Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

not very hard right now, but they tell us that it will continue for the next 12 hours or so. OTOH, it really hasn't rained since last week, and J and his band of helpers got the shed framed and sheathed before the rain started. This weekend, we get to shingle and paint and wait for it to settle enough to put the floor down.

I have ushered two UMS concerts since I last wrote -- a string quartet concert at Rackham Auditorium, and a solo pianist at Hill Auditorium, both very good. Now the UMS season is done. I missed most of the spring concerts due to my own performance schedule. The one concert that I was available to usher was cancelled by the performers. (OK, there were some shows that I had little-to-no interest in, and they'd have to actually pay me to usher.)

I have been working in the garden the last few days, and my right thumb hurts halfway up the forearm. I know why, and I also know that there's nothing to be done for it, other than to not weed. Which really isn't an option.

The neighbor's chickens have been wallowing in my strawberry bed. As long as that's all they do, and they continue to do it at the end where the plants died over the winter, I guess I'm OK with it. The chickens aren't supposed to get out, but they have three kids under 10, and one or more of them cannot/cannot remember to latch the chicken door.

and chilly today. It was warm yesterday, but it's been on the cool side for April most of the week. (I wore my winter jacket to rehearsal on Monday. Good thing I did, because it was snowing when we came out.) I ran errands on Wednesday in the nice weather because I don't like doing them in the rain, especially when I've got a stop at donation centers on the list. I got into the garden yesterday after work for weeding. In a garden I haven't really worked on in a couple of years, so I didn't get a large area done. It will take a long time to finish the spring garden work at that pace, but I will eventually get into areas that don't need as much work.

We've had three voters drop their ballots at the township hall, even though the envelope clearly says STH. We've also had three voters return their unvoted ballots to STH, telling the clerk there that "I don't live in ST, I don't vote in ST." So I wrote up a letter saying "Yes, you *do* vote in ST for school elections. Here's your ballot again. We sent you a letter in early March telling you that there would be a ST school election." and re-sent their ballots. Another 2oz stamp and a trip to the PO because people won't read their mail, or contact either township hall. (At least now I know that a ballot envelope + mailing envelope weighs 2oz, so I don't have to wait in line, I can just drop it in the box at the PO.)

which is to say "there will be weather". Whether it makes sense or not is something else. Yesterday morning, it was 35F when I went to work. Yesterday at 3pm it was 70F and I had some windows open. This morning at 8am it was 26F (yes, I'd closed the windows when it started to cool off yesterday). On the plus side, at least it didn't rain or snow or wintry mix. It's still below freezing at 1pm, but it is at least mostly sunny. The cats are glaring at the cold outside while sitting in sunbeams.

The daffodils are showing buds, and a couple of them may open today, but I won't be surprised if they don't. There will most certainly be daffodils blooming by Sunday. There are still more branches down in the yard, but I'm going to go pick them up tomorrow, or maybe even Sunday. Today is "move crap in the basement"(*) day, and I can't do both. I also have to go pick up cat meds.

* -- A desk that's been in the corner is going to work because it's a better size for me to run an election on than the table I've been using, and so I have to rearrange that space. And sort out stuff to Just Go Away. I took four boxes away earlier in the week, and there's another box for the Friends of the Library sale. (which they're not accepting until next week, so it's in the living room.) I need to ask my sister if she wants the "Cool-est" cooler that she Kickstarted and then they wouldn't ship to Alaska. It's been in my basement since Mum moved to NC. (Sis hasn't driven to the CONUS since Mum got it.) There's also Grandma K's china that I want out of my basement -- I already have Gramma B's china, I don't need two sets of 1930's Federal/Montgomery Ward china!

Last Sunday morning it was 55F and sunny. We had snowflakes Sunday evening. Now they're telling us that we will probably have snow accumulating on Sunday morning before the temperature rises to around 60F. Today it's not quite 40F and very windy with occasional bursts of precipitation. The cushion box on the deck has been blowing around, and the freestanding fire pit is now in the pond. Lots of branches down, but I'm not going to deal with them until tomorrow when it's warmer and less windy. I was going to do laundry today, but the washer does not deal well with power flickers, so I think that, too, will wait until tomorrow.

We do have crocuses and snowdrops in the doorside garden. Wednesday morning I saw that the reticulated irises in the E garden had bloomed (they were green stems on Monday am). The crocuses close up when it gets cold/rainy/snowy, so they'll be fine tomorrow. The irises, on the other hand... The ones that have not been eaten by bunnies have been shredded by the wind and rain. :( The daffodil patches in the NW garden are about 4" tall green stems, but it's another couple of weeks before they usually bloom, and right now they're very sturdy.

I saw redwinged blackbirds in the yard Wednesday morning. I'd heard them carrying on earlier in the week, but hadn't seen them on the ground/at the feeders/bathing until Wednesday.

Monday, the township hall hosted an election 'equipment certification day' for the west side of the county. (and by hosted, I mean that someone at the county said "we'd like to do Thing at this Place on Thisdate. Any objections?") I had no idea what to expect, not having done Thing before (it's periodic, and the last one was before I started at the township), so we were somewhat unprepared. (Turns out that I needed to haul folding tables in from the shed and move tables and chairs in the boardroom, as well as prepare all of our equipment.) I was able to pull a lot of things out of storage and put them into the shredding bin, so that was nice. I got the storage area more organized, as well.

at least some of the time.

Woke up Sunday to 2"+ of fresh snow, and it continued to snow all day and in to Monday AM. By the time it was done, we had over 4" of snow on the ground. And then it got cold (12F Tuesday AM + 1" snow, 9F Thursday AM). Today will be much warmer (they're saying mid-50s), then we're back into "seasonal" temperatures.

The LCCB concert went pretty well. The quiet part worked out well. I played a little bit louder than I had been, and it seemed to balance well. The BC player got off by a couple of beats in Variations, so I had to choose whether I went with her or the upper winds.

other than that, a lot of same ol', same ol'. No yard work going on, except branch picking and birdbath leveling.

Digging through the boxes of stuff to be filed at work (catching up on *years* of clearing out files). They've got a guy in to design/spec a new office set up for us, so we're waiting on that. Getting new DC trained up and familiar with all the stuff she'll be doing.

It's actually gotten above freezing three days this week! And the sun's been out at least part of the time, so there's been a lot of melting. The cats are still not trusting it, though. Ji's been glaring at the snow on the deck, and Belle has been trotting over to the door and coming to a quick halt when she gets a face full of chilly breeze.

Letters to voters have been dropped at the PO. The county 'intermediate' school district (a county level administration) next to us is having a bond election, and we have about 350 voters who live in our jurisdiction and are in *that* school district. (School district borders do not always follow municipal borders.) As there are so few of them, state Bureau of Elections policy is that those voters will vote at the other polling place. So we have to let the voters know that.

Next week's LCCB rehearsal is in a different space because the room we've been using will be unavailable. The light will be better (it's the space we used to rehearse in), but it's somewhat unclear how much *room* we'll actually have even though the room is larger. The recent bond issue allowed them to purchase all new percussion/large brass, and there's lots of boxes/large items in the room. And the building is under renovation (why we're not there this year), so access will be much less straightforward than usual.

Capricon last weekend was good. The new space is a new space, and there's some idiosyncrasies that need to be worked around. The hotel restaurant is pretty good, and convenient. GT was actually *not* the last party open on Friday night when KN closed the room at 1am. I think it was the last party open on Saturday, but we closed the room at 4am. I did not make it to any program items (as usual).

one day at a time, as usual. But still....

no FCB rehearsal on Monday because the schools were closed for MLK Jr Day. It's possible that the schools would've been closed anyway, although the weather wasn't as bad here as it was on the west side of the state.

Wednesday evening, I ushered a terrific concert at Hill Auditorium. Orquestra Sinfonica Mineria (from Mexico City) did a concert featuring mostly Latin American composers. (They played at Hill a couple of years ago, and they are just so much fun! Very good players, the music is well chosen, and they seem to have fun playing it.) The first half of the concert featured an outstanding trumpet player, who played Haydn's First Trumpet Concerto and a d'Rivera Trumpet Concerto (there were eight different trumpets on stage, and he played all of them at one point or another). The second half was Latin composers, and had two pieces that I've played (Ginastera's Estancia and Marquez' Danzon No 2). I've been humming Danzon ever since

Today, it is cold (-1F before wind chill). It's very pretty outside, all snow-covered and clear, but it's much better enjoyed from inside a warm house. :) Jiji is sulking because it's snow-covered, and is disdaining the warm spot in a sunbeam with a view of the outside, preferring his nest on the bed. Annabelle doesn't mind that it's snow-covered, and is sleeping in a cozy bed in a sunbeam (one of her usual spots).

Two days of sight reading is hard on the brain. Add in going back to work after a couple of weeks away, and I have been a bear of very little brain most of the week (except at work, I hope).

There was a message from County Elections when I got in on Tuesday "your reimbursement numbers don't match. why?" The answer to that, I am afraid, was my error. Two of them, even! A random number entry error that I managed to commit every time I added up the column, and a missing timesheet that made it hard to reconcile. But I tracked down the missing timesheet and fixed my math error and everything is now correct! whee!!

Also on Tuesday, a different email from County Elections about a possible May election for less than 400 of our residents-- how much work we'll need to do for it is very unclear at the moment. The school elections contract we have with Ingham County says that we may be responsible for administering the AV portion of the vote, but it's not at all clear *how* we are to do that. I have asked Ingham County Elections for clarification. (In a perfect world, all we'd need to do is provide Ingham County/SCS with voter information and they'll take it from there, but I doubt it'll be that easy.) At the very least, we'll have to notify affected voters about the election and that they will not be voting at the Twp Hall, but we can't do that until we know how IC/SCS wants us to handle it. So we hurry up and wait.

The weather has been very odd. Very warm for January, rain and wind. The piles of snow in the yard are long gone, most parking lot snow piles are gone as well. The pond is almost completely melted -- the remaining ice "sheet" is about a quarter of the pond surface. I've put a couple of armloads of branches on the burn pile since the wind let up, and there's still more to pick up. But it's much colder today than it was yesterday, and I didn't have my gloves on, so I only did one load today. And it has just begun to snow. (probably not going to stick, but it is indeed snowing.)

The cats are displeased by the weather --they both want to go out when it's not raining or snowing, but it's been cold and/or windy. This morning, Annabelle meowed and scratched at the side door until I let her out. A couple of minutes later, she was at the back door wanting in. It takes her about two minutes to get from the side door to the back door...

(edit for grammar. sigh)

lovely trip to NC. Nothing new, just most of a week spent visiting Mum and doing the things we usually do in Greensboro. We did go find the Troll in High Point with Mum. We went to the Science Center, which was full of cats sleeping in sunbeams, went to Repurposed Goods in Greensboro, and discovered a really good 'roadhouse' style restaurant across the side street from the hotel. (Probably the best "bar burger" I've had in a very long time.)

Also sang with the Pennybyrn Singers as they went caroling (3 evenings, 3 stops every evening). (Nearly killed my voice, but not quite. Which is good, because I'm scheduled to sing at church Wednesday/Sunday/Saturday. whee?) The drive was long but uneventful. Some nice scenery on the way, and no weather or major slowdowns.

Slept in a bit this morning, and now I'm working on unpacking and doing laundry. The cats have gotten over their snits, and normal service has been restored. I guess we were gone long enough that they'd forgotten that they were annoyed that we went away. :)

Tomorrow is back to work for one day, then the office is closed until January. I'm sure there'll be stuff for me to do. (If nothing else, newDC hasn't finished her voter database training, so I have to do that. And probably send a few more receipts over to the county. And hey, I just found my October mileage claims!)

or, What *was* I thinking?

Sunday's Livingston concert went pretty well, I thought. I needed at least one more rehearsal to be really comfortable with my part, but that's what happens when I switch parts 3 rehearsals in. The director took the mambo piece a little bit slower than the "speed run" we did at the last rehearsal, and it went OK.

Perhaps as a carryover from the LCCB concert, I flailed through the first bits of Farmington's rehearsal, but I got it together before we'd finished the first piece. (Later in the rehearsal, we ran a piece that most of us are familiar with, so we're not buried in the sheet music, and DC likes to really work the tempo and dynamics. He did, and the band was following him, and when we finished it, he paused, started to speak a couple of times, then took a deep breath and said "next piece". There was really nothing he felt necessary to fix, or even bring to our attention. Those are rare. I hope we play it that well in concert....)

Tuesday I wrangled the election reimbursement form, and sent it off to the Election Director at the County. Then I had to send her the pdf with all the timesheets/invoices/expense claims that I'd forgotten to attach. Then I came home and tracked down another copy of a receipt -- I got reimbursed for it, so I turned it in to Expenses, but somehow it's no longer attached to that expense sheet. But it was at Staples, and I was signed in to my account....

Wednesday I shoveled heavy wet snow off the top of the driveway before it froze into a slippery mess. (Driveway is still slippery, but at least it's not bumpy _and_ slippery!) This morning, I traipsed off to a County Clerk lunch meeting and did errands on the way home. (I was in Ypsi, stupid to come home today and drive back tomorrow.)

Stage rehearsal for Farmington tomorrow night, and concert on Sunday. Tomorrow and Saturday, I bake, do last minute errands (cat food!) and laundry, and pack, because bright and early Monday we leave for NC. (I really like to be through Charleston WV by the time rush hour starts, partly because if I do that we're out of the mountains before it gets dark.)