Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

because it's Friday again.

I did the usual things - rehearsals continue apace. Livingston's concert is Oct 20, Farmington's Oct 27, bell choir has been shifted to November because there weren't going to be *any* rehearsals with everyone there until Oct 28. Maybe.

I got into the gardens over the weekend -- one of the gardens was too dry to weed (the weeds broke off at ground level), but I was still able to cut back things in that bed, and then I went to a different, more overgrown, garden and the ground there hadn't dried out so much and I was able to fill the garden cart three times!

I'm still reveling in the new laundry room! Space! Recycling not blocking the dryer door! Shelf that doesn't wobble when I put the detergent back on it! (It is a little weird having to take a few steps *before* turning down the hall -- I haven't _quite_ run into the doorframe yet...)

Election work has been ramping up. We have about a dozen people (out of 1200+) concerned that they haven't gotten their AV ballots yet. sigh. They all went to the PO at the same time. The PO says that they're not to be considered "late" until it's been two weeks since they got mailed. *and* it's still almost four weeks until the election -- there's plenty of time for it to show up. And if it doesn't? Fill out a form saying you didn't get it and we'll issue you a new one. (this will invalidate the first one we sent you so that it cannot be voted.) The only people with a valid concern are the snowbirds who plan on leaving in mid-Oct who had their ballots sent to their summer address, and they were all very polite about the whole thing....

BossClerk wasn't in last week (her husband had some weird reactions to meds and spent four days in hospital), so DC and I had to make sure that the clerk-y deadlines were met. Fortunately, BC wrote up and sent off most of the notices for publication the week before, so that bit was done. I hope she gets back into the office before payroll needs to be done, because I *hate* doing payroll.

Thursday, I ushered at Hill Auditorium for the first UMS concert of the season -- a solo piano performance by Isata Kanneh-Mason. She is terrific! I really like her stage presence -- she doesn't do a lot of flourishing while she's playing, but it's obvious that she really knows and appreciates the music. The audience was just the wrong size for Hill -- too big for just the main floor, but the mezzanine and balcony were at less than 30% capacity. But they were very appreciative! (I recognised her encore by the second measure of the intro (I missed the first measure because I was closing a couple of doors that had been opened early). Too much listening to Gershwin piano music or something....)

but I still didn't get into the garden. Tomorrow for sure! (whenever I was home last week, it was either too wet to be in the garden or I was working on the laundry room.)

The FCB did a concert at Franklin Cider Mill on Sunday -- two weeks earlier than we're usually scheduled there, *and* earlier in the day. It was still 6 hours from when I started packing the car to when everything was unpacked. sigh. It rained off and on all day Sunday, but *not* while we were playing, so that was very good. Had the wipers on for much of the drive there and back. Monday we did a deep dive into the tricky piece for the October concert, and run-throughs on the less difficult pieces. Tuesday's LCCB rehearsal was working on tricky parts for *that* concert, which is a week before Farmington's. One of the pieces we're doing in Livingston is one that SR played when she was in HS, so I'm having flashbacks to her in front of the microphone singing the sax solo (so that ZM wouldn't go all loud and stompy on it).

Monday and Wednesday and Friday, J and I did more work on the laundry room. OK, he did most of the work, I provided recommendations/design preferences and "heavy analytical work" (aka "hold this"). I think the actual construction work is done in there. I still have a box of stuff in the front room that needs to be sorted as to whether it goes back into the laundry room or somewhere else. The rack for the recycling bins went in yesterday. I still need to find a boot tray for the room -- the one that SR had in her apartments would be great, but I think it went away; whether to the rummage sale or with DB to OH, I do not know. The boot tray I bought today doesn't fit.

Work days are getting long, as election work is ramping up. Between ballots going out and ballots coming in, and voters coming in to replace spoiled ballots, and trying to figure out who is actually going to be able & willing to work on Election Day.... (and BC's husband is having back trouble, and DC's husband is having heart trouble, and the computers are doing weird shit, and "can you proofread this", and oh-by-the-way 'what carpet do you want in your new office?'.)

J got the dryer installed late yesterday, so the main construction in the laundry room is done (and the Russell Hobbs kettle that started the whole project has its own plug in the kitchen). There's a nice new water heater in the basement, and the one that came with the house is at the dump. The laundry room is finally painted(!), and now we get to rethink how we're going to do storage in there -- one of the things that went away was 14 linear feet of shelf space. We added another 15 square feet of floor space, and we need to figure out how we're going to use it before stuff just appears. (and since it'll be "good enough", we'll never get around to doing something else with the space.)

There's a new floor in the laundry room, and a laundry sink! I've only wanted one since we built the house, but for Reasons we couldn't do that.

There are still boxes of things from those shelves around the house; and there's a pile of pantry things in the basement that need new homes -- the water heater took away about 20 linear feet of pantry storage, so that stuff has to go somewhere. But there are shelves in the storage room that are underutilised or full of "stuff that's not been sorted in years", so I should be able to find room for it all.

But early next week is the big push to get ballots in the mail, so I'll be working. Maybe I can get to the basement on Friday.... sigh.

(edit to fix typos)

or something like that.

Set up work for the November election has begun to ramp up. Last week, we ordered the ballots. This week, we started stuffing secrecy sleeves, and sorting out envelopes for mailing ballots, and we sent out applications for Absent Voter Ballots to the people on the list who haven't returned an application yet this year. Late next week, we should have the ballots in hand to send out to the people who have requested them. Including one person in The Netherlands who wants to be mailed a physical ballot. Not a problem, you say, just put an international stamp on it and be done. But with the new MI election laws, we have to provide *return* postage as well. It is unclear whether we can just put an international stamp on the return envelope and have it honored by the Dutch postal service, so someone (probably me, because I'm the minion), gets to go to the PO and ask. (unless the clerk remembered to ask today when she bought stamps.)

Farmington Band had their first rehearsal of the season on Monday. I'd forgotten how much work a full rehearsal is. concerts are easier. :) There is more overlap than usual between the concert repertoires for Livingston and Farmington, so that will be fun. It's probably easier that I'm not playing the same instrument in both, so it will be easier to keep the style/tempo separate....

With all the work I've been doing, I've had no time for the garden, so I think I know what I'm doing this weekend. (well, and helping J with a home renovation project. What started as a new outlet in the kitchen has morphed into installing a new water heater, remodeling the laundry room, changing the cold air return paths from upstairs, *and* a new electrical outlet in the kitchen.)

J and friends have gone off on a (scheduled well in advance) outing to Mackinaw City and environs. I did not go, as my back is misbehaving, and I felt that a)a four hour drive followed by b)three days of uncomfortable chairs followed by c)a four hour drive was unlikely to be a positive experience for anyone. (nerve impingement isn't fun.)

I didn't actually make the decision until Thursday -- I stepped in a hole I didn't know was there while I was weeding on Monday and jarred my spine -- I was hoping that the inflammation/impingement would clear by midweek so that I could go on the trip, but when I had actual *pain* from the impingement at work on Thursday, it became pretty clear that it would not be a good choice.

I'm bummed to have missed the trip, but.... J's been gone for nearly a month, between "so busy" before and ick after(*) the UK trip (and he was away from the house for a week before *that*, so he's really not been "home" since early July). I'm not sure that spending a long weekend in close company (anyone's company!) after being solo for most of the summer would be a good thing either.

* he caught COVID on the boat -- everyone who was on the boat got it. I seem to have dodged it, again. yay!

sheesh. late last week, I got an email from a board member of the FCB. "we need to have our stuff out of the music library at the Hawk by the end of the month (for Reasons). We have storage space for the music, but not for the copier. Can you help?" yeah, I can find a temporary space for the copier somewhere in the house. Just don't ask me to haul it to rehearsals more than once.

So we made a plan to meet at the Hawk at noon on Friday (zie has keys to the music library, I do not). Zie called the Hawk three times to make sure it would be OK that we access the music library at noon on Friday. We get there "oh, it's still camp week. We really don't want you disrupting camp", but they let us sneak in anyway. I loaded the copier and the huge shipping crate we'd put it into when it was being stored near HS kids into my car, and headed home. Ye ghods and little fishies! it took almost two freaking hours to get home! Detour after traffic jam after detour. gaah. (and if I'd turned left at the first corner, I'd have been home in less than an hour. but by the time I figured that out, I was committed to the "long" way.) Fortunately, the Camry is a hybrid, and the engine doesn't run when the car is standing still or moving slowly, so I still got 50mpg on the trip.

(Reasons being the Hawk is being unreasonable. "You can't rent the music library space unless you rehearse and perform here." which is OK. This part "But you can't rehearse on Monday nights, and we won't let you charge less than $XX per ticket for performances." is not. That's just not gonna work.)

(edit for grammar. foo.)

Both the Farmington band and the Livingston band played outdoor concerts last week. This finishes my band season -- while Livingston has one match left, I will not be playing that concert.

Last week, I pulled some weeds out of the rill. Later that afternoon, we noticed that the water level in the pond had gone way down. Blargh. After some testing, we determined that there was a leak in the rill, not the pond liner (yay? I mean, it's better than a leak in the pond, but it's still something that needs to be fixed). We both looked over the rill structure to see if we could see where the water was coming out, but couldn't. Sigh. That means that the leak is *inside* the rill, and the water is going down. J has since cleared much of the new growth around the rill so he can get to it, and cleared the rocks lining the rill so we can see the liner. And there's the problem -- a couple of large chipmunk nibbled holes in the second level, that were probably blocked at least somewhat by the huge root&dead leaf structure I pulled out. So he's been planning how to fix that, and how to fix some of the other things that are "not right" on the rill.

*I've* been working on elections. I worked three days of Early Voting, and worked at the township hall setting up for Tuesday's Election Day activities every day this week. (I will be Chair of the Absent Voter Count Board, so I'm actually official. phooey. do not want.)

(plus an indoor concert that, while an exercise in staging, is not subject to weather unless roads to the venue are flooded.)

Monday, the Farmington Band was outside at a Senior Housing complex. It was hot and sticky, but we were in the shade of a building. Somewhat unfortunately, the building blocked some of the (slight) breeze.

Tuesday, the Livingston Band was outside in downtown Howell. It wasn't quite as hot, nor as sticky. I, however, was showing the effects of three concerts in three days, and was off my game (I got the tricky bits, but the easy stuff I flailed at. Why is it so freaking hard to count in 2?!?). The audience outnumbered the band by a wide margin -- they were sitting in various shady places all around the amphitheater. We didn't play as well as we often do, but I bet that's because we haven't played since June....

Today has been an annoying day. I woke up with a headache, probably due to too much reading music outdoors without sunglasses and/or not enough water. Then, when I went out to deal with the birdfeeders, the Camry was making noises (fan noises, mostly) and there were lights on. I *KNOW* that everything was off last night when I closed the garage door, so I was perplexed. poke the Start button "No key detected" (fair enough, they're in the house), try again with the key. Nothing. The dash flickers a little bit. well, f#$K - the battery's dead. Turn the light control to "no DRL" from "Auto" and the right headlight and left running lights go off. get out of car, close door. "Smart Key failure" (erm, no. smart key _sensor_ failure, yes.)

Text J (who is, of course, 600+ miles away) "where's the battery charger?' First, we try the smart charger. Says the battery is at 6V. Well, there's your problem. Put the smart charger on the battery. 10 minutes later, it throws a "battery failure" alert. (Apparently the smart chargers sometimes don't work if the battery they're connected to is under about 9V.) Dig out Papa's old charger, the one that he built from a Heathkit kit in the early 70's. (hook that charger up. the engine fan that's been surging from 'only if you're listening for it' to 'why is that fan running' (WHY?) revs waaay up immediately after plugging the charger in. jump into front seat and poke Start button. Fan shuts off entirely. starter clicking noise also stops.) Get the battery charged to 10V so I can put the smart charger on it. Now it's up to about 12.5V, so I'm going to drive into town and back and see if it will start again. If not, I guess I call the dealer and say "WTF?" If it does, I go to the gas station on the corner, then run into A2 so that the battery is charged. Then cross my fingers that the same thing won't happen tonight.

UPDATE: drove into town (the long way) and back again, turned the car off in the driveway. Came in to the house, did a couple of things, went back out to see if it would start. Yay! it did. So off to the corner store for gas, and back again. Now I hope that it starts in the morning so I can go to work. (We often buy gas at the corner store because an abandoned gas station on the corner is worse than a gas station on the corner. And really, they're not that much of a problem. The lights are good downlights, so that the only time we really get any skyglow from them is when it's been raining and the parking lot is wet and reflective; they're not open really early or really late; and it's far enough from anywhere that the "kids" don't hang out in the parking lot all afternoon.)

FCB rehearsal on Monday, work on Tuesday, then the rest of the week off.

Had thought about going in to the office on Friday to do the filing I didn't get done on Tuesday (had to leave so I could get to the PO before it closed), but Thursday morning I slipped on a retaining wall in the garden and *nearly* faceplanted on the deck. I did wrench my back and jammed my right wrist and shoulder. So Friday I wasn't up to much. I'll probably wind up going in on Wednesday to catch up, especially since I expect that quite a few ballots have come in. OTOH, DC will be back from "vacation" (her son got married, and she was very involved in the wedding), and two people working on ballots is more than twice as fast as one (less task switching).

Shoulder still hurts (I hope I didn't tear the rotator cuff more), and wrist is still a bit cranky. And I have a bruise on my forehead where I clonked it on the handle of the pond skimmer.

Despite the heat advisory on Tuesday night, the Livingston concert in Fowlerville went on. Tuesday evening was cooler and drier than it's been the rest of the week, and there was a nice breeze. The trees in the park there are getting big enough that there was enough shade for the audience - the band is under a pavilion, which is nice for purposes of heat mitigation, but not-so-nice for purposes of playing for an audience. The sound goes up into the pavilion roof and bounces around, and not all of it gets out to the audience. OTOH, they keep inviting us back. :)

DC and I got the first set of ballots into the mail today, after altogether too much faffing around figuring out how to get the state voter database to do what we wanted it to do. The method that they suggest is intended for large jurisdictions with 5K voters per precinct and multiple full-time clerks; not little townships with under 2.5K voters and three less-than-half-time clerks. Once we got it figured out, I don't think it's any slower than the "old" way, but getting to that point was way more confusing than it should have been. Didn't help any that my label printer had somehow gotten only mostly unplugged, so it looked connected but actually wasn't. And it was both ends of that cable....

J has been busy with a friend's car and working on some much needed repairs at the parsonage (things that probably should have been done 15 years ago and *still* aren't done). It seems as though they've also recruited him to be a non-hostile IT person.

I guess that if I have to pick a week to be at work every day, the week that it's too hot to work outside is a good one. I don't feel as guilty. :) And, honestly, even the weeds don't like it when it's this hot. :) We do get more birds when it's hot -- they don't want to wast time flying around looking for food, they just come here where they know there's food *and* water.