Responsibility

Up at the crack of dawn to help mom out with bathroom issues. How fun! Joyous even. I wish I were still asleep.

I am not going to get to go back to sleep.

One thing about mom that has always rankled. She has lived in victim mentality for as long as I have known her. She has, over the years, managed to do a lot despite this. But to this day, most things in her life are "not her fault." Sigh. That and the whole pessimistic outlook on life thing she has going on can be awfully draining.

Sadly, my sister is feeling sick, so she won't be coming at this point to visit mom. (Feel better, sis!) Which is ok - as I now have longer to excavate the room at the head of the stairs where I was going to have her sleep. Maybe I will even fix the chair in there that was broken at some point.

It seemed like a busy Smith day - the morning was spent working on several TM things. IN the afternoon I had a meeting with a potential employee and then did more catch-up with Kelly. It is good when I feel in the loop.

Dinner was only a moderate success. Mom thought the yummy chicken bites (garlic and parmesan) were too dry. She liked her corn though and ate her over armed onion rings. At the grocery store, I got a couple of soups that I am going to try her on. Not cream based.

Haven't gone back to sleep...

So, instead of sleeping, I came up with a thought about why the problem we were having with ticket sales was occurring. I went online and fixed it. Yay me. Then I started working on a draft document that Kelly has created. I might be doing more than just editing it, though...I will do what I am doing and give it back to her. Maybe she will credit me with co-authorship if she likes the changes I am making. Maybe not.

Mom is being a real pain in the butt today. Yay.

I am exhausted again. Up at 3 and then up at 6 and then up at 8 all to help mom - then from 8 until 9 almost incessant calls from mom - where am I? Where can I go? What can you do for me? Me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me. For an hour. And now it has started again. Sigh.

I got a bit of a nap. Yay. I also did some good work on the Kelly doc. And I even went out to run some errands. Spent longer than I thought I was going to at the Smith, talking with Kelly and getting a few little things accomplished. Then a brief stop at the Public Library (I love libraries - I wonder how they will evolve in the future...) to pick up two Audio books that were being held for me. One of them I had completely forgotten I had requested. The other is the next book in the Harry Potter series - book 5 The Order of the Phoenix. Yippee! Last, a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some corn on the cob, some of mom's pills and a few other things. Now I am back home again. And could use another nap.

I am almost finished with The Goblet of Fire. Yippee! 

I tried to watch The Boxtrolls with mom, but she was having none of it and slept through most it. It wasn't all that engaging on the small screen. It might have been better on the big screen. Or on my computer with headphones or better sound. All in all, it seemed ok, not great. Glad I rented it, though. 

Up way too early

Went to sleep at a reasonable hour, sort of, and woke up an hour later. Yay. Did a couple of work things. Then went back to sleep. Then woke up again a couple of hours later. Did another work thing. Then went to sleep again. Then woke up to hear mom in the bathroom. So I did one more work thing. Back to sleep for a third (or is it fourth?) time and suddenly the alarm was going off. Joy. Got up to find mom in a confused state (not all that much more confused than normal, but a little) and helped her out, got her a yogurt and bundled myself off to the Smith. Where I am now, typing in my sleep. Zzzzzzzzzz. 

Home again and going to take a bit of a nap. It is, after all, a time when I am normally asleep. So is it really a nap? Or just a postponed continuation of my nighttime sleep? Hmm.

I slept for a while until, you guessed it... Sigh. Mom and I got a little contentious around lunch time. She tried to kick me. Which was actually really, really funny!

Trying to get my ducks in a row for next week. Two shows that are going to be really, really easy - which scares me a little bit. When I think they are going to be easy, trouble might appear out of nowhere. We shall, of course, see.

Two more forays to the Smith today. One for the conference, one to see if the ticket person tonight wants to be trained on how to use Theatre Manager for ticketing. Fingers crossed that he does. 

I slipped out of the training! Yippee! So I made salmon balls - they weren't awesome and need more spice. But they weren't terrible. Sadly, mom did not snarf them up. Poo even. 

Just watched The Imitation Game and was sad about the ending. What a loss. People's fears suck. Yes? Fear is the mindkiller. (Thank you, Frank)

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.

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.

Just great

Mom had a weird little nubbin on her left wrist. One that she worried a lot. Rub, rub, rub. Pick, pick, pick. Rub, rub, rub. Well, I head a little "Damn" from her and went to see what was wrong. Turns out her nubbin was bleeding. I told her that she shouldn't rub it (for the gazillionth time). She said she hadn't rubbed it. I said "Really?" She said "Really. I cut it off." So I took away all of her nail scissors. Sigh. At least it is making her tractable and docile than she sometimes is...spoke too soon - she wants her scissors back!

I think the home health aide and I took away eight pairs of scissors! Eeek! Luckily, the aide now has permission to help trim mom's nails! Yay!

Long, long Smith Day. And a longer one Saturday and another longish one on Sunday. Maybe I will take Monday off. We shall see. Friday was spent working on getting Cinderella put together - taken off of trucks, out of boxes and set-up. It looks great! And the lighting work we did all was good. We did have to stay a little late to work on cabling of the light trees - lighting trees that stand on the side of the stage - often used in dance performances.

Saturday was an early day - and it was slightly miscommunicated. I thought our techs were needed to run sound and light - not the case - only the deckhands were needed for the cue-to-cue - or spacing - rehearsal. I left Terren in charge and came home for a nap. I need all my good will if I am to successfully take mom down to see the show this evening. Wish me luck!

There are good things about being up early

Aren't there? I am sure there are. Hmm, more hours in the day? No, not really. I mean if I am awake for 17 hours, does it matter which seventeen? I think not. Well, I will keep pondering And since I am up early, I will ponder now! I will ponder ponderously!

Ok, pondering done. Well, napping at least. Anyway, I went in to the Smith this morning and had a brief meeting with a member of the Buildings and Grounds committee. It was very informative for me. I hope it was for him. Week Two of the Fire Curtain - or is it three now - is winding to a close. I am looking forward to seeing what progress they made today. They seemed a bit surprised that I needed to have the theatre ready for a film on Friday, though I had mentioned to it several times.

This morning was recycling day! I haven't done much sorting lately, and the big pile in the dining room is gone - mom hasn't noticed that I can tell. So I wasn't sure what to put in there. I do have a cache of boxes behind the yellow sofa in the living room. I grabbed one, opened it and sorted it really quickly - the boxes there are mostly sorted already. I was saving stuff in case mom wanted it. Mom won't want it. So I recycled almost the whole thing. Yay!

Looking forward to sleeping in!

Really, I am. This getting up early is for the birds who like worms. Me, I am a steak and potato sort of bird. Let me rise when my body wants to and all will be right with the world. As it is, I am feeling a bit on the tired side. Ok, a lot on the tired side. I really am looking forward to my nap. Which I will have as soon as I post this. Yippee!

Yesterday was not a learningful day. I did get up early again. Yay. And it looks like I will be up early the next couple of weeks. Sigh. I thought a job in the theatre would be starting later in the day generally. Poo. But I digress. I didn't spend a lot of time at the Smith yesterday. I did, though, spend a lot of time on the computer at home doing Smith things. My Smith mail folder is already bulging at the seams. Yippee?

My friend Jeff asked me what about Middlesex made me say that it was the sort of novel that I would like to write. First, I would say it was balanced in terms of description and dialogue. I didn't think it was too talky or too wordy. There was an economy of language in regards to description that I liked. I also enjoyed the fact that the narration changed between first and omniscient third. Not being much of a refined sort of critic mostly I just liked it - which is what I would like people to say about a novel I wrote.

And that's about all. I made some arsenic laced rice (when did that happen?) with veggies and eggrolls for dinner. Tonight I am making home made chicken nuggets. Mom likes finger foods!

Early to wake...

I am not a fan of early morning meetings. Not the schedule to which I currently adhere. I normally rise around 9 - sometimes later - so am easily ready for a meeting that starts at 10. Unfortunately, not everyone is on that schedule. They are early risers - five and six in the morning are not unheard of times for them. So a meeting at 8:30 seems like getting off to a late start for them! Eeek! I managed to get to my 8:30 meeting a few minutes early - yes, even for early meetings I like to be early. The third of our triumvirate arrived soon after - the first was there waiting. The meeting was about the HVAC system at the Smith.

The person representing the controls company seemed young - but that was only to be expected when it turned out that there was a lot of control scripting that happened under the hood of the controls application. Who knew? Apparently this guy did. After listening to our woes, he opened up some files and found the major culprit - one piece of logic had been mis-written - making it so that no matter what we did after we turned the system on, it would try to cool down the space to the unoccupied coolness setting - a not-so-balmy 55 degrees! Eeek! No wonder it never turned off!!

After the technician made such quick work of figuring out that problem, my fears were assuaged about the system. We spent the next couple of hours tweaking things and learning some of the ins and outs of the program. All in all a well spent few hours, I believe. Yay, even!

Unfortunately, it made Augustus a tired puppy. I dragged myself home and made lunch for mom - note to self (and anyone who reads this) - mom does not love left over quiche. The supermarket has been out of salami the last two times I was there. Poo. If they are out the next time, I will check at Tops. Glarp. In fact, I plan to head to the supermarket today before lunch and resupply with salami for mom's lunches.

After lunch, I napped for a bit to try to regain my customary alterness. It worked to a teeny degree - at which point I started working on my blog - hence the lateness of the post yesterday. I also started thinking about dinner. I thought, heck, I will do the normal Friday dinner - salmon for mom and pizza for me - but I couldn't face making pizza and the salmon hadn't been thawed - so I came up with the idea of ordering pizza! Yay! Except that mom informed me that she didn't like pizza. Sigh. I got pizza anyway - and some chicken wings - mom mostly ate most of the chicken wings. I now have pizza for meals for the next couple of days! Yippee! Everyone, mostly, was happy with the dinner.

Up and at 'em

I used to think the saying was "up and atom" - of course, I grew up when atomic energy and such was still pretty fantastic sounding and new. Now I know what it really is. Got get 'em, tiger! That is what I did yesterday. Up at the crack of dawn. Ok, not really. But I was showered and out of the house before 9:30 am to spend time at The Smith playing with the HVAC controller. Fun times.

Since I was up, I decided to run a couple more errands. My first (and most likely my last) trip of the summer to the Geneva Farmer's market was first on the agenda. Not the most thriving farmer's market I have ever been to. No broccoli! Or artichokes! They did have corn, so I got three ears. (It was delicious.) Not a lot of people there at 10 in the morning either. Still, some farmers market is better than no farmers market.

Next stop, the library. Mom wants to go to the library. I will get her there again sometime. I think she just enjoys looking at the books and then taking a few home. I don't think she really reads them. But I don't sit with her every minute of any day, so I don't really know. Since I was by myself, I got two audio books to listen to in the kitchen. Yippee!

Next major event, napping! I was tired so a nap was definitely in order. Yay for naps. Oh, and crossword fun with mom. This is something that I try to do at least once a day, but I do miss some days: read clues from a crossword for mom and try to help her to figure out the responses. Kind of like Password (the tv game show) which I really enjoyed. On a side note, I think I may have mentioned this before - mom wants me to try out for Wheel of Fortune. I did once, years ago, and didn't become a contestant. I don't know that I would qualify next time either. And that show has a huge element of luck involved, which counteracts my cleverness quotient, such as it is.

After nap, was dinner - last night I made store cooked chicken with house made corn on the cob and sugar snap peas. Yum!

After dinner, mom watched a couple of movies - one Cary Grant and one Fred Astaire, while I played. I finally finished Red Dead Redemption - which I enjoyed thoroughly. I started a game about Alice and Wonderland (not much of a resemblance to the books) which is pleasant but not scintillating. Suddenly, the phone rang. Or rather, I looked at the phone and saw that Kelly from the Smith had called and left a message minutes before. Apparently the dimmers were flipping off again. Sigh.

I headed down and did what I could to help out - which basically meant standing around and watching to see if it happened again. Which it didn't. Yay! This morning, David and I vacuumed the dimmers off and out and hopefully that will solve the problem, as it did last time. I was a bit surprised at how much dust (saw dust?) was in the vents. Eeek! Quite a day!

Opera is finished

Mixed feelings abound regarding the end of the opera. I am glad that mom and I will be able to get back to a more regular schedule. I am sad that I won't have the opera to work on and the people associated with it to see and hang out with. Sigh.

I felt like my life, such as it is, was on hold while I was working/focused on the opera. I do knw that some stuff got neglected. Like my blog. And the mail/bills. I hope to get to them today - at least that is my plan.

Ok, so where were we? Oh, yes. The opera is over. Sunday was a long day. So was Monday, come to think of it. Each will be examined minutely (or not) in due time or course or whatever saying is most apt. Let's start with Sunday.

Sunday was the second and last performance of Don Pasquale. Matinees are odd - like going to a movie in the afternoon. It comes as a little bit of a shock when the performance is over and one walks out into the daylight! The show went smoothly - I think Robert and I finally got the curtains to go at the perfect-ish time. After the show, we had to do strike - remove all evidence of the opera having ever been there. It went pretty well and quickly. Everyone helped, even though they weren't required to. And the piano got moved back - honestly, I had forgotten about the piano. Moving an $80k Steinway is heavy and nerve-wracking (nerve-racking even...) work. Though, truth be told, this is the second (or third?) time for me, so it wasn't nearly as scary. We finally got everything that we were planning on getting done done. By 6:00 pm. Yay!

The "Cast" party started at 6:30 - I didn't get there till seven. I went home, fed mom badly (McDonald's fish sandwich), tried to get her situated with something to watch on television and changed my clothes. The party was at The Cobblestone - a tradtion apparently. We had a much smaller group than in years past, so only took over the top floor. Quite a spread! Lobster, sushi grade tuna, roast beef, lasagna, all sorts of other things - yummy desserts, decent selections at the bar. I stayed for a while after dinner and listened to the performing, but, since Al had decided he wanted to be up and out early - sigh - I wanted to make an early night of it, leaving around 9:30 pm.

Once I got home, I spent some time with mom, checking in. I do feel that I have neglected her a good bit over the past couple of weeks. Poo. But she has probably forgotten already. Yay! And then I stayed up too late playing.

That is part of the reason that Monday was a long day. I went to bed late, slept fitfully (yes, a combination of lots of rich foods does tend to make my sleep a smidge uncomfortable) and woke early. I did get a little done before heading off to the Smith to stuff Al's van full of props, costumes, backdrops and furniture. We had help toting things, which was great. I think it took all of half an hour to load his vehicle and see him off.

Back home, I thought to nap, but somehow never managed to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. A new person is working for the aide service and she wanted to come and see if mom's service plan (like a car?) needed an overhaul. It didn't. Then Jenny came and helped mom out a bit by dusting her corner of her bedroom. I made lunch and headed to the Smith for a staff meeting. After which, back to the house for more attempted napping. Again, mostly unsuccessful! Eventually I headed to the grocery store to get victuals for dinner - left over chicken (from the fridge, not from the store), corn on the cob (yummy), artichokes (not good - too woody) and green beans (which I managed to cook just about perfectly). Huzzuh!

Somewhere in here, I had an epiphany-let: there probably exists a book cataloging app for my iPhone. Sure enough, there was. I bought it. $1.99 which is a bargain. It can scan an ISBN number and put all the data it can find from the web into the local database. Sure, it's a few issues, but it is way better than having to enter every book by hand. I keep telling people that there are 15k books in the house. I think that was the number I entered into a database back in 1999-2000 when I last cataloged the books. We shall see. I have already entered 15 or so. One book at a time until a room is done. Then another room and another...we shall see. Anyone want to guess?