Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

with music everywhere!

Last Sunday (the 15th) was the FCB concert. It went better than it really had any right to. The harpist fit onto the stage, and was terrific. The Snowman went really well, as did the rest of the music we played. Tear-down was easy, as lots of people helped.

Then we came home and finished packing for an almost weeklong trip to NC, to see Mum. She is doing really well for 93. Physically a bit slower than last year, but still on her own two feet. Met some new people, got reacquainted with people we met last year. Went carolling on two nights -- they are very glad to have J and me singing.

The drive was not nearly as fraught as last year. For one, we started off much earlier in the day (easier to drive in the dark in known environs), and it wasn't snowing and dark as we went through the mountains. Fog is somewhat easier to deal with. The Ohio DOT had opened the "outer ring" bypass of Columbus, which also made the trip easier -- we were able to pretty much bypass the Columbus traffic, except for a very small re-route because a ramp isn't completed yet (it was replaced by a well-signed surface level left turn with a long light).

We drove back on Saturday, and Sunday AM we trundled off to sing at church in single-digit temperatures. (it was 70F in Greensboro on Wednesday, 40F on Friday. Just a bit of difference!)

Tomorrow, we go back to church to sing and ring chimes. Today, it's rain/sleet/freezing rain/ick at temperatures right around freezing. *I* don't have to go anywhere tonight. This pleases me. :)

There's a turtle in the pond!

We've been at this house for over 25 years, there's been a pond in the backyard for nearly 20, and this is the first year we've seen a turtle there. I'm pretty sure it's a fresh arrival, as it's very easy to see when it's on the rock in the middle of the pond, and I would have noticed as I walked by the window (because I always look at the pond & nearby birdfeeders, just to see what's going on out there, and if there's anything new).

It's *not* a baby -- shell is 4" across or so -- probably this year's crop of wanderers, evicted from the swampy-bit where it was born a couple of years ago because there's too many turtles there. It's hard to get a picture, because it's *very* skittish, and as soon as the door opens it slips into the water. Maybe after it's been here a while and not been chased it'll settle down so that I can get a picture. J was able to get a couple of pix yesterday, by sitting out on the deck with the camera until the turtle decided he wasn't a threat, but he had to be very careful and slow moving so the turtle wouldn't spook.

J hosted SEMGS yesterday, so I spent a lot of time actually doing the work of hosting, while he got to do the chatty bits. sigh. It was very hot (nearly 90, with a heat index of 95F or so), but we'd managed to rig enough shade on the deck that nobody melted, and when people got really hot they could go inside. We got *lots* of rain last week - over 2" in each of two separate storms, so that doesn't help with the moisture in the air. And the weeds are going to be really happy! I will have lots of weeding to do when I get home from camp. I will leave a reminder for J to weed the strawberries, because I don't think I'll get them done today - it's 87F with 80% humidity right now, so HI is over 100F, and that's just too hot for me to work in.

I head off to band camp at Interlochen tomorrow AM, so I'm spending today packing and making a list of the things I need to pack from the fridge. I did manage to get a room on campus, which is really much preferable -- the hotel is older and not as spiffy, but it's *right* *there* and I may not have to drive anywhere after camp starts Tuesday. I'm going up a day early, and spending Monday afternoon at Sleeping Bear Dunes, unless it rains, in which case I'll figure out something else to do.

I did wind up going to Capricon. I _did_ spend the weekend looking for the 'least bad' chair, but as the GT room was on the business suite floor, there were a lot of very nice upper management conference chairs in the room, so my back is no more cranky than it was when I left. Perhaps a bit less, as I didn't spend a few hours every day moving things in the workroom....

I did keep up my tradition of not going to programming, but as it's been a decade since I've gone to any, this should not be a surprise.

It was a very small con, for fairly obvious reasons. There has often been a large 'out-of-region' contingent for the con, and many of those people decided they didn't feel comfortable flying, and who in their right minds wants to drive into the upper Midwest in the winter? (some people with memberships were snowed in!) In addition, the convention has been out in the northern suburbs of Chicago for decades, and it was the first con in a (huge) downtown hotel. Lotsa Chicago peeps decided they didn't want to come downtown for a convention, so we missed them. (J was talking to his walking group from work, and said 'we're driving to Chicago to hang out with people who live 20 miles from us' and he was not entirely wrong.)

The cats were frantic when we got home. It's been *YEARS* since they've been left all alone. Usually when J and I went somewhere together, at least one kid stayed home for Reasons. And we forgot to put out an extra bowl of food when we left.... But they survived, and have (for the most part) stopped giving us the evil eye.

Monday, I shifted a few more rocks in the rill to eliminate a slow seep of water out.

Tuesday, J and I went to Watkins Glen NY. Mum wanted to walk the Gorge one more time (she figures this is probably her last time walking the whole thing, as she's going to be 89 at her next birthday, and that last flight of steps is a looong one), but it's no fun doing it by yourself and none of her friends from Pennybyrn even want to try it. It's a not-quite-eight hour drive, if all goes well, but we had to stop by work so J could mail something, and then there was construction all the way through PA and for about 40 miles in NY - traffic was single lane 50-55mph. We got to the motel about 9.5 hours after we left home.

Wednesday morning, we walked the Gorge. It's lovely, it is. The NY state park administration has redone the entry, and there's a lot more information there, as well as a tourist information center and a small gift shop. The parking lot shifted a bit north, and is larger. They also added a self-serve kiosk for parking. It's really a thing you need to do slowly, as there's so much to see. It was a beautiful day for the walk, cool and sunny. We had a picnic lunch at the top, then drove back into town for ice cream, eaten outside because it was too nice a day to waste by eating inside. I walked from the ice cream shop back to the parking lot where my car was (less than a quarter mile), and stopped to watch a heron fishing in the river flats at the base of the Gorge. There were a lot of ~5" (12cm) fishlets swirling about, trying to avoid becoming lunch.

Thursday, after breakfast with Mum, J and I went to the Corning Museum of Glass, which is almost on the way home. The outdoor exhibits (blow your own/make your own) were closed for the season, but there's still a lot of stuff there. The demos seemed a little simplistic -- they're probably fine for summer when there's lots of kids, but I didn't learn anything from them. J was a bit disappointed that there was only a single, not very large, exhibit on the Palomar Telescope lens. But we got lucky, and got a survey, so we mentioned that in the survey.

Then we went home. The problem with an 8 hour drive is that it's hard to break it up plausibly. We left Corning shortly after 2 pm, and decided that sleeping in our own bed was better than spending a night in a hotel along the way.

Friday, I caught up on all the household stuff that didn't get done while we were gone. Including a leak in the rill. Not on the side that I'd rebuilt last weekend.

Saturday, I committed gardening, and split about half of the iris patch. I probably should have stopped one clump sooner than I did, as when I took my shoes off in the mudroom I twanged my back and flared the impingement. That took longer than usual to subside, so I won't be finishing the irises today. (or tomorrow either, as that's my day to move furniture & percussion and it's supposed to rain.)

Left at 11am CST, with over 4 inches of freshly fallen slippery snow (the air temperature was warm enough that the snow was slightly clumpy, but the clumps are smooth and so they slide on each other). 30 minutes out, the roads were wet but not slippery, 40 minutes out they were dry. Then we dropped SS off in Kalamazoo and caught up to the snow. From 5 miles east of K'zoo to home (85 miles or so), it snowed. Visibility ranged from 100 feet to a half mile, which is very tiring. Got home about 5:20 EST, so only a bit slower than usual.

We were in Chicago for Capricon, which is just a fun weekend. GT gets a really nice room, there are people that I only see at Capricon, and lots of conversations. Friday night I party hopped, as one does, and Saturday night I worked TC's cocktail party. That was fun.

I have finally shaved enough excess fabric off the palm area of the neoprene splint that I can wear it without getting pinched. Which is good, because my thumb was sore (tired sore, mostly) this morning. And driving is hard on it.

(looks at date of last post. Egads! How did that happen?)

So, since that last post, I have:

skipped a concert. It was an outdoor concert, and it was 46F at noon. I have no desire to wreck either my instrument or my back. People who actually did play the concert say that it was almost too cold to play, and at least some of the clarinet/oboe/bassoon players brought their student instruments rather than their good ones.

worked in the garden, although perhaps not as much as I should have. It's been alternately either too wet or too cold to step into the gardens, but I have managed to get some of the blackberry lilies cut back before they drop seeds, and I did clear out the area around the pond where J ripped out an evergreen. And weeded the strawberry bed, and thinned the lilac in front of the house.

gone to a couple of fairly hard rehearsals. You'd think we had concerts coming up or something. The Halloween concert is Oct 28. I will probably not make a costume, as they handed us "Selections from The Greatest Showman" (the movie about PT Barnum), so the ringmaster costume I made last year is good.

figured out a library schedule-ish. Aiming for Monday late morning and probably a stop by on the way to erranding on Wednesdays.

pointed out to the managing editor that if she wants a newsletter to the printer by end-of-week, she should probably get me content. I still don't have all of it.

gone to a dyer's event in Hastings, and taken the long way home because I missed a turn in the dark. I knew that the road I was on eventually hit I94, so I wasn't too concerned. I looked up the route on the map when I got home, and it was only about 10 miles longer than the preferred ones, so....

had lunch with my Mum, who was in the area for an all-school reunion. She came through Florence just fine-- the storm turned well south before it hit land, so all Mum got was a few hours of power outage and a few inches (10, I think) of rain. Her sister, in the mountains of NC, just got rain.

gone to a wedding in the UP. Drove up Thursday, drove home Sunday. It was nearly 80F when I was packing, and Friday morning there was nearly an inch of snow on my car in Calumet. Got to see people whom I haven't seen in years (it's been 3 or 4 years since I've been north of the bridge!), and got the nickel tour of a couple of nice big old houses owned by friends. Still don't want to live there (again). Went by the the house we used to live in. They put a new roof on it, and it's horrible - a cheap black metal roof, not even well done on the turret or the extra peak that J's dad and I built on the porch roof so that there wouldn't be a cascade of water onto you as you open the door onto the porch. I suppose they could have found a worse color than black for that house, but I don't know what - it was re-sided in the 1970s, and is a faded harvest gold cementboard siding.

watched garage work come to a screeching halt as J felt that doing things for other people was more important. This is not a new thing. A majority of the tools are back in the garage, but there's still a heap on the deck and the bikes and yard tools haven't found their homes. Ideally, many of them will find a place sometime this week, but....

Just a little over the usual time -- it started raining somewhere between the MI state line and St Joe/Benton Harbor and did so the rest of the way home.  It was windy, too, which sometimes made passing trucks "interesting".  The rain & wind made it seem a lot colder than 40F when I got gas in Battle Creek.

It was a good con, if a little more subdued in some ways/less subdued in others than it has been in the past. But change happens.  It remains to be seen whether this change is temporary or a more permanent thing. I had a good time, caught up with people I haven't seen since last Cap, and got to chat with people I hadn't known before.  I also bought Girl Scout cookies from Steven Silver's girls, as I have no local "pushers".  :)  (I don't know when/if the local troops are going to have tables at the grocer/post office/bank.  If I can't buy from locals, I'll buy from people I know. Even if they are three states away.)

Tomorrow I will unpack and shovel slush out of the driveway and garage.  whee.