The cycle continues

So, after a couple of good days, we are off to a poo day start. Yippee! Apparently I don't care and won't help and am making mom suffer. My favorite line "Why do you get to sleep when I can't sleep?" Seriously? Sadly, logic doesn't work with mom at this point when she is in this particular state of mind - half asleep and angry. Yippee!

Sleepy. I did do laundry yesterday. I hope it turned out ok. I was otherwise focused. I also branched out and visited a new-to-me place. Interesting. Yay for interesting.

My next chore is to get off my butt and drive down to the car place, drop off my car and ride my bicycle back home. I can do that. I just need to do it. Then I will come back and knock out my list of tasks. Or nap. We shall see.

5 minutes down, 10 minutes back - not too bad. That is one reason I like Geneva, it is bike able. If only there were more bike lanes and places to lock one's bike. Though I would really love to live in a world where people could leave their bike unlocked for a month outside and not have it stolen. Wouldn't that be nifty? Sigh.

Lunch is done. She told me that she doesn't like crackers with cheese. I am really starting to struggle to find things she does like to eat. Sigh.

I do worry a bit when a day goes smoothly and as planned. Oh, and when it is a "pretty"day. I rode down to the Smith - got my work there done, turned over the show to Terren, went to the bank, and rode to pick up my car. Yes, the muffler needed replacing, and I had forgotten to get the car inspected (in November), got the oil changed, a wiper replaced and the right rear tire ministered to (it wasn't all that expensive - and I just got paid from the Smith, so...). 

Mom has been extra curmudgeonly today. I think I will maybe set up another appointment with a physician's assistant or a nurse practitioner. Mom seems to be in more pain than usual. Maybe it is psychosomatic, maybe it is real. Hard to tell, of course. And what level of pain it is, I have no idea. Maybe some physician sort will be able to get to the bottom of it. 

Anyway, I played some COD AW and did ok. I think I will do one full prestige and maybe a second and then give it up to play other stuff. I am not as attached to this one as I was to the previous ones. Yay.

Ok, time to do a little Smith work and then watch something on Netflix. 

It is a sunny day!

We don't get a lot of them here in Geneva. So they are noteworthy. I am going to ride my bike down to the Smith to neaten up the stage, the area of the sound and light boards, maybe replace the sound board, set the theatre for tonight's movie and do a couple of other little things. Today is also bill day! Yippee! 

In all the hubbub bub, I didn't get to the bank to do anything with the filthy lucre that the IRS returned, grudgingly, to me. I still don't understand how someone who makes as little as I do needs to give anything to the government while corporations that earn huge profits get tax rebates?! WTF. Seriously. I don't know if Community Bank is open on Saturdays. Maybe till noon? I wish I could find Hannah again. I do like the staff at my branch, but she was funny.

I keep getting distracted. Found a new thing in Theatre Manager that needs to be tweaked and rebranded and such. I don't think I will be doing it, but will be paying inHouse to do the work. Oughtn't to take them too long so won't be too expensive.

Because it is sunny, I thought, hahahahahaha, that it might also be warm. It is 9 am and it hasn't broken 40 yet. So maybe I won't ride my bike downtown. Then again, I have only ridden it three times, which is about $100 a ride - gotta get that number down in case this bike, too, is stolen.

One cute thing mom is doing now, is that she can't really make clear the difference between her bed and her chair. I will say something like - Mom, (while she is sitting in her chair) do you want to get in bed? And she says "I am in bed." Makes me smile for some reason. Any excuse to smile is a good one.

Did my major Smithing today. Set up the movie stuff, cleaned up the stage a bit, did a couple other little things. Then a nice trip to the grocery store. Though, we are having Pizza and chicken wings tonight for dinner. I can hardly wait. Yum, num, yum, yum.

Actively Avoiding

That pile of papers in the orange room is mocking me. Every time I walk past there, it looks at me with a glint in its eyes. It knows I need to buckle down and go through what could very easily be a wild goose chase - since I probably threw away anything from creditors after the bankruptcy - but you never know. My hoarding, must save just in case mind set might have led me to save the pieces of paper. And it all could be moot - the creditors could have sent their paperwork to the Fed and actually checked the "bankruptcy" box. Anything is possible. We shall see if I can get my act together and tackle that project at some point soon. 

The library wrote and told me that my next Harry Potter book came in! Huzzuh! So, I went down and got it and did a little bit of Smith stuff. Made lunch and did more Smith work. And I get to head in to the Smith for a meeting this afternoon. All in all a pretty easy day - despite the amount of work. It is such a lovely day outside, that I think I will ride my bike downtown. Yippee!!

I did, I did, I did ride my bike downtown. Hooray!!

Tonight's movie was the Stephen Hawking Biopic The Theory of Everything. I enjoyed it. It is interesting how thoughts he was just thinking at one point longish ago are taken for seemingly granted nowadays. 

After watching the movie, I watched a couple of episodes of Fringe and then was about to go to sleep when I remembered that I had to set up a mail blast to go out Friday morning at 10:00 am. Glarp. I had most of it down, just needed to add/change some graphics, tweak verbiage and such, create links and look them up and bob's my uncle - not really. I don't have an uncle bob. More's the pity...

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?"

Tic Tac Toe

Three days in a row. Are the "x" days or "o" days? Hmm.

So, I was thinking that I would see if the bike place downtown does layaway. If they do, I could start paying for a new bike now and have it in time for next Spring. I like the idea of layaway. Better than buying something on credit in my opinion. Teaches one the happiness and satisfaction inherent in delayed gratification. We shall see. Thursday I will inquire.

I found myself noticing bikes all over the place today. Silly of me, I know, hoping to see mine just sitting out somewhere. Still, it is a small town and anything is possible (though most things are unlikely). I also looked at The Smith to see if perhaps I had hallucinated and not ridden my bike home the other night and had just left it there. Another bike was there, not mine, unfortunately. Sigh.

The bright side - they didn't take my bike/car rack. Nor did I attach the rear-view mirror! Hurrah for small blessings.

Right now I am sitting at the Smith babysitting for a band that is rehearsing for an upcoming East Coast swing of a tour. It reminds me of the times I have hung out with bands in the past. Back in college I was sort of briefly the band manager for a group of guys I knew. Rockford, I think was the band's name. I recently reconnected with a few of them on Facebook! The other was when I was living in the Bay Area and was briefly the lighting guy (when they played gigs where there was a lighting rig set-up) and lugger for a band called Hobo. Not as glamorous as people think it is, the life of a musician. Or any artist for that matter. A lot of time is spent just sort of sitting around. It does have its cool bits. And this time I am getting some work accomplished - which is more than can be said for those days gone by.

It just might work...

Last night I wrote down all the things that I would like to accomplish before heading to Maine a week from Tuesday. The list is not all inclusive - I am not putting down daily tasks like cooking and shopping and working at the Smith. And there might be a couple of things that I have forgotten to put on it - hopefully they will come to me before too long - anyway - here is the list:

Pills for mom
Car Looked at/Oil Change
Bike Rack
Bike Helmet
Laundry
Empty Out Orange Room
Clean Little Bathroom
Pay for laptop fixage
Give Card Back to Kelly
Pay Bills
Pack mom and me
Call Time Warner (ick) about speed boost
Vacuum my room
Look in dance studio and third floor for good chair

Most of these are easily doable with a little planning. Monday will be the day when I get the ball rolling on most of these. And here is where the little epiphany thing happened. Used to be, when I took my car to Dave's Garage to have it looked at, I would walk back to the house. And when I was called and told that the car was ready, I would walk back down. Not a big deal - maybe half an hour each way. Then I had my little aha moment. If I bought the car/bike rack before getting the car looked at, I could take the bike down to the car place on the bike rack - ride home and then ride back to the car place then carry the bike home on the rack. Win, win, win! Love those triple win things (which makes me think of horse racing and taking mom to the track again this summer - at least once - hopefully more frequently than that...) Anyway, that will knock three things off my list. Yay! And, while I am out and about, I will try to do some of the other errands on my list - get as many accomplished on Monday as I can. Yay!

Today, I plan to do some of the things around the house - oh, one I don't know if I want to add to the list or not - put the porch back together. It is a good day to do it - not much wind, pretty warm - that way, when I rinse the floor, it ought to dry quickly. Maybe I will wash the floor today and put the porch together tomorrow. One little problem is that mom's port-o-potty is in the doorway to the porch. Hmm. I will have to think on that one...

Ok, time to get started - I have been toiling away on this and a relationship post about what exactly I mean when I talk about relationships. But I gotta eat!

Condiment Post (Birthday doings, too)

I like condiments.

Well, the last post I published had been started April 3, before the play started at the Smith. Not really a play - a ballet of Peter Pan. Does this really exist outside of SPAs minds? Yup, I guess it does. I just googled it. I had never heard of it before. Peter Pan, yes, but as a ballet, no.

Anyway, the show went pretty smoothly. It took a lot of time, was a teeny bit stressful - mostly around dealing with my situation taking care of mom and balancing work - I don't know how people with "real" jobs handle the same thing. Unless they get more help than I get. Bigger support system. I hope that's the case. Anyway, it all worked out. I had a coworker to cover dinner, so I could pop out of the rehearsal and give mom some food and come back again. The work itself wasn't too onerous. The group is fairly self contained - lots of volunteers and people working. A stage manager would be nice, but when I mentioned it to the director, she said that no one would take on the responsibility. Sigh. Anyway, it was a long few days - from April 3-6. But we got it done. And I think it was well received. Except by mom.

I don't know what goes on in her head. I do know that she has forgotten the story of Peter Pan - so that wasn't a good start. Ballet might be harder for her since she is still very verbal. And I admit there were some confusing bits. I am not sure what the whole "stars" and "aurora borealis" dances were all about...it just wasn't her thing. Finding her "thing" is getting more and more difficult - as I will explain in a bit.

So, that brings us to April 7th. As some of you know, I had made arrangements and plans to get a little bit of a break from Chez Schoen-René. I am a bit of a road warrior. I really like to be out and about  - not all the time - as I was discussing with anyone who would listen - besides living in a place for awhile (6 months to a year - perhaps) optimal travel at this point in my life is 3 months traveling - 3 to 6 months recouping. The last major travel I did was the trip across the US with mom back in the summer of 2011. Since then there have been lots of littler trips - Maine, CT, other parts of NY, NC, that sort of thing. Nothing too extensive. And none of it alone - or at least not with mom. Trips are trips, even with mom in her current state - and way better than nothing. But, in this case, I was hoping for a double whammy - a trip out of the country and a trip without mom.

All this to honor myself, give myself a break and to enjoy my birthday - April 8. The plan was to leave around 10 in the morning - drive to London, Canada and meet a friend for late dinner or drinks or both. I had planned a stop in Buffalo to go to the Pearl Street Brewery (Brewpub) for lunch. Gave myself loads of time for getting through the border. And the drive from the border to London, another 2.5 hours - would give me time to get there, find a hotel in a leisurely fashion and maybe do a little exploring of the town before meeting up with my friend (who works until 9 or so). She was ready, I was ready. Well, ready-ish. I was planning on packing - packing - ha - throwing a few things in a bag and grabbing my toothbrush was about the size if it in the morning. By the way - the next day's plan was to head to Toronto to meet another friend, spend the night there and then come back on Thursday in time to do an event at the Smith. Plans. Gotta love 'em.

I just ordered two thumb drives from China. Says they will get here in 16-18 days? Are they taking the slow boat?

The morning dawned, I was up and starting to think about getting out of bed when I got a message from the person who was going to help by hanging out with mom while I was away. Family crisis/emergency sort of thing. Great. Sorry for her and her family of course, but come on! Really? I chose not to go and called to make an appointment for a massage. It was my birthday after all and if I wasn't going away, the least I could do would be to treat myself to a massage. Have I said before that if I were really rich, I would have a masseuse on payroll? Maybe two - so they could massage each other when they weren't massaging others people. Turns out that the emergency was serious, so I am glad I didn't make her split her focus by having to care for mom while worrying about her own situation.

I spent a leisurely morning a bed, fed mom lunch and headed to the massage. Not a bad one, not great, but not bad. Certainly way better than no massage at all! Afterwards, I headed to a bicycle shop. Much smaller than the one in Geneva. I liked the guy who worked there immediately. He understood what I was looking for, didn't look down at me or my questions (ok, so I was taller than he) and made good recommendations. I didn't know that bikes now sometimes have disc brakes! Who knew?! I didn't make a decision right then, I like to sleep on big decisions.

Next stop, MacGregor's for a beer. They have the most taps in the area. Lots of lovely stouts to choose from. I only had one and it was yummy. I hope to get back there and have some more. Two women I know from Geneva were there - getting ready for class. We chatted and I discovered that there is a place that makes good friend chicken in the area. It was a bit out of plan to head there then, so I put it on the "do later" list. Headed to Wegman's and got some chicken wings and other stuff that didn't require effort on my part and took them home and fed mom some dinner. Yay!

All in all, a good celebration of my day of birth. I have, though, renewed my conviction to do nice things for myself as frequently as I can - and as much as I can afford.

In that light, after surviving an event at the Smith - actually it was a decent event that got a lot of students who probably wouldn't otherwise have visited the Smith in the doors - on Friday I went back to the bike store. I was prepared to spend a good chunk of change on a new, customized bike. As I was walking in, I saw a used bike outside. The man I had spoken with earlier in the week suggested I give it a spin. I did. It was fine. And considerably less expensive than the new bike would have been. Not as spiffy, but it will suffice. I actually like to ride it, as opposed to a Schwinn I had purchased back when I was living in NC. Oh, and since I lived 8 miles from town - over bike unfriendly roads and terrain. I asked for it to be tricked out with fenders, a rack and toe clips. Yay! On Saturday I picked it up - just in time for two days of great weather. Great! Weather! (Ok, today we have snow on the ground, but the weekend was in the 70s.)