Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

Lotsa driving this week. (and I didn't really GO anywhere!) I will be very glad to stay home (FSVO) this weekend.

Saturday was a concert in South Lyon, 45 minutes away, followed by a gathering in Ann Arbor which I went directly to and then drove home, so that was another hour-plus.

Monday was Farmington rehearsal, in an alternate space, because there was not room for us at the high school --we were in the stage space of a largish church not far from the first home of the FCB. Due to road construction and associated closures and detours, that drive is now over an hour one way, and the route home is different than the route to get there.

Tuesday was TimeFail day. I had a work-related training in Saline in the afternoon, and was scheduled to be in Brighton at 6:30 pm. Training was *supposed* to be over at 4:30, but we didn't get out of the building until after 5, and it took extra time to get out of the parking lot because construction had the road out front down to one lane in each direction. I came home surface streets and it wasn't bad at all (marked speeds all the way, for the most part) -- coworkers said they went freeway and it was also clear. (we went separately because we all had other places to go after the training, and wouldn't have time to go back to the office and disperse.) I changed clothes, packed instrument/chair/music/music stand, and went off to Brighton for a concert. Usually, that drive is just over 30 minutes, but with the road construction between here and there, it was more like 45 minutes. Then I had to park over half a mile from the venue, and trundle all that stuff. (concert in the park downtown, limited parking for performers was full by the time I got there.)

Wednesday it rained, hard, and stormed. There was also a Farmington band board meeting. The *best* route to get to the meeting was "avoid this area due to tornadic activity and the debris/damage field"; and the secondary routes go through large construction zones, so another hour plus each way.

I've been able to do a little bit of weeding, though - filled the garden cart a few times, but I really need to do more. One of the gardens I was going to weed yesterday has been bypassed for a few days because of the seven different species of pollinators I saw at the flowers. I'll not disturb them -- there are other spaces I can work on.

even less to report, really.

Both bands are in the final stretch toward concert -- Livingston's is actually *tonight* (the only Sunday in May that they could get the venue was Mother's Day, and nobody wants to do a concert on Mother's Day, so Saturday night it is). Farmington's is next Sunday, in a venue we've played at before, but I do not like doing setup in. Hopefully this year we'll have a better handle on exactly How Many People we'll have - last year we had four or five people show up at the last minute, and it was very stressful trying to wedge them into the setup. And then people had the nerve to bitch about sight lines - folks, I'm doing the best I can with limited and weirdly shaped space. If you think you can do better, you are welcome to show up early and help.

J went off to Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo yesterday to help friends move the weird shaped stuff that the movers don't want to. The chorale he sings in is also in the final leg toward concert, so he's off at an extra rehearsal this morning. Next week, he'll be gone with chorus stuff every night but Tuesday.

I do *not* have jury duty next week -- this pleases me, because I really didn't want to get up at 6:30 every morning (to be downtown by 8:15).

We saw some fairly boring Northern Lights last night -- people north of us were getting swirls and colors and dancing curtains. We got a lot of red sky glow and occasional streaks of green. J tried taking long exposures (15 sec) and all he got was red skies. And there were clouds moving in from the north and west, so by 11pm we were completely clouded in. And it's raining again.

But nothing really new to report.

Rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday. Both went about as expected. DC was back for Farmington, and we read a lot of stuff, with more new things to follow next week.

Tuesday's had bonus "what the heck?" as a page of music was chopped off at one side -- I went up at break and copied the notes/rests at the end of each line from the score. And then the librarian gave me an original to copy and bring back next week. (it's nice when you're trusted enough for that to happen -- JH is pretty picky about who he'll just hand music to.) I have now made copies of that page for the section. I should probably scan it for posterity, but that takes more effort. *I'll* know where the copies are for the next time we play it. (The people who usually copy music for the band have been understandably distracted, what with either having a 7week early preemie or being grandmum for the 7week preemie.)

It's been chilly/snowy/rainy for the last week, so I haven't gotten into the garden. Next week it's supposed to be in the 60s and *not* raining, so I have plans to go pull weeds/pick up branches. We'll see how that goes.

We've been filing things at work, and I have nearly run out of things to do. (If there's no election action, I don't go in -- we'll start spinning things up for the August election sometimes around Memorial Day.) My work computer has been being, erm, difficult. Nothing's not working, but every week I have to run Windows network troubleshooting in order to log in to the network, and random peripherals have to be unplugged and plugged back in again, sometimes into different ports. The IT Guy is aware of the difficulties, and is somewhat glad that it's my computer that's being difficult, as I will just "deal" with it until it becomes unusable, without panicking or carrying on. And I won't be in much for the next six weeks....

And it was Opening Day in Detroit. We had snowflakes here during the game - I didn't see any on the broadcast, so they may not have gotten any at the stadium, but still....

that was a week.

Thursday I ushered at Hill Auditorium for the Orchestre De Paris concert. It was fine, other than how hot it got in the balcony during the first half of the concert. The pianist on the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto had an off night. He's supposed to be really good (Van Cliburn award winner), but he missed a few phrases and there were a couple of times when he and the orchestra were not in time with each other. The orchestra closed with the Firebird ballet (not the Suite). I prefer the Suite, because the music for the ballet is just that - music to dance to - and it doesn't tell the story as well as the Suite does. It's just fine when there are dancers. :)

Friday I had FCB stage rehearsal at the Hawk. JL ran the video for Sanctuary so we could see it, and thus not be distracted during the performance on Sunday. That was when I realised that J had forgotten to send over the pictures he'd intended to. foo. (JL put together a video of "pure Michigan" images from band members/families, because what good's a postcard with no pictures?)

Sunday was the concert. FCB concerts are harder than LCCB concerts in many ways, and it's not just because I do set-up/tear-down for FCB. Yes, the music is harder; but that's only part of it. DC expects a lot more (attention to detail, concentration) from the band than DM does. And it snowed on the way home after the concert. Add in the detours due to construction, and it was a long day.

There are red winged blackbirds, grackles, and starlings in the backyard. And the requisite cowbirds, cardinals, and sparrows. The pond is skinned over with ice thick enough for birds to stand on -- it's been below freezing with no sun since yesterday afternoon -- and they're hopping about looking for open water. Eventually they give up and go over to the birdbath for a drink.

(odd, that)

I missed last Tuesday's Livingston rehearsal because I was at Hill Auditorium for the Emanuel Ax/YoYo Ma/Leonadis Kavakos concert. It was worth missing a rehearsal, even though I will miss at least one more before the concert (I will be working the Election, and rehearsals are Tuesday evenings). The music in that ensemble is straightforward enough that I can miss another rehearsal and still perform well.

This week was the first week that I've been to rehearsals for both bands in the same week since the beginning of the year -- scheduled school holiday/snow days/TimeFail have wreaked havoc with my schedule, but I should be good until Election week, in which I will miss both rehearsals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last weekend we ran off to Capricon in Chicago. The con was good, we hung out with our friends, actually went to some programming, ate lots of restaurant meals (we walked to all of them, because the convention was downtown, so that was nice). It was good driving weather both ways, which is also nice.

I've been doing a lot of video training for working Early Voting (as mandated by the new Michigan voting laws), and there's so many things that we Just Don't Know about how it's all going to work. At the same time, I've been sending out absent voter ballots. BossClerk wants to know when the AV counting board should start, and I'm like "dunno, man. Depends on how many ballots we get back. Right now, we've got maybe three hours worth of ballots. If all of the ballots that we've sent out come back, we might have five hours of work. But some of them won't come back. And we may send out a lot of ballots next week." (again with the shrug.)

The cats are pleased by the change in weather -- they like the sun. They will be annoyed next week when it gets cloudy again.

well, not so much right now, but it was very cold (between -5F and 10F) at the beginning of the week.

At rehearsal Tuesday night, my saxophone was so cold that it really couldn't be tuned -- it was nearly a full step flat, and even by the end of rehearsal it had only warmed up to a half-step flat. I can't shove the mouthpiece on that far! Even the tubas were closer to being warmed up than the baris were.

It was a bit annoying that we had lovely clear sunny days and the solar panels were iced over so we didn't get any power from them. It's currently snowing, too. I'd rather have snow and 15F than no snow and 5F, even though I do have to go out in it. The weather people tell us that it will be above freezing (and raining) by the middle of next week. J and I decided that we didn't need to shovel the driveway today -- it will melt soon enough, and it's not slippery snow.

I did not get the holiday cards done last weekend. sigh. I have hopes of getting them done this weekend.

We got almost all of the AV ballots sent out yesterday -- there's a handful more to be done today, plus whatever came in yesterday's mail (the mail hadn't arrived by the time we left at 5:15, so it's Friday's mail).

The birds discovered the mealworm feeder that I started putting out after Christmas. I have to fill it every other day or so. They really like the sunflower seeds - those feeders get filled full every day, and they're usually down to about 1/3 full by evening. (we bring the feeders in at night so that the deer and raccoons don't eat the birdseed/break them.)

- have made plans to visit Mum before Christmas. I haven't seen her all year - we've talked on the phone, but we were so busy this summer that I couldn't get away when she was home.

- I have made no plans for Thanksgiving. I may be moved to do something (there is a tube of crescent rolls in the fridge, and some ham steaks, and I can probably rustle up some potatoes and veg), but I'm just not feeling it this year.

- one rehearsal until the Livingston concert. *my* B-flat was not the problem -- somebody else in that chord was playing a wrong note. Rehearsal this week was pretty much just a run-through to see if there were any problems with concert order -- there were more people absent than usual, so DM didn't feel that he could do much. OTOH, the concert is less than two weeks away, so he shouldn't have a lot of big things to work on.

- three rehearsals until Farmington's concert. It's a much more ambitious program, and there's a lot to work on. DC has added our tuba cues to a piece, even though there are five very good tubas back there. He wants the sound of more people playing mezzo-forte rather than the sound of fewer people playing forte+. KB is a very different director than DC or the other guest conductors from within the band, and it took us a bit to get used to her directing. (She's also doing the piece in slightly different style/tempo than the only version available on youtube, so some people were confused by that.)

- we deployed the heated birdbath over the weekend. I pulled a 2" thick "pizza" out of it the morning *before* we plugged it in. Of course, it's not been that cold since. :) They tell us it will get quite chilly on Friday night, so I will be glad that it's plugged in. Doesn't look like it's going to get/stay cold for a while, so I think the pond pump will stay in. I really should go out and run some more water into the pond if we're going to leave it running for a while. I should do that today, actually, as it's sunny and 40+.

Neither of the bands had rehearsal this week -- FCB because we'd had a stage rehearsal on Friday and a concert on Sunday, and Livingston because there's no rehearsal on Halloween (a decent portion of the band would be absent from rehearsal due to Halloween activities anyway...).

The concert went really well. Lots of really good movie and musical music, ranging from Wizard of Oz to the Mandalorian. KM startled a lot of people (including band members!) with a very well done scream in Phantom of the Opera. We had to do a coda on the costume parade because a lot of the kids hammed it up at center stage (and there was one little who froze and had to be coaxed across the stage). J and I left the house at noon and didn't get home until after 6. oy. I was very glad we didn't have rehearsal on Monday. I spent some of the time I'd usually spend at FCB rehearsal taking batteries out of the decor we'd taken up for the concert, doing a purge on the stuff we didn't take up, and then packing everything away.

I had an early AM appointment on Monday, which garnered me another early AM appointment on Friday. Whee. Wednesday, I went erranding, and stopped by the hair salon where my preferred stylist is working. I was hoping they could fit me in for a haircut but they were full up for walk-ins. But CH was there, and I was able to schedule something for early next week. (Whee! In the seven or eight months since I last checked, she'd added another day at the salon so she's not booked solid for the next eight weeks.) (CH cut my hair for nearly 20 years, until she went to weekends only and I never managed to get into her schedule. I'd moved to SR's stylist, but I didn't like her as well.)

There's been significant ice in the birdbath and pond this week (the ice I chipped out of the birdbath yesterday morning didn't melt until around noon today!), but it looks like it's going to remain above freezing for the next couple of weeks. I do need to go out and cut back the grapevine on the deck and the perennials up against the house. (I probably should bring in the ghost, as well. heh.)

chilly and dreary, looks like it's gonna rain today. I have errands to run, but I've got a really strong case of the 'donwannas'. Tomorrow is supposed to be actual rain, and Sunday is the LCCB Halloween concert (plus I'm singing at church). But I've been out either to rehearsal or on errands every day this week, and I just wanna stay home at least one day....

Wednesday I got my COVID booster - the nurse doing it said that that was the first day that they'd opened COVID boosters to their general patient population - staff first, then high-risk patients by invitation, then the rest of us. I didn't know that it was the first day of availability - it was just the first available day when I went looking. Go me. (no side effects, other than a sore arm for the rest of that day.)

J is safely back from his trip to a suburban Minneapolis roof. (via Roscommon and Laurium, as one does.) The black cat has just about forgiven me for the week that J was gone -- he brought me a (dead) chipmunk yesterday.

J and I wandered off to Cheboygan/Mackinaw City for Labor Day. We did the usual things (for the most part) with the usual suspects (for the most part). We traipsed up to Whitefish Point and the Shipwreck Museum, and I went wading in the lake. We rented bicycles and rode around Mackinac Island (so much easier than transporting our own). I haven't done that since I worked on the Island. (I haven't been on a bicycle to speak of since the last time we went to Mackinac Island. I would like to report that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike (although I got temporarily confused by the new-fangled shifter).)

We are still waiting to find out the election schedule for next year. Between changes in voting procedures that MI voters said they wanted and both the Dems and the GOP wanting to change their presidential primary schedule, the MI Bureau of Elections and their legislative advisory board have been very, very, busy this year. The new laws need to be written and passed by the end of November if there's to be any chance of them being implemented for next year's elections.

J has been doing a lot of trimming and pruning of trees/shrubberies. Part of that is that he's realised how far out of control a lot of the shrubberies have gotten, and part of it is that he's got fun new toys to do the work with. :) I've been hauling a lot of branches. It's supposed to warm up this afternoon, so I should be able to get outside and pull weeds in the oh-so-overgrown E garden. It rained all day Wednesday, so it's been too wet to go into *any* garden to pull weeds.

Next week starts band rehearsals. I missed the first LCCB rehearsal of the year, but I don't think it'll be a problem, even though I don't play my primary instrument in that band.