Ahhhh

It is nice not to be running around. Yesterday I did a good bunch of Smith stuff and some errand running (meaning mostly that I sat in bed and paid bills). But then I did go to the Post Office, City Hall and the Bank. Mom got her tax refund from the IRS. Huzzuh! We are solvent again! (Just joking, we are doing ok for now). And I deposited a lovely surprise from Ernst and Betty! (Thank you both so much!) I also got to visit Lake Drum for a beer - and tried to watch the Space-X launch which was, sadly, scrubbed because there was a thunderstorm 10 miles away. Really? Big tough rocket is scared of a wee, itty bitty storm? Waaaaah! :) They are trying again today, but I am not holding out a lot of hope for it since the weather is supposed to be worse today. I think I got a couple of people excited about Elon Musk and Space-X attempting to land their first stage. I know I am excited...

Today, I got up really early, well, early for me, and did a bunch of Smith Stuff (worked on two email campaigns, set up HVAC for the week, worked on the slide show and added a movie to the Smith Website. (Only one more to go and we will be all confirmed for May already! Yippee!) I am planning on heading out to do some laundry this afternoon while also doing some stuff at the Smith. Multitasking. And I might head to Lake Drum again. I do need to go to the grocery store for veggies. I might actually go back to my Apple Beet Carrot juicing. We shall see. I can't wait for my CSA to start. That will be interesting and hopefully nifty.

Well, poo. The first stage of the Falcon 9 Space-x launch vehicle landed too hard again. I will wait patiently for the reason, if we ever hear it. Double poo.

Trying to get through Tomb Raider. Generally I like it. I don't like the cut scenes and the quicktime events. Both of those are "not like the other (the rest of the game)" and thus aren't as enjoyable to me. Just sayin'. Hey, where does that phrase come from?

Toilet Paper Butts

My mom has cut down on her paper product usage quite a bit. Yay. Still prodigious are the amounts she goes through, but lesser so. Huzzuh! When she goes through toilet paper, she often gets down to the end of a roll and then ignores the poor thing. So I have taken to snagging what I have termed toilet paper butts and using them in my little bathroom (because it is smaller than the big bathroom)(and it is fairly small - not teeny apartment in New York Small, but not expansive by most definitions of the word). Go me.

I had a weird dream (are they any not weird dreams?) about losing my shoes on a train to Berlin. So I asked for help from a police person. I was speaking mostly German with a little bit of English thrown in here and there. Then, just as we were about to start actively looking for my shoes, the conductor walked in with them and gave them to me. And said something in English about not expecting a lot from people with terminal cancer. I thanked everyone profusely, but in Mandarin until I realized that they all had no idea what I was saying, so switched back to German. Then it was off to explore Berlin with a digital SLR. Fun stuff. Time to go back to sleep for a little bit.

So, tomorrow is the anniversary of my birth. Yippee? I have no plans. And no one to do anything with. Boo hoo. Actually, I am ok with doing this for and with and by myself (for the most part - I know that even islands are part of a greater whole). Unfortunately, I didn't do anything about getting someone in for respite. I just can't get my mind around it yet somehow. I will, though. I have 60 hours to use in a couple of months. Eeeek! Anyway, I was planning on getting a massage - but have not done anything about that yet. Other than that, no exciting plans. Pizza and wings for dinner, probably. And maybe an artichoke. 

Part of the reason for my lack of motivation to do anything is because I am going to have to run the show the rest of the week, as my "staff" all were too busy to work. I really need to find a good deputy. Someone who could even take over for me if I were to change jobs. Finding someone I trust enough to do that hasn't proven easy.

Aha! I have booked a massage with an unknown (to me - I am sure someone knows her somewhere...) masseuse for tomorrow afternoon. Pizza and wings for dinner for sure. And that is the extent of my birthday plans. Oh, and to try and not do one single solitary thing for the Smith. That would be novel.

Great - beer made me sick again. Sigh. I had some Sierra Nevada and suddenly had the urge to perform reverse peristalsis. Crap. Good thing I enjoy throwing up now and again. Sad that it is the day before my birthday. We will see if leftovers and some other beer has the same effect. I hope not...

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.)

Oh Deer!

When I lived in NC, I lived in the country. I routinely saw critters big and small on my property - nothing so big as an elk, but lots of things. Oh, and no African animals, sadly. I wouldn't have minded a pride of lions or a gazelle or two. But lots of deer for sure.

Color me surprised last night as I walked through my dining room to find deer! Not in my living room, but in the yard. Big, huge, scary deer! I mean huge! Not little scrawny deer - these things looked like they were well fed and ready to rumble! There were three of them - not sure about family travel in deerland - anyone? Still, it was impressive and a bit scary. I wonder where they live most of the time? I am in a fairly urban part of Geneva. Hmm, I haven't looked in the barn lately...

When life gives you a forced xBox system up download, I guess it is a sign that I should do other stuff for a few minutes. Like maybe some work? I was thinking of heading in to the Smith for two hours this morning. But after doing my 7 letters and writing about them on the relationship blog, and doing a smidgen of yoga, it became 10 am suddenly. So I postponed going into the Smith until the afternoon. Got mom some aleve and was all set to play a little when "System update - download or quit." Sigh.

Got our water bill. I thought getting the drips under control would have lowered our water bill - but it was high this month. I wonder if the cold weather is partially responsible. We shall see what the spring water usage is like.

I bought mom an early birthday present - her birthday isn't until next month - mine is April 8. So I guess I got her a present for my birthday - a 10 season package of NCIS. Sadly, she has forgotten that she liked the show. Sigh.

Work = Stress?

One problem with working is that it can throw a spanner in the works of the rest of my life. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have some work to do at the Smith. Unfortunately it puts the kibosh to some of my plans for today. I had been planning on beginning my winery posts by one last visit to Ravines. And I did also plan to ask Monty's mom to be my Facebook friend. But, I have to work and getting a little wined up before heading into the Smith is not a good idea. Still, I might stop in to tell her I can't stop in. That might be funny.

Working, though, also causes me stress and stress is a heart killer - like fear is the mind killer. If I worked all the time, that would be one thing - I think I would be able to better let the stress of working flow off my back - like the stress "duck" that I am. Because it would be more routine. More practiced. More regular. As it is, my routine gets skewed because of having to work. And the stress makes me less able to deal with mom's current idiosyncrasies. Grrr in many ways.

Yesterday was no exception. The dance recital people are not my favorite group. Not terrible, just not my favorite. I guess what ticked me off most last night was that the schedule for the day was changed after rehearsal had started. And that change wasn't communicated to me. So my "plan" such as it was, didn't come off as I had thought. It came off. I managed to get home, feed mom and get back in a short span of time, but, it was stressfuller than it could have easily been. Sigh. At least today is the end of that particular group at the Smith for the time being. I think tonight might be a latish night getting ready for the graduation tomorrow. Yippee.

Nothing else too exciting happened yesterday because of working. Weird how work sucks the time and life out of a day. One forgets.

From September 2010

And for any of my DC Challenge friends who come looking for the "free hugs" picture - here it is.

Mom's Day of Birth - 2013

The first thing I did was give mom her birthday helium filled balloon. She loves them, for some reason. Yay! Next, I got the mail and found a great package of chocolate from Ernst and Betty! Thank you for remembering! Next, I got a call from a florist saying that she couldn't find the house. Sigh. I directed her to our driveway and brought in a lovely vase full of spring flowers from Juliet and Paul! Awesomeness personified!

Pretty Flowers!

Friday was mom haircut day - so after getting dressed in a new shirt we bought her a few weeks ago at Target, we headed to the hair salon. Cindy and Carol there are both very nice to mom. I told them it was mom's birthday and Cindy comped her haircut, blew dried her hair and gave her a teeny container of face lotion to try out! Rock on Studio Salon. Poor me, I just sat there and (surreptitiously) ogled attractive women.

Mom post haircut

Next stop, Mr Twistee! I was excited to see that they had grape sherbet on hand. Sadly when I got to the window, they didn't - it was orange. Sigh. So mom got a dish of cappuccino crunch - which she thoroughly enjoyed - and I got nothing. We drove around a bit so that mom could see that spring had indeed sprung. So far, so good!

Before dinner started, I gave mom her presents. Karl had been very thoughtful and sent some marzipan fruit - one of mom's favorite things - one box for her birthday, one for Mother's day! Rock on Karl! I bought her the Ice book, which, as predicted, she looked at for five minutes. I do hope she will look at it some more, but at least I think she had momentary pleasure from it. 

The agenda continued with some of mom's favorite food for dinner. I bought some mussels at Wegman's. As I mentioned yesterday, I was a little worried about cooking them. I needn't have been. I followed a good recipe on the internet - wine and butter and garlic - what could go wrong there - and steamed them for a good long while. Mom had a little mussel feast. I think I ate a few. I did make myself artichokes, though. The rest of dinner, I now notice, lacked a green vegetable - but life is like that sometimes. I baked her some salmon, heated up some corn and made her some sweet potato to round out her meal. I don't think she could have been much happier gustatorily.

Mussels for mom

After dinner, we watched a Pixar movie that she didn't think she had ever seen. I was surprised because she is such a Pixar fan. Anyway, it was my second time seeing it and it was almost as good as the first time I saw sit - The Incredibles! Fun stuff.

Interspersed throughout the day were calls from well-wishers. Juliet called which always makes mom happy. Mary Gerhart phoned and invited mom to come visit in Chicago this summer. Sam, one of "the nephews" called which was great! He is promising to come visit this summer and we are looking forward to it! My ex--mother-in-law from California called as well!

All in all, I believe mom had a good celebration of her birth.

Egg rolls

The eggroll making process  may or may not have been mentioned before in this blog, but such is life! (See how I did that?!)

The way I currently make eggrolls is this: I buy Asian slaw mix, pick my meat of choice - usually chicken or shrimp - add spices - ginger and garlic primarily - toss everything in a bowl then wrap them up in store bought eggroll wrappers. This makes 10 or so egg rolls. Leaving two sheets of eggroll wrappers forlornly sitting in their container. In times past, I tried to make eggrolls again soon, so that these wrappers didn't go to waste - lest they turn all sort of pretty colors in the refrigerator. Other times, I just cut my losses and tossed them. Then, one day, I had one of them, thar' epiphany-lets: to wit, I could make wontons or rangoons out of the remaining wrappers - just cut the big wrapper in four and voila, voici - smaller wrappers! I have, for the most part, just put cream cheese in them. Lately, I have gotten more adventurous. Only my creativity limits me. Yay!

I read a book - no need to faint people - that my friend David lent me. Not sure why he did - maybe because I voiced an interest in language and linguistics. Perhaps? Anyway, it was called Don't Sleep, There are Snakes by Daniel L. Everett. I am glad I read it. The writing is pretty basic (terrible, actually) but the content was interesting - about the Pirahãs of the Amazon and their language. Too bad the book wasn't better written. Oh well. On to my next Alzheimer's book.

Speaking of reading, well, sort of, since my latest CD player was killed (by me) I have not been listening to books. In fact, I returned all the ones I had to the library. I have mixed feelings about this. And finding devices that play CDs isn't as easy as it once was. Grrr.

My work at The Smith yesterday went well. The event was an inspirational talk by an ex-professional wrestler. Good stuff. The people seemed to enjoy it. Everything went off without a hitch, which is great. Yay, even!

I will pay bills today. That is my dreaded task - though not as dreaded as it has been in the past. Oh, and this month is my mom's 83 birthday. Not sure if we are doing anything too special for it. I do have a present for her - and Karl is sending some stuff. I will probably go to the dollar store and get her a balloon and maybe some other things. And some cut flowers for sure. I like doing things for other people's birthdays - when they are near. I am not good at sending cards and presents to far away people (like across the street far...)

Another One Down

If I keep going like this, having birthday after birthday, I will live forever! :)

Ok, I know that isn't true - as usual, it just seemed like an interesting or humorous thing to say. Yippee!

Thank you everyone who sent me happy thoughts on my birthday! The cocklets of my heart are all warm and toasted now! Yum, sounds like dinner will be good tonight! Seriously, some 100+ people took the time to communicate through Facebook with a birthday wish. Yay FB. I got a birthday card from my wonderful sister (who also wants to treat me and mom to dinner (thank you Juliet!!)). We will do that sometime this week. Figuring out where to go is the hard issue. I also got a card from Eric and Nancy! And a birthday poem from the fertile, creative brain that is Ernst. I am the luckiest!

People expressed a desire for me to do something fun, do something for me yesterday on my birthday. Though I did both of those things, sadly, it was not too much different from many other days. Mom did go out of her way to put together a birthday tray for me. She had me help her find a red round lacquered tray and then took the time to rummage through her things to come up with a pile of loot to gift me. I found the tray on the top of the toilet seat, waiting for me when I crawled out of bed Sunday. Very thoughtful. She did lament to me (and others I think) that she would have done more but didn't because of her lack of independence (can't drive and buy things on her own). Oh well.

I have decided to ignore the three issues I am having with my project right now - the tiles not flipping sometimes - the persistent views that I wish weren't there - and some weird delays that I haven't figured out. Plowing ahead with other things - I am going to add a level indicator, a scoring mechanism and score indicator and a way to grab images randomly for the different levels. I did a lot yesterday, getting levels working, adding some labels, changing some fonts, doing away with the status bar, etc. Busy programming day in fact. Yippee! (Level indicator is linked in...)

And I still had time to make dinner. We had chicken fingers. Not awesome, but edible. Edible is, apparently, a good thing.

Homemade Chicken Tenders, spinach and pasta!

The surprising birthday tray my mom made