Wee tree dings

Of orient are...

Anyway, I started to watch The West Wing on Netflix last night and I couldn't stop. I watched three episodes and could have watched three more without a hesitation. A glance at the time stopped me, though, since I had to be at the Smith at 9 in the morning to check in with the workers. What a fun show - good writing, good stories. I had forgotten most of what I had seen - if I had ever seen it before. I know I saw the pilot. And some of the rest of the next four seasons (I stopped watching after Aaron Sorkin left) So, if I don't post a blog, I am going to blame it on The West Wing!

For dinner, I got Arby's food last night. I was, yet again, aghast at how much a fast food dinner for two adults of decent appetite costs! Glarg, even! And it was ok. We had two sandwiches, onion rings, curly fries, a soda and two chocolate lave cakes. Honestly, my primary reason for choosing Arby's this time was because of the cakes. Sadly, they were not totally awesomely delicious. They were good, just not great. Curly fries with Horsey Sauce, well, those are another magnitude of yum. Not worth going there all the time for, though.

Sometimes I leap to the most negative conclusion I can imagine. Case in point. Last night, I went to fill a Brita pitcher. The sink was, sadly, a tad full, so I tried to cram the inflexible pitcher under the spigot  in several different ways to no avail. Finally, I removed some of the dishes in the sink and put the pitcher in - only to find that no water came out of the tap! Eeek! The water in the house is broken! Maybe a water main is being repaired. Maybe a pipe in the house is broken and water is gushing into the basement! How much will that cost to fix? Who is going to come fix it at 1 in the morning? Where is the water turn off? Where would I look for a leak? What will mom do for water for washing up and flushing and things? Listen for sounds of running water, nothing...Upstairs, the water worked fine. Hmm. Back downstairs, kitchen sink faucet still not producing water. Now wait a sec, there is a filter thingamabob on the faucet - that hasn't been used as an active filter since 1984 and there is a little slidy switch thing that just might...yup, that did it. Flowing water. I hope no one was looking or listening to my thoughts. Phew, even.

4 showings in three days

Wow, it seems like I have been living at The Smith. Four showings of Blue Jasmine in three days. Joy and rapture. It has gone pretty smoothly and we have had a decent turnout. Not a great turnout, but decent. There was a sound issue, which I think I have managed to make enough better for the time being that we won't have anyone else walking out. That would be good. And maybe we can get more people in. That would be even gooder. Mom hated the movie. I am not surprised. It flips back and forth in time and that can't be easy to understand for someone whose time sense is already not so hot. I liked it, but find that most Woody Allen movies lately are not all that great.

I am having fun playing with the slide show that we have instituted at The Smith. Garrett, our current ITish sort of guy, started it and I have been tweaking it. It will be a good tool to let people know what is coming up at the Smith. Played before movies, and perhaps other events, we might even be able to charge for advertising space. That would be nifty. And I am learning more about Powerpoint. That is just the most exciting bit.

I hope to get to a place where I only have to be at the Smith 10-20 hours or so a week most weeks. That would be nifty. We shall see. I feel like I am neglecting mom. Boo.

Ok, time to shut off the projector and head home! Happy Sunday!

Finished TOS

Recently, I watched the last episode of Star Trek (The Original Series). I am glad I sat through them all. Good stuff, and so ahead of its time. I still love Spock best. Watching them all again, uncut and cleaned up, was good fun! And it certainly was revealing. Now, though, I don't know what to do. Start Next Generation? Or should I watch something else for a while. West Wing sort of appeals. Any advice or suggestions will be entertained. I am watching on Netflix, so please suggest things from there.

Still puttering at the Smith.  Mostly I spent an hour setting the space up for a film - rolling out speakers, bringing in the screen, making sure the borders and the legs masked the screen well. I also did some neatening of the area in front of the stage. And worked on the slide show. Sadly, the slide show was not the right shape. I tried to adjust the size using the proprietary software that we use - to no avail. The tech support people suggested I resize the document in Powerpoint instead of using their scaling tool. Which I have done. Yay!

Yesterday we also had a great Smith Buildings and Grounds meeting. I am very excited about the work that is being done there. Yay! I also got to show Blue Jasmine for the first time. One down, three to go. I didn't watch the whole thing - I got too antsy. I will probably watch the whole thing on Sunday at 2 when mom is in the audience.

Michael J. Fox is my age

Just sayin'! Anyway, I watched his new sitcom on TV last night and it made me sad for some reason. He was fine, the characters and set-up are fine. It just made me sad. And I don't think I will watch it again. Partly because it made me sad. Largely because it is on network tv and I can't stand sitting through the commercials. I mean they really make my skin crawl. I must admit, having an iPad handy does make them a bit more palatable. But still, I would rather not be inundated with them if I don''t have to be.

I went to the Farmer's market yesterday. The pickings were kinda slim. It looked like a third of the vendors weren't there. I think next week is the last week for this particular market. Eeek! Anyway, I looked at several booths and then decided to spend all of my hard earned, hmm, not so hard earned coupon dollars at one. I bought: small seedless grapes - yum city!! - leeks - haven't figured out what to do with them - a cool sweet red/orange banana pepper - some beets - for dinner on Saturday night - some kale - out of which I made baked kale chips that were ok - I need to make them into smaller pieces for mom next time - and five ears of corn which I steamed last night - mom ate two of them! Go her! I am glad, in some ways, that she still has her appetite. And sometimes a sense of humor. Yippee!

We also watched a collection of short Pixar films. I thought they were enjoyable overall - even though I had seen most of them before. I am not sure whether or not mom liked them. I think she did. Mom used to own Pixar stock which became Disney stock which she sold. She used to be a big fan of Pixar but has forgotten all of that. Sigh. 

I didn't spend much time at the Smith yesterday. Yippee! And the fire curtain installation is proceeding on the schedule that was last presented to us. Two crews helps a lot! Speaking of the Smith - I get to show Blue Jasmine a few times this weekend. Huzzuh!

I looked into getting tickets to Matilda. There were $50+ of service charges for buying two tickets! Oh my god, no! I have to figure out some other way to get tickets. Maybe Erich would buy them for us and then we could pay him back. Or something. $50 is parking in NY or a lot of other things. Service charges my butt! $2 a ticket - maybe. Even that is stupid. Why are there service charges? What services are they providing? Glarg!

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!

Zoom, zip, pow!

I did in fact get the papers on my desklet sorted and the major bills paid. Yay! I count yesterday as a success. Well, most days I count as successes as I have survived them. That is a good thing, right? Other than that, not a lot of note occurred.

Dinner was totally left overs. And a salad. Does salad count as a leftover? Or does only leftover salad count as a salad? I mean the lettuce and the ingredients have all been in the fridge for a while. The carrots and celery last a long time bathing in water as they do. The mushrooms last longer in the fridge in a bag than they were lasting out of the fridge. Anyway, mom had left over taco stuff, I had left over fajita stuff. Everyone seemed happy.

Since it is so late in the day, I am going to touch on what is happening. I am at the Smith and work is progressing on many fronts. I am getting thing accomplished. Our volunteer is nearing completion of his first major project - getting some lighting storage built. The riggers are doing their fire curtain thing. All is swell with the Smith world. Yay!

Sorry for the thin and boring post. Maybe life will become more exciting later in the week. Here's hoping!

Sunday Post

I think I have arthritis. Eeeek! I am only 52! And a bit of a hypochondriac. Though despite my constantly thinking I have some sort of disease, I rarely go to the doctor. Maybe if the Affordable Care Act actually starts up, I might afford to have health insurance and might actually be able to go to a doctor. Anything is possible. I still think that the rich people ought to pay for health care for all of us not so rich people. We are, after all, just here to serve them, like servants or slaves even. And if they want a continuation of that then they need us to be healthy. Just sayin'! Anyway, my right toes seem to be sending pain signals when I am walking. It might be my shoes, but they are wide toed Birkenstocks so I think that is doubtful.

Tracking the audio books with my perpetual calendar continues to challenge my creativity. The current book has about 11 sections per cd. I often stop part way through a section. So I use the month as the minute marker and forget about the seconds. A running start is often good in any case to get me back in sync with the story. This particular book is about the 60s and corruption. Not my typical sort of book, but it has been enjoyable so far.

I did head into the Smith yesterday to give someone a refresher on using the digital projector and sound system. He only needed a quick lesson. We then had a good chat and wander through the space talking about what there was, what could be better and what will never improve. Good stuff.