Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

so the weather got decent, and I went into the garden to pull weeds. But I forgot to change into my weeding shirt*, and now I have a rash on my right forearm. It's not poison ivy, nor (this time) is it Queen Anne's Lace, but some random very sticky weed that we have lots of volunteering around the birdfeeders. If I notice, I can sometimes scrub off with exfoliant + soap and follow with antihistamines + cortisone cream and keep it from a big reaction; but this time I missed. :( So off to urgent care (after messaging doc, who is booking into next month!), where they pulled up my records and said "Hrm. This has happened before, the last time we gave you a steroid taper and a topical steroid. Will that be sufficient this time?" "should be." "Done. Hopefully we won't see you again." (yeah, I can agree with that.) I think I got this before the reaction got weepy and crusty, but I won't know until tomorrow. (one time, the swelling was so bad that they gave me a steroid shot in the office. don't want it to get that bad *ever* again.)

Still no external monitor at work, but I have a viable workaround. Poked into setup, and got background and window headers that I can live with. Discovered that the voter database has some really cool new features that will make my life as a Clerk of Elections easier. (N.B.: not a job that I really *want*, but is apparently one of the jobs I have.) BC will *not* be having shoulder surgery this year -- doc assessed her range of motion/strength and said "I don't recommend surgery at this time. Lotsa PT, but surgery probably won't help." As he's the guy who'd be doing the surgery.... (I saw him a couple of times, and he's good.)

I think I saw a Baltimore Oriole in the backyard today (I saw something with approximately the right coloring, but it was small and "dull". It's probably a yearling. The neighbors across the street get lots of Orioles, and I think they come to our house to drink/bathe.) This means I should dig out the feeder and make the syrup. J ate the blackberry jelly I use in the Oriole feeder, so I need to get more of that tomorrow when I go out. (Or not. Apparently, PastMe picked some up when it was on sale, because there's a jar in the basement.)

*my weeding shirt is long-sleeved with thumbholes that go under my gloves to keep prickly bits away from my skin. it's hanging in the laundry room next to the gloves.

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.

Plumbing issue at work was (probably) not due to previous renovation -- the pipe from the building to the septic tank had come disconnected from the tank, and got full of sand/tree roots/etc. But that's been fixed, so Thursday we were back to work. I filed and dug out information for budget and watered the office plants and poked the accounting software people so I could have permissions to do the GL entry that I need to do now that I'm doing payroll and dorked with the flag and hauled a load of recycling out of the basement and into Sup's car so she could deal with it. (Accounting software support started to walk me through how to do the GL entry "I know *how* to do it, I just need to do it as me, not BossClerk". "yes, we know that me logging in as BC to do work is not optimal, but as I didn't have permissions to do it, and you need BC to authorize the change in my permissions and the reason I was doing it is because she was out sick, needs must....")

Today is a terrific day for weeding, so I guess I should go do some. Probably in the E garden because I didn't get to that one last fall, and it's a real mess. J and I went out this morning (before my breakfast!) and got trees out of there, but there's still a lot of last year's grass and perennials that need to be dealt with. And the daffodils in the NW driveway garden need to have the flowerheads cut off so they won't try to set seeds.

There is indeed at least one frog by the pond. Still haven't seen him (although I may have caused a froggie-flail when I went out for the bird feeders last night), but I definitely heard him. It's been getting cool at night, but yesterday evening was warmish and humid.

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 the office. She's feeling much better -- they gave her a PICC line and daily IV antibiotics. In the week+ she was out of the hospital barely tolerating the oral antibiotics, the lung infection localised into a mass in one lung, but that began shrinking as soon as they started her on IV antibiotics. (the doc still biopsied it, but was pretty sure it was just an abcess, because antibiotics don't work on tumors.)

So I'm back to doing my job, which I'm falling behind on because of the time I'm spending doing a job I'm not really trained for. KB sat down with me last week and we did expense checks, so now I know how to do that. whee?

I trundled off last week to the hand specialist. I was not impressed. It very much seemed as though he'd decided what the issue was, and I didn't have anything useful to add. He poked at the thumb, had me do a few movements, manipulated it a bit, and said "wear the brace all the time. if it doesn't get better, come back and see me in a month". Yeah, no. There's a reason I'm only wearing it some of the time....

In music news, gaahh! Yesterday was LCCb rehearsal, and I was flailing badly. Then PS pointed out that it was effectively only my second rehearsal, as I'd missed last week and played bari for the first two weeks. Made me feel a bit better, but I'm still flailing. Two more rehearsals until the concert, and next week is a clinician, so really only one rehearsal. We shall see. I suspect that all I have to do is actually sit down and practice the frilly bits. (SR claimed that the theme song of the Michigan concert band/wind symphony scene is "It's A Small World", and the clinician is one of J's high school buddies. Whom I played with at Interlochen AllState in 1981.)

now that all the upstairs moving is done, I need to get back into the basement and get the clerk's stuff all back into the space where it belongs.

But the supervisor is saying "we need to sort the stuff in the shed"! I mean, she's not wrong, but there's 20+ voting booths currently in the shed that need to be put into the basement before we can work out there.

BC wants me to take Sup downstairs tomorrow, and say "this is what I need to have moved before I can put anything else (like the voting booths, or the 10 linear feet of shelf stuff currently in the FO space) away. We need a moving crew to do it. Please schedule one, or BC will." I think I need another set of shelves for the election stuff, but I can't be sure until I have the available space cleared. I know we need another "random stuff" shelf, but that's pretty easy -- the only question there is "one unit or two". Again, I won't know until I see the space available *and* get a better handle on the volume of stuff that needs to be stored.

Chilly again today, but sunny. I probably should have gotten into the garden with a rake, but it's a bit cool for that. Maybe this weekend, if it warms up before it rains....

The sandhill cranes have returned to the backyard. I think it's a pair we've had before, because they are unfazed by a cat (or two) coming out. The birds lift their heads, and watch, but then go back to poking at the ground once they've determined what it is. They stop what they're doing when J comes up the driveway on a motorcycle, but decide pretty quickly that it's not a threat either.

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.

- 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.....

and two more appear; with even more lurking. Four boxes of papers to the shred bin, but I think that's mostly done, unless I find some extra copies of payroll lurking about (I found a couple yesterday when I was filing). BC went through the long-term storage, and pulled everything more than 8 years old, so now there's space in those drawers. BC is trying a new, eventually more efficient, method of preparing for the annual audit, but it's taking a bit of catch-up, and that's why my desk is buried under "originals to be filed", "copies to be filed", and "files to be copied then filed".

Construction on the new office space continues. The walls are done, the phone/network drops are done, carpet is down, floor registers are installed. Still need a thermostat and blinds and proper lights. And while the HVAC peeps have been working hard, they've still got a way to go. The rest of the runs and returns in the old space need to be installed, and they discovered a few more 'shortcuts' that need to be remediated. HVAC says that he should be able to move the furnace next week, so that's a big step toward completion. We've started discussing long-term storage plans for election infrastructure (voting booths, signage, privacy sleeves, mailing envelopes, etc) -- I think a couple of sturdy shop-grade shelving units will be fine. The stuff's not heavy, just bulky, and doesn't need "secure" storage. I think we should get a tiger cage for the ballots and election records (and bolt it to the exterior basement wall), but BC is dithering on that.

Neither band had rehearsal last week, so this week's rehearsals were fairly intense. I could wish that Livingston actually paid attention to dynamics without being reminded by the director. I'm getting a bit tired of Holst's First Suite, as both bands are playing it. The only saving grace is that Farmington is not really rehearsing it, more just doing play-throughs to get it "under our fingers" and get us familiar with the tempos he wants. Livingston wishes he could do that....

I did get the holiday lights out of the trees before it got cold, and discovered why one strand wasn't working -- the solar panel had fallen off the stake and was face down in the pine straw....

Ji is very annoyed with my inability to fix the weather. The wind we've been having makes it much less pleasant than it looks, and this annoys him. "what's this stuff! I didn't ask for cold breezes -- I want the sunny day I can see through the door!"

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}