Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

at the twp board meeting on Tuesday, the board decided that I needed to start the ball rolling (again) on the basement re-org. (note that I wasn't even at the meeting, because I'm only a twp employee, and I had somewhere else to be.) To be fair, the reason the ball had stopped is because TE had emergency abdominal surgery and was understandably out of action for six weeks. But he's back on his feet now, and can at least manage things. So I amended the write-up I did last time, and sent it out. Hopefully something will happen now.

FCB rehearsal was on stage this week (a last minute change because the bandroom was full of sorting music/instruments/uniforms, and their band director didn't want it rearranged). I put a big sign in red and black marker on a music stand in front of the door, and yet.... Every time I (or somebody else on set up) went back into the bandroom for percussion, there was a band member looking around, perplexed. One person had even taken it upon themselves to set up a chair and stand in the area where they usually sit.

The birds are getting to the strawberries before I do. There's only a dozen bearing plants this year, and this historical variety (my grandfather bought the first plants in 1933) is not one that has lots of fruit. We had lots of berries when I was a kid, but that's because we had 200 sq feet of strawberry patch, not 10. Well, and the soil at King Rd was better than the soil here, and I just don't have the spoons to do the required amendment here.

The pale pink peonies bloomed yesterday, and the dark pink ones have that lovely sun-faded look to them. And there is a carpet of white peony petals, and a thicket of lupine seed heads. I guess I know what I'll be doing this afternoon. :)

ETA: It's Friday the 13th. A black cat has already crossed my path. (OK, so he does that every day. I don't think it'll change anything.)

but still some same ol' things.

LCCB is still far more freeform than I like. Every summer, I wonder why I play the summer schedule. DM is concerned about our stage comportment, but doesn't do a damn thing about the sprawling layouts with random people way far away from other people who mostly play the same part. But people seem to enjoy the concerts, so I guess that's why I keep playing....

Sup is doing the "why is this not done yet" queries, and my response is "because TW and HandymanDan haven't gotten back to me (or you) to schedule. *You* poke them...." BC is finally up to a trek into the basement to see the status down there, and OMG there's a lot of work to be done. No more than there was (less, actually, as I've taken the recycling in). Somebody else needs to take the rubbish. Other somebodies need to schedule TE and HD for a day of moving big stuff. OTOH, the AC is now working -- something in the compressor needed to be replaced, so it was and now it works. Just as well, as we are now in an "if you don't need to breathe outside, don't" portion of the summer. (Canadian prairies are on fire, and we get the smoke. yay?)

Early last week, I moved the main plants from the deckside garden to their new home. Then it got hot for a couple of days, and then it rained for about 18 hours, so they're well watered in. The East garden is very appreciative of the weather - everything is blooming! Peonies, Lupine, three shades of pink daisies, three very different irises (white, dark purple, yellow & bronze), and bright yellow paintbrush. And some scattered magenta & white & purple carnations.... It's been a few years since everything in that garden has flowered this profusely. There are some spring bulbs in there that I need to move, because they don't bloom before the shasta daisies around them get tall, so they're hard to see. If I move them to the new garden, we'll be able to see them!

skipped work on Tuesday due to a very cranky back from too much yardwork Sun/Mon followed by moving *all* the chairs on Monday night. (BM is out ill, usual assistants were running late due to family things/traffic; so while there was reasonable help for teardown, I had to do most of the setup.) I woke up Tuesday morning with random spikes of numb down my right leg and a lot of very tight muscles in my back. I decided that the best thing I could do was not go in to the office *or* to LCCB rehearsal, and be very careful with my moving. I should be able to do the errands tomorrow....

There is an FCB concert on Sunday which means another session of moving chairs. And it's an away gig, so there's more gear to be moved. I will attempt to avoid moving percussion. I have no idea how this venue will work -- the last time we played there, the set up was sub-optimal. I hear that they have rearranged the space a little bit, but BM sent a couple of pix, and it doesn't seem that much different. We shall see.

I did go into the office on Thursday, and the laptop on my desk decided that it no longer wanted to work with the external monitor. The screen image would shrink, then expand, then go black; then resync with the external monitor, work for 30 seconds or so, then repeat. I tried reseating both ends of the monitor cable, but it didn't help. So then I unplugged the external monitor, and the display stabilized. I have no idea -- the monitor was plugged directly into the laptop's display port. (The smart guess would be that it's a faulty display port, but that's above my paygrade.) So I rearranged my desk so that I could actually see the laptop screen, and did my work that way. Not preferred, but at least I did get my work done. IT knows that there is an issue, but also that there's a workaround and it's not a "drop everything and fix this now!" issue.

LCCB concert is this weekend. It will be fine. There's too much fast stuff that I haven't had a chance to get really good at (so I'll be doing a lot of getting every other note), and the Glenn Miller medley is horrible -- badly arranged and poorly played. (I did get a bit of a chuckle out of the main things that the clinician mentioned - people don't listen to other parts, and the only time the band actually plays softly is when there are only a few people playing - because those are the things that I've been complaining about since I joined. hee.) As far as I can tell, I will be playing Bsax in the summer session. Whee? I mean, it's my preferred instrument, but I get tired of hauling it around to all the summer gigs. This year, they've rearranged the schedule a bit, and two (lightly attended) park gigs have been either removed or replaced with outreach concerts, so that will be a bit easier. I will still miss the last summer gig because I'll be in Interlochen.

Still wearing many hats at work. Still waiting for Sup to schedule a moving day. (Maybe I'll poke TE myself.) GC for the office remodel returned the keys yesterday, and then yesterday afternoon we discovered that the AC unit for the old building wasn't running. Thermostat says "cool", info panel on furnace says "cool", compressor not running. HVAC guy is already scheduled for next month sometime (annual system checkup), and it will be annoying to have him out twice. Maybe he can do the system check when he comes out to check on the AC. And there's a clog in the drains somewhere between the building and the septic tank. The question is exactly where? upstream or downstream of the clearout? not my problem.

Starting to really work on the garden. Finished half of the E bed (the area that I didn't get to in the fall); and raked leaves out of the NE garden, although they're still piled on the lawn because I got called away for other things. I'll go finish that this morning before the rains come. Tomorrow when I'm out I need to get more garden gloves. I bought a pack of inexpensive ones four or five years ago, and the last pair is getting a bit ragged.

J cleared grass out of the pond early in the week, and he said he didn't see any frogs, but the last couple of days there has been a toad chorus (at least three!) in the pond area, and today it really sounds like frog "chatter", not birds or toads, so maybe they were just hiding.

BC is back in hospital. I do not *know* why, but I suspect that her system is not tolerating the strong oral antibiotics well, and so they need to be administered intravenously. She finished the first round of strong antibiotics, but apparently the pneumonia did not clear up as the docs wanted it to, so.....

So yesterday I did payroll. whee? (and Sup and Treas were off at a state meeting, so it was me and the office manager.) Tomorrow, S & T should be back, so I can consult with T about getting the GL entry for April's payroll done, and see if BC did the one for March. If she didn't, I need to do that one before I do April. I may have to do checks this month as well -- last month, BC came back for a week and was able to do them while dodging moving crews. (I don't like doing anything that requires me to sign in as BC, because if my account doesn't have permissions, then I shouldn't be doing them, right?)

Last night, a smaller FCB (just around 50 people) did a 30 minute gig before the State of the Cities address in Farmington/Farmington Hills. It required nearly as much work as a full 90 minute concert. Perhaps a bit more, as I had to figure out a smaller layout that would fit in a smaller space. I dug out the seat "dots" (that we used in 2021 when the layout was different nearly every week) so that BM and I didn't have to point everyone to their seat.

And today it rains. nearly an inch since 8 am (it's currently 1230!), and they say we'll get more. And it's cold. (35F and rain is hard to dress for -- winter jackets aren't waterproof enough, rain coats aren't warm enough and mine aren't big enough to put warm layers under. Maybe I should remedy that....)

got into work yesterday, and there was a message from the supervisor -- "the moving crew will be here late Thursday morning to move your office". Um. OK, then, I know what I'm doing today. Well, after I finish these other two tasks which I am in the middle of. And BC (who is back in the office with strict instructions to do nothing more strenuous than walk to the bathroom or the kitchen) is actually working, and so there's a lot of stuff that I can't pack. And there's a board meeting Tuesday evening, so there's no place to stack the boxes that I pack anyway.

So I finished the tasks I was working on, packed up my desk. Packed up the notebooks/etc on the small table. Cleared the tops of the filing cabinets. Packed the top shelf of the filing cabinet. Packed the top drawer of the lateral file. After BC finished checks, packed up the top of her desk. Called the IT guy and asked if he would be available to do the re-assembly of BC's set up (thankfully, he will be, at least for a while.)

I still need to go in either today or early Thursday and pack up the rest of the filing cabinets. And buy/assemble a shelf in the basement for the ballot boxes which are currently in the office. I don't want to move them more than I have to! I don't know if we'll be moving the other offices Thursday or not. I have the plan for our old office, but I don't know what C wants -- I think BC knew, but she didn't write it down, so hopefully she'll remember (I haven't asked).

A couple of weeks ago, I made a plan for the basement rearrangement, but yesterday I realised that we'd forgotten all the cruft that was on the side shelf in the upstairs closet, so I had to add a couple more shelving units to the basement plan. There is wall space for that, in two different areas. I think it would be best in a side room, but it could also go in the main room. Supervisor was asking about the basement rearrangement, and I said that we'd need a moving crew for at least a day, *after* they got the pile of rubbish out of the middle of the large room, and then we could start the sliding tile game of getting cabinets/shelves/desks into their "proper" places. And we could install the new shelving units, and then get the stuff out of the random cabinets/piles where it was stashed in January. Must remind the IT guy to go through the stack of old computer equipment, so we can move the desk it's on.

And there's an FCB concert this weekend, with a stage rehearsal at an offsite venue Friday night. And complete teardown between Friday night and Sunday afternoon. (I will not be unhappy if the board says that we won't be using that venue again!)

And my thumb still hurts, although not as much. I fear that moving will not help it much. Doc knows what the issue is, but doesn't know *why*, and is sending me off to a hand specialist who may be able to figure it out (with the caveat that there might not be an obvious trigger). She's pretty sure that she knows a remedy for it, but doesn't want to administer it before the specialist sees the issue.

For all that I had a very quiet weekend, I didn't get a whole lot done. Apparently, I needed a staycation. :)

Thursday was a Thursday. Friday, I drove J up to the dealer to pick up his truck (it'd been in for recall and warranty work), then I went to a blood drive in Pinckney. In a perfect world, I'd have been able to drop him at the dealer and stop in Pinckney on the way home, but he'd made an appointment in Ypsi for the same time I was to be in Pinckney, and that timing just wasn't gonna work. (It's not actually that much farther to Pinckney than to Chelsea, but I'm not as familiar with the route, and it is more sparsely populated than the route into Chelsea.)

Saturday I did a few chores, dug out my holiday shirts, and figured out which version of concert black I was going to wear on Sunday.

Sunday, I sang at church, rehung the Advent banner on the high hook where it belonged, went to choir practice, came home, changed into concert blacks and wandered off to Howell High School for the LCCB winter concert. It was a concert, better than many LCCB concerts -- the band is getting better (still nowhere near FCB, but better than a lot of community bands). There was one piece on the program that I'd like to play with a band that's not scared of 5/8. I have sent a link off to FCB peeps for a second opinion before I send a note to the music committee.... {The Eighth Candle}

(the way it usually does, one day at a time. I know.)

Farmington's Halloween concert was Sunday. It was much better performed than Livingston's, even though the music was harder. We did not have FCB rehearsal the day after the concert, because the HS was having stage rehearsal for their Tuesday evening concert, and it was just easier for everyone if 70 extra musicians just stayed away. I will be missing the rehearsal on Monday, 4 November, because I will be doing the final set up for the township hall for Tuesday's election, after a day of processing and tabulating Absent Voter ballots. whee?

I postponed the week's erranding to today from the usual Wednesday, because the weather then was great for working in the garden. So, of course, it's chilly and damp today and AA is overrun with Oregon fans in town for tomorrow's football game. sigh. OTOH, there was no line at the cider mill or the gas station. OTOOH, I forgot to stop at the feed store for birdseed. I will need to run into town tomorrow and get that. sigh, again.

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?'.)

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.)