Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

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....)

so the thumb area still hurts. Doc sez "there's something more than "just" a hematoma there. I don't want to speculate until I see the images." And there's not much that can be done until they have an idea of what's wrong in there -- if they treat the wrong thing, it could make what *is* wrong worse. Theoretically, I could call Imaging every morning to see if they've had a cancellation, and maybe I'll do that on days when I've got availability.

J and I ran a bunch of errands today before the snow started. The FCB Social committee had set up a fundraiser + Social Night at a local-to-Farmington restaurant, but I knew that I was not at all interested in driving home after dark, so I was going to go for lunch and participate in the fundraiser but skip the Social Night. Then the weather forecast came out, and I really was not going to be out Wednesday late afternoon unless I had to be. And then J got a call from the motorcycle shop in Novi that the new tire he'd ordered was in. So he put the front wheel from the motorcycle into the trunk (to get the new tire mounted on it), and off we went upon errands/lunch. It was just beginning to snow as I turned off the expressway on the way home and there were snowflakes in the air for the last 15 miles. An hour later, and it's still just snowflakes in the air - most are not making it to the ground, as they're little flakes and they just evaporate before they hit the ground. There are a very few tiny flakes on the ice. This will change - the weather peeps are saying 4-6 inches of snow, perhaps less if there's wintry mix involved (please be all snow!).

The project is mostly done. What remains is the cleaning up afterwards, which is apparently my job. The bathroom floor needs to be washed, not just swept; there is detritus in many corners of rooms; there are unused tools and parts lurking in other corners; the boxes that came in from the garage need to go back out there, etc. But that's not the "cool" part of the project, so J's not interested in doing it.

Especially since he's already mentally moved on to the next project, a late 1990s Honda Goldwing motorcycle that he's going to Roscommon to pick up. He's also in the middle of the long-awaited "put some sort of light on the driveway" project -- it requires putting a fixture on the garage, and we've only been talking about doing it since we finished the garage. Why it didn't get done when he was renovating the garage, I do not know.

I was able to find a useful shoe rack at Menard's, but I really do still need to get the one from IKEA -- it's got a taller space between the floor and the bottom shelf, so it's actually useable space there. It won't be a problem having shoe rack space, as there's no rule that says you can only put shoes on a shoe rack. :)

It's nice and sunny and warm today, but that won't last -- they tell us it's going to get ridiculously cold next week. I need to take the holiday lights down today, while it's nice (precipitation is expected tomorrow). There's no rehearsal on Monday (school holiday), and if it's as cold as they say it will be, I will skip Tuesday's (assuming that Howell doesn't cancel school due to the cold). I have to be in Mason at 9am Wednesday, and that's gonna be fun. It will be interesting to see what the car does in below zero weather....

We spent Thursday's office hours doing the file sorting that we'd been not doing because we were so busy with election and moving stuff. I have a stack of paper on my desk that needs to be filed downstairs, and another stack that needs to be copied for the auditor. BC has similar stacks. We took a piled-high banker's box of paper out to the shred bin, and when we actually get into the basement to work on the files there we will have much more.

{edit for grammar. sigh}

It's the coldest it's been this winter, but I'm not entirely convinced that it should be termed the "bitter cold" that the weather app said. It was cold enough that I was glad of my hat when I did the outdoor chores. I deployed the heated birdbath early last week, when the other birdbath was frozen solid (and I had time to go digging through various garage bays to find the basin and the extension cord). They tell us that it will warm considerably over the next few days. This is good, because now J can get the pump out of the pond -- the rill is completely frozen over, and it has the lovely 'running water under ice' effect. But I think it will get cold enough (eventually) this winter that the pond will freeze solid, and that will not be good for the pump.

Another positive of the warmer weather is that I can put up the outdoor Xmas lights -- they're solar powered, so as soon as I put them out they'll start coming on, and I don't like having Xmas lights on before Advent. I also need to replace the lights on the house -- they were not really very good lights when I put them up six or seven years ago, and they're really worse for wear now.

I have got my desk at work sorted out, and most of the voter list reconciling done. Next week, I think we (read "I") get to start moving things out of the storage closet upstairs so they can start working on it in January. The GC for the office renovation will also be GC for the HVAC renovation, so he will be a busy man. The entire HVAC in the old building needs to be redone -- there are so many things wrong with it! (But they all come down to the manager in charge wanting the renovation to come in fast and under budget, regardless of what the contractor said. And it's not his problem anymore, so it worked! Never mind that the twp now has to spend more money that it really doesn't have to fix his mistakes....)

At least it's not actually raining -- it's been doing that mostly overnight or when I'm at work this week. I did get rained on a teensy bit yesterday when I was out running extended errands -- hadn't done anything since before the election, so I was way behind, although we hadn't run out of anything. Only three cans of cat food left, though.

Today I need to clear the living room of all the things that I've just been dropping there to deal with "later". It is now later, so....

BC and I did a layout of the new office space (so they know where to put the outlets and the network and phone ports). Once I got the room plotted out, and post-its of the furniture sizes, it took about 5 minutes, and we tried a few different configurations. :) She was impressed. There's a desk in the corner with the person's back to the door, but as that's the second clerk, I don't see it as an issue -- that person will rarely be in the office by themselves. There is space to shift the desk away from the wall, but then that person will be between the wall and the desk. This may be preferable, I don't know.

And then word came down from 'on high' that they wanted a third estimate, and they wanted to ponder some of the results of the energy audit. sigh. It's not going to be plausible to replace two small gas furnaces (new one is 5 yrs old, old one is only 10) with a heat pump, especially if it means redoing the HVAC system in the entire building. [The HVAC in the old building needs to be fixed anyhow, because the person acting as General Contractor (to "save money") for the remodel 5 years ago screwed it up, and exactly how badly has now become clear. It was apparent shortly after the remodel was finished that there were issues, but the "GC" said it was fine. It wasn't, and still isn't, but BC and I went poking around in the basement/ductwork with a flashlight and chalk and figured out what was wrong. Short version? Penny-wise and pound-foolish. (or, as Papa used to say "you'll always remember how much you saved".)]

My TSax compatriot at Livingston will not be playing the Holiday concert -- his wife scheduled a "I gotta get out of this town" vacation for that weekend, so.... It'll be OK, although I will have to pay especial attention to Christmas Festival, which I'm used to playing in a different key. It's important to play a Bflat instead of a B, really it is. And I need to work on the flying-finger bits in Home Alone. (I needed to work on them anyway, because he was very clear that he wasn't gonna try for the 8th notes at 160bpm, much less the 16th notes.) And there's another piece where I'll probably be playing the 2nd ASax part -- both of the AS2 players are new to the instrument, and are scared of the accidentals and syncopations.

not saying it was windy while I was out running errands, but the two old plastic milk crates (actual milk crates, "borrowed" from dairies by persons other than me in the early 1980s) that were on the side deck when I left at 11am were in the side yard when I got home at 3pm.... {and I know it wasn't J, because he's in K'zoo, doing a "honey-do" list for friends.}

I currently have the back door open to catch the (probable) last of the pleasant fall breezes.

whew. That was a week.

At work, we mailed over 1000 ballots this week. Monday AM, we finished the accuracy testing (three different ballot styles each had to be tested in two tabulators, each test takes about 45 minutes). Then we started the process of getting the ballots ready to mail. ack. fortunately (fsvo), somebody has to take the flats of ready to mail ballots to the PO, so the day usually ends about 4:30. I took the last flats into the PO yesterday (Thursday), then came home and sat down for longer than it takes to put on socks & shoes!

Monday, I had rehearsal in Farmington, for which I leave about 5:15. It's a long drive, so I always check with Google to see the best route. This week, there was a 60 minute backup on my usual route. Yeah, I'm going the other way.

Tuesday, I had rehearsal in Howell, for which I leave about 6. I actually had time to make dinner between work and rehearsal!

Wednesday, I had to be at the HS in town at 4:30. That was a weird staffing day, as Wednesday is not a usual office day, so we all had something scheduled that day, but all at different times. I left work at 4, came home and changed into my Band Mom shirt and 'layers suitable for standing around outside until after 9pm', and dashed off to town to work the Marching Band Exhibition. I had actually only signed up for the second shift, but I went early, assuming that there would be something for me to do, and there was. The people who were supposed to be doing that task for the first shift were too busy yammering about band trips and the tours that the specialty groups could go on to do the task they were signed up for.

SR claimed that the theme song for Michigan high school band was "it's a small world", as it seemed that every time she'd come across a new director/clinician, they knew somebody that she or I had worked with. Wednesday's iteration of that was one of the Western Michigan graduate assistants played with the Farmington band during his gap year between BS and grad school.

He came up to me with a slightly perplexed look on his face "do you play bari sax?",
"yes, in a couple of community bands."
"which ones?"
"Farmington mostly, but also Livingston"
"I played with Farmington for a season. I thought you looked familiar."
(I mean, who expects to see someone you met in Farmington at a high school football field in Chelsea? His confusion was not surprising.)

One of the band directors (who's been at every one of the shows) pointed out that most of the kids on the field for this event weren't even born in 2008 when we held the first one. sigh.

In other news (hurricane Helene), the telephones to the senior complex where my mother lives are down. She lives near Greensboro, NC, so this is not actually surprising. The house phone here rang with a call from her number, and when I answered it there was nothing there. So I tried calling her back, and got a fast busy. Yeah, that system is down. I'll probably hear from her sometime next week. Meanwhile, I'll try not to worry. They're in a stable part of town, well up a hill, so I don't expect her to flood out, but they'll undoubtedly lose power (the emergency generators will run out of fuel, and they'll have to prioritize the rehab wing) and have already lost phone. The only real source of danger from Helene for them is tornado or general disruption. They're not in a high tornado threat area, but that is subject to change.

egads.

Remind me to not go that way on Friday again. Oy! I had to go to Troy to pick up Lily (the bari sax) at the music shop. Google sez it's 75 minutes to the shop from here. With construction delays, it took me an extra 30 minutes to get there. Coming back was at least as bad, even though I came a different way. I may just alternate shops that I take her to -- it's a small chain of music shops, with two storefronts within "reasonable" driving distance. While I prefer the tech crew at the Troy shop, the crew at East Lansing is competent enough and it's a lot easier to get to, and if all she needs is simple adjustments.... (or I can just not go to Troy during construction season.)

I went to the hygienist on Monday to get my teeth cleaned, and (as is usually the case) the chair did unhappy things to my lower back. So despite the terrific weeding weather (cool for August, sunny, hasn't rained since Sunday), I haven't been able to do any weeding. The weather peeps tell us it's supposed to get hot for the weekend/early next week, and then cool off for Labor Day weekend (when we will be gone. Probably.).

The Livingston concert on Tuesday evening was cancelled due to "probable inclement weather", and Prez & Director didn't think we'd have much audience with the wet grass at the venue (which has, as a feature, hillside seating). Wednesday morning we got lots of rain -- over 4.5 inches between 1:30am (when I went to bed) and 11:30 am. It was the remnants of Beryl, so it mostly just rained -- not a lot of thunder.

There were not as many ballots to process this week as there were last, so I was able to keep up without leaving some undone so I could make it to the PO. We did have a few people come in and say "I think I messed up. Can I get a new ballot?" so we went through the process of spoiling their old one and issuing them a new one. DC spent most of the week assembling employment packets for the new election inspectors, and making sure they all had the links to the county training site.

Tomorrow starts the end of season concert binge -- 9 concerts in the next four weeks. Most of them are outside, so there may be some weather cancellations.

The ground is nice and soft, so now that it's dried out I've been weeding. I can tell that it's not been getting done (when the good conditions for weeding are work or concert days, the weeding doesn't get done). I don't have to pull very hard to get the weeds out (which is good for my shoulder), but there's a lot of "wading" into shrubberies to pull the weeds and grass.

The Livingston band record is 2-0. Technically, it's 3-0, but I'm not counting the concert that I didn't play.

I missed the last LCCB concert because I was ushering at Hill Auditorium. YoYo Ma and Kayhan Kalhor previewed a double concerto (Venus in the Mirror) that Kalhor wrote for kamancheh and cello. The concerto was fine, but it was my least favorite piece on the program. Like a lot of contemporary classical music, it didn't really seem to *go* anywhere -- long, slow, legato noodling; faster but still legato noodling; not quite as slow and a little less legato noodling. The Orchestra of the Americas is really good. Respighi's Pines of Rome is really impressive with an organ! The orchestra did two encores - Ginastera's Danza Finale (which I have played, but not that fast or that well. OTOH, I'm sure they rehearsed it more than we ever did), and a piece that the director wrote and is mostly improv. There was fiddle and flute and violin and cello and trumpet and one of the horn players got up and danced during the percussion improv, etc. It was a very long concert -- I left here at 5pm and didn't get home until nearly midnight. Worth it, though.

The Farmington band is 0-1. Last night (Thursday), J and I trundled off to Farmington for the Stars in the Park concert, sponsored by Farmington Hills Parks. There was a bank of dark clouds following us all the way there. The Parks commission cancelled the concert before 6pm, because the predictive radars were inconclusive about how much rain/wind the park would get during the concert. We tore down the band setup, helped the site boss clear and load their stuff, and sat around and chatted for a while. And then it actually started raining! Not very hard, but I didn't have to be there anymore, so J and I left. We did get rained on for the first 20 minutes of the drive home.

In work related news, we got the ballots yesterday. That means that next week is going to be all about getting ballots into the mail.

(edit for clarity. fooey)