Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

State was able to update my account (apparently, they didn't update all of the services attached to my account when I changed my email address last year), so I got my ballots proofed (not that we *have* any overseas voters, but we need to be ready!).

The other access issue was something that had changed and that was information that I never got. Yesterday I called State on the telephone(!) and asked them, and they said "Oh, you're in County. They have those now." Fortunately for me, County had gone in on Juneteenth to catch up/be available if needed, and sent me the files I needed. And then I got to be 'human duplexer' for the ballots, because the office printer couldn't duplex 20" paper. (Apparently, the change was mentioned in the meeting that I missed, and neither BC or DC told me. Even when I asked "what does this point in the Followup mean?" sigh. DC, I'll give a pass to, because zie had no context for it; but BC should have paid at least a little attention.)

And later this morning, I traipse off to E Lansing for Sousapalooza. I should be working in the gardens, but nahhh. I'll do that later.

And Tuesday evening's LCCB concert was cancelled on account of pop-up thunderstorms and lightning. Next week, we add another band into the mix, but the weather looks promising. (sigh. it's a long way to Belle Isle.)

sigh. I just spent half a dozen emails explaining to someone exactly which music he should pull for Tuesday's concert. Condensed version follows:

"list from DM says Stars & Stripes 1843. Wha??"
a: It's the first piece in the performance list and we've *never* opened a concert with S+S, nor have we ever played it twice in a concert and it's also at the end of the list. My assumption is that he meant the non-Moffitt Star Spangled Banner that's in the folders. (and let's not even mention that Stars + Stripes hadn't even been written in 1843.)

"But I don't have SSB 1843!"
a: You have SSB 1853, yes?

Assume an autocorrupt issue and a typo and move on, especially when there is a plausible alternative present.

"I don't have Victory for MSU"
a; yes, you do. you have Fight Song MSU, and it's been mentioned at every summer rehearsal for the last two years that Fight Song MSU is now called Victory for MSU. You could open the file called Victory for MSU and look at the pdfs to be sure.

And then there was the other individual who texted me four times last Tuesday, the last two times while I was driving home from work:
"I can't find the music link"
"do you have the set list?"
"when do we start?"
"do I need a chair?"
(the last two questions were answered in the email with the set list which I had forwarded just before I left for work.)

Note that neither one of these people is new to the band or to the summer sessions -- while newer than me, this is at least their 3d full season with the band -- and summer concerts have always started at the same time and we are to provide our own chairs and music stands.

This is, I think, one of the reasons I'm not thrilled with the summer band. This is, theoretically, the band I play in for fun....

- Doc called yesterday, following up on the conversation I had with the nurse on Wednesday. She decided that rather than sending me for an MRI which probably wouldn't show anything that the ultrasound hadn't, she'd send me off to a hand specialist and Zie could order an MRI if Zie thought it necessary. Both UMHS and Trinity are scheduling for early April. sigh.

- we didn't even get the running around to the banks finished before KB (the treasurer) had me signing checks. :)

- J's chorus is having a fundraising meal/Social Night at a restaurant in Ypsi. I wouldn't mind going, and chatting with people in the chorus, but J invited one of his friends whom I do not like to join "us". So I'm not going.

- J is not sorting his laundry, again. I get tired of it, and about every 12 months I remind him that I'd really like it if he did. He does it for a few months, and then it gets to be "too hard" or something, and I'm faced with a pile of laundry in the middle of the closet floor. Nevermind that there are two laundry baskets right there to be sorted into, and he's got to step over his heap of dirty clothes to get to the shelves.....

I had plans to do garden work over the weekend, and then the predicted "most areas will get half an inch of rain" turned into an all day rain with occasional stormy bits such that we got 2 inches of rain.

Monday and Tuesday were chilly (highs in the 40s!).

Monday's FCB rehearsal was stressful. The business manager (BM) had made a comment to PB (the NFHS band director) that made PB think that we weren't going to be rehearsing on Monday, so she had her band kids stage out of the bandroom for their Festival trip. Which is perfectly fair! But it really messed with my evening. *I* wasn't going to try and move their gear. The stage was set for a choir concert, and while I'll move risers and music shells, I will *NOT* move a concert grand piano without permission (at the very least) and preferably supervision. (BM and PB are in text communication at this point, trying to figure out a space to use.) We wound up in the choir room, which is considerable smaller than the bandroom. But everyone fit (as did most of the percussion). We had to take every moveable table out of the room, and scrounge chairs from various storage places in the music wing. And then we rehearsed -- down one BSax and two Tubas, with a concert in one more rehearsal. Then we had to put everything back where we found it. gaaah! (I don't get paid enough to do that regularly!)

Tuesday we processed incoming ballots. Well, DC did incoming ballots, I did outgoing ballots (applications come by mail, through the voter system, and voters can come in and get them), and BC did bills. I scampered out the door at 4:40 to make it to the PO before the mail left at 5. (DC was not yet done processing the 120 ballots that had come in since Friday. She apparently came in on Wednesday to finish them up.)

Then I went to LCCB rehearsal. (Thank Ghu I'm not playing bari in that band this time around. I didn't realise how tired I was until I got halfway to rehearsal.) But music is a thing I do, so I rehearsed well and made a few notes on my music. At this point in the session -- the concert is Sunday! -- rehearsals are mostly just run-throughs and picky bits. (there are still a couple of notes I missed, so I made notes to myself on the music.)

Wednesday I slept in. Then I sorted in the workroom and did some more in the laundry room. I re-thought the boot tray positioning, and the tray that I bought will work, just in a different place. (Upon further thought, I realised that my original plan for it was a bad idea anyway....) And I got the box of mealworms (for the birds) out of the hall and into the laundry room.

Today is errands and an evening at Hill Auditorium, and hopefully a cart or two of stuff out of the gardens. Between things that need to be cut back because they're dead and weeds that need to be pulled, there's a lot of work to be done out there. Maybe I'll do the groceries after the concert -- Meijer is still open then. But I do have a couple of local stops, so I do have to go out. Sigh.

today's 'stupid voter tricks' included the people mailing(!) their requests for AV ballots a week before the election. When the mail delivery to the clerk is after 5pm on Thursday, there is no way that the ballot can be mailed before noon on Friday. At that point, it's highly unlikely (OK, pretty much impossible) that the voter will even *receive* the ballot before Tuesday, much less be able to mail it back. At some point, a voter has to take some responsibility. It's not the _clerk's_ fault that you didn't get your ballot in time when you didn't even *ask* for it until five mail days before the election. It's not like election day is a surprise or anything.

And then there was the pair of voters who were absolutely aghast that the Emergency Polling location for the township was at the Rod & Gun Club. 'why not the Friends Center?' (which question is a pretty good guide as to _why_ they didn't want it at the R&G Club, amirite?) The actual answer to that question is "it's not big enough, doesn't have an office for the clerk and a locking room for the Absent Voter Counting Board"; and even fewer people know of its existence, much less its location. There are no schools or churches in the township, and the only other possible polling place is the Buddhist monastery which didn't have the office/AV Board space back when it was the Free Methodist Church. And is, you know, a monastery.

And J has offered house-space to people coming in this weekend. Dude, you do realise that I'm going to be working Friday and Saturday (if I'm not at the twp hall, I'm gonna be in the garden getting it ready for winter), and you're going to be 'in charge' of bedding/towels/cleaning/hosting?

Had a nice visit with Mum and Sis in Lexington. Weather was cool for KY, so that was nice. Mum is doing quite well for 91. Slowing down a bit, and it takes her longer to rest up/recover from things -- she'd had to quarantine after her trip to MI, and it took her a few days to get moving again after that. Mum has never liked BBQ, but we mostly ate at places where *I* could get BBQ even if she didn't. We went on a horse-tour, including about 45 minutes at Keeneland with a retired jockey as a guide, so that was nice (and it was a lovely day for that -- sunny and 75F). We didn't manage a distillery tour (I was the only one interested, so.... I had intended to do one on Friday, but we left so early that I would have had to dork around for an hour or so before the first tour of the day. sigh. There was a distillery I could have stopped at about 45 minutes down the road, but by then I was in "I'm Driving" mode and didn't want to stop.)

Sis had gotten a pretty little AirBnB. With two beds. Originally, it was suggested that I'd sleep on an airbed. Sis & Mum got in a couple of days before I did, and Sis emailed me Sat AM and said "there's not really space for an airbed, but the sofa is nice." Uh-huh. Child, I'm older than you *and* have a surgically repaired back. grumble. So I get down there, and what she really meant was "I don't want to share the bedroom with you, and I don't want an airbed in the living room". There was plenty of space for a single airbed. mutter mutter. But I survived.

The drive home today was fine. The gas stations in Bowling Green had no card scanners, so I had to pay cash for gas. (wait! You can *do* that?!?) There was rain in MI, ranging from none to wipers-on-high pounding. Then I got off at my exit and was faced with a detour. It's the country, so the detour is 7 miles long (3.4 miles down, 3.6 miles up).

( rant )

First round of shoveling complete. Over 4 inches of heavy snow - not really wet, but heavy. We're supposed to get another 8 inches after this. By the time we finished shoveling the driveway, the porch where I started had a quarter of an inch of snow on it.

Music is hard. that is all. Monday's FCB rehearsal was hard - I didn't realise how hard until my brain was still tired Tuesday morning. And then I had another rehearsal on Tuesday - the concert for that is in three weeks!

J just realised that Capricon is this weekend. We've had memberships and a room since last October, but it's a different weekend than it's been in years, so that's allowed. I'm seriously thinking about skipping it -- my back has been being cranky, and all this shoveling isn't going to help. Not relishing the thought of 10 hours in the car and a weekend of finding the 'least bad' chair to sit in. I'm also not particularly looking forward to being obviously ignored -- every time we go to a con, J checks into the room with me, and then I don't see him for the rest of the weekend until it's time to go home on Sunday, unless I make an effort to track him down. "but Friends! FOMO!" "yes, but Family is important too, right?"

So some time around Thanksgiving, I deployed the heated birdbath because it was getting cold enough at night that ice was forming in the summer birdbath. The heated birdbath only sort of worked - ice formed in the birdbath on cold nights, but it didn't freeze solid, so I was able to just pull out the "ice pizzas". But that means that there's still ice on the birdbath when the sun comes up and the earlybirds show up for breakfast, and a lot of the water in the birdbath is winding up in ice rounds. J poked at it a bit, but had no ideas. I ordered a replacement birdbath sometime in December from the feed store in town. After they had multiple go-rounds of suppliers saying 'we have that', and then not having it when they actually ordered it, and a week's worth of boxen all showing up on the same day, I finally picked up the new birdbath yesterday and installed it. This morning, there was ice in the birdbath! Hrm. Maybe it's the extension cord? Swapped that out, then ran errands. When I got home, J told me "I fixed it." "oh?" "the summer pump timer was still on that circuit." Sigh. I didn't even *know* there was a timer on that circuit - apparently, he'd put one in so that the pump wasn't running all night, when there was no-one to hear/see it. That meant that the power to the birdbath was going off at night, when it's most needed. All better now, but now I have an extra heated birdbath.

I have been a bear of very little brain for no apparent reason, and *still* haven't gotten the holiday cards out. There's a holiday coming, up, right? (MLK Day, observed.) that's my new target. I should at least print out the letter so J can proofread it.

Monday was FCB rehearsal. It was snowing as I drove home. 50mph on the freeway and 35mph on the rural roads. Took me over 90 minutes for a drive that usually takes 45. (OTOH, I stayed on the road, which was better than a few cars I saw.) When I went out in the AM, the rear wheel wells on the car were still *full* of snow, and the fronts were not much better. I actually backed the car out of the garage to clear the snow out - don't want that much water in the garage. (only good thing is that there was no salt in that mess, as the trucks weren't out when I went through.) Also at Monday's rehearsal, a screwed up saxophone. She worked fine on Friday when I practiced, but not on Monday....

Which led to Tuesday afternoon's drive to Allen Park (60 minutes, best case), to the shop where I have a service contract on Esme. And then up to Howell (35 minutes) for Livingston rehearsal. Fortunately, on a different sax. But still, driving and playing.

And then today, where I forgot my wallet in my Livingston rehearsal bag and didn't realise until I was checking out at Meijer. 30 minutes from home. So I drove home, got my wallet, went back to Meijer, actually *bought* the groceries, then finished my errands.

I don't wanna go anywhere tomorrow. Staying home Friday would be nice, too, but Esme should be ready for pick up at the shop, and as I'd rather not pick her up Monday on my way to rehearsal, a trip on Friday is gonna happen. J says he'll come with, and we can stop and buy fish for the aquarium.

And today it got to 45F, and they tell us we might see 50F tomorrow. The driveway and the roads were dry today, and I expect that the snow will be mostly gone by sunset tomorrow, except in the piles.

So I go for my second jab tomorrow, and J keeps telling me about all the people he knows who had reactions to it. sigh. I don't care. The way that other people's immune systems reacts to a vaccine has no effect on how mine does. I don't care, really I don't. (OK, I care in that people I know were made uncomfortable by their second jab, but it makes no difference to how I will react to it.) Why do you do this? I've already told you at least twice that I do't care. Just because you can't think of anything else to talk about....

And, of course, it's supposed to snow overnight. Actually, it's snowing now, but not accumulating, but they tell us that that will change overnight, and are predicting a couple of inches of accumulation. My appointment is in the afternoon, so I expect that the roads will be mostly clear of accidents by then. I do have a couple of things that I need to pick up while I'm out which require going into A2 proper, so that may be more interesting.

Got the last article for the newsletter 30 minutes *after* I'd sent off the first draft for proofreading, four days after the deadline. grumble. There's no excuse for that. I told the managing editor when she asked that I'd probably be able to fit it in, but made no guarantee. I'll need to print it all out and do the layout the old-fashioned way. I was hoping to keep the newsletter to 10 pages this time around, but with the late article don't think I'll be able to. :(