Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

Friday we drove to Chicago for Windycon. Where we had to reg at the door, because I thought J had pre-regged, and he thought I had. Oooops. J had stuff for the GT Room (celebrating 50 years of whatever GT is), I had thrown in a few party-hosting bits at the last minute, all of which were used. WindyCon was a good time, as usual. I actually made it to programming, but only because it was the GT Anniversary Panel. There was birthday cake and pony rides and champagne toasts and champagne cocktails and lotsa stories in the GT room.

Then Sunday, I drove home in the snow. The roads never got worse than 'wet', but there were some areas with limited visibility due to blowing snow.

Monday, I went to a (oh so very Catholic) funeral in the town I grew up in. I haven't been back there since Mum moved out of the farmhouse in 2007. I haven't used my maiden name that much in *decades*, but no-one there would know my married name. We were doing the secondary introductions at at the lunch table I was at (the one where you give your relationship to the bereaved family), and mentioned that my dad had gone to grade school with the widow, and from the table behind me, I heard "he went to school with me, too, because she and I were in the same grade". So I turned around and said "I'm Dimitri's daughter", and the people at the table who'd gone to that school remembered the name. Had a good time chatting with people whom I haven't seen since Dad's funeral. Then it was off to Farmington for rehearsal.

Tuesday was back to work, where we discovered that stuff that should have been saved to the thumbdrive was not, so I had to input the voter history by hand. (only 200 voters, so it took 90 minutes, once I figured out how to do it. It wouldn't have taken that long if the barcodes had printed at a scanner-legible resolution. J has suggestions on how to find the stuff on the EPB, which I will do tomorrow.) The new Deputy Clerk started on Tuesday as well, so I have given up the "clerk" side of my duties, and my new title is Election Specialist. oooooooh. (right now, it's more work, because I have to show her how it's done rather than just doing it, but it will get better.) Then off to LCCB rehearsal, where the TSax player who had thumb surgery in October has been released to play the concert. Section leader says to me during the break "can you swap back to bari? He's got this, and we're down a tuba so we need more bass line...". sigh. yes, I can. Three rehearsals til the concert? I can do this!

Today I spent doing errands and laundry. Tonight is officially Later, so the things I've been dumping in the living room to deal with "later"? That time is now.

Rehearsals two days a week. Both going reasonably well, but I think DC at Farmington is feeling a bit like he's over-extended us. He was pushing a bit harder in rehearsal than he usually does. To be fair, it's (almost) all new music that neither he nor us has seen before, and some of it is in a vernacular that we're not used to (not many of us have played at HBCUs, f'rex). (the one piece we've seen before is Sleigh Ride.) Livingston would be better if it wasn't the day after Farmington. And if my tenor would actually play a BFlat that was somewhere close to the note. I need to go in early next week and figure it out, or remember that I need to do that sometime when J isn't home and I don't have other things to do

Church peeps really wanting me to do more -- "committee meeting Monday evening" "nope"
"Pastor can't make Monday, how's Tuesday" "nope"
"can you do this thing after rehearsal on Monday sometime in the next couple of weeks" "nope. I have to be in the NW 'burbs at 1830. Must leave no later than 1715, what with construction/traffic."
"can you do this thing after service on this day?" "nope. set-up call is 13:15 so I need to be on the road by 12:15"

We wandered off to WindyCon last weekend. It was fine. Saw many people whom I don't see often enough; did a lot of stairs as the elevators were, um, suboptimal. Unfortunately, one of the things that annoys my hip is (all together now) Stairs. whee.... There were at least some decent chairs in the GT suite, so the "weekend of least bad chairs" aspect of the con went pretty well.

Warm this week (through tomorrow). I should probably go out tomorrow and cut back things, but I have errands to run in A2. I should probably run them in the AM, and then do yardwork in the afternoon.

The grey floofball caught the attention of one of the adult sandhill cranes this afternoon, and got herself wing-spread and fluffed at. She was appropriately cowed by this, and went and hid under the evergreens on the other side of the pond until the cranes wandered off. At which point she trotted toward the house and pawed at the door....

Capricon was last weekend. We went over Friday AM, and returned Sunday PM. It was a con, as one would expect. Saw people we knew, met others, got to chat with people we don't see often enough, etc. I was unable to duck a GT key this time, but as I've been closing the room for the last four/five cons, it's not really a problem. Just meant that there was a better chance that the commuters could get their stuff out of the room if they were leaving after midnite or so -- when the last-to-bed keyholder is gone to bed before 1am, it's hard on the commuters. (We closed the room shortly after 1 on Friday night, when the last of the commuters got their stuff out; and it was closed about the same time on Saturday night as the 'last person out, close the room'. Then KN and I (we'd been doing the hall party thing) went in to clean and people showed up and so we didn't "officially" close it until after 3.)

No FCB rehearsal on Monday due to school holiday. Someone who was out on Monday night said it was pretty slippery getting home, so I'm not sorry I was able to stay home. Last night's LCCB rehearsal was pretty hard - one more rehearsal before the concert on Feb 29. I missed the fall in the first run of UP because I missed a page turn. Got it every other time we ran that portion, and he didn't go back just for me.... DS (the other bari player) hasn't got the timing on it right, and is playing it with the tubas, who have it right after we do. To be fair, I was playing with the tubas too, until DM (the director), who has the score, pointed out that it was BSax on 3-4, tuba on 1-2; not the 'everyone on 4-1' like we'd been playing it.

The mystery of the work trucks has been partly solved -- while we were gone to Chicago (and in the days since we got home), they've put a few more of the isolators on the lines, added the pulleys to all of the south side topline wires that I can see, and put orange warning wrap on the residential service lines so they don't get hit by work trucks. Other than that? still don't know actually what they're going to be doing. The topline pulleys are spinning, so they're pulling some wires there, but dunno why they'd put isolators on only some of the actual power transmission lines.

Chilly, but sunny, so the black cat has been outside quite a bit today. He's inside now, as the wind has come up, and it's not *that* warm in the sun.

So that happened. But life goes on. (I suspect it helped that I was locked away until 11pm, and then I came home and went to bed without turning radio/TV/internet on.)

Last weekend, J and I ran off to Chicago for WindyCon; where I saw people I don't see often enough (which is unlikely to change, unless we move, and then it will be a different set of people we don't see often enough).

In band news, I have had to transcribe yet another BariSax part, this time from the score. mutter.

We still have not had a night cold enough that there's been ice on the pond -- there've been a couple of days when I've had to break ice out of the birdbath, but not enough to even warrant getting out the heated birdbath. I spent an hour pulling grass and cutting back the Russian Sage in the northwest flowerbed in preparation for the snow we may or may not get. (If I leave it up, we get a lovely drift across the end of the driveway; if I cut it back, the drift is less than halfway across the driveway.) They tell us we may have snow this weekend. We shall see. The larkspur plants that are blooming will be dismayed by snow, but everything else seems to be settling in for chilly weather.

Thanksgiving is next week. I have no idea what we're going to have for dinner. DB says ham, so I guess that's what we'll do. It will be SR's birthday on Thursday, and I haven't gotten her care package in the mail yet, so it will not be there in time. BadMom moment. I have gotten her presents, though (most will not be sent to her because she'd have to bring them back). so there's that.