tradition, sort of, here at Chez Schoen-René. And what a brinner feast it was! We had bacon, ah bacon, an egg, hash browns and waffles. I haven't ever made waffles from scratch before. I have made them using bisquick. And I have made them both at Perkin's when I worked there years ago and at several motels around the country, but this was the first time that I have made them from scratch. They turned out pretty well. But they are a lot harder than pancakes! Goodness gracious. Separating eggs? Beating egg whites? I used sour cream in mine rather than just milk. And blueberries. I think everyone enjoyed the meal. I know I did!

It was game night! It hasn't been game night, for me at least, in a long while. We played a cooperative game that we played before, but we didn't do very well. Nor did we finish the game. Charles has a curfew. Tatiana and Jack, newbies, came to play. As did Daniel. Fun stuff!

Waffles!

Brinner!

Game!

Godspell again

I have seen a few versions of Godspell. Last night's was one of the more creative attempts. In a positive way. I only wish they would have tuned the piano...Seriously, the show was dandy. The direction and choreography were fun. What was lacking was some singing ability and some acting ability. Everyone tried very hard and enjoyed themselves. And I love the music from the show. So, I am glad I went. Yay! I did drag mom and Kelly along and they both seemed to enjoy it as well. Oh, for those who don't know, Godspell is a musical from the 70s that relates some of one of the books of the Gospel - St. Mark, I think. Mom and I saw the original production years ago.

That was our excitement for the day. Yippee! Not much else happened, actually. I made really good pizza for dinner - my pizza is getting better - I think a bit of rotating the pizza stone and a few more minutes cooking would have yielded an even better result, but overall I am very pleased with our dinner last night.

I took a nice walk downtown in a vain attempt to purchase pre-sale tickets for Godspell. Also went and did some shopping - mainly buying a waffle iron. I couldn't find the 800 year old one here in the house. Which is probably just fine, except for the asbestos covered power cord...

Wow, yet another nice day! Huzzuh!

Turned out pretty well!

Kelly and Mom all dressed up for the theatre

Fun Friday at the Glass Museum

Our agenda was to get mom up and showered and out the door by 11. Well, that was the first agenda. I rethought it after I found out that the Corning Glass Museum didn't close until 8 at night. A lot more breathing room than I thought we had. Yay breathing room.

I really don't like to wake mom up. I have to do it sometimes, but don't like it. She is so scared and disoriented when I first wake her. Sigh. But we did have places to go, things to do, so wake her, I did. She eventually made it to the shower. Her first try with the sitting shower. All things considered it went very well. She even said she might make showers a weekly event. Yippee! I do need to get new shower curtains so that I can effectively wall her and the water into the tub. The chair presents a challenge to the curtain's closure. Oh, and I want to get some gaffers tape to tape up the board. I kicked it at least three times and it would be nicer to kick something a smidge softer.

Lunch was lunch - Kelly had cereal (breakfast for lunch) - mom had her usual and I continued on my PB&J kick. I think I might do it yet again today. Working through the last bits of a few jams and jellies that have been hanging around the fridge for a while. Yay cleaning out the fridge by eating!

The drive to Corning was beautiful. Everything is very green around here. I tried to interest my passengers in counting the wineries - but they didn't rise to the bait. I guess they aren't fish. Anyway, I think there are around 20 of them on this (the West) side of Seneca Lake. One day, I will go on a wine tasting jaunt and see how many I can find and do. Maybe after Kelly leaves. We got to Watkins Glen and found a bit of a traffic snafu due to a race weekend. Oops. Not a biggie. It took us 10 minutes instead of 3 to get through town. Onwards towards Corning, we stopped at an expensive gas station to get gas. My car did 43 miles per gallon! Yippee!!! And it got a bath - we had a cloud burst while driving. Free car washes are great!

Corning Glass Museum was a little more crowded than the last time we were there - over a year ago. School groups, tours and just more people. And mom didn't get "local" ticket prices this time. Oh well. Kelly had her AAA card which gave us all a decent discount. First stop, glass demo - second stop - fiber optics demo - third stop, well, not really a stop, contemporary glass. By that point, mom was tuckered so she and I sat outside for a while, so Kelly could get her fill of all the things that the museum offered. Great place. Well worth a visit from anyone who comes near the area. Sadly, mom did not do as well this time as she did last time. Perhaps it is because she has more of an audience with Kelly around. Or perhaps because she has in fact deteriorated. Or perhaps because she was just tired for some reason. Who knows?

The original plan had been to stop at the actual Glen in Watkins Glen - but everyone was tired enough to agree to just head home. Since I had thought we were going to brewpub (yes, I used that as a verb) for dinner, I hadn't planned a menu. So I decided that last night was going to be shrimp eggroll night! Yay!

The eggrolls turned out well - and I made some rice. Everything else was leftovers. Again, yay for cleaning out the fridge by eating!

Last night turned out to be movie night as well! We watched An Education which was pretty enjoyable. I had fears that it might turn out tragically, but it didn't. I don't like tragedies as well as I like feel good movies. Some people really do enjoy feeling bad. Weird. To each their own. Hmm, I wonder what is next on the list from Netflix. I like putting lots of things on the list at one time so I don't really remember what I put on there without looking. As I have said before, I like surprises - generally.

All in all a great day! Let's see what today brings!

The new hot glass stage

Bowl making in action

Still like this!

Made with fused glass rods!

Yes, that is glass

Mom liked this more than Kelly and I did

Yay glass fruit for giants!