Did we have dinner?

This was the question I woke up to this morning at 7:30 am. Mom was concerned that we hadn't had dinner. Had we? What did we have? (We had chicken with sauce and cheese - sort of chicken parmesan like except we didn't actually have any parmesan cheese - asparagus and mashed potatoes.) This was all really a way for mom to tell me that she was hungry. Which is a good thing. So I got her a yogurt which seemed to mollify her. Yay.

The one hour copier set-up visit ended up taking 2.5 hours - not because of the copier set-up, but I got caught up in a lot of other things. Yay?

It has been a much busier Smith day than I had anticipated. I still have things to do - I did just add another movie to the month's list. And I need to add it to the Slide Show - which I will do tomorrow morning at some point. I am still fighting spam and junk on one of the computers I bought for the Smith. If I can't solve the problems, I will take it to Damian and see if he wants to take a crack at it. It is just way too frustrating to work with at this point. Grrrr. I hate, hate, hate windows machines. Greedy companies agree to put crap on their machines so they are guaranteed some money. Poo on them. 

I did look at the bills I had to pay and they can all wait until after April 1st when mom's bank account will be a teeny bit replenished. Sigh. 

Tomorrow is April 1st! How cool is that? I really need to dig through my papers and see if I can find any of the 1099c's that Karl thinks I have. Grr and poo. IRS is for ninnies. Will I remember to rabbit?

I am so far behind in my correspondence. Sigh.

What? Still March?

How did that happen? I thought it was April. Sigh...

I really need to make up a quick to do list for today. I don't have a lot of stuff scheduled which is good. That means I have a lot of time to do stuff. I know I have a couple of calls to make to the Alzheimer's association. I would like to see about getting a respite person in. Mom doesn't take well to strangers generally, but we can hope. I also need to look for those papers Karl seems to think I have. I probably did get them, but I am afraid I might have tossed them since they came from creditors that I no longer cared about. I am tempted to just let Karl file and then worry about it afterwards. It isn't like I was counting on a refund from the blinkety-blank IRS anyway. Why does anyone who earns less than $50k pay anything in US taxes anyway? Every penny of that money that we do get to keep is used anyway, just to keep our heads about water - or a roof over our heads, food in our belly's and electricity for our lives. Sigh. I would like to send back the camera I got that was, once again, the wrong sort. How on earth am I supposed to get the right one? Grrrr. I would like to do some Smith stuff - take in the laptop that I have here at home, set up the Movies for April in Theatre Manager (we really need a third permanent log on), and all that sort of thing. Some of it I can do from home. Much of it, actually, if I can be sure that I can have one of the Theatre Manager spots available to me. I would also like to call Rosanne at some point and thank her for the early tremendously generous Birthday present she sent me. I think that is my to do list.

Oh, get the Dave Crosby ticket selling announcement out ought to be on the list. And send out work requests for SPA. I don't know that I can get three people to help them. We shall, of course, see.

Tonight will be chicken for dinner. Yum. And what else? Some sort of vegetable. I believe I still have potato in the fridge - if it isn't bad. Gotta check that. Speaking of which, mom has gotten some of her appetite back. Yippee and huzzuh! I fed her almost as much as I was used to feeding her before and she ate almost all of it! Phew!

Talk about a shit storm! Eeek! (My browser keeps changing that to Week!) We had a murder (or two or three) of crows in our trees the last few days. And they decided that they wanted to help fertilize my lawn. And my sidewalk. And my car. Ew! I went and got it all washed off the car at the car wash. Yay!

I started playing a game, Red Faction: Guerrilla, which is ok at best. I got it free, so I am not too distressed over its lack of quality. I think I will put off playing it for now and play one of my good games that I have lying around. Which game to play, though, is the question. And when.

March is ending

In case you hadn't realized, it will soon be April. Eeek! How did that happen? Hopefully, with the end of March will come the end of winter. That would be nifty. The mini-blizzard the other day and the cold temperatures really aren't as fun as they could be. 

Yesterday was a pretty long day at the Smith. I went early to finish up from the night before. Went in again to get ready for a show. Went in again to make sure that everyone was playing well together. I hope the event went well in the end. Today I need to go in and set up everything for a two showings of a movie. Yippee! 

I got mom some prunes. And some prune juice. I don't know that I have had much prune juice over the years. Worf thought it was good. Maybe mom will like it. Heaven knows she didn't like the ensure like drink that I got her. Sigh. I am hoping that her shingles will be over soon. That would be nice for us all. 

Sometimes I feel like I am that frog in the slowly heating pan of water. 

Tried to watch a movie with mom last night, but she slept through it. It was ok - The Soloist - Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx. Definitely had good music. And the story was decent. So, glad I saw it. Wish that mom had stayed awake for it. 

When it was time for sleep, mom complained that she could have gone to sleep "hours ago" which was funny to me because "hours ago" she had been asleep...

Got a lot done at the Smith in my one hour there. The legs and borders all look happy. I played a little bit of everything on the movie server and it all went ok. Now I am home where I am doing more Smith work. Yay!

I almost rode my bike to work this morning, but I chickened out when I saw the breath in front of my face. It has warmed up considerably since then, so a bike ride may just be in my near future. Yippee!

Well, crap. I just was moving my lap desk and it slipped from my hands and scraped up my laptops screen. Poo even. Oh well - this is not the end of the world. Right? Yup, I thought so.

Up and at 'em

I get to go into the Smith again. I think I will go in sooner rather than later - get up, do my morning ablutions and then head into get the lighting equipment set up. I don't want to be in the way of the sound people taking away their stuff. I jus need to get through this and then I have an easy week or so. Huzzuh! 

Hopefully tomorrow I will get to looking through my papers for any of the 1099c's that I am supposed to have had from the creditors who forgave debts to me under my bankruptcy. I don't remember receiving any, actually. Not that I paid much attention to anything around that time, being sort of mentally and emotionally shut down about it. Not a high point of my fiscal life. 

Oh yeah, I forgot that we had snow last night. Not feet of it, just an inch or two that stuck. Yippee.

What happened?! Eeeeeeeek! Look at the time. Zzzzzzzzzz

Two posts in one day?

Trying to catch up - I had the post all written last night and then got confused, what with working at the Smith when I thought I was going to have a night off, to realizing I needed to go to sleep early anyway since I had to be at the Smith this morning at seven - I plain forgot to post the silly blog post yesterday. Grrr. I am still aiming for 31 posts this month, so I hope to get this post written and up. Though it is going to be another long day at the Smith. 

We got the lighting all done in a couple of hours - but we were going at a very relaxed pace as far as I am concerned. But we got everything done. His board was not that much different from our board so I could actually be a little helpful. Yay. 

Had a nap, which helped a lot. I always feel a little discombobulated when I have to get up at a time that is not natural to my body. And only 5 hours of sleep doesn't help all that much either. I like sleep. Generally.

I sat and dozed through the show this morning. I will probably doze through the show this afternoon as well. There really isn't anything for me to do besides make sure that the place doesn't burn down. And then we have load-out and restore. The biggest problem will be moving the legs and the weights around again. Sigh. Though the first electric will need a good deal of work to get back to the rep plot, pretty much everything else was left unchanged. Hopefully I won't be there all night. The difficult thing is going to be getting mom her dinner. My plan is to leave as soon as Terren gets there and come back and feed mom and then head back down before the show starts. Joy and rapture.

And tomorrow is another show. And a little bit of work will be needed to be done for that. I hope that Darnell and Teajay will be able to handle running the show. 

I glimpsed the shingles on mom's side and boy howdy are they scary looking. But they are scabbing over and I hope that they will be leaving soon. Her anti-viral is done with, which is great. Speaking of mom, a long time friend of hers sent her a postcard. While mom is not always clear who sends her mail, she does love getting it (hint, hint).

Just got back from the Smith. I still have work to do on resetting, but it will just have to wait until tomorrow. I will head in around ten and get some of it done. Really, I just wanted to get out of there.

Sleepy already

Ok, I am just sleepy thinking about being at the Smith at 5 in the morning tomorrow. Sigh. I got up at 8 this morning and I am dragging. And I completely forgot about getting gels for the show. Know what? It will all work out, I am sure.

First stop this morning was The Smith. I wanted to be sure that the legs were up, the piano out and the sound system put away. Two out of three happened last night apparently and Terren put away our sound system this morning so there was nothing for me to do. Yippee! Instead, I did some other Smith work. Yay.

Got mom dressed and to her dentist appointment today. It is getting more and more difficult to get her anywhere. She is, though, a bit more biddable at times. Mixed blessings. Anyway, her teeth are ok, especially considering that she brushes her teeth, probably badly, once a week. Or sometimes two or three times in one day and then not again for two weeks. Sigh.

So, this morning I got a call from the incoming show saying - oh, hey, by the way, we were totally wrong about what time we were going to arrive, so can we change the crew call from tomorrow at 5:30 in the morning to 7 tonight? Thanks. That'd be great. What? Really? You didn't know this a week ago? Or even two or three days ago? Couldn't figure that out? Luckily a few of my staff are coming in to help out tonight. My hope is that we will be able to knock this out tonight and not have to have a 5:30 call tomorrow morning. But I am a bit chafed by this. It seems really unprofessional to me. But what do I know? I haven't been working in the theatre for 40 years...

Oooh, maybe I could crowdfund my trip across North America. As I think I have mentioned - my thought is to get a Mobile Home - teeny one that is electric or something - and go to all the mini golf places, pool halls (if any still exist), breweries and brewpubs and write about them. Hadn't thought about getting people to give me money upfront. Oh, and I could passively run for president at the same time.

Loose Ends

Life is loose ends? Who knows? Anyway, I finished listening to the first Harry Potter book. I wonder if there is an audience for watching the movies on the big screen again. I will float the idea at the film committee. It would have to be an Event - with vendors and food and things. Butterbeer! And other things. I think there are seven movies - three on Saturday, four on Sunday or vice versa? I would also like to show all three Hobbit Movies. Costly, but I think we might be able to make our money back. I have started on the second audio book. Yay.

Call me "cable pulling guy!" Yup, this morning, I helped our electrician with some very difficult cable pulling. I stood there and every time he pulled the cable from where he was, I pulled the cable from where I was so he could have some slack to work with. He said he was going to get me a certificate, but I think he was joking.

My good deed for the month has been accomplished - in looking through some papers, I came upon 6 movie gift certificates that a lovely young lady gave me for my birthday a few years back. They are only good in Raleigh and since I don't envision myself living there again anytime soon (or ever in fact), I offered them up on Facebook. Two friends asked of them, so I am mailing each of them three certificates. Good deed accomplished! Huzzuh!

Every Wednesday an email comes from Travel Zoo. Some weeks I only drool over one item, sometimes I drool over five or six. I miss traveling and being on the road. Sigh. It is so sad that my relatives live so far away and that none are willing to come spell me for long enough so that I can go on a real vacation. Then again, all too soon, mom won't be around, so...

Speaking of mom, I think her shingles are definitely winding down. I heard the aide today saying that they looked better. That would be nice. I think another week and the external manifestations of the shingles will be gone. Here's hoping that there is no residual nerve pain. That would suck.

Pinched

The gate at the head of the stairs got me finally. I guess I was just not paying attention. A little pinch on my right pointing finger. I woke up this morning and there was an actual owie there. Owie!

One of the pluses about mom's current state is that she seems to be using less tissue paper in general. Small blessings?

My brain is feeling fuzzy. Maybe it is lack of good sleep. Who knows? I do know that I am a tiny bit concerned about the shows coming up. Not in a large way. I mean, it is the theatre, right? It will all work out in the end. (What is that line from Shakespeare in Love?) And it is a finite thing, this too shall pass. Eventually it will be Sunday again and both shows will be over and done with at The Smith. So, what's to worry about? Nada. But I digress. I am also concerned about how awake my crew is going to be on Friday morning at 5:30 am. I guess I will need to be in bed around 9 in order to be at the Smith by 5 ish. Sigh. And I don't know if anyone is going to be able to stay and work the shows - besides Terren who has to since no one else on my staff (well, maybe Pablo) is able to run Greg's sound console.

Went in and fixed a problem I had created with Theatre Manager. I will get my mind around that program at some point. It is starting to make some sense to me. Not a lot, but some. Later in the day I got the ticket booth printer up and running. It helps when both ends of the cable are plugged in as they ought to be. Sigh.

Watched Birdman tonight. Not sure what I thought about it. I have never really enjoyed Michael Keaton as an actor. I like Ed Norton generally. And Emma Stone, well, I love her. Overall, I liked it. But I didn't love it.

Getting fat

Seems to me that I am eating for two - making up for mom not eating by eating everything in sight. It will even out eventually, I do believe in moderation in all things (including moderation). 

Smith day all day. Yippee. I got a couple of steps further along in the setting up the ticket booth as a place from which to sell tickets. With a lot of help from the Artsman tech support people. I didn't know there was a green switch that I needed to move in order for tickets to be usable. That would have been a useful piece of information to have from the beginning. And it turned out that there were a few things unstated in their tech notes - first - that you can only use the browser option without an ethernet switch if you have a mac - of course - and that only Firefox seems to work. After we got those things worked out, we actually got the printer to accept its changed IP address. Huzzuh! I tested changing my printer in Theatre Manager to the new printer and I got half of a yippee - I guess that would either be a yip or a pee. I will work on it more tomorrow or the next day. 

And that was most of my day. I did meet with a guy who is going to help try to get me the right boxes so that I can connect sound and laptop images wherever we want them to go. After our Electrician did his thing, we now have a whole lot of plugs in the projection booth - so I replugged everything into their own separate plugs which makes me happy. I also replugged some of the other cords to try to make things a bit neater. And it is a bit neater. And everything that I tested worked. I didn't test the BluRay player or the laptop - maybe tomorrow. We shall see.

Amongst that, I also went to the bank, made lunch for mom, went to the library and took a nap. Fun stuff. 

Soon it will be dinner time. I can hardly wait. Mom is getting salad, salmon and tater tots while I get chicken pockets, salad and I don't know what else. Maybe a tot or two.

Mom ate about two thirds of her salad, a bit of salmon and a few tater tots. She is, though, mostly asleep. Not sure what to do about that...And she hates the ensure stuff - too sweet. Hmm...

Look, more snow!

Now, "look" would make one think that I am putting in a picture of the new snowfall that we got last night. And, if I get my act together, I might just do that. Probably won't, but anything is possible.

Feeling a little tired this morning. Oh well - gotta push through a little work at the Smith - getting the projector back to baseline for the movies this afternoon and evening. The group that came in yesterday needed a lot of video tweaking to get it how they wanted it - and to accommodate using the cyc(lorama) as the projection screen. It would be really clever of me to write down these settings, wouldn't it. Sigh.

Went in and the settings were what they ought to have been. I don't know what that is about. Honestly, I am not making an effort to understand this projector that well. We will, hopefully, soon get a new projector. And server. And become, presto, DCI compliant. That would be nifty. Though movies that we get on DCP are probably going to be fairly costly. Rental and shipping. Anyway, it only took me half an hour to do all the movie stuff I had thought of. Then I took another half hour working on getting the second ticket printing printer set up - to no avail. I will try again on Monday. It really oughtn't to be as difficult as it is. Why they don't just factory install it with a large (high) IP address, I don't know. What ever. Maybe the Artsman support people will be a great help. Anything is possible.

Home became lunch land for a bit. I made mom a small lunch of crackers (she didn't eat them) a third of a banana, some ensure type drink and some orange glop. Oh, and hot coffee. She took a long time to take her pills, but did a decent job on the food. Still holding out hope that her diminished appetite is due to the pain from the shingles. Which, apparently, is getting worse. Fingers crossed that the shingles and the pain go away soon.

I am playing a sniper world war two game on my xBox. Not the best game, but entertaining in its way. I am also cruising through the first Harry Potter book on audio. Put a hold on the second. I wish that mom would like or understand Audio books. Sigh.

The second things that came out of the new oven - six chicken pockets and two pizza pockets! Yum!

These turned out much better than my last ones

More pictures! I am working on a de-cluttering track on Daily Challenge. Yay! I am only going to do it for 9 days for now, but will go back to it as it seems like it will be what I need a lot of in my life just now. I don't think Daily Challenge has a dating track. Hmm. I will have to see. But I am doing the challenges. One of them was to declutter my kitchen counters - something I did a few years ago when I first moved back. Here are the newly cleaned counters:

Left Counter all spiffy

Right Counter even spiffier

I hope to keep it about this clean, give or take, more or less...

Ditto with this counter - sans the laptop and the Harry Potter Book

Some of the stuff that came off the counters (not the puzzle stuff...)

Where am I?

Right here at home, with a book and a drink...

Overslept a smidge - but still was first to the Smith today. Good thing too, since the people doing the show got there soon after I did. Nice group. I spent a couple hours there this morning getting things up and running. I like that I can focus on what I need to get done and let others do the stuff that they can do. When I left, they were having a few communication issues (meaning that one person was saying things that another person didn't understand - the headsets were working fine) which I am sure they will iron out given time. Which they have. Yay. I also got some of my other work down, like fixing the slide show and adding another movie to the website. Yippee! Next week, I want to get the ticket booth ticket printer working - and the credit card swiper set up. Bob did great and got the cat 5 cable run to the booth. There really isn't anything pressing until the weekend - two shows - one tech heavy, the other tech nebulous. And then, suddenly, March will be over. Eeeeeek! 

Soon it will be my birthday. Not that mom will know. Whatever. Not a huge deal at all. Not like it is a landmark birthday - 54 is not even remotely landmark like. 55, now there's a speed limit for you!

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Old Stove

New stove

Leftovers for dinner augmented with Brussels Sprouts, which mom ate a couple of weeks ago. Today she found them disgusting. Sigh. We are going to end up with a diet of ice cream, sweet potato and tater tots. Yay.

What's for dinner?

No ideas at all for dinner tonight except for maybe a retread of last night's dinner. For mom that was salad, salmon and tater tots. For me that was salad and some sushi (california roll) from Wegmsns.

Short post tonight - long day at the Smith, etc. (I love excuses, don't you?!)

Anyway, I am worried because mom's appetite seems to have been cut in a third. This scares me.

Oh, by the way, I made chicken pockets and a couple of pizza pockets, salad and tater tots. Yum. Mom barely ate anything. I hope that it has to do with the discomfort of the shingles. Fingers crossed. 

Today is the Equinox or is that Equidies

I really wish that I had been forced to learn Latin as a child. I tried to teach myself, but wasn't sufficiently motivated. Anyway, today is the Equinox. Huzzuh! We had snow yesterday. Not enough to worry about or snow blow. It was slushy in the Lowes parking lot, though. 

The new to me stove has a bright green digital clock on it! Woo hoo! It will take a little getting used to, but it is nice to have an oven that works. First thing I cooked was a couple of pepperoni grands pizza pocket things. Sadly, the dough was unhappy from having sat around in the refrigerator for so long. Hopefully the chicken, onion and feta cheese pockets I make tonight for dinner will be puffier and happier. We shall, of course, see. 

Brittany!

Long day yesterday but it's a new day now

Wow, that was a long day, yesterday. The other galosh kicked me in the butt.

Today I get to do a good bit of work at the Smith. I need to print out all the documentation that two of the upcoming three events have sent me. I need to repatch the lighting for one show, look for gels and such for a second, see if I do in fact have four 6x9s for one of the them, and enough uprights for lighting trees, etc. I need to somehow get a staff for a 5:30 am load-in next week. I am tempted to threaten them with de-Smith employment if they don't come. Sigh.

Great. I downloaded the new Safari and nothing is loading. Crap, etc. Maybe it is just Facebook that is being stupid. (Ok, it's working now. Yippee.)

Oh, I am getting a new to us oven/range today. I could have gotten one of the same generation as is currently in the kitchen, but we got that probably 30 years ago! It lasted a good long time and really deserves a rest - as do any from that generation. The newer one is, of course, more expensive, but life is that way (all too frequently). (Pictures tomorrow)

It is later in the day. I have Smithed for a brief while and accomplished a good chunk of stuff. Still more to do. I had forgotten that I had a meeting this afternoon. Poo even. And yay for putting things in my calendar! Oh well, I will head out earlier than the meeting and get the two pipes I need for the weekend. Hopeful. Unless they don't have any. In which case I will have to go someplace else to get them. And if I don't get them, I think Toni (Tech Director for PUSH) will be flexible.

I did get the pipes. And I think we had a very productive Buildings and Grounds meeting. Tomorrow, Thursday, I need to do more actual work at the Smith - and laundry. Huzzuh. Yay clean clothes and sheets and things.

Oops, the pictures I had thought I was going to post, I never posted. Here they are:

This has been stained and the wood blocks have been painted. Great stuff!

I was going to ride it today, but it snowed...

My obsession with Civilization has passed. Phew! On to the next one.

Saw Source Code which was kinda like Groundhog Day. Decent but not fantastic.

We are watching the 50th AnniversaryDiane Sawyer special about the Sound of Music. Good stuff. I am hoping we are going to have a sing along movie event at some point this year at the Smith. That would be nifty.

Blocked!

Mom realized why the gate was there and was unamused. Sorry/not sorry. I tried to explain to her that it is really for her own safety, but she feels she is being imprisoned. Not much I can do about that. But I can sleep soundly at night not worrying that she will pitch headfirst down the stairs trying to get herself some food. Yippee!!

We are going to the doctor's today to get her looked at and then going to the lawyer's office. Fun day. Good thing I have gotten all of my Smith work (movie playlists, movie sound playlists, HVAC, mail blast, etc.) done already. And tonight, conference call with the family. To whom I emailed the list of records I need to have on hand for eventual medicaid approval. It is a slightly daunting list.

Wow, what a day so far! Mom has forgotten how to stand up apparently. There's some fun stuff. I mean, I remember when she complained about climbing in and out of tombs in Egypt. And grumbling about not getting up all the time. But now she seems to think she has forgotten how to stand up by herself. Yippee. The aide got mom dressed, I gave her lunch and then we had a "talk" about her lack of exercise. Her great response - "What have you done for me lately?" Seriously? Anyway, we shall see if I can get her to do some exercise.

We got to the doctor's on time, huzzuh, and had the wonderful PA we have had before. Mom does indeed have shingles. And she prescribed an anti-viral - as Paul suggested. No one told me that 21 pills was going to cost $65. How much help will it be? That is anyone's guess. I guess we will see.

Then off to the lawyers to see about a couple of things. He didn't think he had any of the originals of some of the documents on my medicaid preparedness list. Oh well. He does have an original will, but the copy is good enough for now.

We were going to go get mom some ice cream, but she wanted to come home and go to the bathroom instead. Weird, but whatever.

I need to go to the pharmacy and get her prescription, pick up some stuff. I might also go and set up an appointment for a massage. I could really use one. Or two. One a week is about right, I think. Sigh.

Got the prescription and cooked leftovers for dinner. Time to do some hard core relaxing.

Already did an hour of work

Here it is 8:45 am and I have already done an hour of work. I want to get a little of this blogging thing done before doing some bill stuff. Yay bill stuff!

Last night's movie (The Hundred Foot Journey) was good, not great. I was uber surprised to see that Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey both put up a lot of money for it. I wonder why. It was a cute story, decently done, but certainly was not exceptional in any way. It would have been if we could have tasted all the yummy looking food. Oh well.

Damn Civilization all to hell! Grrrr. Moving on.

I hope to get some mom stuff done today. Justin is supposed to come over and get the gate up - maybe bring a new oven, etc. We shall see. And it is a Jenny day - yay! One of the things I would like to do is get some weekend coverage. Speaking of coverage, I was ok'd for respite from the Alzheimer's association. Up to 40 hours before June. Now if I could only figure out when I could use some respite - besides all the time...I could really use a massage. What? Where did that come from?

I had a minor epiphany today. Ok, it wasn't my epiphany exactly, a friend had it and I recalled it this morning. I can make calzone type food items with grands biscuits and the appropriate innards - like mozzarella, pizza sauce and pepperoni. I am so gustatorily excited!!

Today, amongst the things I did, I went to the bike store and picked up my bike. I got some things added to it, and they attached my handlebar mirror for free. Yay. Oh, another teeny epiphany, I can now get my car looked at - it is six months past due for its oil change, 'cause I have the bike to get back and forth - walking from there is too long a way in my current situation. By the way, checking the mom cams isn't very data intensive, so I can do it when I am not connected to the web.

Also, our handy guy came and put a gate up across the top of the stairs - very cool.

Ok, enough for now, I am sure there is more, but not that is getting written by me just now. Pfffffft.

Great Intentions

Isn't that the name of a book? I had some great intentions today. And who knows, maybe I will get something actually accomplished at some point. Instead I slept a lot, woke up late, didn't do anything, played xBox (Damn Civilization - it is really hard to win an economic game - I took one darn capital and suddenly the game is over. Grrrr.)

My hope was to get some correspondence written, sort my active papers pile (bills and such), do some grocery shopping and think about the coming week - we have a fairly intense show coming up at The Smith this weekend. And another couple next week. I was also hoping to get the movies picked for April. And what have I done? Nothing. I did make mom some lunch that she liked - cream of shrimp soup was the featured part. I am wondering if swallowing is difficult for her just now. One of the things I was going to get at the store was more cream soups - I know she doesn't like cream of tomato soup. Neither do I particularly. If I do get more cream soups, I will have to lay in a supply of half and half - I don't really like milk. Sigh.

Fenders! That was a word I was looking for yesterday - I bought a fender and a rear rack for the new to me bike. And toe clip pedals. And they are going to install my mirror for me for free. Yippee! I need to remember to put the bike rack in the car so that I can bring the bike back home more easily. Where I am going to keep it is anyone's guess. Part of me would like to tear down the barn and put up a new barn building for storage. Thoughts?

Justin said he would come over tomorrow with the gate for the top of the stairs and possible a new to me oven/stove. We shall, of course, see.

So, I didn't do anything after all. I made a meal of leftovers and played and now mom and I are watching a movie called The Hundred-Foot Journey. Yippee?

Another Good Day - Eeeeeeek

Does anyone else worry when things are going well? Yesterday was good and so was today. Eeeek!

So I got up and got out of the house after lunch - oh, there was one of the bad things (well, not bad, but not good either) - I decided to make mom some soup for lunch. I grabbed what I thought was the soup container, tossed it in the microwave and it turned into custard. Oops. It turned out that I had microwaved some leftover egg stuff. Poo. I didn't want to look for the soup, so I made mom some New England clam chowder (which she used to love) and she ate a good amount of it, leaving some of the potatoes.

After lunch, I headed out to the Smith and got a good chunk of work done. Fixed the slide-show and uploaded it (and downloaded it). Got some stuff figured out about Theatre Manager - still have a long way to go - talk about a deep program! It does everything except my laundry. I also added Spotify to two laptops. Then I checked the movie only to find that a few items hadn't been flown in and the borders and some legs. So that was taken care of. Oh, and light in the dressing room area wasn't dead,  there was just a switch switched incorrectly. Which reminds me, I want to get that fixed somehow. Maybe for now, it just gets heavily gaff taped.

While we are on the subject, my staff did a pretty good job last night. We did the load-in and got the drum riser down and then I boogied and I only heard a couple of little peeps out of them. Huzzuh!

Yesterday, a Facebook Friend posted a status saying that she was selling her husband's bicycle. (I hope he knew about it.) It was a Trek that was a few years old - a little small for me, but inexpensive and in good shape. Today I bought it to replace the one that was stolen last year. Took it to the bike shop to get a look-see done, a couple of things added (front rain guard thingie - I know there is a word for it - sigh - I hope I am not going to have Alzheimer's - I don't have anyone to take care of me. Maybe Kyle will... - toe clip pedals, a nice rear rack and they are going to put my rear view mirror on for me (no charge)).

Then back at home, I played a bit - can't seem to get an economic victory - and made dinner with out going to the grocery store - salad and hot dogs and baked beans. And I brushed my hair for no apparent reason apparently. Sigh. Mom and I are watching Studio 60 and I am trying to get this blog post written and posted.

Speaking of salad - I took a couple of pictures - salad fixings and then finished salads. Please enjoy them.

Lots of yummies!

Finished Salads before dressing

Quick thing about the new to mom phone - a while ago I bought a phone that was designed for Alzheimer's patients - it has buttons that could have pictures put in them for people in the early stages - push the button and be connected to whoever the picture is. Mom is way past that, so I have programmed all the buttons to dial my phone. When I got the phone, I tried programming it on my phone line and was told by the manufacturer that it didn't work with VOIP phones. Poop. So I put out a plea for people with real landlines to be met with a resounding silence. Except for my friend Rosanne out in CA. So I eventually packed the phone in a box and shipped it out to her, only to discover that she also had a VOIP phone. Sigh. Then, recently, I was at the Smith in the ticket booth and I noticed that the credit card machine was plugged into a phone jack - and I put two and seven together and realized that it must be a straight land line! When the phone came back, I took it into the Smith, today, and lo and behold it worked well and the phone got all programmed. Can I get a(n) "huzzuh?"

Damn Civilization

My obsessive nature is also probably to blame...I just found out that there are different difficulty levels, multiplayer, weekly scenarios, etc. Not sure I want to get into all that. Maybe a few more games and I will move onto another game.

Meanwhile, real life proceeds. I took a shower today - I always feel so virtuous for some reason, made mom some lunch and did a couple hours of work for the Smith. I need to head down there around 4 to get my staff working on the show this evening. I will check with them whether or not they need me to come back and help with load-out. I am hoping that they won't. We shall, of course, see. Tomorrow I am going to head in for a little bit and see if I can get the new printer working with theatre manager. And while I am there, try out a couple of phone jacks to see if I can find one that has an actual land line in it. That would be nifty. 

What a nice day! I love nice days. I got up, did some work for the Smith and then did my yoga and made mom some lunch. I also played a bit. Too much actually. Then lunch happened. After lunch I did a bit more work and then napped. After that, headed to the Smith and my staff was great! They worked hard and did everything I asked of them. The band loaded in, the sound people had everything all set up, so it was easy peasy. Had some good chats with Kelly and others and it just felt smooth and easy. I got out of there earlier than I thought I would and then went shopping at Wegmans. There, I got some free samples of food, chatted with nice people, saw two of my favorite check out people. Got good supplies and got back almost at the time I hoped to be back. Yay.

Dinner was delicious. Left over chicken with peanut butter sauce, heated up onion rings, a couple of tater tots and some yummy, almost perfectly cooked green beans. Huzzuh!

Oh, on the not so nice side, I think that mom's appetite has seemingly diminished - math mind says 65 percent of what she used to eat. I am hoping it is because she is uncomfortable because of the shingles and that her appetite will come back. 'Cause I think that appetite is a sign of willingness and attachement to the world. 

I love Studio 60. I wonder if Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon would create anything of pith and beauty. 

Took the CSA plunge

Half a share seemed enough for our household. And the price of a half share varied quite a bit. I ended up paying $300 for 18 to 20 weeks of vegetables. So about $15 a week. Not too bad, actually. My main worries are - picking the stuff up consistently and eating it all before the next delivery/pick-up. Not that I am too terribly worried about much of anything, actually.

Days always seem weird to me when I a) get little sleep or b) get up to an alarm or c) get up early. This was two out of three. I woke up at 6:47 feeling pretty wide awake, so I stayed up since one of my alarms was set for 7:02 am.

Mom and I watched The Book Thief last night. Overall I enjoyed it. There were some weird bits. I couldn't figure out what the movie wanted to be. Death as a narrator was odd. Most of the actors seemed to be doing some stylized acting. Nazi Germany is tough to present, especially now that we are, sort of, far from it. Weird mixture of German speaking, English speaking and a combination - speaking English with a German accent. I love Geoffrey Rush. Well, it did make me think a bit and that isn't a bad thing.

The movie didn't finish till about 10:45 pm and I wasn't ready for bed - so I played some Civilization on my xBox 360 - in which I got caught up and suddenly realized it was 1 in the morning! Eeek! Mom, of course, took that time to be wide awake. Sigh. I think I got her to lie down for about an hour. Then I heard her up and about in the bathroom a few times the rest of the night. This morning, she was sure some woman was watching the movie with her last night. Yes, I have long hair. And she kept telling me that she wasn't getting in the bed because she was saving it for her mother when she came to visit. Her mom died in 1967. 

Got up, futzed around a bit and then headed down to The Smith. I was pleasantly surprised that my co-worker had had the forethought to remove the film stuff. All I had to do before the traveling theatre people arrived was replace the gels in the Cyc lights - which is a teeny ordeal. The company arrived right around 8 and Terren was not far behind. I stayed a little bit and made sure they were all set, then toddled home, feeling discombobulated. Oh well.

Oops - written and not posted till after midnight. Sigh.

Haven't been writing much today

I have been doing other things - mostly, I admit, playing Civilization. It reminds me a bit of a game I used to play a lot back in the old days. I will try and think of the name. It was a build units and dominate the world sort of game as well. Hmm...

There was a good meeting of the Film Committee this morning at the Smith. Before that I did some Smith work. And then after that I did some Smith work. Tomorrow and Friday we have events. Thursday is a kids show - easy peasy apparently. They are loading-in before their morning show and loading-out after their evening show. With a big gap in between. Friday is the return of a band called The Town Pants - a celtic flavored group - in honor of St. Patrick's Day. I don't even know when St. Patty's Day is. Sigh. We have movies on Saturday and Sunday as well. So a busy weekend for The Smith. Yay!

Mom's mental impairment is starting to affect her hearing, or at least that is how it seems. Maybe it is listening comprehension. That is even more frustrating. Yippee! It also seems as if she has pretty much given up pretending to read.

The other day I saw the Veronica Mars movie. Did I mention that before? Anyway, I never watched much of the series, but I enjoyed the movie. Tonight we are watching The Book Thief. Not sure where I heard about it. It has gotten good ratings. So we shall see if I enjoy it. 

Great Purchase and an Owie

Starting with the bad news, I have a paper cut on my right hand ring finger. Owie. I probably ought to put a bandaid on it so that it doesn't catch on everything it can possibly catch on. Sigh.

My calendar was not up-to-date! I forgot to put in my appointment today with the Elder Care Attorney. She told me that the initial consultation was free - to determine if there was aught she could do for us. Thereafter it will be $250 an hour. Sigh. I haven't looked through my papers yet to see what all I have in my plastic tub. I don't know where the deed to the house is - I think it is in mom's safe deposit box. I wonder how I get access to that. Hmm. I will ask at the bank at some point. I don't think that is a crucial thing for the meeting today. I really do need to call the long term care people and see if the POA (Power of Attorney) I sent them was sufficient to grant me access to the account. We shall, of course, see.

My plan is to get my Smith stuff taken care of this morning. I need to build the two movie playlists, make the two spotify playlists, finish the Mail Chimp Weekly Email Blast and see what I can do about getting the other mail blast for PUSH closer to completion. I ought to be able to do all of that by noon. Hopefully.

Oh, the purchase of Greatness. I really like Aaron Sorkin's work. He writes really well and mostly gets good writers to continue his shows. I bought the complete Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip for $10 (including shipping)! Mom and I watched three episodes last night. Ok, mom napped during parts of them, but she was there on the sofa beside me. Yay!

Time for some work. Good morning!

Looks like mom got Shingles after all. Crap. We will head to the doctor's office tomorrow or Thursday.

Mailchimp etc.

Overall, I like Mailchimp. It does have a few quirks that I hope get worked out soon - like centering images is a pain in the butt and doesn't work as one would think it would. Also, I am trying to "embed" a video in a mail message and only by diligent searching did I find a Facebook post that suggested removing "styles" from the embed tag - and voila - that seemed to have done the trick. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out how to center an embedded video. Sigh.

"I don't want to be a non-person and I am trying very hard not to be." That is what my mom told me this morning at 4 am as she was sitting in her bedroom. Break my heart, why don't you. Why does she have to do this at 4 in the morning though? Why can't she try and not be a non-person during normal business hours. :)

Had my first "Mom is dead" dream. Joy.

Our substitute aide came and worked for a while. Yay. I have been doing some Smith stuff - like building a Storyboard for an ad that I think the Smith ought to run. Setting up heating for the next week. Etc. Fun, fun, fun! Ooh, and I have been doing a little bill paying. Always a joy. Actually, lucky that I can afford to pay our bills, all things considered.

Movie thoughts

I like to let my creative juices stew. I am thinking that I am going to add mostly sound effects rather than music to the movie. And I need to find a few places where I can slow down the mad rush forward - when I put in large groups of pieces. Yes, this is going to take time. It is all in the editing. Though lots of good footage (which I don't really have) helps a lot. Static camera does not a compelling project make - in my humble opinion...

I was going to get a lot accomplished today - at least that was my plan. Didn't quite work out that way. My friend from Syracuse came and spent the day, mostly hanging out with mom. She did, though, inspire me to take the Christmas tree down. Needles, needles everywhere. Luckily my friend was handy with a vacuum cleaner! And the vacuum cleaner worked (thanks to my tender ministrations a while ago). Yay.

Next step, get the compost out to the composter. Despite the warming trend and the pleasant temperatures, there was still a good amount of snow between me and the device. It took a couple of trips, but all of the stuff is in there now. It is getting really full. I wonder how to actually get dirt out of the thing. Hmm. Maybe I will wait until the weather is really warm to figure it out. Anyone out there have experience with my sort of composter?

Lunch was tuna melts - tuna salad containing mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, celery, chopped green olives, ground pepper and a little bit of garlic. I used some of mom's Jarlsberg cheese. Yum! Dinner was feta, onions, green pepper and mushroom omelettes, bacon, tater tots and frozen waffles. I think we all had too much food. I am still full at this point (it is 9:50 pm as I type this).

Now mom and I are watching PBS - Selfridges was on. I don't know what else will be. We shall see.

Windows is so crappy!

I am so happy that I spend more money and buy apple products. I am currently (still) trying to get one of the two laptops that I bought for the Smith into a functional state. It is not functional when whatever website one tries to get to, ads and warning and such start to blare. Pisses me right off! I think, though, that I am getting closer to getting it working. We shall see, we are rebooting as we speak. - So, I took off the virus protection and that sped the machine up about 20 fold. Then I found the last two adware things. One was really well hidden with a name like myzdinfdlamls.exe. What? Anyway,  can't tell you how excited I am that I got rid of those last two evil programs. Yippee!!

Meanwhile, I just want to say that I am surprised that I am still taking care of mom here in the house. I really thought I would be moving her into a "facility" at the end of January. And here we are in March! Yay. I am starting to look into the next step stuff - and am meeting an elder law experienced lawyer on Tuesday. So, there we are. 

Oh, and another thing. My laptop had this odd behavior, where it would go to sleep when I touched it or held it in a certain way - at least I thought that was what was happening. But it wasn't. I looked it up on the internet. Guess what? Turns out that the way that the Mac decides whether or not to "sleep" is by sensing whether its lid is closed. And the way it determines that is by magnetic action. Well, apparently, it is very sensitive to magnets, so if the laptop closing magnet is near another magnet, it just goes to sleep. Voila! So, I just have to be more careful about moving the laptop near magnetic objects - like my old laptop and the closure on my phone case. Sigh and yay.

Why is mom so against lying down? I really don't understand it at all. Grrr.

Did my Smith stuff and gave a decent tour. I did forget one of my favorite things, though - the steam punk fire bell ringing contraption. Sigh. Nice couple - Tom and Pat from Illinois. I installed Theatre Manager on a lap top, got the theatre ready for movies, updated the slide show and did a couple other little things. A good days work. Next week, the printer. Oh, it looks like there might be a real landline in the box office. I will know if it is if I get the phone back from my West Coast Friend (I do actually have more than one friend on the West Coast) who offered to try her landline. And the box office needs an internet connection. I wonder who does that sort of work. Bob Bailey perhaps? I will ask him on Monday. 

Well that is sad

Poo, even. I got all caught up in the many hour downloading of stuff for my computer that I completely forgot about doing my daily challenge, which means that my really, really, really long streak was broken. Oh well. Life is that way sometimes. I am sure I will survive. (One of my DC friends suggested I ask for a mulligan - but I do not hold out high hopes for that - which means I might just stop doing DC.)(They wrote back and said they could try to restore my streak - we shall see.)

And Twitter finally listened to my support emails and reset their flag on my email account so I did get a confirmation email and was able to log into my account. Huzzuh.

Mom was up all night basically, sitting in the bathroom. Not sure what to do about that. And she refused to lie down at 4 in the morning - after having spent the whole day sitting up. I must admit to yelling a bit to get her to finally lie down for a while. My throat is still sore.

I am exhausted. And a bit on the sad side. About Daily Challenge mostly. Though my mom is always good for a bit of sadness.

Yosemite (Yo-ze-might) has been safely installed and I don't see any problems. It will grow on me, I am sure. So, all of my personal computing devices are up to date. Hurrah!

Oops. Spoke too soon - apparently there is a new thing that the Mail app does that necessitates making some tweaks to one's account settings for some email accounts. Not everyone sees the issue - luckily enough people have that there are pages and pages devoted to it on the internet. Yay internet!

Spent way more time at the Smith today than I had planned. I even get to go back in later tonight. I could really use a nap. Mom is exhausted and passed out in her bedroom - in her chair unfortunately. But I can't even think about sleeping until I finish up closing at the Smith. Sigh.

Yay Winter!

Did I mention recently that I love winter? Winter seems more subtle than Summer. Last night, the lights on the snow turned ice on the William Smith quad mystically illuminated. Or something like that...

I fought the law and I won! I got a ticket at the Smith for parking too long in a spot. But I hadn't. I had been there less than two hours. The person at the police station said she would take care of it. Huzzuh!

This is going to be a short post - I am trying to download Yosemite for my laptop and it is going to take a loooooong time. I upgraded my phone's system yesterday. I think I mentioned that. Anyway, I can't be on the internet 'cause that will make the download go even more slowly.

Toasty!

The temperature at 5:12am on Wednesday morning in Geneva, NY is a balmy 37°F. It is going to be above freezing most of the day! Huzzuh! I was just outside in a t-shirt and boots playing choochoo train in my walkways. Mom and I get to go to her dentist appointment this afternoon. Yippee! An outing! Always a reason to celebrate. This is going to be mom's first time downstairs in a few weeks. I am tempted to take her to Friendly's for dinner, but am concerned about all the issues involved in a meal out. We shall see. (They called to reschedule - seems like this is the second time that has happened...) For now, I think I will try to get a few more hours of sleep. That would be nifty...

The puzzle movie is on hold - not because I don't want to do it, but because creatively I am a little stymied just now where it is concerned. Fear not, it will get done. Eventually. I hear that patience is a virtue. Hahaha.

I took the plunge and am going to go further spelunking into the depths of software upgrades. This morning before I went back to sleep, I started the download and upgrade process for my phone - the download took 6 hours - well, it ended up actually only taking four (!) - which unfortunately was exactly when I was supposed to be getting a call from an Elder Care Lawyer. Oops. We ended up speaking on the house's landline instead. Choices and options. Huzzuh!

Tonight I think I am going to update the software on my laptop. I don't really want to, because nothing is broken on here - but life moves forward and I don't want to get too far behind the technological curve, do I?

It is so warm outside! Things are melting, slowly. I went out to clear a little of the driveway and discovered a few things: slush is heavy, my shovel is broken, and my car lost a piece of plastic that is making things tough for my right front tire. Yippee.

Shopping at Walmart is always a joy. I went to buy mom some more underpants. They had a price thing that was wrong. Hate that. It said what I was buying was $75 per hundred - when it was actually   closer to $40 per hundred. I bought myself some socks, too. One of the newest socks I had mysteriously sprouted a hole in the toe. Grrr. I liked that sock too. I had named it and everything. (Sockie, in case you were curious - or Harriet - it answered to neither.)

A conglomeration (Is that the group word for some sort of critter?)

Is my Blu-ray player remembering where each and every disc was stopped? I think it does! How cool is that?! I love technology most of the time. I was disappointed to discover that one of the web cameras I bought was not plug and play like the other cameras I bought. I am not looking forward to returning it. I hope it is easy. I really need to get on that. I don't know how long I have. Eeek! So little to do, so much time to do it and all I want to do is nothing! Yay!

Turns out I had until March 22 - and it was pretty easy - they charged me some shipping, but I am ok with that. Getting it out of my hands was the important thing to me. I will make due with two cameras for the time being.

For some reason I have been thinking about the Dragon Riders of Pern series. I think the technology is there to make the movie now. And it might be a great franchise movie. I might just have to read all 111 of them again at some point. (Ok, so there are only 22 or 24 or 25 or something) (And it turns out that movies and such have been attempted for years - but a new one was started in 2014 - at least the writing bit was...)

We have had a weird weather day. Nice in the morning, blizzard in the afternoon turning to a snowfall of snocone consistency precipitation and it is getting warmer throughout the night - to a high of 37. Since the sun isn't shining and the wind is blowing pretty heavily, I don't think much melting, sadly, will go on. Poo. Yay weather!

Finished Live From New York. It was compiled back in 2002 or so - so it is a bit out of date. I was amazed at the people who have gone through that show. A lot of talent. I am glad that I read it. Big book! 500+ pages. Eeek. I still have another book I got from the library, but what I really want to read are the aforementioned Pern books. Ok, there are a few other books that I would like to read, mostly parts of series. There is one series that I was reading a while ago - I wonder if another book came out in that series. It is supposed to be the last, but I don't think it can be with the rate that the story has been progressing. What do I know. Brandon whatshisname managed to tie up The Wheel of Time series in three books when it looked like there ought to be another six.

That's New

Mom is getting to be more disoriented more often. Today she asked when she we were going home. And where she could sleep. And if it was bed time. And she threw away her water glass. Not sure what that last one is about - but it seemed pretty odd to me.

Got the package of documents from the Alzheimer's Association. I will look through it and see what I can see.

I am, once again, working on cleaning up the brand new computer we (I) bought for the Smith. I hate windows so much! To remove a program you have to go to a window and choose to uninstall it. What crap?! Still a bunch of crap on there, I think - but I broke the machine and then fixed it again. Next step, installing the software that is needed for use at the Smith. It all takes so much longer than I would like, when using a PC.

Short post again tonight - most of the day was spent on the blinkety-blank pc. Poo.

Lazy Sunday

Thanks to the visit of my friend yesterday, mom went to sleep at a reasonable hour and only woke me up twice! Yay! I got to sleep until 10 am for the most part. Woo hoo even!!

What else happened today? I read a lot - trying to get through (not in a bad way) - the book about Saturday Night Live. I do recommend the book, but not for everyone. It is written as a lot of quotes from people associated with Saturday Night Live. And some comments by the person (or persons) who compiled the book. It is amazing how many people were on the show over the years. And how many of them became household names. So it is a cool book. But since it is all people reminiscing, it can get a little wishy washy.

I went to the grocery store, which is always exciting. One of the checkers actually said it was nice to see me. Made my day.

I played a little - I am really enjoying Dishonored over all. It has some issues of course, but generally it is fun! Yay fun!

No napping today! Huzzuh!

Dinner was left over chicken with peanut sauce, mashed potatoes (with feta and garlic and sour cream), steamed beans and baked (roasted) Brussels Sprouts. Mm, mm, good!