More Media

I have been working through as much media as my brain and eyes can manage. I recently watched all of Lost and was not overwhelmed. I enjoyed it, just not wowed. Currently I am watching the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which, over all, I am also enjoying. I think I am about to finish season three. Next up, maybe Farscape. The piece of one episode I watched once didn't impress me all that much - but it gets a lot of raves, so I am pushing it up my list a bit.

I also am always trying to keep mom entertained. Most recently, I made mom watch Inglorious Basterds. It was surprisingly good. I hadn't realized it was a Quentin Tarantino movie when I requested it from NetFlix. A little on the violent, bloody side - but I think that mom enjoyed it overall as well. She has problems with movies the plots of which are too complicated. We might have to watch more sitcoms and kids movies - though I don't enjoy explaining humor to her. Sigh.

We watched Emma together - which I had seen before - not sure if she had or not. And I let her watch Remains of the Day on her own - I had seen it before and wasn't too interested in seeing it again. I keep offering to put on one of the Madagascar movies for her, but she hasn't taken me up on it yet. (Thank you Jeff!)

On the xBox front, I have finished with Fallout, New Vegas for the time being. Though I do sort of hate going back to games once I finish them...The great thing about that game, was that there was lots of time spent waiting for things to load - which gave me a lot of time to sort. Ok, sort of a mixed blessing, but I don't like to just sort. It gets a bit boring - though I do enjoy the satisfaction of emptying boxes and recycling lots of paper! Right now I am playing an RPG called Risen, which is ok, not great.

Audio books. I haven't been able to bring myself to read a real book in a long time. I was miffed to see the other day, that the last book in the WOT series has been postponed again. It was supposed to be out in March - then in November and now it is January, 2013. Eeek. Anyway, I have been listening to some classics and then some of whatever pops into my hand at the library. Speaking of which, I need to head to the library soon and replenish my supply!

Netflix versus Hulu vs Cable - I don't like commercials - well, that isn't strictly true - I do like some commercials sometimes. I would, as I have mentioned before I believe, watch a network that just had commercials on it. Not all the time, but occasionally for a while. I don't enjoy bad commercials. And I don't enjoy commercials breaking up a show I am watching. I like continuity, not choppiness. So, I don't enjoy commercial television if I can avoid it. I don't pay for Hulu Plus, so it gives me commercials. Poop. That leaves Netflix which is my friend, currently.

Speaking of commercial Television - I try not to get sucked into new shows if I can avoid them. I love Sherlock Holmes, so I thought I would try the new Sherlock show - Elementary. I was not thrilled. I don't think I will go out of my way to watch it again.

And look, my eyeballs (and eardrums) haven't rotted away to nothing. Yet.

Gas

Mom has been complaining of an excess of gas for the whole time that I have been here. I was trying and trying to think of where it could come from. I know that certain foods can produce more gas than others. I thought perhaps it might have something, therefore, to do with her diet. But I keep changing the foods we eat, and yet she still has a lot of gas. Yay. What fun. Then, the other day, I had an epiphany. She uses an anti-apnea machine at night. This machine continually pushes air into her nose while she is sleeping. Perhaps, just maybe, she swallows quite a bit of this. And ta-dah, she has an excess of gas (I mean, air is made up of gases mostly, isn't it?)!

At least her neck problems seem to have vanished for the most part.

Gas prices haven't been something I have been focusing on lately. Why? Because they are ludicrous. And because I don't do that much driving here in Geneva. I save my driving for bigger trips, like to Connecticut or North Carolina. If I am in Geneva, one tank pretty much lasts me a month. Maybe longer. I haven't really figured it out...Oh, and I have found that I can coast from the stoplight (just about) at the corner of Hamilton and Pultney, all the way to the corner of Pultney and St. Clair, barring unforeseen circumstances (like students who I just can't bring myself to run over).

I have a big knot in my hair - despite the of use conditioner and everything. True, I don't brush it all that often, but still, grrr. Luckily, though, I do enjoy undoing knots of all kinds, shapes and sizes. Yay!

Diane, the aide, came again yesterday and Mom got a shower. Without much complaining, too, which is a great thing. I think the seat helps a lot. At least I hope so. Yippee!

Three Projects

Three Projects. More if you count all of the other projects languishing in the wings - the least of which is certainly not, Sirius Theatre! Hey, who do you know who is in the top 1% who might like to have a nice tax write-off (or possible cash cow if my numbers are right)? All they need to do is fund my theatre company - $5 Million would probably do it. Chump change, right?

Anyway, back to the topic at hand - three projects are sort of beckoning me - again not including life projects like sorting and cleaning and organizing and the blinkety blank house in NC... - sorry, I keep slipping off the current subject - three projects - the project for the woman who wants a bouquet building application - my beer related Tetris like game and my self-help e-book. Any suggestions on which one I should give primary focus?

Meanwhile, I am trying to find someone professional to help me with my clutter. I have moved a bunch of stuff from house to house for years. And, having lived in the same house for 12 years, I have accumulated a lot of crap that I need to let go of. I know I am going to let go of the furniture that I purchased for the house - most of it at least - there is one table that I think I am going to retain. And there are accumulated boxes of papers and such, that need to go. And some stuff I have been toting around for 40 years. Like my hot wheels track. I don't think I need that anymore. Since I doubt I will be having any children in my life to play with it. Sigh. I am not letting go of my GiJoe stuff though. I might just have to play with it by myself at some point...

Any feedback is welcome!

Thinking out loud

In this society, money talks. Sadly. Why is our worth in society related to our worth fiscally? How ought worth to be determined? What better (oops, judgement) ways are there to determine worth? As most of us know, it doesn't take an Einstein to make money - he was really well off financially. Many people we respect for artistic achievements died paupers. Mozart and Van Gogh to name two. The person who makes sure that your heat comes on in the winter is more valuable than the stock broker who basically does nothing except take in commissions from when you buy or sell stock. What the hell is that about? Intelligence doesn't seem to matter all that much, either. How ought worth to be determined? Shoe size? "Value to society?" (Again, how would that be determined? CEOs, despite their egos, are no more valuable to society than a garbage collector and the garbage collector would probably be more fun to hang out with...)

I am feeling a bit worthless right now. Don't worry, I still love me and think I am great. I have pretty high self esteem, all things considered. That being said, money is tight and my assets are not numerous - besides my natural beauty, smarts and compassion (ha) I mean. I am talking about my fiscal assets.

Working presents a challenge to me. I would love a job that I could do a few hours a day, from the privacy of my home, that contributed positively to society and at the same time brought in enough filthy lucre to help me feel like I was contributing to the household's fiscal well being. Any ideas on what that might be? I don't want to do something that is making money on specious commodities or  a scheme of some sort. Definitely not real estate dealings. Ick. I personally think that money made not from the sweat of one's brow ought to be taxed highly. Wages under $50k a year and straight savings ought to not be taxed at all - but money made off of things like the stock market ought to be taxed at the highest rates possible. Playing the stock market is, after all, just legalized gambling. And those with more money can gamble more effectively - I took a class on stock trading and found that when you bet $100,000 in the options market, you can make quite a killing on a teeny weeny movement in a stock's price. True, you can lose a lot too - but when you are making $1000 in a five minute window just by doing some studying and figuring, heck...but I find that sort of thing distasteful. Sure, I sometimes understand the ends justifying the means. The ends of being fiscally comfortable, did not justify the time I would have had to spend focusing on the stock market and associated bullshit. So day trading is definitely not what I am looking for here.

I also need a declutterer. Does anyone know someone? I haven't had the stuff that is in the house in NC for more than a year - so I obviously don't need most of it. It would be nifty if I could lighten my mental and physical load quite a bit. Sadly, I know my own limitations. I am not good at throwing things away. Not good at all. Partly because I want to believe that what I let go of will go to a good home - or at least be well and happily recycled.And partly because you never know when something will come in handy. Sigh.

Ok, that's it for this dismal post. Yay dismality! (New word)

AWOL

Not a wall. Just absent without really saying much about being absent. Mentally and emotionally. Lots of reasons and none. I do appreciate, though, the few friends who made note of my absence. You all are great!

Where to whine first? Ok, not really. No whining. Or whinging as the British apparently say (which reminds me (slightly painfully) of an ex-girlfriend).

We have been doing lots of nothing. Life has felt on hold again. I am waiting for my house mate to vacate the house in North Carolina, so I can deal with that whole issue. She is not being very communicative. Sigh.

While waiting for movement there, I have been playing on the xBox. Sadly, Fallout New Vegas turned out to be just as fun as other games of that ilk - and I admit to a small obsession. Luckily it has passed enough to allow me to do a few other things - like eat and sleep and watch Battlestar Galactica. Turns out I saw a few episodes from the first season. I don't think that I saw any from the later seasons.

We have been watching a few movies - mom by herself on occasion - depending on the movie. Eating, drinking, being merry.

Blah, blah, blah.

Fact of the matter is I think mom is deteriorating. Not dramatically, but noticeably. Funny thing, though, she has been remembering the three magic words from the brain doctor - orange, paper, penny. How weird is that? Before she was only remembering two of them.

Flippety is proving to be yet another get-rich-slow scheme that is fullfilling the lackluster performance goal of my other creative projects. I think a whopping 26 people have downloaded copies. Woo frakking who.

Mom hard at work shucking corn

Dinner

Love Cloud Pictures!

Diane bought us a new stove - oh, actually she just cleaned the old one...

Mushu Pork, Augustus style

Simply Sunday

Simply Sunday - which means - not all that much to report. Yup, didn't do much. Not us. We are not doers. We are sitters on our butters (not goats). Or in mom's case, lie-ers in bedders. Yay.

Well, I did make two meals. One of which was breakfast for dinner. Sadly all of the yummy blueberry waffles are gone, gone, gone. Boo, hiss. Time to make French toast again - or maybe more waffles. They freeze so nicely!

It has become fall here - not a day in the 80s to be seen, and the temp is creeping - on average - downward. When is fall, anyway? The Autumnal Equinox is September 22, as usual, according to the internet.

In my wiped out post from the other day, I went into a little ranting about the lack of comprehensive medical/single payer in this country. My main contention is that we would be a healthier country if we had this. First off, we would largely get the insurance companies and HMOs out of the picture - just think of the cost savings there! Second, people would probably get issues resolved earlier, which again would save a lot of money down the road - hopefully less catastrophic illness - leaving the emergency rooms for emergencies. Sigh. We already pay some money towards it, just bill everyone a bit more and make health care "free" for all.

On top of everything, I forgot to take a picture of last night's meal. Who am I?

And I forgot to publish this yesterday. Oops.

Note to self

Note to self: Don't leave a post open for several days and expect things to work they way they ought. This is a computer, after all, not a piece of paper. Things go wrong with computers. All you can do with a piece of paper - ok, so lots can go wrong with a piece of paper to. Just different things. That might be more under one's control. Not that control is important. But where technology is concerned, things just happen sometimes. There - I have it out of my system - my kvetching over losing most of yesterday's - well, Wednesday's post to the computer gremlins. Let's see if we can avoid that same fate today, shall we?

I've got me some catchin' up to do. It is hard for me, to rehash things that I have already rehashed - not that you got the benefit (?) of my previous rehashings, so I oughtn't to take it out on you. Anyway...

Where was I when my party was so rudely crashed? Ah, yes, Wednesday. Not Ash Wednesday, completely different thing. (By the way, I am pretty tired just now - I finally got to sleep around 3 last night and woke up at 9 this morning  - I need more than 6 hours of sleep - beauty rest, don't you know...) Ok, I can't remember anything that happened on Wednesday. Moving on to Thursday. Ah yes, the day of many happenings.

Thursday was supposed to be a crowded house, with lots of people checking in on mom. One ended up cancelling, so it wasn't quite as full, but still - three people is a goodly number. More visitors than we have had in one day in a loooong time. Diane the aide came again - mom still likes here. She was here for two hours and got something accomplished. The bathtub that currently doesn't work got cleaned out. Yay. And it turns out that aides can't wield pruning shears, er, clippers on their clients. What is up with that? Afraid that someone will get pricked and sue? Sigh. What's the point of them, then. Oh, right, to stand in the bathroom and help mom shower. That is good enough for me. Anyway, I have high hopes for Diane eventually. We shall see what next week brings with four hours of attention.

Two people from Ontario Council on the Aging also came to check and see how things were going. After one visit, I don't know that there was too much that they could learn, but as long as it made them happy, it was nice to have them stop by.

After all of the excitement in the house, we decided to take our excitement on the road with errands! Mom needed an x-ray of her neck, so we went and waited here and there and eventually got it done. Finding things at the hospital is a little difficult just now because of construction. I asked a young woman where something was and she didn't know - having only worked there for five days! Oh well. We made it and got it done. Stopped in briefly at the library before shopping at Wegman's and heading on to Red Jacket. Mom has been hankering for her favorite apples - Ida Red. Apparently these don't ripen until later in the year - as do most cooking apples I learned. Well, we got there and Karl called. It was a hot day and I didn't want mom sitting in the car in the heat while she talked. Karl said he would call back in 5 minutes and when he didn't, I called him. Just as mom started talking, a busload of people - 60 at least, arrived! Eeeek! We didn't go in. Red Jacket normally only has one person at the cash register and I didn't feel like waiting for a month to get two apples and some cheese. I know, I am not the most patient person in the world.

Thursday's excitement continued, at least for me, as I headed to Microclimate for my rocking night on the town. While there, I coerced one young lady to download Flippety - yes, it is available on iTunes - I hope she has a good data plan or was signed in to the wifi. I also chatted with an interesting guy who is teaching a class at Hobart. And saw David from the Smith (see notes on the opera earlier in the summer). All in all, a pleasant day! Yay!

Friday. Nothing. Saturday. Nothing. All caught up! Yay! That wasn't so hard now was it...

A dinner from sometime

Lots of toothpaste mom has collected and I am trying to use up

We had to wait while all 207 people ahead of us got served (not really)

Full House

Oh, wait, before I get too far along, I want to report a rare occurrence. I have a bridge game on my iPhone that I play a good bit. I like to play bridge and it is not often, lately, that I find others willing to play. Anyway, before that, I had a bridge game on my computer that I played a good bit too. (Speaking of playing games, I finished the Batman game I was playing - fun but not great - and started a new one - another Fallout game - yippee!) And I often look at the four cards played as if they were most of a poker hand. I have had oodles of flushes (heck, in bridge you are supposed to follow suit unless you are out of that suit) many straights, and some three of a kinds - but yesterday, I had my first four of a kind - that's right - all four cards were the same denomination. All 10's! I hope that is a comment on my life...what brought this up was the title of the post and thinking about poker...

Tomorrow is going to be a full house! Lots of people coming to be check on mom. Diane the aide is coming, her supervisor is coming and the woman from the Ontario Council for the Aging is coming. Yay! I wonder if we all need to coordinate so that none of us is wearing the same thing. That would be embarrassing. Or do I need to get party hats. Hmm...

Ooops, tomorrow is today.

Wow, my whole post just got wiped out. Yippee! Love it when that happens. Serves me right for not posting more consistently the past few days. And now, it is published, but not finished. Sigh.

Oh well. Life is that way sometimes.

So, what is new with you and yours? Glad we had this chance to catch up. I don't feel like re-writing what I wrote and don't have anything else to say. Grr.

House for Sale

The house is not for sale quite yet, but I am getting there. My housemate is apparently leaving and will be out at the end of this month. That is a mixed blessing. I wish one could snap one's fingers and have the house be magically sold. I do believe in magic and in miracles - I mean, come on, waking up is a miracle in many ways - so anything can happen. True, most things don't happen, but they could. So it is possible that my house will go away happily and quickly. Not that I don't love my house. I do. I think it is a great house - very cool in a lot of ways. But it is in North Carolina and I am not. And I don't know that I want to go move back to NC when I can. I think I want to move to Guatemala. Or Idaho. Or Turkmenistan. (Any place with food as part of their name, can't be a bad place - think "Big Apple") But the house being up for sale is getting closer to being a reality.

You know, when I first heard about all of this, I was in shock - just a little - and freaked out - just a lot. Not like jumping up and down shouting "Kill! Kill!" No, wait, that wasn't me. That was Arlo Guthrie...Not like stomping my little foot or wailing about the unfairness of life and all. Just sort of numb, mind whirling trying to figure out the next steps...Now, a few days later, I am feeling a lot calmer. All things can be taken care of. And being fairly footloose, as long as I take my mom along (wait, isn't that the opposite of footloose...) I think it will be fairly easily handled. Yay! Not cheaply, but easily. I am imaging mom trying to help me when we go down. Hahahaha. Or should I sigh instead.

Still waiting to hear back from Apple on my second submission of Flippety. I have done some work on the iPad bouquet app. Listening to audio books. And I have been keeping up with daily maintenance things. As well as lots of stealth sorting. I hope to have a decent amount sorted by this Thursday's recycling bin. Yippee! Yet, I just don't feel like I am being all that productive. Sigh.

OK, gotta get this published. Aren't you thrilled?

Leaf Kitchen is moving to Hamilton Street! Yay!

That's a big hot dog!

Final Wedding Post

Not only a final wedding event, but also a drive back to Geneva and Dinner Out! Wow! What a day. Phew. Glad we survived the excitement.

The day started like many another day - with the happy sound of children running up and down and screaming outside of our motel room. Normally, mom would be kvetching and wanting to call management and such, but since the kids doing said running and screaming were her very own grandchildren, she only called the police. Ok, no she didn't. She got up and opened the door - to chaos! Eeek! Children everywhere! And Candace and Karl. All trying to get their act together and head back to Connecticut early in the morning. Not like really, really early, not 6 am sort of early, but 9ish I think. Anyway, after a lot of brew-ha-ha, they managed to get out and on the road. Which helped me, because mom was already up so I didn't have to wake her and get her started. Yay!

Brunch was supposed to start around 10ish, so I thought we would aim to get there around 10:30 - sneak in, sneak out. We got there around 10:20 and were basically the first ones there. So much for sneaking in...I helped a little, by sweeping some of the patio in the backyard. Then I ate. And tried to feed mom - but she wasn't interested in food - just coffee. People slowly started to trickle in - maybe 20 people by the time we left. More food, more chatting, more pictures. Yay! Speaking of pictures, I really didn't take that many, all things considered. A bunch, but not hundreds. I need to get them to Erich, so I will just email him some and see if those will suffice or if he wants higher quality ones. (Erich just invited me to put the pictures in his drop box - so I did - 76 of them!)

We managed to get on the road around noon which got us back to the homestead around 4. Yay! 4 hours is just long enough in the car. I think we could manage five, with a couple of stops but I think that is about it. Anyway, I decided to take a little rest before we headed out to dinner at mom's favorite place - Friendly's. Yippee for rest!

6ish we headed to dine. It wasn't crowded and we had a new-to-us server named Keira. Mom thought it a weird name. Sigh. She had her usual, the spicy and sweet shrimp over rice with vegetables. I decided to try something new - I had bourbon BBQ chicken. Yay! It was actually pretty good. And I didn't have to be worried that I would get icky fries. When I got my order, I was surprised because there was only one chicken breast. Turns out that I got the "senior" sized portion - and senior cost. Good thing because I was planning on bringing the second chicken breast back home in any case. And the manager took pity on us and gave us our free sundaes to go - made mom very happy since I didn't want mine, so she got a whole lot of coffee ice cream! Worked out well!

And that was our exciting day. After dinner, mom watched television and I futzed around. Yay for futzing!

Brunching!

The brunch spread!

New snuggle quilt!

Juliet and mom

Paul and Rebecca

A hibiscus

My dinner at Friendly's with funions! :)

Wedding Post Two

Yesterday was the big day! Yay!

Ok, that's all I am going to say about the wedding...

Nope, not really, you aren't getting out of it that easy. But you have to wade through a bit of other stuff before we get to wedding pictures. Thousands of wedding pictures...

We got up and had no plans for the day. I was sort of thinking of, you guessed it, finding a brewpub somewhere and heading to lunch. Sometime in the morning, while I was working on my blog post, my sister called and suggested we go to lunch together. Yay, someone else made a plan! I can live with that, so I accepted. They weren't going to arrive until 12:30, so we had some time to get up, get dressed and get used to the idea. It does sometimes take mom a while to get used to an idea.

We ate ate Deisings in downtown Kingston. A bakery/eatery that has been around for a long while. We started with a table for seven and grew to a table for nine! Juliet and Paul, Sam, Abby and Lewis, me and Mom, and later, Joe and Ginger! Good food, fun people, lots of cuckoo clocks! I know I ate too much and I left mom's left overs in Sam's car. Ooops. Not that we would have eaten them probably anyway...

Next, we all went our separate ways. Well, not totally separate. Mom and I opted to go with Sam and Lewis on their expedition to Target. Ah, to be in a Target again. I don't know why I like Target so much more than I like Wal-mart, but I do. Sam and Lewis were looking for bathing suits - they had an indoor pool at their place of stay - and we were looking for a decent pillow and a headband for mom. The pillow was necessary to help her feel comfortable in bed. The headband was to make her feel comfortable in her head about her hair. The aide curled her hair and mom was not pleased with the result. Her favorite line kept resurfacing - saying that she looked like the witch of Endor!

Since the wedding wasn't till 6, we had a little while to chill out back at the motel. And looking out the window, I noticed that it was actually raining quite heavily. Which didn't bode well for the outdoor part of the wedding event. Oh well. We did get dressed, mom in her blue dress, me in my duds. I even, sort of, tied my bowtie - later to be retied by Paul (a professional bow-tie tier).

The wedding venue was a lodge up in the hills near Rosendale, NY called Sky Lodge. They have a meditation space, an eating space and I bet a really lovely nature-filled location - though because of the rain, we mostly stayed indoors.

It was a great location - beautiful views, pleasant decor. Nice people. The ceremony was supposed to have been outdoors, but the indoor space - the meditation space - was good as well. They had a violinist friend of Eric's play intro and exit music. The celebrant was a Unitarian with a sense of humor. I think we numbered about 40 people all together. Dinner was vegetarian with some fish added in. With wine. And the cake was a white cake with jelly filling. Yum!

Mom and I didn't stay long for the dancing part. Neither of us are very interested in dancing. So we hung out a teeny bit before heading back to the hotel for a much needed night of sleep! Yay!

Lunch fun at Deisings!

Ernst giving a toast to the new couple!

Lovely Sunset

Gazing into the future

Grandmother and father of the bride and Paul, the tier

Shelly and Erich about to cut the cake

Mom and Karl "dancing"

Mom and Juliet

Fleeing Friday

As you all know, I love alliteration. The lazy man's way to make language seem interesting. We didn't really flee anything, we just headed to Kingston, NY for the beginning of Erich and Shelly's wedding festivities.

Because of the proximity of the wedding, we didn't have to get up early, which is a good thing. I like to sleep latish (which is often 9:30 or so) and do a bunch in the morning - like write my blog, do my daily challenge, check out facebook, maybe look at the news online, the weather, play a little on my phone (I keep playing Flippety and seeing if I can make it crash) (speaking of which, my great nephew Lewis crashed it again - and my nephew Ernst, an actual programmer sort told me one way to maybe prevent the crash - though I think it is not necessary as I doubt many people will actually do what Lewis does - just randomly push on the screen over and over again until it crashes...), maybe work on a project or two, figure out the day, plan dinner, etc. I usually get a lot done in the morning - mainly because I have silence in which to work. No nattering. I don't mind a few minutes of nattering now and again, but incessant nattering is another thing entirely...

Well, that was quite a little digression, verging on a rant. Moving on. I got up and did a lot of the above stuff before going in to mom's room and checking on her status. Asleep. Gentle prodding yielded an awakening mother. While she was starting to do the arising thing, I got her blunch (breakfast and lunch) (not brunch - that seems to be something that happens before lunch time, while blunch is something that happens at or around lunch time but is one's first meal of the day) and some coffee. Much as I disdain coffee, it does seem to clear some of mom's mental fog. Not memory and such, just her normal morning miasma of unhappiness and disgruntlement. And I started cleaning the kitchen which I like to leave as neat as I can when we go traveling. Few things are more unpleasant than coming back to a messy kitchen after being away.

We got out just at one - barely. Yippee! The drive was pretty smooth - no back-ups or traffic snarls. Mom did natter quite a bit - sadly, she has a way of harping on the two topics I most dislike talking about - money (ick) and my house in NC. When I say that I don't want to talk about them she gets angry and says that she can't talk about anything. Sigh.

The lovely Super 8 motel used to be something else I am sure. It is more of a hotel than a motel - with the rooms all opening on inside corridors. It is ok. Not scintillating. Mom doesn't like the pillows (too hard) and we had a little electrical problem - the multi-plug in the wall was loose - or the plug plate was loose or something was loose. Anyway, the staff swapped things out and it all works fine.

Since we had some time to kill, I turned on the news for mom, missing most of the BBC news because it started half an hour earlier here than it does in Geneva. And then ABC for some reason was out of synch. Other channels were fine - just ABC was weird. Oh well.

Off to the rehearsal dinner at the lovely Rosendale Cafe in Rosendale NY - where the wedding is happening as well. (Not the Cafe, but in or near Rosendale.) We ate outdoors (not my favorite thing) at unassigned tables. It all worked out eventually. Juliet was kind and forced me to not sit with mom. Yay her! Mom ended up sitting with Juliet and Candace and Karl (my brother and his wife). I sat with two of my nephews, their significant others and Lewis (Ernst, Jill, Sam, Abby). Food was good - all vegetarian (sigh). I had a sweet potato burrito - which I enjoyed - though Jill's Greek Salad - which seemed more like a Mediterranean plate than just a salad, looked excellent as well. And I got to have two yummy Rogue Dead Guy beers! Yay!

All in all, a decent day! Tomorrow I will write about the wedding, which is happening today!

The Sign!

Rockin' Rosendale Cafe

Betty (mother of the groom) Mom and Juliet

Ernst (father of the groom) and Paul

The menu

Ernst reading a sonnet that he wrote (we are that kind of family)

My sweet potato burrito

Jill's Greek Salad/Mediterranean Plate

Happy Aide Day

Yay, mom liked the aide! How awesome is that?! I can do a little happy dance. True, she isn't what I was hoping for, but if mom is happy, I am happy. Now, I just hope that she is the one that we get going forward. Mom and the aide apparently got along well. And the shower happened, which is a good thing. Not much else got done, but it was a first visit. Mom actually liked her so much that she called (with some help) the Company that provided her and told them how wonderful she thought she was. The funniest thing, to me, is that she has the same name as a friend of mine from California!

So, that is the big news from yesterday. Oh, and that I had to go and do a load of laundry for reasons I am not going to get into. Gets me a little frustrated and angry just thinking about it. Breathing in and breathing out. We did some packing yesterday for mom as well. That was, er, fun.

Sorry, still feeling tired. Yet another night of not so much sleep. The arm, though better, is still not 100%. And I often don't sleep well before the beginning of a trip.

Took two walks to downtown yesterday. One was to go banking and to buy a sport coat for the wedding. The other was to go to Microclimate. Both were fun in their own way. Happy to have gotten some exercise at least.

When I got back from all of my walkabouts and laundry and stuff, I created a quick dinner. Does anyone know how to get terriyaki sauce to stick to something? What do I coat it in, to get the sauce to stick? In this case, I mostly mean salmon. I was trying to use up leftovers and didn't really succeed too well. In fact, I made a few more leftovers. Sigh. Luckily we will only be gone for a few days.

Obama's speech wasn't as good as I had hoped.

I could do with a nap. Maybe while I am driving...

Look, see, quite a bit of recycling!

Mom's shower throne

Why do I think a beauty supply store is a bad thing?

Dinner

Tomorrow we leave - and I am not packed!

Tomorrow we leave for the wedding and I am not packed. This in itself is not a big deal. The bigger deal is that mom isn't packed. Hopefully we will be able to knock that out today.

Yesterday, mom was not interested in going to get an x-ray - and I didn't push her to do so. Why push? I know she needs some pushing here and there, but I pick my battles.

The weird thing is, she actually asked to start doing crossword puzzles again. She hasn't done any in as long as I have been here. Does this mean she is getting better? Ha! I am just glad that she is trying, even if she doesn't get far with them. 

Yesterday was a big day for Flippety! I got a message from Apple saying that the app was "in review." Two hours later, I got an email saying that the current build had been rejected. But they said it politely. I was not surprised, but mildly distressed. As those who have read a bunch of my posts know, I am not really an iOS programmer - I am a good copy and paster and cludger. So I had no idea how I was going to fix the problems that Apple said there were. I went through a bunch of steps, and then remembered the internet. Why it takes me so long to remember the internet, I just don't know. I did a search using the wording of my problem and lo and behold, others have had the same issue. Turns out it was, of course, my fault (mostly). At one point I had wanted to make the app compatible with the iPad and then changed my mind. Unfortunately, changing back didn't remove all references to the iPad, which made the app crash, which lead to the app's rejection. There was a second issue - something about graphics not being the right size, but I will deal with that if it is a real issue. So, I resubmitted the app yesterday. Yay, more waiting!

Today, we are getting a new aide. At least for the day. I am hoping that mom will be on good behavior - and will get a shower. And hopefully get some help packing. The new aide will only be here for two hours today. And may not be the aide that we will get in the future. I think the aide company just wants to start billing hours as quickly as they can - it is a business after all.

I thought Bill Clinton gave a pretty good speech.

Did a little food shopping and cooking yesterday. Nothing too exciting. And I put out some recycling. Ok, a lot of recycling. I actually thought of taking a picture of the pile - a full blue box and a pile of cardboard boxes all broken down. Oh, and I paid bills last night. All in all, an effective day fighting entropy. Not an effective night though - I slept miserably. Lots of dreams. Yippee for dreams. Hopefully I will sleep better tonight.

For those of you who follow the blog for my excellent documentary photography, I will be taking a few pictures at the wedding this weekend. For now, I am having a challenging time finding anything to take a picture of...

Leaf Kitchen's subtle signage

Ain't we got fun?

Of course we have. Jeden Tag is fun. In its own way. And yesterday was no exception. It was full of exciting visitors, exciting visits and exciting errands. Errands galore, even! Woo hoo!!

Started off with a visit from the Finger Lakes Health Care people - the new manager/owner (?), Colinda, came to do the intake. I hope she got the message that mom needs someone who is a little more world wise than our last aide. Though here in Geneva...Mom did pretty well answering questions and such. Yay. We shall see what comes of it. I think Colinda said we have to wait another couple of weeks before we actually get someone?!

Next off, a visit to the doctor's office. Unlike our last visit, where we only sat for a minute before being called back and then only waited a couple of minutes for the doctor to appear - this time we waited a lot. In the waiting room. And then in the examination room. But the wait was worth it. Dee, our Nurse Practitioner, was great. She has an Alzheimer-y mother-in-law at home and was great with mom. I mean excellent. She went over about four different things we can do to help mom feel less neck pain. Sadly, they all are reliant on me to do stuff. Yippee. So, we are going to start with a heating pad and work out from there. I would rather go to a chiropractor and have her manipulated, but I don't think mom's insurance covers that. I really need to call the insurance provider and see what is covered. Sigh.

I would be more happy about going to the doctor's office if the scenery were more interesting. Sadly, it is not.

After the doctor's, we did our errands. Mom mostly sat in the car, though she did get out at the pharmacist's/drugstore. First up, the library. Through the drizzle. Yay drizzle. I hope we got enough to actually soak into the ground, but I doubt it. Anyway, they had one of the audiobooks I requested - Of Mice and Men. I didn't realize it was a novella. No wonder it is only four CDs long.

Next stop, Wegman's. I needed vegetable matter to go with the planned pasta with sausage we were having for dinner. I zipped in and zipped out, since I had a list and since mom was waiting in the car. Patiently. I wonder what she does in the car while I am inside places. Hmm...

Last stop, Rite-aid. My phavorite pharmacist was not on duty. In fact there was a new one, not even one of the other two. She was nice and came out and helped me find things in her end of the store. Mom wanted anti-gas pills and we needed something to heat up for her neck. I was going to get thermacare - but turned out it was a one-off-use sort of thing. I can't abide that if I can avoid it. So we got a hot/cold pack filled with mud that ought to do the trick. And we picked up one of mom's prescriptions. Fun, fun, fun!

And to top it off, mom and I watched Michelle Obama give her speech at the Democratic National Convention. I thought it was a great speech and that Michelle was a pretty good speaker. I was sad to learn this morning that although factually true, it was a bit hyperbolic and not quite as rags to riches as it sounded from the way it was presented. Sigh. Why exaggerate? It is just another form of lying. I try my best to not exaggerate but I don't always succeed. Just say no to lying (whenever possible - which is most of the time...).  Still, I do like her better than Anne Romney...

See, wasn't that a fun day!

Not a picture of dinner!

Time for a quick post

I have time for a quick post today. Isn't that novel?

So, somehow I got carried away on Sunday and didn't manage to post the blog I had written until Monday. And then, having posted said blog, I didn't get around to actually creating one yesterday. Which brings us to today and a blog that will mostly be about the past two days. Sadly, during those days, not a lot of excitement transpired.

At least mom's neck isn't hurting as much as it was. I think the fear of going to the doctor either made it disappear, or maybe she just isn't mentioning it - though the latter is unlikely. (Spoke too soon - it is hurting again so we are heading to the doctor's office this afternoon - and no, Chris - there aren't two little puncture wounds in her neck...)

I have been having nightmares recently, and I am not sure why. Last nights was about unpaid bills. The night before's has, thankfully, vanished for the most part - just something about my arm. Fun! Although nightmares are, well, nightmares, they are, once I have woken up and am back in the "real" world, interesting experiences. The brain is a wondrous thing!

A friend who was going to come stay at the house while we were away at the wedding just wrote to cancel. Mixed blessing. At least I don't have to make the bed in the guest room now. Oh, I was crafty (ha) yesterday and Sunday. I bought a frame and placed one of mom's items from China in it. Yippee!

Come to think of it, that is about the largest accomplishment I have had in the past few days. I feel like I am not doing much in terms of creating and giving back - contributing to the fight against entropy. I have decided that is what life is partially about. The fight against entropy. Entropy can equal fear - so the fight against it could equal love. Maybe that is something for my self-help book. The idea needs fleshing out, but I think it is a good one.

Cooking is an anti-entropy action. And I did some of it in the past couple of days. I made quiche - egg pie - with lots of stuff I had lying around the house. Huzzuh!

Sorting has been going pretty well, too. Yesterday I found a box that had historical papers in it. I thought the whole box was going to be full of stuff I didn't really feel qualified to sort - mom's old school files primarily, so I was resigned to just reboxing and not getting much done in the way of sorting. Instead, after a small layer of such papers, a whole trove of junk mail was discovered. Hallelujah! Joy and rapture! Lots to let go of. And I also spent a little time breaking down some of the boxes that have accumulated once again in the back study. Yay!

I am once again, behind in my correspondence. Sigh.

Ok, that's it. The short zippy, blog. Even a bit of pith. Lucky you!

Dinner Sunday Night - Quiche

Dinner Monday night

Once

I am titling this post with the name of the movie we saw. Not because it was the best movie ever, but because, as I have pointed out in previous blogs, coming up with interesting titles for blog after blog (after blog) can be something of a challenge. So, once it is.

Something that happened again was that I thought of all sorts of things to write and didn't write them. I ought to have put them in a holding blog post. I forget that I don't have to post every blog I start. I could have copied and pasted from the other blog into the new one and there those thoughts would be. Fresh and happy and waiting for explanation and expansion. Sigh. Next time, I hope to remember that...

Big doings yesterday! Ok, not so big, really. I did actually meet someone from OKCupid! That was a good thing. We had "coffee," walked and chatted. And I learned about yarn bombing. It was great to spend time with an adult who didn't seem to have memory issues! :) It also reassured me that meeting new interesting people is possible. Woo hoo!

Sadly, while at the coffee place, the barrista called me by name - and though I recognized her (eventually) her name is no closer to my lips than it was yesterday. Sigh. I really do need to be better at names if I am going to be President. How embarrassing would it be to meet some foreign leader and not remember their name?!

My arm still hurts and I still don't know what it is. I do hope it will go away eventually. I no longer think it is the rotator cuff. I thought maybe it was the sign of some dread disease, but I looked up a couple and it doesn't seem to be a harbinger of doom. I think it is just some sort of muscle pain that hopefully will go away. Are you listening arm pain? Hmm?

Mom's neck still hurts. I promised her that if it still hurts on Tuesday, we will go for an appointment with a nurse practitioner and get some x-rays or something. I think she is just sleeping on it wrong and maybe a good pillow would help. Maybe chiropractic visits would be good. It would be nice if the new aide person coming to help out turned out to be a massage therapist as well...ha. Hahahaha. Tuesday we see someone from the in-home aide service to talk about aides. That will be nifty, I am sure.

And I almost forgot to write about the movie after all. It was an interesting indie movie called Once. About a guy and a girl who meet and end up creating music together and do not end up as a couple. I enjoyed it more than mom did. Worth a watch if you have nothing better to do with your time. Some of the music was pretty good.

(Please pretend that I actually posted this on Sunday...)

Sad sign seen on my walk

Yarn bombers at work!

Clambake

Clambake? Shindig? Well, I saw the other day that Wegman's was going to have a Clambake. I have seen signs for these in various places throughout my life and have never knowingly participated in one before. I actually asked someone what a clambake was once and they told me it was another name for a picnic but featured clams (baked presumably) instead of other foods - like a BBQ was a picnic that featured barbeque. My mom likes clams. And at this particular clambake, the clams were going to be steamed, not baked. So I decided that I would give mom a culinary surprise and feast her with steamed clams! I am a good son. Don't get me wrong, I like clams ok - not my favorite, but I can eat them happily (like a clam...). I had a plan to go there around 6 pm to avoid all of the early adopters and to keep dinner at about the same time (starting at 6:30 to around 7:30 is the window of dinner start time here at Chez Schoen-René).

Meanwhile, what did I do with my Saturday? Oh, wait, it wasn't Saturday, it was Friday, which felt like Saturday. And today is Sunday that is actually Saturday. My brain hurts. (One of my favorite Monty Python characters.) So, what did I do? Well, I blogged - go me - I took a shower - refreshing - I puttered around on my computer doing stuff - like working on my two iOS projects - Bloomin' Bouquets and the as-yet-unnamed second game - played on the xBox - and contemplated the insides of my eyelids (which was a euphemism for napping that I learned a long, long while ago).

What did mom do? Well, she surprised me with her memory. She has been complaining of her neck hurting recently. So we change her pillows and such which seems to have helped a bit. This morning she asked after her neck ring - I don't recall what she did to her neck when to receive a neck ring, but she did something sometime and so had one. She asked me to get it for her. I had no idea where to begin to look. She said she thought it was in the red room - and sure enough it was! Go mom!!

I also sorted a bit, which is always a good thing. I am working through all of the boxes, which are now in a unified location, for a single go through. Next up - either going through them again to sort out anything that is important - how important are credit card bills from 8 years ago? - from the dross and continue to pare down - or, move them further out of sight and eventually just recycle it all. 'Cause mom sure isn't going to do much in the way of sorting. She has her hands pretty much full with the daily influx of junk mail - that is overwhelming her already. How would she handle a box of New Yorkers from 2005? My goal, at this point, is to get the pile behind the yellow sofa gone through - then move the New York Reviews from the dining room to behind the sofa - out of sight for a while - which will make the dining room one hundred percent clutter free! Yay!!! Estimated time of completion - 2045...I will be 84.

Eventually it became time to go get dinner. At Wegman's, I went in by my usual door, saw the sign for the clambake and went to the deli where I thought it would be. But it wasn't. It was outdoors at a tent at the other entrance. Sigh. And they were only accepting cash! Double sigh. I was going to walk to the bank/ATM when I had the realization that I could buy something in the store and get cash back! Woo hoo! So that is what I did. I resupplied the house with tissue boxes (mom goes through one box every two days - I think it is psychosomatic) so we are almost always in need of resupplying. I picked up three dinners - each was comprised of 1 doz steamed clams, half an ear of corn, salt potatoes, a roll and a bottle of water. Looking back, I could have done all of that for less, but it was easy and I didn't have to cook. Yay. Mom loved the clams and the salt potatoes - the corn wasn't up to my standard - and I don't think she ate her roll (I still eat and love bread). So, all in all, it worked out well! Yippee!

The "clambake"

What we got